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You’ll learn more about a gamer by asking the question that’s been asked for nearly 30 years: Who do you like more, Tifa or Aerith? Personally, I’ve loved Tifa since her PS1 block figure days, so you can imagine how excited I was to get the chance to build a Commander deck with her at the helm when the Final Fantasy set was announced. I didn’t even know what her colors would be at that point, but I was dead set on making her my next Commander.
The deck started out simply as a way to showcase my love for Tifa, but it turned out to be a monster. It has a lot of limitations, but I’m having so much fun seeing how high I can get her power up – I’ve even purchased a three-digit life counter to track her power because D20s aren’t enough.
Tifa’s Premise
The premise for a Tifa Lockhart deck is simple: cast Tifa, pump up her power to lethal Commander damage, and swing. There’s a lot of counting involved, so make sure you have a solid way of keeping track like pen and paper, a click wheel life counter, or even just your phone’s calculator.
Tifa is a Voltron Commander, but she bends the formula. Usually, Voltron Commanders require three elements, namely evasion, protection, and a way to deal lethal damage. With Tifa, ramping to trigger Landfall is the single strategy – her built-in Trample is the only “evasion” that you’ll need most of the time, and getting more lands into your battlefield is your way of both increasing her power to dangerous numbers and making sure you have enough mana to re-cast here whenever she’s answered or killed by blockers.
Core Game Plan
Tifa Lockhart won’t get anywhere if you’ll only rely on triggering her Landfall ability by playing lands from your hand. You’ll quickly run out of gas, and Tifa at just 1 or 2 power every turn isn’t going to do anything worthwhile.
To pump Tifa up to lethal damage range, it’s pretty obvious that you’ll have to trigger her Landfall ability multiple times. From her base power of 1, that’s 5 triggers to get her up to 32, which should be enough to get 21 through blockers in the relatively early game, but at the expense of having to recast Tifa as she’s probably going to die when you swing at anyone.
Triggering Landfall multiple times isn’t new, as this is the gameplan of all previous decks with the same theme. This usually involves some combination of fetchlands, cards that let you play extra lands per turn, cards that let you play lands from the graveyard, and cards that copy Landfall triggers.
It becomes much easier to kill with Tifa if you consider simple math though – with a higher base power, you’ll need less Landfall triggers to present lethal Commander damage. If you also increase her base toughness in the process, it increases her likelihood of surviving after swinging so that you can do it again next turn. It’s a huge bonus that there are several power/toughness pump effects that synergize with Landfall.
Key Cards
Starting off with the usual suspects for Landfall, key cards in Tifa include land recursion cards like
Another category of key cards in Tifa are those that give her +1/+1 counters for every Landfall trigger. These include Bristly Bill, Spine Sower and Ride the Shoopuf. With any of these cards in play, a single fetchland gets her power from 1 to 12. We’ll discuss more of this in the Piloting the Deck section, but that shows the potency of these cards in Tifa.
A lot of these key cards are creatures, which means Tifa needs to run tutors that can grab them for some consistency to her gameplan like Worldly Tutor and
Speaking of utility lands – as we’re running tutors to grab fetchlands but we actually only need one of them, we might as well run the best utility lands that we can run for Tifa. Yavimaya Hollow is an amazing land for Tifa as it lets her survive attacks, while also serving as protection for certain removal spells. Tyrite Sanctum is a great, albeit slow, way of given Tifa indestructible, and Horizon of Progress is a great draw engine when combined with land recursion effects and extra land drop effects.
Tifa is a very potent Voltron Commander, but there’s always a need for Plan B. Mossborn Hydra is a non-legendary version of Tifa with a pump ability that sticks around, so it’s a nice tutor target when you want to kill two players at once. You can also go wide with Scute Swarm, which is famous for its exponential growth of tokens, and Chocobo Racetrack, which stays on the board even with a mass removal spell, and create tokens that also get bigger for every Landfall trigger.
Draw engines are less important in Tifa because your actual engine make use of your graveyard, but there are still some nice options that can’t be missed. Nissa, Vital Force’s emblem is amazing in this deck, and you can get it after just one turn cycle. Regal Force is a great tutor target if you need a fresh hand, and The Great Henge, which you can easily cast after pumping Tifa’s power, gets you mana, life gain, and +1/+1 counters in addition to the draw.
Running a lot of dedicated removal spells in Tifa isn’t a good idea. You’re not supposed to answer – you’re supposed to be the question. However, removal attached to other nice effects, such as Collective Restraint and Titan of Industry that can also serve as protection, and
I’ve once reached 5,000+ power with Tifa thanks to one card – Scapeshift. There’s already lot of value in using it to grab a fetchland and a couple of utility lands, but it’s also an amazing show-off card to get Tifa’s power to absurdly high numbers. Sure, you only need to deal 21 damage – but this is the kind of play that makes Commander what it is.
Alternatives
For a budget build, more affordable fetchlands like Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds will still get Tifa to lethal, though you’ll be moving at a slower pace as the fetched lands will come into play tapped.
You can also opt for a slower build and run more cards with Landfall triggers, particularly those that create tokens such as Rampaging Baloths and
Best Hands
The best hands for Tifa include any of the Ramunap Excavator effects, any of the Bristly Bill effects, a fetchland, or tutors that can grab anything that you’re missing. It’s pretty easy to get Tifa to dangerous power levels only with these cards, while providing a steady stream of lands into your battlefield so that you’ll always have enough mana to re-cast her.
Matchups
As a mono-green Voltron Commander, Tifa won’t be able to do much against straight-up combo players once they’ve finished their setup. The only strategy that you’ll have against combo is straight-up player removal – delete their life total by dealing lethal Commander damage as soon as possible. The other players in the pod will probably let you do so!
Against traditional aggro players, you’re usually going to be able to outrace them in dealing damage as it takes time for them to build up a board presence. This is where the importance of getting multiple Landfall triggers really shines – you may have to get Tifa up to more than 50 power just to make sure that you’re able to get 21 damage through blockers.
It’s not a surprise that traditional control is the hardest matchup for Tifa, as removal spells will keep setting her back. You’ll ideally have enough mana to keep re-casting her, so the true battle here would be whether their card advantage engines will out-advantage your machine of Landfall-triggering cards.
Decklist
Here’s my decklist as of November 2025. As with any Commander deck, it’s very fluid. I’m already looking for spots to add Cycle of Renewal and Origin of Metalbending from the upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender set.
1 Ancient Greenwarden
1 Archdruid’s Charm
1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1 Bridgeworks Battle
1 Bristly Bill, Spine Sower
1 Chocobo Racetrack
1 Chord of Calling
1 Collective Resistance
1 Command Beacon
1 Conduit of Worlds
1 Crop Rotation
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Disciple of Freyalise
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Entish Restoration
1 Eternal Witness
1 Exploration
1 Exploration Broodship
1 Fabled Passage
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Finale of Devastation
18 Forest
1 Fortitude
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Green Sun’s Zenith
1 Harrow
1 Heroic Intervention
1 Horizon Explorer
1 Horizon of Progress
1 Icetill Explorer
1 Invasion of Ikoria
1 Larval Scoutlander
1 Loot, Exuberant Explorer
1 Lotus Cobra
1 Lumra, Bellow of the Woods
1 Mightform Harmonizer
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mithril Coat
1 Mossborn Hydra
1 Nature’s Lore
1 Nature’s Rhythm
1 Nissa, Resurgent Animist
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Prismatic Vista
1 Ramunap Excavator
1 Reap and Sow
1 Regal Force
1 Retreat to Kazandu
1 Ride the Shoopuf
1 Roaring Earth
1 Rogue’s Passage
1 Roiling Regrowth
1 Scapeshift
1 Scute Swarm
1 Scythecat Cub
1 Snake Umbra
1 Sol Ring
1 Sowing Mycospawn
1 Springbloom Druid
1 Staff of Titania
1 Strength of Will
1 Sutina, Speaker of the Tajuru
1 Sylvan Library
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Sylvan Scrying
1 The Great Henge
1 Three Visits
1 Tireless Provisioner
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Titan of Industry
1 Traveling Chocobo
1 Tyrite Sanctum
1 Urza’s Cave
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Walk-In Closet/Forgotten Cellar
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wood Elves
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Yavimaya Hollow
1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
1 Tifa Lockhart
Piloting the Deck
For 99% of the time, casting Tifa on Turn 2 is the correct play as it sets the tone right away. Afterwards, it’s all a matter of playing your Landfall support cards and ramping to keep her swinging every turn. However, while Tifa is an aggro Commander, you may consider holding back a non-lethal attack if you think you can go for the kill the next turn.
For the Bristly Bill effects, it’s important to know that you can stack their Landfall abilities with those of Tifa when you’re playing a fetchland. With Tifa and Bristly Bill in play, you can play a fetchland to place a +1/+1 counter on Tifa to get her power to 2, then double her power to 4, then crack the fetchland to get a Forest to place another +1/+1 counter on Tifa to get her power to 5, then double her power to 10. However, here’s what you should do – when you play the fetchland, place the +1/+1 counter on Tifa to get her power to 2, keep her Landfall ability on the stack, crack the fetchland to get a Forest, place another +1/+1 counter on her to get her power to 3, then resolve her two Landfall trigger to get her power to 6, and then to 12. The extra 2 power may not look like much, but with another land drop or a ramp spell, she can go to either 20 or 24 power, which is important when we’re looking to deal 21 Commander damage. The difference becomes much more pronounced in later turns when you keep doing this stacking with a higher base power.
There’s still a lot of limitations as a mono-green Voltron Commander, but probably the most important thing to remember when piloting the deck is to have fun, and to try to get Tifa to more than 1,000 power for a Limit Break finish. Everyone will see that as a huge win, no matter how the game ends.
