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By: AJ_Impy, AJ Richardson
Mar 25 2014 12:00pm
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 Land week!

Hello and welcome to Land week! This week, we'll be focusing on the one-a-turn mana-producing bedrock on which our game is founded, exploring and exploiting the various tricks and possibilities under our metaphorical feet. From the five ubiquitous basics to the third most expensive card on MTGO, these have been a vital and definitive part of Magic since day one, shaping the cadences of the game and the quality of cards just by their own limitations. Over the years, decks which are mostly land have appeared at the highest level of play, both seriously, as in the top 8 of last month's SCG Legacy Open, and frivolously, as in the legendary 60 island deck. In general, if you want to win with lands as your primary win condition, there are several ways to go about it.

Mishra's Factory Maze's End Dark Depths

This little lot, their antecedents and successors demonstrate the aggro, control and combo archetypes respectively. Mishra's Factory on turn 1 usually translated to attacking for 2 on turn 2, which was a relative rarity for much of Magic's life, so much so that it earned Kird Ape a ban in the early days. Even now, people are attacking on turn 2 with an Assembly-Worker man-land in Standard and Modern, with Mutavault following in the footsteps of its ancestor, dodging both sorcery speed removal and the pesky 'Nonland' clause which has come into fashion since Wizards wanted less cheap land destruction and more good Planeswalker answers.  On the control side, a card which fixes mana, provides card advantage and wins the game by itself whilst not actually taking up a spell slot is pretty much the control player's dream, with Maze's End a popular deck in its block and an occasional Standard rogue. Dark Depths illustrates the potential for combo lands, demonstrating first with Vampire Hexmage and then with fellow land Thespian's Stage just how easy it can be to go 'Oops, 20/20 flying indestructible GG.' 

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle Seismic Assault Nephalia Drownyard
 

Another option for a win condition is incremental, taking chunks of life or other resources for discarding or even just playing a land, or just activating an ability a bunch of times as part of a broader strategy. Both Valakut and Seismic Assault have combo partners, Scapeshift and Life from the Loam respectively, to help the discerning player to go lethal all at once. The Drownyard, and ancestors like Cephalid Coliseum or Duskmantle, House of Shadow represent a useful ally for mill strategies, providing a hard to counter clock without requiring any other resources. Some of the more control-oriented manlands such as Celestial Colonnade could also come under this heading, although there is a big difference between being activated in time to attack and being activated before your untap phase.  

It is one thing to write about the potential for these decks, and another to demonstrate it. Here's a fun little role reversal deck I built around Maze's End for the Tribal Apocalypse player run event some months ago. The lands are the win condition, the creatures are removal and utility, and the artifacts are combo enablers. 

 Any combination of Amulet of Vigor, Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Maze's End gets very silly, very fast: Multiple amulets especially, since you can tap for mana in response to additional untap triggers, and thus can essentially end up activating Maze's End for free three or four times a turn. Which considering you only need ten gates total and will have some in play already, ends the game. As an aside, there is one very silly edge case with Maze's End: If you turn any gate into a creature, say with Lifespark Spellbomb, you can then copy it with Sakashima the Impostor. Since Sakashima retains his own name, he comes into play as a 'Gate with a different name' in the eyes of Maze's End. But I digress. Darksteel Plate is in the deck for two reasons: Protecting useful creatures such as Azusa, and being a combo piece with Magus of the Disk. Indestructible Magi of the Disks are essentially unlimited use reset buttons, which are great fun to use and exceedingly annoying to face. Wargate is something of an underused card: In a deck which meets its mana requirements, it acts as an Untamed Wilds without the basic land restriction which can also fetch whatever trinket you might need depending upon your mana. As a card that can get both {Amulet of Vigor) and Maze's End, it is invaluable here. Recross the Paths is essentially a cheaper land-only Unexpected Results with a slightly less reliable return to hand clause, which essentially acts as a sneaky 'Scry 1' as a bonus undocumented feature. An additional means of repeatedly putting lands into play for 3 mana, it also combos well with Amulet of Vigor and helps dig for the Maze's Ends. 

Oblivion Stone Devastation Tide Plague Boiler

 

I mentioned earlier the 'pesky nonland clause'. It stands to reason that, if you pack your deck full of dangerous lands, that clause can do wonderful and terrible things on your behalf. Bounce all your opponent's permanents via miracle, swing in with an army of manlands. Destroy everything with an upkeep trigger, swing in with an army of manlands. Opponent has an instant speed wrath variant or spot removal? We can deal with that, too. There are all manner of obscure and underplayed cards which really shine in a principally land-based deck. Let's be Modern here:

Land Sakes
Exploiting lands so hard we get fracking protesters
Creatures
0 cards

Other Spells
3 Earth Surge
4 Devastation Tide
4 Oblivion Stone
2 Plague Boiler
3 Terra Eternal
4 Treasure Hunt
4 Summer Bloom
24 cards
Lands
4 Treetop Village
4 Mutavault
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Faerie Conclave
4 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Stirring Wildwood
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Spawning Pool
36 cards
 
Terra Eternal

 Earth Surge does double Gaea's Anthem duty here, making even Blinkmoth Nexus and Spawning Pool into significant threats. Terra Eternal laughs off any destruction-based removal, although both cards tend not to play nice with the nonland removal suite we have going. Treasure Hunt and Summer Bloom turn our heavy land-leaning ways into significant advantages, filling and profitably emptying our hand. Our manlands curve out nicely from the swift Mutavault and Nexus up through to the evasive big beaters of the Worldwake duals via the Urza's Saga reprints, with plenty of options on both offence and defence as the situation warrants.

Enjoy the rest of Land Week, and until next time, may all your decks have a reliable foundation.

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