"Evil EDH Combos:Azusa/ Titania Smash Lands"

"Evil EDH Combos:Azusa/ Titania Smash Lands"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. 

I once played against Azusa Smash. A deck that had Ed Tanyag casting a highly charged Genesis Wave that would have Craterhoof Behemoth crashing through defenses for the win. Getting the ridiculous amounts of mana needed to generate this win condition was cool to see all on its own.

However I was able to see a particular combo that would give Azusa Smash another meaning.Land Smashing. And it is one particular land destruction combo that is crippling every time that you are able to complete it.This is the Azusa , Crucible of Worlds and Strip mine combo.

In order for you to start you need to have a Crucible of Worlds already in Play. A 3 mana costing artifact one could easily cast it early in a mana acceleration deck that also features Azusa. You might want to have a Fabricate in the deck to search for it if you are not able to draw it. Once you are able to Play Azusa you could play 2 additional lands per turn. Crop Rotation is one easy way to look for your strip mine and it also fits in a green deck. Once you are able to land a strip mine on the battlefield you could destroy an opponents land , play it from your graveyard and destroy two more lands per turn. A total of 3 lands per turn in an EDH game would efficiently take out any strong control player because they would not be able to cast any of their high costing spells. In EDH where spells of high mana and high impact is the norm this particular land destruction combo is something that is well feared and even prepared for. All I can say is that when the combo starts churning its destruction there are few decks that could recover from it.

Even if your opponent does not miss a land drop or have several mana rock producers in play Lands could only be played once per turn normally. Unless they have the same combination of Azusa and Crucible of worlds on their side of the board chances are they could not recover from 3 land being blown per turn. I find that this could also destroy other combinations and lands that offer protection like Boseiju. Destroying pesky man lands is also high on the order of business of this deck. Or just simply destroying lands that could fuel an opposing EDH decks bigger threats.

Now that Commander 2014 is finally here. This deck also gets teeth when Titania , Protector of Argoth joins the combo. So when you have this 5 mana costing creature in play not only do you get to smash 3 lands but every time a land goes into the graveyard from play you get to put a 5/3 green elemental into play. By the end of the turn you would have a net of 3 creatures(assuming you just played the 3 strip mine per turn). This creature also works well with the current fetch lands and Land fall.So Crucible of Worlds+Azusa+Titania , Protector of Argoth+Fetchland of choice and Rampaging Baloths.

So here is how it goes. Play a fetch land(Windswepth Heath for example) , Crack open to fetch a Forest , play the same Windswept Heath from your graveyard via Crucible of worlds , crack open to fetch another forest and play the land a third time thanks to Azusa. This would produce 3 5/3 Green Elemental tokens and a total of 6 4/4 Baloths courtesy of the triggered landfall mechanic of the Rampaging Baloths. Now if we do a little bit of calculation you could go aggro with an attacking force the would give you a grand total of 39 points of damage! Just a point shy of ending an opponents life in multiplayer EDH! Pretty impressive when you have all the combo pieces in play. Titania , Protector of Argoth also allows you to get a fetch land in your graveyard if you do not have the crucible handy to you.

I love all the different interactions that are coming out of the wood work now and there are a still a lot more combos to be discovered. Time to brew some more.