Kirri, Talented Sprout "Urborg and Valakut and Emeria, Oh My!" - Plot Twist #21

Welcome back to Plot Twist, the series where we build a Commander deck that looks like it'll tell one kind of story only to throw out a twist for our opponents mid-game. If you're joining us for the first time, welcome! I'd encourage you to check out the previous articles in the series to get a sense of the types of stories we're looking to tell.

Last time, we built a Templar Knight Deck featuring The Wandering Rescuer that had a toolbox full of legendary artifacts to solve whatever the game might throw at us. This week, we're revisiting a commander from the Outlaws at Thunder Junction precons, Kirri, Talented Sprout, and a deck concept called Naya Urborg that was featured on an episode of Commander Clash awhile back.

The idea behind Naya Urbog was really intriguing to me. Essentially the deck uses the fact that Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth doesn't have a color identity, so it can go in any deck, and a bunch of cards that help us do more damage for each Swamp our opponents control, like Angry Mob, Crusading Knight, and Karma, to 'burn' its opponents out. It was just the sort of strange, twisty deck that we love to see on Plot Twist.

But then I got to thinking: what if we could push it even further? After all, we've gotten a lot of cards like Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, Prismatic Omen, and Overlord of the Hauntwoods that can help us have a whole bunch of lands of every basic land type. What if we did something that also cared about our own land types, too? That's right, this week's deck is a lands deck that seeks to not only pull off shenanigans with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, but also Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and Emeria, the Sky Ruin, too.

How Does Kirri, Talented Sprout Work?

Kirri, Talented Sprout has two abilities, the first of which gives other Plants and Treefolk we control +2/+0 and pushes us into the direction of a kindred deck (spoiler alert, we won't be leaning heavily on Plants and Treefolk this week). Kirri's other ability allows us to return a Plant, Treefolk, or land card from our graveyard to our hand at the beginning of each of our postcombat main phases. If you look up Kirri's Oracle text on Gatherer, you can see that the rules change to how main phases work that came out with Bloomburrow actually makes Kirri even stronger because our commander's ability isn't limited to just our second main phase. This makes me think that we could make an interesting extra combats Plants/Treefolk/lands deck with Kirri and Waves of Aggression, but that's for some other time!

If we take a quick look at Kirri's EDHREC page, we can see that many brewers are leaning into the Plants and Treefolk kindred direction with cards like Avenger of Zendikar, Phylath, World Sculptor, Rumbleweed, and Phytohydra all appearing in more than 60% of the 600+ Kirri decks at time of writing. There's definitely some strong overlap with the Landfall theme as cards like Scute Swarm, Titania, Protector of Argoth, and Ramunap Excavator are among the most popular creatures in Kirri decks. While we'll definitely be running some Landfall synergies in this week's deck, we're going to try to eschew the traditional value-engine Landfall cards in favor of ones that hopefully burn our opponents out en masse.

This week, we'll be mostly relying on Kirri, Talented Sprout's ability to return a land from our graveyard to our hand each turn as a source of card advantage and recursion. We'll run plenty of fetch lands, ways to play extra lands per turn, like Exploration and Oracle of Mul Daya, and a bunch of utility lands, like Maze of Ith, Glacial Chasm, and Talon Gates of Madara, to help us stay alive long enough to burn our opponents out with lands.

Doing the Twist

Did he just say "burn our opponents out with lands?" Yes, reader, yes he did! Because this week's deck is not only going to use Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to help burn our opponents out with Karma, Royal Decree, and Stern Judge, but it's also trying to make every land in the deck trigger Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle with Prismatic Omen and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove. We've got an oddball ramp package featuring Hour of Promise, Tempt with Discovery, and Titania's Command to help us make sure we get the lands we need as we go along. Emeria, the Sky Ruin and Emeria Angel help us keep our value engines going (you know how much we love reanimator decks on Plot Twist), while Settle the Wreckage and Winds of Abandon both protect us and make sure our opponents have plenty of 'Swamps' too. Oh, and of course we're running Scapeshift and Reshape the Earth for big, splashy, memorable plays involving Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.

Let's Talk About Ramp

Since this is a lands deck, reliably hitting our land drops and being able to get just about any land from the deck is going to be vital to our gameplan. Kirri, Talented Sprout can help us recur one of the many fetch lands in the deck once a turn for extra value, and we're also running Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Exploration, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Burgeoning to help us make extra land drops. If fetch lands aren't your style or are too pricey for your budget, the deck should work just fine by swapping in more basic lands, a full suite of Mountains, Terramorphic Expanse, Naya Panorama, Cabaretti Courtyard, Sheltering Landscape, et cetera. We definitely want to get multiple Landfall triggers if possible, and we want a variety of lands that can go to the graveyard.

Since we want to have a certain density of Mountains for Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle anyways, we've gone away from Cultivate and Kodama's Reach in favor of more expensive ramp spells that can find nonbasic lands. Hour of Promise, Tempt with Discovery, and Titania's Command can all help us find at least two nonbasic lands at once and potentially get even more value out of them. Sowing Mycospawn and Ulvenwald Hydra each ramp us a single nonbasic and provide us with a blocker too. I'm on the fence about running Three Visits, Farseek, and Nature's Lore in this deck because they don't get the utility lands this deck needs to win the game, but since our commander has a mana value of four, we'll want to be able to reliably cast a ramp spell on turn 2 if we can. Playtesting further will help us decide if we should keep these three ramp spells or replace them with something more flexible.

Our Suite of LANDswers

I'll see myself out for that pun. Seriously though, there are some interesting lands in this deck that will help us stay in the game long enough to win. Glacial Chasm is basically Fog on a land and can be a real headache for our opponents. It does make us sacrifice a land when we play it and has a cumulative upkeep cost of two life that can get costly quickly if we're not able to close out a game. Additionally, this can be a rather salty card to include, so you could certainly remove it if you're hoping to power the deck down a bit. Maze of Ith is an amazing 'removal' spell in this deck because it's colorless and repeatable, though we can't technically count it as a land because it doesn't produce mana unless we have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth in play. In a pinch, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle can also do three or more damage to a creature too as long as we have at least five other Mountains in play at the time.

We've seen Hall of Heliod's Generosity before in my Secret Commander: Wild Pair deck, and this week's deck is running a bunch of enchantments, so Hall of Heliod's Generosity allows us to rebuy Karma, Thelon's Chant, Valakut Exploration, or any of the many enchantments when we need to. Similarly, Emeria, the Sky Ruin can help us get back a creature from our graveyard at the beginning of our turn each and every upkeep step as long as we control seven Plains, which won't be hard for us to do. Horizon of Progress can help us ramp if we have extra mana laying around, while we can put Talon Gates of Madara into play from our hand for and phase a creature out at the same time if we need to remove an attacker or save one of our own creatures. Urza's Cave can help us tutor up any other land in the deck at instant speed, which always has the potential to swing the game in our favor and create a memorable moment when we sneak Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth into play with one of our win conditions out. Last, but certainly not least, we're running both Vesuva and Thespian's Stage to help us double up on Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, Emeria, the Sky Ruin, or any other land we need.

Abusing Urborg in a Naya Deck

Some of our cleanest ways to win the game are going to involve getting Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth into play once our opponents have plenty of lands in play because it turns all of their lands into Swamps. With Karma out, we can simply pass the turn if our opponents are at a low enough life total and let their 'Swamps' be the death of them. Royal Decree functions similarly in that it does one damage to our opponents each time they tap a Swamp, Mountain, black permanent, or red permanent, but we'll need to be ahead on board or our opponents can probably just out race us with combat damage. Remember that both Karma and Royal Decree are symmetrical effects, so we'll want to be careful about casting both too early in the game and accidentally leading to our own demise, though, let's be honest, losing to your own cards is always funny and memorable. Stern Judge functions similarly, but since it's a creature we'll need to make sure that Stern Judge isn't summoning sick when we play Urborg or we'll potentially miss our chance to activate it. We have a handful of ways to gain life incrementally in Courser of Kruphix, Druid Class, and Titania's Command if we find ourselves poised to lose to our own effects too. 

Thelon's Chant presents a really interesting choice because each player can either take a Lightning Bolt to the face or put a -1/-1 counter on one of their creatures every time a 'Swamp' enters under their control if we have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth out. Overall, Thelon's Chant might just be a bad card (it is from Fallen Empires after all) that will struggle against token decks and go-wide strategies, but there's something really interesting about playing it and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth out in long, grindy games. Angry Mob and Crusading Knight will be huge threats while we have Urborg out and have some form of natural evasion, but we don't want to rely on them being our primary way to win the game.

Playing Scapeshift in Modern Commander

It's definitely worth taking time to chat about how this deck is going to hopefully use Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle to great effect. Valakut and Scapeshift (alongside Primeval Titan) pop up as the bane of Modern every once in awhile because, with eight lands in play, you can cast Scapeshift and sacrifice all of them to go get Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and any seven Mountains to immediately do 21 damage to an opponent's face. Because all seven Mountains enter at the same time, they simultaneously satisfy Valakut's condition requiring us to have at least five Mountains in play and trigger it. This doesn't translate particularly well to Commander, though, because we have three opponents with 40 life, so we probably won't use it as our primary win condition.

That being said, we're able to make every land we control into a 'Mountain' using Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and Prismatic Omen, so we can reliably trigger Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle with every land we play. We're also running the new Overlord of the Hauntwoods because the land tokens it makes are every basic land type, so they'll count towards both Valakut and Emeria, the Sky Ruin. Hilariously, we can copy Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and Emeria, the Sky Ruin because they're not legendary lands, so both Vesuva and Thespian's Stage allow us to get a second or even third copy of Valakut in play if we sequence things right. Then we can cast a Scapeshift or Reshape the Earth to hopefully finish our opponents off. While getting 40 Valakut triggers can be a little daunting, we're running more than 40 lands in the deck, so that we can hopefully get enough Valakut triggers to knock out at least one opponent.

A Few Additional Twists for Good Measure

As always, this week's deck uncovered some really fun cards that I'd never seen before. We've talked about the difficult decisions that Thelon's Chant can force our opponents to make, but it's also worth noting that there's a similar effect in Tourach's Chant that would do the same thing if we had a Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth in play. You could even run both effects in a Golgari deck! Perhaps there's something there for a future episode of Plot Twist with a lands/enchantress deck? I'm not sure how I missed Titania's Command when it came out, but it seems perfectly suited for a deck like this that needs ramp spells that also provide additional utility. Similarly, Territory Culler popped up in my Modern Horizons 3 drafts, but I now see its potential as both card draw and card selection because you can put non-creature cards into your graveyard with its Landfall trigger!

If you've been following along with Plot Twist for awhile now, you know we're not the biggest fans of goad, but there is something to be said for Geode Rager helping us out of a jam, especially since a fetch land can trigger it twice so that we don't need to worry about two opponents attacking us until the next turn cycle. While Winds of Abandon and Settle the Wreckage can both backfire if our opponents are running a lot of basic lands, they really shine in this deck that's looking to punish our opponents for having too many 'Swamps' in play at once. Finally, while I normally find cards like Spitfire Lagac, Tunneling Geopede, and Valakut Exploration a little underwhelming, we should be able to trigger them ~10 times in a single turn with Scapeshift and Reshape the Earth in this deck which makes them all really strong. Winning with some combination of Scapeshift, Prismatic Omen: Karma, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is exactly the sort of weird combination of cards that will make for a memorable night of Commander.

Here's the full decklist for you to peruse:

Roll the Credits

I hope you enjoyed reading the latest edition of Plot Twist featuring Kirri, Talented Sprout. Next time you sit down for a game of Commander, see what sort of plot twists you can add to take the game's narrative in a new direction.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's deck and what cards could find a home in it in the comments below or on Archidekt. The Maybeboards of my decklists are always filled with cards I thought could work but didn't make the final decklist.

You can check out my other articles here or see what decks I'm currently playing here. I've been tinkering around with my Signature Ikra/Bruse Secret Commander Wild Pair Deck lately, and really enjoying looking back at the deck now that I've gotten quite a few games under my belt with it. I'm constantly toying with new ideas like this Mono-Green 'Reanimator' Deck and Colorless Combo deck and would love to hear your thoughts on them there.

Stay tuned to see what other twists and turns are headed your way in the next edition of Plot Twist.