MMM Land Destruction

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Welcome back to Make Mine Magic where I look at a new Commander from a Universes Beyond set and convince you to play an in universe option instead. Right now, the new hotness is Marvel Superheroes in MtG. I don’t know if this will be as well received as the Spider-Man set (that’s a joke), but here we are. I’ve often picked well known characters for the series but this time I’m going a little more esoteric. Fin Fang Foom was one of the big bads from the Iron Man cartoon I watched growing up, so I was familiar with this Alien that looks like a Dragon and his quest to regain the rings.

Fin Fang Foom has a couple things going for him. He’s evasive with solid stats for starters. Even better, he gets stronger if I cast the right kind of spell. Those spells just so happen to be ones that target Artifacts or Lands. Even better, I can copy any artifact or Land destruction spell I cast, so I can get double utility. If you’ve followed me for any period of time you know I’m always looking for ways to make Land Destruction more palatable in EDH, like with my Glissa Deck. I even created the slogan “Normalize Land Destruction” to try and make it more appealing. So, Fin Fang Foom seems like it’s right on the mark for me, right?   

Normally when I write one of these articles, I pit 2 commander options in the same colors against one another. Red does have some of the best land destruction options in the game, but the options for Land Destruction Commanders are limited. I’m not entertaining Myojin of Infinite Rage, nor will I look at another Universes Beyond option, The Motherlode, Excavator. I actually have a deck that’s a great parallel to Fin Fang Foom. 

Kaervek, the Punisher is a 3/3 Human Warlock for 3 mana. Giddy Up. His abilities are similar to the Red Alien. Kaervek lets you copy a black card in your graveyard whenever you commit a crime. I actually built 2 versions of the deck in my original article. The first was focused on removal, targeting lands for destruction, so I think it stacks up really well against Fin Fang Foom in this regard. Check it out here!

I’m starting with the pool of land destruction spells. Red is dominant when it comes to land destruction, targeted or mass land destruction. I’m not stuck with playing cards like Craterize when I have access to Demolish and can double up my targets. Even better, Red has Smashing Success at Instant speed, and Pillage at only 3 mana. I’m not stuck with playing draft chaff. A lot of the land destruction spells also tend to target artifacts, so I can clear out key combo and utility pieces on the board. Some even offer creatures as secondary targets, like Aftershock and Fissure. 

Sure, I want to destroy lands, doubly fast with my commander out, but these land destruction spells have some incredible secondary effects. Roiling Terrain encourages me to target the same opponent over and over to get the max effect. I could put a ton of cards into an opponent’s graveyard in short order with the deck. Because Fin Fang Foom doubles the spell, I can hit that life total 2 times in a row. Melt Terrain and Molten Rain offer lesser versions of this ability. My Favorite iteration has to be The Fall of Kroog as it hits a land, an opponent, and all his creatures. 2 damage can clear out token armies easily.    

The last thing my Land Destruction spells offer me is card draw. That might sound impossible but stay with me. Cleansing Wildfire and Geomancer’s Gambit destroy lands and draw me a card. Sure, they also replace the land they destroy, but there is always an opponent with a greedy mana base who would run out of basic lands early in the game. 

Red may have the preponderance of land destruction spells, but volume only goes so far in Commander. There are a finite number of spell slots in any deck, so having a lot of bad options in your card pool doesn’t help the final version. Can the Black land destruction spells hang with the best of the red options? It was easy to find parallels to the best of what red has to offer. Spreading Rot, Despoil, and Choking Sands all destroy a land and hit an opponent for life. Befoul and Stream of Acid destroy a land or creature, both are crimes and trigger Kaervek.            

Black also makes land destruction its own, providing secondary effects that fit with its color identity. Desecrated Earth has the added effect of making an opponent discard a card. Destroy the Evidence not only destroys a land, but the opponent mills cards until they find another land. 2 lands in the graveyard is better than destroying a single land. 

Kearevek, the Punisher has another dimension to his ability; he can cast permanent spells in addition to instants and sorceries. I used this to great effect in my second version of Kaervek, where I use Curses against my opponents and give them a second lease on life. Why is this relevant? Not only can I get a token copy or creatures that destroy lands, like Helldozer, but black has a series of enchantments that sabotage lands and destroy them when they become tapped. Blight is an older example of this effect, and at a reasonable 2 mana. Brink of Disaster is a little more expensive, but does open a much wider pool of targets. Sometimes giving an opponent a roadblock and forcing him to slow down is more impactful than just destroying a land outright.    

The commanders themselves are great assets to their decks’ strategies. Kaerverk is cheap at 3 mana. He could even die and be recast before I get to play Fin Fang Foom. A 6 mana commander is a liability that might never see play, let alone a full turn cycle. What happens between turn 1 and when I cast my commander? A lot in the black deck, but not a lot in the red one. Kaervek lets me get a second chance with any black spell in my graveyard once Kaervek sees me commit a crime. By the time Kaervek hit the field it would be great to have a land destruction spell or removal spell already in the yard. On turn 2 I could play a Doom Blade and Kearvek can let it sit there until an opportune moment to replay the removal spell. I can fire off a land destruction spell right away and I’ll get access to it again later. 

With the Dragon things are very different. I get the doubling effect only if Fin Fang Foom on the field when I cast my land removal spell. That means I’m disincentivized to play any land destruction spells until after I get 6 mana and cast my commander. That’s a lot of turn off from interacting with the game. If I ramp on turn 2 and turn 3 I would have enough mana to play my Red commander on turn 4 and then a removal spell on turn 5. That’s a long time to wait. How frustrating would it be to have your commander removed between turn 4 and 5?  

Fin Fang Foom does outclass Kaervek when comparing stat lines. A 6/6 flyer is stronger than a non evasive 3/3. FFF goes even harder because when I cast the right kind of removal spell, he gets a pair of +1/+1 counters. Kaerevek the Punisher makes me pay 2 life to get a second chance at a spell in my graveyard. If you’re willing to put the Dragon into harm’s way in combat, that damage can add up after a few attacks.

I want to touch on one thing about the Red vs Black deck. That is redundancy. I would load either deck with multiple land destruction spells. The Kaerevek deck offers a kind of redundancy that the red deck does not; a secondary commander. I’m not swapping out one commander for another, but I would include Toshiro Umezawa. He is the original double removal commander in Mono Black. If something happens to Kearevek, Toshiro Umezawa helps keep my game plan moving and generating value in a similar way. There is not an equivalent Red commander that does what FFF does.

It’s time to grade the two. When looking at the best targeted land destruction spells, the 2 colors are rather equal. Red may edge out here, but the quality is negligible especially when you factor in that Kearvek can recur land destroying Auras that add a tricky dimension to any game. In a vacuum, Fin Fang Foom’s ability is more powerful, casting a free copy immediately is more efficient than getting essentially Flashback to a spell in the graveyard. We don’t play in a vacuum though. Those first turns are very important and the setup on those turns is crucial for a more niche strategy like this. Kaervek gets it. Is FFF more powerful when it comes to stats? Yes, but that’s very fragile, and once he gets removed you’re set back many turns before you can cash in those extra copies. Black has way better ways to protect a high value creature and the fact that he’s more replayable than FFF gives him the edge here. The final category of redundancy is a clear win for Kaervek.

I do think you should play Kaervek as your commander over Fin Fang Foom. But this was very close, and the options are very well matched against one another. I don’t think there is much value in creating a 3rd Kaerevek the Punisher deck, especially one that would have minimal updates when it comes to land destruction. So, I’m going to provide a deck built around Fin Fang Foom. I know, I’m totally off brand here, grab your pitch forks and call me a sell out. Normalizing Land Destruction is that important to me.   

Since this commander is so expensive I need to ramp hard and cheap. Mind Stone, Star Compass, and Liquimetal Torque were easy to add in. I like Cloud Key, naming Sorcery, since so many of these land destruction spells fall into that category. Of course, Ruby Medallion is a good fit since it reduces multiple spells in the same way. Braid of Fire will provide a ton of mana very quickly, if it sticks around. Getting the Commander out is only half the battle. I need to protect it. Darksteel Plate and Hammer of Nazahn are easy go-tos. 

Fin Fang Foom’s copy ability really shines with the choose two category of spells. Vandalize is pricey at 5 mana to hit 2 different permanents, but 5 mana to destroy 4 permanents is a much better rate. Fissure Vent is the same way. I will never choose just one mode. Fin Fang Foom also makes Fiery Confluence and Incendiary Command that much better, I just have to choose to destroy an Artifact on the first instance of the spell to copy it. Even By Force gets that much better. I lock in X and the copy gets it locked in too to destroy tons of additional artifacts.  

With so many of my removal spells also being oriented to Artifacts I can use that as an avenue to victory as well. I already told you Liquimetal Torque is in the list for mana, but it also has the ability to make other permanents Artifacts and susceptible to my brand of removal. I also included Liquimetal Coating and Mycosynth Latice to improve my threat density. Lattice expands my Land Destruction capabilities. Now all the lands are vulnerable to By Force and Shatter Spree.

The last thing to talk about is winning the game. All of my strategy so far has been toward slowing opponents down, but in actuality  it makes my commander a bigger threat. Why put Fin Fang Foom into harm’s way when I don’t need to? Red offers me the way to turn the added power FFF generates into direct damage. Soul’s Fire and Gravitic Punch turns to power into burn. Take that life totals. More importantly Chandra’s Ignition will hit all my opponents and clear the board of potential threats to Fin Fang Foom.

How does the deck look? Like this.

Fin Fang Foom
Liquimetal Torque	Aftershock	Fiery Confluence
Liquimetal Coating	Fissure	Overwhelming Surge
Mycosynth Lattice	Cryoclasm	Sundering Eruption
Darksteel Plate	Fissure Vent	Star Compass
Hammer of Nazahn	Ice Fall	Solemn SImulacrum
Transforming Flourish	Incendiary Command	Wayfarer's Bauble
Chaos Warp	Lavablister	Fire Diamond
Wildmagic Surge	Lava FLow	Cloud Key
Mogg Salvage	Lay Waste	Ruby Medallion
By Force	Melt Terrain	Braid of Fire
Shatter Spree	Peak Eruption	Mind Stone
Contagion Engine	Pillage	Bitter Reunion
Soul's Fire	Reign of Chaos	Outpost Siege
Chandra's Ignition	Roiling Terrain	Vance's Blasting Cannons
Gravitic Punch	Seismic Spike	Artist's Talent
Cleansing Wildfire	Smashing Success	Obsidian Charmaw
Geomancer's Gambit	Vandalize	Krenko's Buzzcrusher
Violent Impact	Volcanic Submersion	Stingmoggie
The Fall of Kroog	Volcanic Offering	Magmatic Hellkite
Dwarven Miner	Volcanic Awakening	Dwarven Driller
	Implode
Fountainport	Scavenger Grounds	Karn's Bastion
Tyrite Sanctum	Haven of the Spirit Dragon	Dwarven Mine
Forgotten Cave	Smoldering Crater	Desert of the Fervent
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx	Murganda Raceway	Mountain x27

I feel weird writing about a UB card. Does this work for you? I knew it might happen if a UB card was a better commander option, but this way as a consolation, it’s not what I was expecting. Either way, if I can bring more land destruction to the game I’m happy. Look out for my deck when the In Universe version drops, and I’ll be playing Wake of Destruction. That’s targeted Land Destruction.