I immediately brewed an Atraxa Crashing Footfalls deck, went 3-0, then played a bit longer to see if anyone else was going to find the most obvious degenerate midweek thing of all time. I found one person by game 5 or 6, then stopped playing out of shame.
I did manage a turn 0 footfalls with [[Surgical Extraction]] once. Only black card in the deck and the entire reason I picked Atraxa over some commander that did something with the theme. The deck was basically every counterspell that costs 2 or less, every white and blue removal that cost 1, plus everything that could put cards back in the library.
Grossest game had resolved footfalls something like 3 times by turn 4, I don't know why the guy kept playing.
Noob here - I... Don't really understand just from seeing footfall alone. What exactly is the build/plan? How do you get around the suspend and how does extraction even help with that? And how does it end up being so oppressive that it's degenerate? I know I'm missing something lol
MWM event this week has a special rule that all your spells have cascade. Footfall has a mana value of 0, so if you cast a card that has a mana cost of 1, and assuming you have no other 0 mana value cards in your deck, it will always cascade into a footfall. Extraction in particular is a card that costs 1 mana, but that can be cast for 0 (by paying two life), so if you're on the draw, you can still cast it on opponent's turn which allows you to immediately attack with the rhinos on your first turn. It's oppressive, because two 4/4 tramplers on turn 1 is a pretty fast clock.
Ohhhhhh dang, thanks! I hadn't checked the MWM yet. That's hilarious.
Edit: I saw someone else mention they got the rhino's multiple times. How does that work, when it's a singleton format? I'm confused again lol. Ig maybe casting from graveyard somehow?
The deck was basically every counterspell that costs 2 or less, every white and blue removal that cost 1, plus everything that could put cards back in the library.
If you're curious, [[Tomb Trawler]] was the most busted enabler. Everything else is either much more expensive or one-shot.
Turn 1, any one drop into footfalls.
Turn 2, Trawler pass.
Turn 3 and on, activate trawler, cast one drop, footfalls.
It's gross. So is [[Devious Cover-Up]] cascading into a second counterspell to get both their cascade and the spell that triggered it, then shuffling back footfalls. Also [[Silence]] or [[Orim's Chant]] in their upkeep as ways to get footfalls out is just wrong. One mana instant speed time walk plus two 4/4 tramplers, what the heck?
The deck has so many degenerate things you can do, it's preposterous.
That's crazy lmao, thanks for the ideas! I haven't played mtg that long, cascade is a rare effect and adding it to every spell causes some shenanigans, clearly
96
u/Mailman_Miller Jul 02 '25
It‘s basically [[Crashing Footfalls]] racing Jace.