Land’s Wrath Upgrade Guide – 5 Different Suggestions

Zendikar Rising is just around the corner. Along with the main set, this time we’re getting a new product aimed at Commander players. Wizards is releasing two Commander decks in the place of Planeswalker decks.

In this article I want to talk about five different ways you can upgrade the Land’s Wrath deck so that it can keep up with the rest of the decks in your playgroup.

Before We Start

First, I want to make a quick note about the following upgrade recommendations. The lists that I am going to make, while not exhaustive, will provide you with way more options than any one deck can handle.

Also, I am not taking into account any kind of budget. My intention with this article is to brainstorm as many fun ideas as I can about this deck, and unfortunately some of the cards might be too expensive for some players to include.

I will do my best to recommend ideas for you to find budget alternatives when necessary. No matter what your budget or play-style, this article will suggest some interesting cards for you to use to power up your Land’s Wrath Commander deck.

Even if you’re just browsing to decide which deck from Zednikar Rising you want, this article can help you see how this deck can evolve with some upgrades. If you want one you can order Land’s Wrath on Amazon.

Land’s Wrath Decklist

Land’s Wrath Upgrade – All Versions

Before I talk about the five different directions you can go with this deck there are a few upgrades that should probably be added to any and every version of Land’s Wrath. No matter what you decide to do with it, you are going to need some of these first upgrades.

First things first, this deck needs a better mana base. The one you get out of the box would not be terrible in casual circles, but it definitely will not be able to keep up with more tuned decks. If you can take out the lands that enter the battlefield tapped and replace them with lands like ABUR duals, fetches, shocks, canopies, buddies, or battlebond lands, the deck will play out quite a bit smoother. This goes without saying.

There is additional synergy from fetches of any kind, since so many cards in the deck have landfall. This means that the following cards are probably worth keeping in:

• Evolving Wilds
• Terramorphic Expanse
• Myriad Landscape
• Krosan Verge
• Naya Panorama
• Blighted Woodland

Furthermore, Fabled Passage, Field of Ruin, and any other fetches you have will make sure you get the maximum value from your landfall cards.

Since you will be doing so much fetching, you will want to make sure you have enough basic lands. You could probably increase the total number of lands in the deck from 37 to anywhere between 40-45. This will ensure that you always have a land to get another trigger with.

Playing Additional Lands

No matter how you choose to upgrade this deck, Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor will be the commander. Every card that you add should be able to utilize their abilities.

Because of this, all Obuun decks should run ways to play additional lands on your turn. Here are some great cards that you can add to your Land’s Wrath deck that will let you play more than one land per turn:

• Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• Burgeoning
• Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• Escape to the Wilds
• Exploration
• Explore
• Ghirapur Orrery
• Oracle of Mul Daya
• Wayward Swordtooth

Taking Advantage of the Graveyard

In almost any deck that wants to take advantage of Landfall abilities like Obuun’s there is a natural ceiling to what you are able to do. That is, you can only activate Landfall as many times as you have lands in your library.

Typically, the 40-45 lands in your deck should give you enough activations of whatever ability you are using to win. In the event that it is not, though, replaying lands from your graveyard (that you previously sacrificed) is a good way to pad your land total. There are so many good cards that can help with this. Here are some of them:

• Crucible of Worlds
• Ramunap Excavator
• Splendid Reclamation
• Life from the Loam
• World Shaper
• Wrenn and Six

Generic Obuun Synergy

Finally, there are a few cards that work generally well with any Obuun strategy.

Besides playing extra lands, Obuun animates your lands to deal combat damage as your primary win condition (probably). Making your lands into creatures makes them extra vulnerable to removal. This is not something you typically have to worry about with lands.

Terra Eternal is a unique way to keep your land creatures safe from both targeted removal and board wipes. Heroic Intervention and Teferi’s Protection also work well in this capacity.

Protecting Obuun themself should also be a priority in this deck, so Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots should probably find a home somewhere in the 99.

Lastly, I don’t think fixing your mana will be a problem, but Riftstone Portal could be a very valuable part of your mana-base.

The 5 Ways to Upgrade Land’s Wrath Deck

And now we get to the more interesting part of the article. These next several sections are going to go into 5 different directions I thought of to upgrade Land’s Matter. Each one takes an aspect of Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor and tries to utilize it to its fullest. The five specific strategies I chose to include are:

1. Lands Matter/Landfall
2. +1/+1 Counters
3. Animate Lands
4. Extra Combat Steps
5. Tribal (Elves, Spirits, Elementals)

Power Level

At the beginning of each section I included a range of numbers. That range is what I expect this deck to be able to perform at on a 1-10 power scale (Based on the power scale established by the Command Zone Podcast). For more information on the Commander power scale, you can take a look at the table below.

Actual power levels may vary, but let those numbers be a guide when considering upgrading this deck in those ways.

And without further ado, let’s talk about the upgrades.

1) Lands Matter / Landfall

Power Scale: 6-8

There is one obvious direction to take this deck. Lands matter decks have always been a part of the Commander format. Some of the notable ones have been:

• Azusa, Lost But Seeking
• Titania, Protector of Argoth
• Patron of the Moon
• The Gitrog Monster
• Mina and Denn, Wildborn
• Omnath, Locus of Rage
• Omnath, Locus of the Roil
• Golos, Tireless Pilgrim and of course
• Lord Windgrace

However, we have not ever had a Naya-colored commander who explicitly cared about lands. So what should you add to upgrade your Land’s Wrath deck with a land’s matter theme? I’m glad you asked.

Landfall Cards

The pre-constructed deck has a couple of great cards with landfall, but there are a lot more that you can add.

• Avenger of Zendikar is the obvious best one.
• Embodiment of Fury has a lot of synergy with the commander.
• Eternity Vessel is a fun card that interacts well with Evolution Sage.
• Grazing Gladehart can keep your life total padded.
• Lotus Cobra is getting reprinted in Zendikar Rising, so grab one or two while they are cheap.
• Nesting Dragon not only has landfall, but it also protects a small amount from boardwipes.
• Oran-Rief Hydra can get out of control.
• Tunneling Geopede deals a lot of incremental damage of the course of the game.
• Undergrowth Champion is a great defensive creature

If you want to build this deck to care about lands and Landfall, you are going to need a critical mass of these kinds of cards.

New Cards From Zendikar Rising

One of the bonuses of releasing Commander decks in tandem with a new set is that often times the new sets have lots of great cards that you can use to upgrade the decks. Notable cards from Zendikar Rising that could contribute to your Lands Matter upgrades include, but are not necessarily limited to:

• Ancient Greenwarden
• Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
• Scute Swarm
• Spitfire Lagac
• Nahiri’s Lithoforming
• Valakut Exploration
• Felidar Retreat
• Phylath, World Sculptor

Cards to Take Out

If you are choosing to focus on Landfall triggers with this deck there are a handful of cards that you should take out of the preconstructed deck. They include any of the +1/+1 counters synergies like:

• Abzan Falconer
• Elite Scaleguard
• Armorcraft Judge
• Tuskguard Captain
• Together Forever.

Beyond being generically powerful, Sun Titan doesn’t have a lot of synergy in the deck, and Emeria Shepherd and Trove Warden serve similar roles.

For that same reasoning, the following (and similar) cards can all be cut:

• Sylvan Advocate
• Waker of the Wilds
• Keeper of Fables
• Yavimaya Elder
• Sandstone Oracle

2) +1/+1 Counters

Power Scale: 6-7

This strategy is not quite as obvious when first looking at Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor. However, it cannot be denied that Obuun has the ability to distribute a lot of +1/+1 counters in a game. Let’s look at what cards you can run to take advantage of that.

• Doubling Season: Obviously we can only take advantage of half of this card, but even half of a Doubling Season is worth running.

• Speaking of half of a Doubling Season, Branching Evolution.

• The Ozolith is a great new card that helps make sure your counters never go to waste. Death’s Presence also serves a similar role here.

• Hardened Scales, Grumgully, the Generous, Rhythm of the Wild, Emiel, the Blessed, and Conclave Mentor all help get another counter here and there on your creatures.

• Nissa, Who Shakes the World: +1/+1 counters, lands, extra mana. What more could this deck want?

• A +1/+1 counters deck would not be complete without Forgotten Ancient.

• Abzan Battle Priest, Ainok Bond-Kin, Longshot Squad, and other cards like them can add to a lot of similar effects that are already in the deck.

• If the deck wants to gain life Heliod, Sun Crowned could be an amazing addition. Plus, he would go really well with Walking Ballista.

• There are not a lot of +1/+1 counters decks in red, but it gives us access to Ashling the Pilgrim, Countryside Crusher, Gleam of Battle, Goblin Razerunners, Hamletback Goliath, Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin, Runaway Steam-Kin, Taurean Mauler, and tons more that work with +1/+1 counters.

• Mayael’s Aria just for fun.

And these are just scratching the surface. There are so many amazing options for this kind of deck that I couldn’t even begin to list them all. For more reference on this, visit edhrec.com‘s +1/+1 counters page.

New Cards from Zendikar Rising

Since Zendikar Rising is going to be a land’s matter set more so than a +1/+1 counters set, there are not a lot of new cards from it. There are a few, however, so I will list some notable ones below:

• Turntimber Symiosis
• Oran-Rief Ooze
• Swarm Shambler
• Iridescent Hornbeetle
• Gnarlid Colony
• Felidar Retreat
• Phylath, World Sculptor
• Crawling Barrens

Cards to Take Out

For this version of the deck, you can pretty much cut most all of the Landfall or lands matter cards, unless they directly synergize with +1/+1 counters. That will hopefully free up a lot of space for you to make room for the bounty of +1/+1 counters cards.

Similarly to before, you can also cut Sylvan Advocate, Keeper of Fables, Yavimaya Elder, and Sandstone Oracle. You might need to add some card draw, though, if you do.

3) Animate Lands

Power Scale: 6-7

Animating lands is a direction that looks pretty similar to our first idea, Lands Matter. However, I felt like the two decks would look and play differently enough that I wanted to give it its own section.

Turning your lands into creatures and using them as your primary source of dealing damage to your opponents can have huge advantages. Often times players don’t run ways to destroy lands, so if you can turn yours into creatures for your turn only, they will struggle to stop your main threats.

Let’s look at some good cards:

• Obviously you will want to run as many creature-lands as possible. This can possibly slow you down, since they often come in tapped, but it might be a sacrifice you have to make for this deck. Good examples are Raging Ravine, Inkmoth Nexus, Mutavault, Mobilized District, Treetop Village,
• Jolrael, Empress of Beasts, Natural Affinity, Rude Awakening, Hunting Wilds, Life and Limb, and Ambush Commander can turn a lot of your lands into creatures at once.
• Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi can turn one of your lands into a huge threat. Any card with the Awaken mechanic is similar.
• Anything that interacts with nonland permanents, like Oblivion Stone, Urza’s Ruinous Blast, Cataclysmic Gearhulk, and Boompile are nearly one-sided.
• Embodiment of Fury can buff your land creatures.

New Cards from Zendikar Rising

There are only a small number of cards I would recommend from the upcoming set. They are Forsaken Monument, Nissa’s Zendikon, and Crawling Barrens.

Forsaken Monument is cool because it pumps all of your land creatures, but unless you decide to lean into the colorless theme more, it won’t provide much more benefit than that. Crawling Barrens is a great creature-land that we mentioned before

Cards to Take Out

This version of the deck doesn’t care much about Landfall or +1/+1 counters. Amost all of those cards can be taken out, unless they can synergize with the land animation strategy.

4) Extra Combat Steps

Power Scale: 6-8

Since Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor‘s first ability triggers at the beginning of combat, cards that give you extra combat steps could also be powerful additions. Some of these cards are:

• Relentless Assault
• Seize the Day
• World at War
• Fury of the Horde
• Waves of Aggression
• Aggravated Assault (probably include combo pieces like Sword of Feast and Famine and Savage Ventmaw and Bear Umbra)
• Aurelia, the Warleader
• Combat Celebrant
• Hellkite Charger
• Savage Beating
• Scourge of the Throne

New Cards from Zendikar Rising

Moraug, Fury of Akoum is pretty much the main reason I thought to build this deck in this way. What a cool card!

What to Take Out

The only cards that need to stay in this version of the deck are probably the commander, card draw, ramp, and removal. Nothing else in the precon contributes much to this strategy. As a result, feel free to take it all out.

5) Tribal Elves, Spirits or Elementals

Power Scale: 4-6

This is the most obscure way to upgrade this deck. Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor does not have any tribal synergy built into him, but the words Elf, Spirit, and Elemental are all printed on the card. None of these tribes have a commander in these colors except Elves (and maybe Spirits if your playgroup allows Tamanoa). As a result, if you really wanted to build one of these tribes in Naya colors, you might want to give Obuun a chance.

Elves

There are 4 Elves other than Obuun that are Naya colored in all of Magic: Knotvine Mystic, Mayael, the Anima, Naya Hushblade, and Naya Sojourners. None of them are especially inspiring.

Green is the primary color for elves, though, which means there will be a lot to choose from. White has a couple of good Elf options and red is not too bad either.

Spirits

Tamanoa really is a super cool card that is worth building around, but if your play group is not okay with it since it is not a legendary creature, Obuun might be an okay replacement.

The deck would probably be full of Kamigawa-era Spirits and spells that deal damage. Check out Scryfall to find what Spirits you would want to work with Obuun.

Elementals

This one is the biggest stretch. If you really want to play Naya Elementals, give Obuun a shot. However, it probably wasn’t designed to be an Elementals commander. It only really makes one Elemental per turn, and that Elemental goes away at the end of the turn and never enters the battlefield. It seems like a lot of work for a small amount of pay off to me, though.

New Cards from Zendikar Rising

• Phylath, World Sculptor
• Yasharn, Implacable Earth
• Brushfire Elemental
• Akoum Hellhound
• Ancient Greenwarden
• Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
• Tajuru Paragon
• Springmantle Cleric
• Murasa Sproutling
• Tangled Florahedron
• Taunting Arbormage
• Joraga Visionary
• Tajuru Blightblade
• Tajuru Snarcaster
• Skyclave Apparition

What to Take Out

You should probably take out everything but ramp, card draw, and removal, just like in the previous section. Nothing in this version of the deck shows up in the precon, except for a few random tribe members that don’t contribute to a tribal theme. I would love to see whatever deck lists you can put together with this kind of strategy, though.

Land’s Wrath Upgrade – Conclusion

You made it to the end! I hope that at least one of these ideas has inspired you to want to build around Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor and the Land’s Wrath Commander deck. If you’d like to get one, you can purchase it on Amazon.

Want to check the other Commander deck from Zendikar Rising? If so, you can find Sneak Attack Upgrade Guide here.

In addition here are more articles, that might interest you:

• Is White Really That Bad in Commander?
• Best Deck Boxes for Commander
• Commander Legends – Commander meets Draft

Finally, if you have any ideas for cards or strategies that I didn’t mention or forgot about, please comment below. You can also find me on Instagram and Twitter.