Captain Michael Burnham

Captain Burnham is a straightforward landfall aggressor that rewards you for playing lands—something you're already doing in Commander. Every time a land enters the battlefield, she pings each opponent for 1 damage, and if you land two in a single turn, she gets a +1/+1 counter. The gameplan is to accelerate your mana with cheap ramp spells and fetch lands, trigger landfall repeatedly, and watch Burnham grow into a trampling threat while dealing chip damage. You win by either bashing in with a growing Burnham or wearing opponents down with repeated pings.

The deck wants to maximize landfall triggers. Cards that fetch lands (like Cultivate or Scalp Grinding), lands that come in untapped (shocks, fetches), and effects that let you play extra lands per turn (Azusa, Lost but Seeking or Dryad of the Ilysian Grove) all fuel the engine. Red offers some unique synergy here: cards like Scute Swarm or Omnath, Locus of Creation turn landfall into explosive value, while cards like The Destruction of Praxis and Pah-Wraith from the new Star Trek set scale directly with your land count. You're not trying to be a pure Gruul landfall deck—you're leaning into Red's tempo and aggression, turning each land drop into incremental damage.

Strategy generated by Tapped Decks AI. Not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast.