How To Build And Play A Lara Croft, Tomb Raider MTG Deck

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider was released as a part of Magic: The Gathering‘s Universes Beyond series of products. Lara Croft was released as a part of a Secret Lair, and although nearly all the cards in the Tomb Raider Secret Lair were reskins of existing cards, Lara Croft, Tomb Raider was mechanically unique.

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider is a Temur (green/blue/red) commander that’s meant to be built around legendary artifacts and lands, being able to re-use them from the graveyard by exiling them with discovery counters. As such, much of the deck primarily consists of legendary spells and ways to discount the spells cast from Lara Croft’s ability.

Decklist

This sample decklist consists of 23 creatures, nine sorceries, seven instants, 23 artifacts, three enchantments, and 34 lands. The creature side of the deck focuses on synergizing with Lara Croft, Tomb Raider and the artifacts help keep her protected and a threat in combat so you can attack with her without worry.

Key Cards

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider

The commander of the deck, Lara Croft, Tomb Raider has a low casting cost to let her hit the battlefield very early. Her effect interacts with the graveyard, giving you the ability to cast cards from exile that you put a discovery counter on.

Notably, a discovery counter causes the card to go back to the graveyard if it’s removed. This allows you to keep recycling legendary artifacts and lands so long as you have the means to exile them.

Lara Croft requires you to attack in order to use her effect, but with a 3/4 base statline, she has great stats for a three-drop. She’s supported by the various Equipment cards included in the deck, so you can attack with her without having to worry about Lara Croft dying in combat.

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider’s raid effect just requires you to attack that turn. It does not require you to attack with Lara Croft herself, meaning if she’s not well-protected, another creature can attack to still get a Treasure token after your combat for the turn finishes.

Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius

The cards you exile with Lara Croft, Tomb Raider still have to be cast with their proper mana cost. This can be costly normally, but this is where Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius comes into play. While you aren’t plotting cards, you are casting cards from exile.

The two-mana discount has the potential to make a spell free if it only has a two-mana casting cost since Doc Aurlock will discount the entire cost. When mixed with the Treasure token generation that Lara Croft provides, it becomes cheaper to cast spells from exile than it would be to cast from your hand.

The Reaver Cleaver

While Lara Croft, Tomb Raider is the main attraction for the deck, you still want Equipment to improve upon that. The Reaver Cleaver is one of the best. The stat-boost is fairly minor, but giving the equipped creature trample can be very threatening with other stat-boosting permanents.

The Reaver Cleaver’s most notable effect is the ability to generate Treasure tokens equal to how much damage was dealt. Since Lara Croft still requires you to pay for mana, these extra Treasure tokens are useful for not wasting any turns waiting to get more mana and can help you play cards directly from your hand to better improve your board state.

Strong Back

Since the deck has a lot of Equipment, Strong Back is an Aura that will not only give the enchanted creature (in most cases Lara Croft, Tomb Raider) a massive stat boost but also make it much easier to attach Equipment to it.

A downside of Auras is that once they’re removed, they’re very difficult to get back. Since Strong Back is not a legendary artifact or land, once it’s gone it’s near impossible to bring back outside of a few cards. Despite this, its strength makes it worth making room for.

Displaced Dinosaurs

You will be making a lot of Treasure tokens in a Lara Croft deck, and Displaced Dinosaurs can turn those into 7/7 Dinosaurs while still being able to be used for their original intention. It also makes any legendary creature you cast into a 7/7, including Lara Croft if you’re casting her later in the game.

One downside to Displaced Dinosaurs’ effect is that it makes all your artifacts susceptible to board wipes as they’re turned into creatures. However, non-tokens have the potential to be re-cast with Lara Croft later in the game.

Displaced Dinosaurs also turns your Equipment into 7/7 creatures. With how easy it is to cast all of your historic spells (something both artifacts and legendary creatures are considered to be), making them into 7/7s can very quickly get out of hand to swing out to take your opponents out of the game.

How To Play The Deck

A Lara Croft, Tomb Raider deck focuses on Lara Croft herself. She has solid keyword abilities in first strike and reach, making her both a solid attacker and blocker. A good bit of the deck plays a plethora of stat-boosting Equipment to make Lara Croft even stronger to the point no one will want to block her (if they even can in the first place).

You do want access to a lot of mana and casting discounts. Since almost a quarter of the deck consists of artifacts, cards like
Enthusiastic Mechanaut
,
Etherium Sculptor,
and
Jhoira’s Familiar
all make your artifacts cast one mana less (and in Jhoira’s Familiar’s case, discounts your legendary creature spells as well).

Lara Croft can cast cards from exile but also generates a lot of Treasure tokens. As such, cards like Xorn and Jolene, the Plunder Queen help to make even more Treasure tokens so mana is something you never have to worry about while playing the deck.

Lara Croft plays more like a Voltron deck (a deck where you are putting a lot of focus on one creature, stacking Equipment and Aura onto it). With the many Equipment spells, stacking up Lara’s stats is easy, and makes it trivial to take opponents out through commander damage – your primary win condition.

There are a handful of cards in the deck that draw and discard cards. Since Lara Croft lets you use cards in the graveyard later by exiling them, you won’t care about what’s getting discarded. It’s better to get the non-legendary cards into your hand while putting legendary ones in the graveyard since it’ll act more like a second hand in Lara Croft’s case.

Lara Croft requires you to see who is the most threatening to swing at to deal large outbursts of commander damage before their board gets too out of hand. Since she requires you to go more “all in” on her, it can leave the rest of your battlefield on the weaker side. However, with all the Equipment she can have, Lara Croft can be given such high stats that she can take someone out of the game in just one attack.