Well, hello there! Come on in, and take an imaginary seat. Let me ask you something: are you sick of living in cramped, fifteen-square-inch apartments that you split with five other people just to pay rent? Are you ready to take the leap into home ownership, but the market’s high, high prices have you in low, low spirits? Are you praying for an alternative that won’t burn your wallet in fire like it’s a prostitute walking into a church? Well, you’re in the right place.
I’m your licensed broker, Michael Celani, and yes, the job’s called that because you’ll be broke once I’m done with you. Here at Bluetail, we know that owning real estate is a pipe dream for the vast majority of How They Brew It’s target demographic of 18–34 year-olds. That’s why we’ve taken a unique approach to starter housing, and invested heavily in unreal estate.
Whether it be the world’s most luxurious mansion, a penthouse suite in the heart of downtown Naperville, or a place with working windows, if you can imagine it, Bluetail will lease it to you over thirty years at an astronomical interest rate. How does it work? Well, it’s simple: we have a magical oracle that traps you in a simulated reality that’s identical to this one except you have a house.
No, it’s not The Matrix; it’s Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios — though we’re more interested in her other side, Journey to the Oracle. When you cast Journey to the Oracle, you may put as many land cards from your hand onto the battlefield as you want. Then, if you control eight or more lands, you can discard a card to return Journey to the Oracle to your hand from your graveyard.
In other words, as long as you meet that magical eight-land threshold and have cards in hand you’re willing to discard, you can cast Journey to the Oracle over and over with no escalation in commander tax. Plus, those lands you put into play off Journey to the Oracle enter untapped, which is a gigantic design flaw because it turns out that blue can bounce lands pretty easily. The plan: use Journey to the Oracle in conjunction with spells that reverse your own land drops to repeatedly trigger both Magecraft and Landfall, make tons of extra mana, and combo off for an explosive finish. This is How They Brew It.
House Hunting
But first thing’s first: for the strategy to work, you’ll need to reach that crucial eight-land cutoff point. You don’t need to have eight lands on the board by the time you cast Journey to the Oracle; you simply need the sum of the lands you control on the battlefield and land the cards in your hand to reach eight, since you’ll put all your lands onto the battlefield as part of Journey’s resolution. Think of it like using a mortgage to pay for the rest of your fake house once your down payment clears. So, any spell that contributes to one of those two categories — lands in hand or lands on the battlefield — is worthwhile.
Since your goal is to maximize the raw number of lands you touch throughout the game, you’re better off focusing on spells that let you see at least two. That means two-mana ramp which fetch a single land, like Rampant Growth, won’t be effective here. Instead, prioritize spells like Cultivate, since they put one land on the battlefield and one into your hand.
Some spells, like Armillary Sphere, only tutor lands to your hand. These can be effective, but to be worth running over Cultivate and friends, they need to find at least three lands or have some secondary utility. Armillary Sphere itself, for example, comes down on turn two and can be sacrificed on turn three for two mana, which helps you keep two-land or color-screwed hands. Reusable tutors like Thaumatic Compass are another way to keep your hand stocked while hitting your land drops every turn.
Home Improvement
Obviously, you’ll have a lot of lands in play once your first Journey to the Oracle resolves, but land on its own isn’t enough; if you’re mana-flooded, playing your mana out all at once isn’t going to make you any less flooded. However, crossing that eight-mana threshold does grant you constant access to a spell: Journey to the Oracle itself. Yes, you can cast Journey even if you have nothing to put onto the battlefield, and that’s where Magecraft comes in.
The deck has several effects that give card advantage whenever you cast an instant or sorcery, as well as ways to cheapen Journey to the Oracle so that it’s not a massive tempo loss every time you’re forced to cast it. You’ll need those extra cards on cast to keep going, but if you’re in a pinch, you’ll eventually find the pieces you need to make forward progress.
On a similar note, the deck’s Landfall triggers are split evenly into granting additional mana and providing card advantage. Cards like Lotus Cobra make it possible to go infinite once you’re ready to win the game, while creatures like Tatyova, Benthic Druid keep your hand stocked.
Flipping Imaginary Property
But you’re here to play reverse-Landfall, and I’m not going to disappoint. Here’s how you can flip your property for a profit.
First, how do you bounce your lands in the first place? Well, say hello to those Moonfolk from Kamigawa! Their activated abilities have an additional cost that demands you return lands from the battlefield to your hand. Cast Journey to the Oracle, then hold priority to return as many lands to your hand as you can before it resolves and puts them right back, triggering tons of Landfall abilities.
You can cast some one-off spells, like Gush, Ensnare, and Thwart, by returning Islands to your hand instead of paying their mana costs, and if you’re able to resolve Sunder before your Journey goes off, then the game’s over as your opponents are suddenly starved for resources.
Other notable land-bounce spells include Trade Routes, which has an important one-mana-to-one-land ratio, so each land can pay for its own bounce; Storm Cauldron, which not only requires no mana to bounce your lands but it’s also symmetrical, so it forces your opponents to lose access to their mana; and Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar, which you can activate multiple times in response to Journey to bounce lands in pairs. Since Multani’s ability is activated from the graveyard, he’s the perfect throwaway fodder to keep Journey in your hand, too!
As an aside, you are absolutely boned if someone counters Journey once you bounce your lands. Keep an eye on your opponent’s open mana, and use cards like Boseiju, Who Shelters All and Mistrise Village to protect yourself if you’re worried.
Make Your Grass Greener
All of this is fun and all, but what’s the point if you can’t drop your gigantic property empire on an unsuspecting economy? Well, this deck wins by finding a path towards getting a massive amount of land drops, and then abusing an otherwise innocuous trigger to kill your opponents.
First, you’ll have to secure resources for an infinitely long Journey to the Oracle. As mentioned earlier, Landfall triggers that generate additional mana as lands enter are incredible. It’s not uncommon to drop eight or more lands per iteration, and that will give you more than enough mana to keep casting your commander and bouncing your lands.
If your opponents somehow haven’t scooped to Sunder or Storm Cauldron, then you will have to demonstrate a win. If you’ve got infinite mana, you can cast Journey infinite times (remember, the requirement to discard a card is handled by Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar). You can then mill your opponents out with Ruin Crab, ping them down with Lush Oasis, or gain infinite life yourself via Radiant Fountain. You can also draw your deck and play Laboratory Maniac, manipulate your hand with land-bounce effects to get to the requisite thirteen cards for Triskaidekaphile, or Capsize-lock your opponents so they’re incapable of playing the game. These conditions are all interchangeable; pick whichever one you’ve got access to first.
Signing a New Lease on Life
The lease contract is in front of you: all you’ve gotta do to live in your beautiful, new, imaginary home is to a) forget there’s an outside world; and b) check out the full decklist. If you liked this tech, come join the How They Brew It Discord server here, too, to get advance notice of all these articles. Let me know whatcha think there, and happy brewing!