The Pandemonium Strategy Minute: Rampaging Baloths

The Pandemonium Strategy Minute: Rampaging Baloths

A brief study of the crazy interactions between the famous enchantment and the aforementioned Zendikar beater.

Zendikar’s been out for a while now, and it brought with it one of the coolest keywords I have ever seen in a set: Landfall.  Among many of the straight-up ridiculous cards that have been printed with this ability (in all rarities, no less), we have this little gem from the Green slice of the color pie:

Did I say little?  I meant humongous.  Whichever way you slice it, this is a fantastic card to use with Pandemonium.  A Pandemonium deck should usually be running something like 23-24 land, mostly because you’ll be playing a lot of fatties for maximum damage, but also because you’ll want to be able to cast multiple creature spells per turn.  If you use any of the plethora of land-fetching cards from throughout MTG’s existence, as well as other types of acceleration like Llanowar Elves (although I wouldn’t run too many of these, as you’ll want to be drawing bigger creatures once you get Pandemonium rolling), you should be able to cut the land count down a bit to around 22-23.  Either way, Rampaging Baloths is a straight-up amazing card to use in conjunction with Pandemonium.  If you accelerate enough to get him out early, you’ll have a 6/6 trample on the board, which is always a good thing.  Any land you draw after that will not only help you play more spells but also provide you with a free 4/4 creature; with Pandemonium out, you get to shoot 4 damage at something on top of that.  Think of the chaos that would ensue if you had multiple Baloths out at once!  If you don’t draw into all of your Baloths, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Heat Shimmer can help you out.

Remember when I mentioned land-fetching cards about two seconds ago?  One of the minor issues I’ve had with my own Pandemonium deck is that I sometimes draw those cards late in the game when I don’t necessarily need them anymore.  Rampaging Baloths solves that problem by providing you with something to do with those lands; mainly, violent, bloody destruction.  Cards like Harrow and Kodama’s Reach become useful in all stages of the game when your deck is running the Baloths.

Normally, I make it a rule to only run 2-3 of any one card in my Pandemonium deck, since there are so many awesome cards that the deck would be huge if I played 4 of each of them.  However, Rampaging Baloths is one card that I can see as a viable 4-of in most decks.  The more you have in play, the more damage you can throw around per land drop.  This is probably one of the best cards to use in conjunction with Pandemonium in the history of the game, so if you’ve got them, use them!

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