Actually Frank, if you tutor up just 2 Valakuts and 5 mountains, I believe you'll end up dealing 30 damage. See, when you scapeshift those lands into play, they enter at the same time. So, Valakut sees each one enter the field simultaneously, stacks the activations, then checks to see if you control 5 mountains (which you do since all of the mountains entered at the same time), and then resolves each activation. So, that's 6 damage per mountain. I give it 3 1/2 to 4 stars for 2 reasons. 1: it's Timmy-tacular. It's relatively cheap and has a really big, splashy ability. 2: in a combo-ish deck like Valakut-ramp or even a Urza-tron variant, it's an absolute bomb.

  -- By Ben from Pennsylvania on March 21, 2010

only rate as two due to fact its a sorcery would be more usefull as a instant,also to greg in your example it doesnt deal 36 dam,you put 2 Valakut down then 5 mountains-only then do they do dam for the last 2.So the dam ends up being 12.Read valakut you need to have five mountains in play before they deal any dam.

  -- By frank from New Zealand(Taranaki) on January 22, 2010

The leaves have turned... Colfenor's flavor text was right! This rotates out just when Volakut rotates in!

  -- By Magic Mike from Los Angeles, CA USA on October 10, 2009

Not a whole lot of possibilities? Well, you might be right, but the few possibities are pretty powerful. I'm thinking ramp up to 9 lands using things like Explosive Vegetation, and using Wrath of God and Cryptic Command to keep things under control and creatures off the board. Then play this, getting 7 mountains and 2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacles, dealing 36 damage. That's a win!

  -- By Greg from Atlanta on September 27, 2009

great point, it really does thin the deck. Great draw late(r) game when you just keep hitting those pockets, especially in casual treefolk decks, where there's a lot of mana/mana accel (so you can get doran and ancients out on time). And call me weird, but i run 4x wrath in my deck too... with the timber protector in play, i just couldn't resist!

  -- By doddy from GR MI on February 10, 2009

Great card! Sac 9 lands to bring out 9 new ones, then u can draw the cards u need on all of your following turns. No more "I didn't think I had so many lands in this deck...." 5 stars!

  -- By Anonymous from Memphis, Tn on March 25, 2008

i disagree with brain if you nad red/green aggro with good controll elements. this card would be staight up nasty with countryside crusher

  -- By John from Roxboro, NC on February 23, 2008

This is a great card for casual decks who have wanted to abuse the Fifth Dawn SUnburst mechanics. Most multi-colors use green as a base already due to the easy generation of mutli-colored mana, so this just speeds it up. Outside of the casual scene, there aren't a whole host of possibilities for this card, but I prefer casual anyway.

  -- By Brian from Texas on February 07, 2008

well its original but not all that useful if it was an instand id give it 5 stars

  -- By zachary leblanc from NIB LA USA on February 05, 2008