Nissa, Leyline Tamer

Commander Intelligence

Nissa, Leyline Tamer - Intelligence

Recent trend items, source context, and related commander signals.

What to check for this commander

Commander context

Copy Nissa with Spark Double and one land triggers both Nissas. Each copy tracks its own first resolution, so the first trigger from each can draw and hit a creature.

Draw Happens Every Landfall Trigger

The "draw a card" clause is not gated by the first-time-this-turn check. Every land you control that enters -- on any turn, including opponents' turns, and regardless of who caused it to enter -- triggers Landfall and draws a card.

Reveal-Until-Hit Only On The First Resolution Each Turn

The "reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a creature card" clause only happens if this is the first time this specific ability has resolved that turn. A second, third, or later land-drop trigger that turn still draws a card, but does not reveal or put anything onto the battlefield.

Cares About First Resolution, Not First Trigger

"First time this ability has resolved this turn" is checked at resolution, not when the trigger is put on the stack. If two lands enter at the same time, both Landfall triggers go on the stack (the active player orders their own; each player orders their own separately for simultaneous triggers they control) and resolve one at a time -- the ability that resolves first gets the reveal-until-hit clause, even if it was not the first one to trigger.

A Countered Or Removed First Trigger Does Not Consume The Turn's Hit

If the ability that would have been first to resolve is countered, exiled from the stack, or otherwise removed before resolving, it never resolves -- so it does not count toward "the first time this ability has resolved this turn." The next Landfall trigger that actually resolves that turn is treated as the first.

Simultaneous Lands From One Source Each Trigger Separately

A single spell or ability that puts multiple lands onto the battlefield at once (for example a multi-land fetch effect) creates one separate Landfall trigger per land, all triggering simultaneously and ordered onto the stack as described above.

Off-Turn And Any-Player-Caused Land Entries Count

Landfall triggers off any land you control entering the battlefield, not only lands you play during your own main phase. Fetch lands, flash lands, instant-speed ramp, and effects that put your lands onto the battlefield during another player's turn or outside any land-drop restriction all trigger it.

Draw Is Sequenced Before The First-Time Check

The ability's own text orders the draw before the first-time-this-turn check ("draw a card. Then if this is the first time..."). Both the draw and, when applicable, the reveal-until-hit happen as part of resolving the same single triggered ability instance -- they are not two separate abilities.

Hit Enters, Is Not Cast

The revealed creature card is put directly onto the battlefield. It is not cast, so cast-triggered abilities, cascade, storm, and "whenever you cast a spell" effects do not trigger from this deployment. ETB triggers and static/replacement effects on the permanent itself apply normally.

No-Hit Library State

If no creature card remains anywhere in the library when the reveal-until-hit clause applies, the entire remaining library is revealed, no permanent enters the battlefield, and every revealed card goes to the bottom in a random order. No permanent is invented to fill the miss.

Bottoming, Not Milling

Every revealed card that isn't the hit goes to the bottom of the library in a random order, not to the graveyard. This is not self-mill, and applying the repository's published self-mill Mechanic slug here would misrepresent the card.

Reveal-Until Is Not A Library Search

Nissa's ability reveals cards from the top of the library until a hit is found; it does not search the library. Effects that specifically stop searching (for example Aven Mindcensor-style search hosers) do not stop this ability, because nothing here is a search.

Library-Entry Hate Still Applies

Effects that specifically prevent creature cards from entering the battlefield from a library (for example a Cage-style effect worded around library-origin battlefield entry) do stop the hit from entering, because the hit is entering the battlefield directly from the library -- this is a distinct interaction from the anti-search case above and from ETB-suppression effects, which would still let the permanent enter but suppress only its own entering-the-battlefield triggers.

Deathtouch And Vigilance Are Always-On, Unrelated To Landfall

Deathtouch and vigilance are static keyword abilities on Nissa herself with no connection to the Landfall trigger, the draw, or the reveal-until-hit sequence.

Landfall Is A Named Keyword Ability, Not An Invented Mechanic

"Landfall" is Nissa's own printed ability word, taken directly from her verified Oracle text. It is not currently a published Mechanic taxonomy slug in this repository despite being one of Magic's most common named mechanics; this file records it as unmapped rather than inventing a taxonomy row.

Walking Atlas Tradeoff

Walking Atlas lets you play an additional land from your hand and can move a basic land to hand to replay it, which enables extra and off-turn Landfall triggers. But Walking Atlas is itself a weak creature if it's the card Nissa's reveal-until-hit puts onto the battlefield -- it is support infrastructure for triggering Landfall more often, not a premium hit, and diluting the hit pool with low-impact enablers like this is a real tradeoff a build has to make explicitly.

Distinction From Jace, Multiverse Architect's −3

Both commanders put a revealed/exiled-target creature directly onto the battlefield without casting it, but the trigger condition, cost, and hit-pool restrictions differ: Nissa's ability triggers off a land entering and only finds creature cards (not planeswalkers), once per turn; Jace's −3 costs loyalty, requires exiling another target creature or planeswalker you control, and can find either card type. Neither is a substitute for the other in rules terms, even though they're both featured in the same Multiverse Reforged precon.

Extra Land-Drop Value Engine

Chain as many land drops as possible each turn using extra-land-drop and land-recursion effects to maximize both card draw and the once-per-turn hit chance.

Deterministic One-Hit Polymorph

Reduce the library to one eligible creature card, then any Landfall trigger that resolves first each turn guarantees that hit.

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Sources

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