As MTG archetypes go, they don’t get much more popular than Landfall. This deck has been a staple of Commander tables as long as the format has been around, and it’s recently taken Standard by storm, too. Now, Marvel Super Heroes has tossed it a particularly juicy bone in Mole Man, Moloid Master. Whether it’s popping off in Commander or smoothing out your curve in Standard, this dastardly Villain’s applications go deep.
Mole Man, Moloid Master MTG
Following a recent MTG trend, Mole Man, Moloid Master is yet another Crucible of Worlds effect in green. What sets it apart from its peers, however, is that it comes on a legendary body, meaning you can run it right out of the command zone. It also comes with a payoff baked in, making it a self-sufficient synergy machine.
You’ll naturally get the most out of Mole Man by building in a Landfall direction, using cards like Exploration for multiple tokens a turn. Throw in Fetchlands for double triggers, and additional Landfall payoffs like Scute Swarm, and things can get out of hand fast.
Since you’ll be building out a wide board with Mole Man naturally, token doublers like Parallel Lives can help push things even further. Once your Minion army is up and running, cards like Cryptolith Rite can ramp you into big finishers such as Craterhoof Behemoth. Alternatively, you can feed your Minions to sacrifice outlets like Ashnod’s Altar and Evolutionary Leap, to fuel a grindier long-term game plan.
However you choose to play Mole Man, you’ll want to take advantage of topdeck synergies to maximize its value. Cards like Sylvan Library and Oracle of Mul Daya are made much, much better here, when you can use your tokens to mill away unwanted cards for extra advantage. Recursion engines, like Six and Emeritus of Abundance, are also a good shout to reclaim any good stuff you accidentally mill over with your Minions.
Land Ho!
Mole Man, Moloid Master also enables some devious combo lines, such as completely protecting you from damage alongside Glacial Chasm and Azusa, Lost but Seeking. Simply play Chasm, sacrificing a land, then enjoy its protection for a turn cycle. When the time comes to pay its cumulative upkeep, instead decline and sacrifice it, then replay the first sacrificed land and Chasm from the graveyard.
If you’d rather hurt your opponents than help yourself, Mole Man can also make infinite tokens when paired with Kodama of the East Tree and Guildless Commons. With both creatures in play, drop Commons, and return it to your hand with its own enters trigger. Next, resolve the Mole Man trigger and make a token, which will trigger Kodama, letting you put Commons back into play. Rinse and repeat as many times as you’d like, then you can win on the spot with a Haste granter like Concordant Crossroads.
If you swap out Guildless Commons for Storm Cauldron, this combo can make you infinite mana instead. Kick off this variant by playing any untapped land, then tap it for mana with the Kodama trigger on the stack. This will bounce it thanks to Storm Cauldron, letting you put it right back into play and repeat the process.
Another nifty combo Mole Man enables is putting pretty much every land in your deck into play with Perilous Forays and Tireless Provisioner. Play a land with all the pieces out, and you’ll get a Treasure and a token, which lets you use Forays to bring out another land. While this doesn’t win on the spot, it does give you the mana and the draw consistency to close things out fast.
Destruction In Constructed
As if its ample Commander applications weren’t enough, Mole Man also has a legitimate chance at being a player in Standard, too. Right now, thanks to our ol’ pal Badgermole Cub, Selesnya Landfall is one of the dominant decks in the format. Mole Man fits right into that deck with ease, providing extra redundancy as well as new lines of attack.
For starters, having another way to play lands out of your graveyard alongside Icetill Explorer is a big deal. This opens up more opportunities to make four land drops in one turn with Fabled Passage, which is how the deck secures its explosive early wins. Thanks to this redundancy, Mole Man is likely an easy swap for Surrak, Elusive Hunter at the three-drop slot here.
Additionally, the ability to go wide with tokens gives the deck a lot of extra game against Izzet Prowess. Ordinarily, blocking any of that deck’s creatures is a risky business, but Minion tokens let you do so for ‘free.’ This should make it easier to pull ahead in races with Izzet, though Mole Man’s low toughness is certainly a liability there, too.
All in all, while he’s not Marvel’s biggest name, Mole Man, Moloid Master is an excellent MTG card indeed. Whether you play Commander or Standard, I don’t expect this sneaky Villain to stay underground for long.
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