By Shay Muscarella
Cosima, God of the Voyage
So you want to play a lands deck, but you’re tired of the normal options. Lord Windgrace? Meh. All 300 Omnaths? I mean, I guess. Gitrog? What is this cEDH? No, I want to play a real lands deck using the best color in Magic…blue! That’s right, we’re taking a little cruise with Cosima, God of the Voyage at the helm. She has a flip side, but we really won’t be seeing that too much.
Cosima allows us to exile her during our upkeep, and then every time we put a land into play, she either gets a voyage counter or she gets to return to play. When she enters the battlefield, we get to draw cards equal to the number of voyage counters on her and she gets a huge power bump. We’re going to use and abuse Cosima’s pseudo landfall ability while she’s in exile to refill our hand when we need it later in the game. Meanwhile, the rest of the deck is going to focus on getting more lands in play and controlling the board until we can piece together one of our janky combos. Let’s set sail!
Power of the Deep
Yeah, yeah, we know green ramps well which is why it’s considered the best color for landfall decks, but blue has its own sources of ramp and they’re greatly underutilized in Commander. Good thing Cosima is a literal god and won’t let these resources slip past her notice. First, let’s look at the artifacts that we’ve found on our journeys through the oceans of the multiverse. Expedition Map, also very on theme, helps us search for any land we might need. While it doesn’t put it onto the field, lands are a vital part of our combos and finding the right one can be game changing. Wayfarer’s Bauble may only find us a basic, but ramp is ramp.
We also have Burnished Hart. A little slow and really expensive but dumping two lands into play at instant speed to trigger Cosima may be just what we need. The first one can give her a voyage counter and the second can return her to the battlefield hopefully drawing us a ton of cards. Retraced Image is a quick ramp if you meet the conditions, and Dreamscape Artist has a heavy cost, but we can use it to potentially get three landfall triggers in a single turn if we hit our land drop.
Mana Drain can play dual roles as a crucial piece of interaction and can actually just be used to give us the mana we need to combo off on our next turn. Finally, Scaretiller and Walking Atlas allow us to put lands into play when they get tapped and they’re part of our combos, but more on that later.
Thirsty for More
Cosima understands the value of knowledge, and she picks up something from every trip she goes on. She is a fantastic source of card draw early if we just need to pick up a card or two and, in the late game, she can also draw us a massive number of cards. We can’t rely on her alone though, so we have a basic package of staples including Mulldrifter, Rhystic Study, and Mystic Remora.
Now to the spicy stuff. Sea Gate Restoration can draw us a large chunk of cards if we need or we can play it to get a “landfall” trigger from Cosima. Confounding Conundrum is a cantrip for two mana, but it also helps cut down our opponents’ ability to ramp. Gotta keep those green land playing fools in check. Flow of Ideas is quite expensive to play, but we can easily have ten lands in play, and this is almost like a massive Windfall for us. Finally, Gush and Tragic Lesson can be paid for with an alternate cost of returning lands to our hands. While this might seem like a downside, we can just replay those lands and get more voyage counters on our commander.
Oh yeah, we also play Narset, Parter of Veils and Windfall. Cyclonic Rift everything to your opponents’ hands, Windfall it away and don’t let them draw again? They’ll most likely scoop it up, no questions asked.
Control the Tides
As a god, Cosima does not like it when things get out of her control. Good news is she’s a pro and nothing is ever out of her control. Jwari Disruption is both a land and a counter for a crucial piece to an opponent’s plan. At the very least, we are adding an extra mana into the equation that they weren’t planning for and that can be just enough to mess with everything. Fate is a fickle beastie.
Amphin Mutineer is an amazing new piece of removal and I’m sure Cosima found him on some remote island during her travels. He also pairs very well with some of the flicker abilities we have coming up in the deck. Wrong Turn is not the most powerful card in the deck, but I love it. It gets rid of an opponent’s commander sort of permanently by giving it to an opponent whose deck is not designed to utilize it properly.
Vedalken Shackles can steal something we really like, or don’t want our opponent to have. Again, an underutilized card that fits so well here. Aetherize is my favorite mass removal spell because it punishes our opponents for being too aggressive towards us. Don’t mess with the gods. Icebreaker Kraken and Guardian of Tazeem can control an opponent’s board once we’re a little further into the game.
Pull from the Aether
Cards like Mystical Tutor, Fabricate, and Whir of Invention can be used to search our library for any piece of interaction we need, or maybe even a part of our combo we haven’t drawn yet. Something in the graveyard? Mystic Sanctuary, Snapcaster Mage, and Archaeomancer allow us to reuse our important spells.
Now, when Cosima gets tired of your existence she might just make you disappear. Though when her tempest of fury is over, and her waters have calmed, she’ll feel a little bad and make you reappear. That’s why we use Ghostly Flicker and Displace to flicker our creatures, and sometimes lands in and out of existence for repeated value.
Land Ahoy!
Okay, so we’ve got a lot going on, but just where are all these landfall triggers that I mentioned? Cosima is obviously our big landfall payoff. It gives us a beefy beater like a true player, and I guess a side effect is we can draw some cards. If you’re looking for the mill ‘em out plan, we’re playing Hedron Crab and Ruin Crab. Ruin Crab will hit each of our opponents while Hedron Crab can only target a single person’s library, but we’re playing both for redundancy. Commander decks are big and we’re going to need to make sure we’re adequately prepared to mill 100 cards.
Retreat to Coralhelm, Guardian of Tazeem, and Tideforce Elemental can help us keep our opponents’ creatures busy and tapped down. Roil Elemental is the real powerhouse of landfall control. We can control any creature we want from our opponents and use it against them. While not necessarily winning a game for us, getting to hit our opponents with their own creatures is still pretty fun.
The Big Win
Alright, so we got Cosima out early and exiled her on her trip as soon as we could, and we got to draw a solid 7-10 cards from it and it’s time to win. How about we set up a series of infinite landfall triggers? Yeah, that sounds like what we want to do. Keep in mind, the sea is tricky and so are these combos.
First and foremost, we want to play Patron of the Moon, Meloku the Clouded Mirror, and Amulet of Vigor. With all three on the field, we can pay one generic mana and return a land to our hand to create a 1/1 bird. Next, we spend another generic mana to put up to two lands from our hand into play tapped. Since we have the Amulet out, those lands will untap. We can keep this going for as long as we have two lands in hand to play. If we only have the one land to play, we’re going to need one of three lands: Temple of the False God, Guildless Commons, or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. These will be able to generate the two mana we need to keep this combo going and we will create an infinite number of birds! With all of our various landfall triggers, we can kill our opponents that way or just keep their boards locked down until we find the win.
Meloku will also combo with Scaretiller, Walking Atlas, and Retreat to Coralhelm. Walking Atlas can tap to place a land in play, Retreat then lets you untap Atlas with its landfall trigger, and Meloku can make a bird and return the land to your hand. Rinse and repeat. This wins the same way as the prior combo. Scaretiller requires another step still, we have to find a way to tap it repeatedly. How about we crew a ship? The backside of Cosima is actually perfect for this. The Omenkeel has a crew cost of one so we can tap Scaretiller to put the land in play and it’s a backup Walking Atlas. Remember, you can over crew a card so you can keep crewing The Omenkeel with Scaretiller every time you untap it with Retreat. Smuggler’s Copter is another option for a vehicle to crew.
Meloku is the center of yet another combo. This time with Minn, Wily Illusionist, and Ashnod’s Altar. Pay one mana and return a land to your hand to make a 1/1 bird ILLUSION token. Sacrifice this token to Ashnod’s Altar and you get two generic mana, and you can put a permanent into play. Let’s choose land and put that first land back into play. Now you can make infinite mana and have your infinite landfall triggers. This is probably the cleanest combo in our deck, and we get to use a cool card from the newest set!
Full Deck List
Creature (24)
1x Amphin Mutineer
1x Archaeomancer
1x Burnished Hart
1x Charix, the Raging Isle
1x Cosima, God of the Voyage
1x Dreamscape Artist
1x Glasspool Mimic
1x Guardian of Tazeem
1x Hedron Crab
1x Icebreaker Kraken
1x Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1x Minn, Wily Illusionist
1x Mulldrifter
1x Patron of the Moon
1x Roil Elemental
1x Ruin Crab
1x Scaretiller
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Soratami Savant
1x Spellseeker
1x Tideforce Elemental
1x Trinket Mage
1x Walking Atlas
Enchantment (4)
1x Confounding Conundrum
1x Mystic Remora
1x Retreat to Coralhelm
1x Rhystic Study
Instant (18)
1x Aetherize
1x Brainstorm
1x Cryptic Command
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Displace
1x Frantic Search
1x Ghostly Flicker
1x Gush
1x High Tide
1x Jwari Disruption
1x Mana Drain
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Rapid Hybridization
1x Reality Shift
1x Swan Song
1x Tragic Lesson
1x Whir of Invention
1x Wrong Turn
Land (35)
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Guildless Commons
1x Mystic Sanctuary
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Reliquary Tower
27x Snow-Covered Island
1x Temple of the False God
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Tolaria West
Planeswalker (1)
1x Narset, Parter of Veils
Artifact (11)
1x Amulet of Vigor
1x Arcane Signet
1x Ashnod's Altar
1x Chrome Mox
1x Expedition Map
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Sapphire Medallion
1x Smuggler's Copter
1x Sol Ring
1x Vedalken Shackles
1x Wayfarer's Bauble
Sorcery (7)
1x Curse of the Swine
1x Fabricate
1x Flow of Ideas
1x Ponder
1x Retraced Image
1x Sea Gate Restoration
1x Windfall
If you're interested in any tokens or even some proxies (like a Snapcaster for this deck) check out our shop HERE!
Shay has been playing Magic since way back in 8th edition and played mostly Modern for a long time (filthy Tron player). These last few years though he's been all about Commander. Outside of Magic he is a career firefighter who's currently trying to get his whole department in on the addiction...errr game.
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