Hello and welcome to Commander Bites!

Today we are going to be talking about Koth, the Geomancer!

Koth is a three mana 3/2 with reach and a Landfall ability of whenever a land you control enters, Koth deals 1 damage to each opponent and if that land is a Mountain, add one red mana.

Game Plan

Koth has always cared about Mountains in some regard, so having a version of him with this ability is not that hard to envision. What’s more, I do know that red has been recently becoming a sort of secondary ramp color, adding more mana producing creatures, occasionally get some ways to get additional land drops, and being associated with green in having Landfall abilities.

Koth not only dealing damage whenever you play a Mountain, but also providing a red mana does actually do quite a bit in being able to ramp us to some bigger spells or gains some redundancy on Koth’s effect.

Support

The first thing to look at are ways we can get some additional land drops, of which we actually have a couple of options.

Zell Dincht is the most straightforward way for us to do so because he let’s us play an additional land each turn, gets +1/+0 for each land we control and at the beginning of our end step we return a land we control to our hand. While initially it seems like a downside to return a land we control to our hand, ideally it’s already a Mountain so all we do is gain an additional use of Koth’s effect to deal 1 damage and we gain at least one additional mana.

While a bit slower and a one time use, Molten Man, Inferno Incarnate is also a way for us to get a Mountain in play because when he enters we search for a basic Mountain and put it into play tapped. He gets +1/+1 for each Mountain we control and when he leaves the battlefield we sacrifice a land, which is not as ideal but is something we can manage.

For something a bit more on the extreme side in letting us play an additional land, Nahiri’s Lithoforming has us sacrifice X lands to draw that many cards and we may play X additional lands, with the caveat that lands we control enter tapped this turn. With Koth in play that actually isn’t that bad since we get mana from playing Mountains.

Speaking of, there are a lot of cards that have synergies with Mountains like Last Light of Durin’s Day, which has it so that whenever a Mountain we control enters we put a quest counter on it and if it has six or more quest counters on it then we sacrifice it and search our hand and/or library for a Dragon card and put onto the battlefield.

One Dragon we can look up that helps our strategy is Akoum Hellkite, which has a Landfall ability that deals 1 damage to any target but if that land is a Mountain then it deals 2 damage to that permanent or player instead.

Nesting Dragon is also a great way for us to make use of a Landfall ability in that we create a 0/2 Dragon Egg creature token with defender that becomes a 2/2 Dragon with flying when it dies that also has firebreathing, which can be a nice way to use the excess mana we make from Koth.

Koth, Fire of Resistance is a way for us to make sure that we have a Mountain in our hand with his +2, potentially using his -3 to deal damage to a creature equal to the number of Mountains we control, and working to get our -7 emblem to deal 4 damage to any target whenever a Mountain comes into play under our control.

To finish our opponents we can use redundant effects like Sabotender, Tunneling Geopede, and Spitfire Lagac, all of which deal 1 damage to each opponent whenever a land we control enters. Not only that, but since we are in red, we can use damage multipliers to our advantage.

Torbran, Thane of Red Fell has it so that if a red source we control would deal damage to an opponent or permanent an opponent controls, then it deals that much damage plus 2 instead, Fiery Emancipation let’s source we control deal triple damage, and Fated Firepower is an enchantment we can dump a lot of red mana in to give it X fire counters so sources we control deal that much damage plus the amount of fire counters on it instead.

Setbacks

While this is a solid enough strategy that can do fairly well, what we struggle in is making sure that we can get the land drops that we need.

There are a few ways we can make use of additional land drops, but we are still far behind green and even white in this regard. Our additional land drop cards are fine, but they do have a downside that can put us behind if we aren’t careful.

While Koth does mitigate this a bit by being able to generate a red mana when a Mountain comes into play, it still isn’t a perfect solution. Crucible of Worlds can help us reuse lands from our graveyard which also helps mitigate us losing our lands, but that really isn’t enough.

Ghirapur Orrery and Storm Cauldron are ways for us to get some additional land drops, but they are symmetrical effects that affect other players and Storm Cauldron also has the downside of if we tap a lands for mana it comes back to our hand.

Solid for the short term and can give us an additional benefit, but since it affects every land I would be wary of using Storm Cauldron consistently.

Bracket Rating: High 2 or Low 3

I do think that Koth has a lot of potential as a Commander, especially in cases where you can get the dream hand of all the cards that deal damage to your opponents whenever you play a land as well as at least one damage multiplier.

What set’s Koth back is that our ramp options are very limited and can actually be a detriment if we are unable to find ways around their downsides.

Koth, like many of the other Reality Fracture Commanders I’ve talked about so far, have a lot of potential and can work very well as supporting players in other decks, but needs a lot of work when considering him as a primary Commander.

Thank you for reading, see you all tomorrow!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual