Omnath, Locus of Rage - A Magic the Gathering (MTG) Card Review

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

Omnath is really ticked off! Yeah, he costs 7 mana, but his payoff is completely worth it! Omnath 2.0, the Locus of Rage, has a really sweet Landfall mechanic: Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, put a 5/5 red and green Elemental creature token onto the battlefield. Plus: Whenever Omnath, Locus of Rage or another Elemental you control dies, Omnath deals 3 damage to target creature or player.

Elementals are a pretty sweet tribe in Commander, so it’s no surprise that people are already brewing around this guy. The original Omnath made all of your green mana float, and this guy builds an army and when they die they blow up in your opponent’s face - or in their creatures’ faces for that matter. Rampaging Baloths was a pretty good card that made 4/4 beast tokens on each landfall. That guy cost 4GG (6 mana), and this is strictly better.

So what is there to play alongside this guy? Plenty. Along with mana ramp, there are plenty of great Red and Green Elementals, including the always popular Avenger of Zendikar, who works pretty nicely alongside this new Omnath I might add. Bane of Progress is a great Elemental, too, and keeps your opponents from having nice things - a.k.a. enchantments and artifacts. Brighthearth Banneret makes all of your Elementals (Omnath included) cost 1 less to cast.

I could go on and on here about all the Elementals that work with him, but that’s for another article - especially as we don’t know what other new Elemental friends he’ll be getting yet! For now, here’s a complete list of red and green Elementals on Tappedout.

Besides playing a whole bunch of Elementals, you’ll be playing all of the mana ramp you could ever hope to want. Who better to help the cause than the original Omnath himself, the Locus of Mana! By letting you float all the green mana you could ever want, no mana will ever be wasted again! Yes, this can help opponents playing Green, but Omnath makes up for this by gaining +1/+1 for each Green mana in your mana pool.

For win conditions, outside of just bashing your opponent with lots of big fatties, you also want to have Enchantments like Warstorm Surge and Where Ancients Tread, which deal damage to players and creatures each time a creature enters the battlefield (granted the latter only triggers when it’s a creature power 5 or greater). Then of course you can have massive burn spells like Banefire, Devil’s Play, or Rolling Thunder to just finish the game with all the extra mana you’ll have floating around.

(There’s another particularly nasty combo with Omnath and Realm Razer. However, the Razer is three colors, so you would have to play it with Omnath as one of the 99. When the Razer enters the battlefield, he exiles all lands in play. When he then leaves play, all lands return to play tapped, triggering a ton of Landfall abilities. There is one issue with this, though - if he’s removed from the field before his first ability resolves - i.e. killed by a Doom Blade or other removal while his first ability is on the stack, the second ability fizzles as the lands haven’t been removed yet. Then all lands are simply gone. So you need to be careful how you use this ability, though depending on your board position, you may be okay.)

Will this see play in Constructed? With Dragonlord Atarka around, it’s possible he may not. But we have to see what else Battle for Zendikar will bring. It’s just that Omnath, Locus of Rage screams “build around me” so we’ll see what goes down as more Landfall synergies are revealed. To be sure, this isn’t just a new friend for Horde of Notions Elemental Tribal EDH decks. This guy is a leader of Elementals, an absolute boss that should prove to have a dominant presence in the Commander format for years to come. And if the meta is right, he could well have a good shot at having a heydey in Standard.

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