Inspired by the excellent Legacy Round Table articles by Joe Dyer, I thought it might be fun to do something similar for the Lands community to wrap up the year. So I pulled together a bunch of Lands players to get their opinions on how our favorite deck did this year. You may recognize some of these names as old masters of the archetype, others are legacy grinders, and yet others are just newer players sharing their perspectives. Here’s who we’ve got on the roster:

One thing I am particularly proud of is that we have contributors from all around the world, from experienced pros in the US & Canada to Japanese masters, European champions, and Australian experts. Note that for some of responses below, English may not be the author’s primary language.

How much Lands did you play this year? What drew you to the deck?

Dave Long: Due to the ongoing pandemic I played significantly less legacy than I have in past years. I’ve never really gotten into MTGO. I played lands at the Legacy Pit Open and some smaller local events. I’ve enjoyed the deck of late and think it is well positioned in the current meta. Before MH2 I had been playing a wide range of different Depths variants but at present only the GW build appears competitive (and that one doesn’t particularly suit my playstyle).

ZoneEnder120: I have only gotten to play intermittently as I’m primarily a paper player but I have got to play and win a few local events over the last year. What drew me to Lands was the ability to play on a completely different axis of magic then what everyone else was doing, the combination of uniqueness and inevitability felt really cool when I first saw it which was back around 2015 range or so. Also had a super cool name of Eternal Garden that some of the players around me still called it. But if I had to pick one thing it would have been that I have the opportunity to invalidate a lot of traditional plans and force them to play my game each round.

McBain: Lands was likely my second most played deck this year behind a new-found affection for DNT following the release of MH2. I was drawn to the deck years back after Painter fell out of favour. Being able to play multiple roles as well as have a combo is very appealing to me. Like Painter, Lands is a really interesting and unique deck. It is really a shame that Tabernacle is such a cost prohibitive card in paper and likely pushes people away from really learning the deck.

Matt Brown: I picked up Lands around March time this year for an online NRG event because my go to deck, Sneak and Show, wasn’t very well positioned. I wanted to play a deck that was good against Delver and I also enjoy playing decks that play on a different axis to the rest of the field so Lands felt like a perfect choice. I went 9-0 in the event and never looked back.

urawik: I played from January to September, but I played much less often than usual. I haven’t been able to play much since October. However, I enjoyed playing it very much. The disappearance of Gamble and the fixation of Valakut Exploration, and the appearance of Urza’s Saga are very exciting changes for people who have been playing Lands for a long time.

Squid: About 500 matches. I love sorcery-timing control of MTG. I tested several types of those decks, and Lands perfectly fits my style.

Pearson Caldwell: I am actually brand new to playing Legacy, but I’ve been a long time fan and observer of Lands.

I played Magic way back in elementary and middle school starting around Ice Age. I took a long break until a few years ago when I got really back into it, and it’s been consuming most of my free time ever since. I first saw Lands in the top 8 of an SCG tournament. I figured Legacy would be a wildly unfair format with most games ending on turn 1 or 2, so when I saw someone looping Wasteland and Punishing Fire for every little edge of value, I got really intrigued. 

I’ve been following the deck since then. I’ve finally been able to play with it thanks to the card rental services, and it’s been a blast to play. The deck has so many lines and really rewards optimal sequencing and planning multiple turns ahead. For the longest time, I thought of Lands as the platonic ideal of everything I wanted in a Magic deck, and so far it’s lived up to that measure.

RavenousPanda21: I’ve played a decent amount of lands this year as my primary ‘competitive’ deck although not as much as I would have liked. Majority of my play is spent in leagues or direct challenges with friends – being in Australia means that the competitive events are not at good times. The Saturday challenge (the only one I can play) is not firing anymore either.

In terms of what drew me to the deck, it’s mainly the resilience and toolbox nature of the deck. Crop Rotation provides a lot of lines and many different decision points in any given game but this is also what makes the deck challenging. Urza’s Saga has also really grown my appreciation for the deck and I really enjoy that playstyle combined with the traditional grindy elements.

NetherLands: A lot of games. Hundreds. My one and only deck.

Philip Neoshinji Tribbia: For the year of 2021 Lands was my Legacy deck of choice.  I did dabble with TES and Bant Control, however that was just to get a better idea how beat those decks. Legacy Lands since I started playing it in 2017 continues to be the most rewarding deck I have ever played. You can tune to beat any 2 out of 3 deck archetypes in the format. 

Adam Wasburn-Moses: I really only picked up the deck towards the end of the year when I knew I was going to have to pick up a deck for the NRGs because I had access to legacy cards.  Lands was a strategy I had enjoyed playing in the past and the build I started testing felt like it had a lot of promise as well as an actively good delver matchup.  I also knew almost all of the better players in the room would be on delver, so I locked it in.

What changes to the deck did you see this year?

Dave Long: The largest change to the deck (and all decks in legacy/modern) was the printing of MH2. This had a tremendous shift in the meta which made lands better positioned. In addition, lands was able to incorporate three key new cards in Urza’s Saga, Endurance, and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth. Urza’s Saga in particular is a major upgrade to lands.

ZoneEnder120: This year we had a ton of changes including I think a few gameplay elements in our ability to actually close matches, as prior we had the option of either being the combo or the prison but thanks to Urza’s Saga we now have the option of being the beatdown. We also due to several factors, including Force of Negation have added more engines or ways of keeping our velocity moving while relying a little bit less on Loam than before but it still being a mainstay for the strategy. So beyond the nitpicky on card choices, since there has been so many, I think the main thing is that we have had a fundamental shift from being a 2D deck in terms of how we approach a match up to closer to having 4D options between Saga, combo, Loam Lock, and Valakut. We just have so many more options than before and are less limited in game plans.

McBain: While I have bent the knee to our MH2 overlords and adopted Sagas and Endurance I don’t really like the Saga version, or how it forces you to play – or how it plays in general. Making a bunch of robots often feels boring and unnecessary to me.

Matt Brown: There were a lot of changes in the deck this year from when I picked it up mostly from the release of Modern Horizons 2 and the emergence of Urza’s Saga. This meant that a lot of people were fundamentally changing how the deck was built to try and abuse the power of Urza’s Saga by cutting other early uses of mana such as Rishadan Port and cutting some of the main deck spell slots for tutorable artifacts.

Shortly after the release of MH2 I took a break from grinding mtgo so never really got to test out different configurations but I am still not sure how many copies of Urza’s Saga Lands lists should be playing, I could see any number being correct.

urawik: I only have Lands in MO, so I haven’t played any other decks. I didn’t play Lands on paper, but played various decks such as Depths, Maverick, Jund and Mono Green Post. I often thinking about Lands, and it was very fulfilling. In the process of playing them, there were many things that were useful in considering Lands, and I think it was very fulfilling.

Squid: Valakut Exploration. It was like training wheels when I started playing it, but VE forms the basis of my deck nowadays.

Pearson Caldwell: The biggest change has to be the addition of Urza’s Saga. Saga has totally warped Lands’ strategy (and the Legacy format) around itself, filling so many gaps the deck used to have. It gives you a great mana sink, an interesting tutor suite of artifacts, and an incredible endgame looping Saga with Loam. 

Saga feels like potentially the strongest card in Legacy at the moment, and there’s a question of what deck makes the best use of it. I think Lands has a good chance to be that deck as the metagame continues to shift and we continue to refine decklists.

RavenousPanda21: The big changes in Lands this year have all been driven by the printing of MH2 – both in terms of cards we can play and cards we have to beat. With the addition of cards like Prismatic Ending and powerful threats like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Murktide Regent, the format is under more pressure than ever before. It is absolutely critical that you play hard-hitting cards that generate a lot of value/utility.

This is where Urza’s Saga and Endurance have really changed the game for Lands. I think I was one of the earlier adopters in terms of praising the power of Saga, and while the lists have changed a decent amount since then, the fact that Urza’s Saga is insanely strong remains. This card has really taken the deck to the next level and allowed lands to have a linear game plan other than dark depths. Due to an over-abundance of white in the format (thanks Prismatic Ending), answers to Marit Lage are plentiful right now; that’s not to say Dark Depths isn’t still extremely good to have in the deck.

Personally, the thing I enjoy the most about Saga (other than crushing skulls with chonky robots) is that we get to play more toolbox elements in the form of 1-mana artifacts. The ability to play cards like Pithing Needle, Expedition Map, Shadowspear, Pyrite Spellbomb, Retrofitter Foundry, Thran Foundry, Grafdigger’s Cage, Soul-Guide Lantern… the list goes on. This provides the deck with another angle and allows us to answer things we haven’t been able to answer before. You don’t realise how good maindeck Pithing Needle is until you try it out.

Endurance is the other big addition to the deck (whether in the sideboard or main) and has given lands a big leg up in certain matchups. Endurance pairs up excellently against a meta with cards like Dragon’s Rage Channeler, Murktide Regent (if you preemptively play it), Thassa’s Oracle, Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath, Reanimate etc. Not to mention a 3/4 flash reach blocker is just generically good and isn’t that difficult to hard-cast especially with honorable mention Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth. The shift to playing Endurance in the main with Shadowspear has been quite interesting and something that I have really come to enjoy.

NetherLands: A lot. Biggest is Urza’s Saga and the artifact packages. 

Was a slow starter at first. Didn’t see. Then started with 1, tried 3,went back to one. 

Now playing a full four for a while which is correct. Such a powerful land.

Another interesting change was putting Valakut Exploration to the side and main the Endurances. But this is more an (online) meta call.

Philip Neoshinji Tribbia: The printing of Urza’s Saga, Endurance, Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, and Shadowspear 2021 was a great time for Lands if you were a brewer.  The card that pushed Lands over the top was Urza’s Saga which gave us the ability to have mana source, toolbox, and clock in one card.  I decided to revisit my approach to have my main deck configuration of Legacy Lands be as preboarded as possible vs the 2 archetypes I was wanted to beat (URx Tempo decks and Combo Decks).  This meant putting cards like Valakut Exploration would be kicked to the sideboard and putting Endurance in the main deck.  For 3+ Months (paper and MTGO) my win percentage I went 13-1-1 vs URx Tempo and 14-3 vs Combo.  Worth mentioning that my configuration came at a cost of having a bad record vs any UWx Control Deck going 1-4-2.

Adam Wasburn-Moses: The introduction of Urza’s Saga was a MASSIVE boon for the deck, but also completely changed the way many matchups are played.  Getting a win condition that is not built solely around Dark Depths can be huge in a bevy of matchups, especially the more controlling ones.  The introductions of MH2 threats in Delver made Punishing Fires significantly worse than it has been in the past, and is not a card I’m interested in registering at the moment.  Endurance is a pretty big upgrade for the deck as a generally useful card that can win the game by itself versus Doomsday (previously unwinnable) or even Storm or Reanimator.

If you were to play a competitive event tomorrow, what build of Lands would you bring?

Dave Long: I would bring a RG build containing four Urza’s Sagas with a smaller Saga package (i.e., no maindeck Pithing Needle or Retrofitter Foundry).

ZoneEnder120: I would be bringing a base red and green list focusing with Saga. The bigger questions become 2nd Ghost Quarter, first Field, Sphere or no Sphere which has been a new debate. Potentially Chalice in the board in those slots might be interesting. But in an open meta I think the value of our traditional proactive builds combined with the versatility we would be very well positioned. As far as splashes the blue splash for Dack Fayden and Fluster seems like it could be very powerful, or black going into Plague Engineer and Thoughtseize actually could be quite good also, again just depends on if the meta has changes or not what ends up being the top.

McBain: I’ve (always) been drawn to how lands grand master Hori Masataka builds and plays the deck, so I would likely be looking there first, then making some adjustments for what I expected to see regarding combo and control.

Matt Brown: I would likely bring a close to stock list with 3 Saga, Pithing Needle, Expedition Map and either Pyrite Spellbomb or Retrofitter Foundry as tutor targets. 4 Depth, 4 Stage, 3 Maze of Ith and 0 creatures in the main deck.

urawik: RG Lands. (0Saga/MD 3Endurance) I chose not to play Saga. It may be a little classic list, but I think it is well differentiated from Saga Lands. Reclaimer isn’t as great as it used to be. The main reason is the introduction of Unholy Heat. I’m currently working instantly and playing Endurance, which can also be a main Reanimator measure.

https://mtggoldfish.com/deck/4516181#paper…

Squid: No Removal Saga Lands. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4428444

Pearson Caldwell: This is my current decklist. As I’m relatively new to the format, I haven’t strayed too far from the classic RG build of Lands, with the full playset of Sagas. I’m not a fan of cheating sideboard cards into maindecks, so I’ve left Endurance in the board. 

I play Kaheera as my companion, which means no Elvish Reclaimers. Having Kaheera to pitch to Force of Vigor or Endurance can be really relevant, and Reclaimers often end up eating opponents’ otherwise dead removal.

For my Saga targets, I’ve been running Expedition Map, Pyrite Spellbomb, and Soul-Guide Lantern in the main, with Grafdigger’s Cage and Pithing Needle in the board. Reanimator is really popular right now thanks to Kanister’s Legacy Showcase Challenge win with it, so the extra graveyard hate has been nice to have. Cage also turns off Green Sun’s Zenith, which is seeing a lot of play recently in the four-color Yorion pile.

I go back and forth on the Dark Depths combo. It’s nice to have that “I win” button, but it does lead to a lot of blowouts. If the combo doesn’t win you the game on the spot, you’ll often end up losing. While you can sometimes play around these spots to avoid the blowouts, other times you draw your combo with nothing else going on, and you’re left with no choice but to go for it and hope it works. I frequently board down to one copy of Dark Depths so I can Crop Rotation into the combo when it’s good. I’m currently on three Depths, but I’m considering going down to one copy and building more around Urza’s Saga.

I recently cut Sphere of Resistance from the board. I like Sphere as a catch all for a lot of problem matchups, but it’s a flawed card that sometimes doesn’t do enough. I think filling in those slots with more copies of the good cards you’re already playing, along with some Saga targets, is a good starting point for a post-Sphere sideboard.

I also have one major change I’ve made to my list, which I’ve outlined in my response to the next question.

RavenousPanda21: If I were going to a serious competitive tournament, the below is what I would bring. I’m still a believer in solid RG and think Punishing Fire and Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast have a lot of value in the meta. I am also 100% a believer in mainboard Endurance with Shadowspear and have been enjoying this configuration a lot. I have been off Valakut Exploration for a while and my hot take is that it is often a win-more card that creates awkward sequencing, especially in a saga-focussed build.

I solidly enjoy having 4 saga targets and prefer Retrofitter Foundry over Pyrite Spellbomb that is often in stock lists. I think Retrofitter is insanely good at what it does and I have won many games where it just takes over by itself. Another notable inclusion in the mainboard is Crucible of Worlds which I have been enjoying a lot. I think there are a lot of green piles in current legacy and Wasteland/Ghost Quarter recursion is very powerful at the moment; not to mention the card is very, very strong with Urza’s Saga and recurring them turn after turn can be very disgusting.

I am pretty firm on my current sideboard options. I really like Alpine Moon and think people across legacy are sleeping on this card. It is great in the mirror, against other Wasteland decks, anything with Saga, Elves with Gaea’s Cradle (the deck looks pretty bad without Cradle), anything with Field of the Dead or Dark Depths etc etc. Thran Foundry is a pseudo gy hate option that is also interaction for Doomsday. I have recently started playing it over the Soul-Guide Lantern that I had previously. Grafdigger’s Cage is very strong at the moment with the increase in Blue Zenith strategies (as well as mainstay GW Depths) and is also hate against decks like Reanimator.

I have been in love with 4 copies of Blasts for a while and the rest of the sideboard is pretty stock other than my Endurances being in the main. List below.

NetherLands: RG. I like the conventional traditional builds.

But I would main the Valakuts. And 4 saga’s and 3 tutors. And probably Crucible main. No Ports.

Philip Neoshinji Tribbia: I feel like URx Tempo is still the top deck to beat so I would play the exact same list I have been playing for the past couple of months.  While my list is bad vs Control decks in general, I feel like I can just tough it out and hope that I have more experience than my opponent in the match up.

Adam Wasburn-Moses: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4498263#paper

Something close to this list.  Kozilek’s Return is more an admission to the paper metagame where more people play Death and Taxes, and could easily be changed for an online event for something like a Grafdigger’s Cage.

Are there any cards or strategies that you think are under-explored or under-utilized in Lands at the moment?

Dave Long: I’ve wondered about a build which more heavily leverages Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth. Perhaps cutting the red cards from the list.

ZoneEnder120: Out of pure nostalgia I am going to say Mishra’s factory still as it can still block and kill a Ragavan. But also has fun tricks with Urza’s Saga since if your opponent has tight combat math in a situation you have the ability to potentially Crop Rotate and animate to change numbers that previously weren’t there, more impactful on defense since you’re adding the 2/2 body on first turn since it can’t pump itself the first turn it’s in play due to summoning sickness but it bumps up every construct by 1. A more serious thing I think might be under utilized is Chalice if we are thinking of trying no Spheres since Chalice on zero in the current meta hits a lot of the problems and Chalice on 1 blanks all the threats out of blue-red except Murktide until they find Meltdown as a point of contention but can definitely hold them in check if dropped down early.

McBain: Somewhat evident in my prior responses, but continuing to explore lists with just 1 Saga as utility like Hori would be a good step. Additionally, I’ve traditionally been a big fan of Chandra the Awaken Inferno so seeing that pick up a bit recently is nice. It provides the powerful end game you’re looking for against control but also wrecks random fair stuff. I really miss the gamble style of old Lands deck where you could run a dozen one of’s and reliably tutor for them.

Matt Brown: Honestly I think that the old versions without Urza’s Saga are under-explored at the moment. You would likely lose some equity in the mirror so you could maybe play 1 Saga with no additional tutor targets outside of Mox Diamond but it feels like people aren’t paying any respect to Rishadan Port anymore which could make it a good strategy to be in.

urawik: Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast. It’s a card that impressed me with Alli, but I think it’s a great card for RGb build. + Ability works well with Saga, – Ability can Destroy Murktide twice. Also, by adopting Crop, Saga and -Ability exerts a synergistic effect. I don’t like Sheltered Thicket very much because it’s a color land that doesn’t serve as a keep criteria. However, Slagwoods Bridge and Darkmoss Bridge are keep criteria. I am very much looking forward to building RGb Lands now.

Squid: Song of the Dryad + Thespian’s Stage/Vesuva. Copy Opponent‘s Uro!

Pearson Caldwell: I’ll answer this question in two parts: the first about a particular card for traditional RG Lands; the second about a potential different build of Lands.

The card I have in mind is Faithless Looting. I started playing with lists from top tournament finishes that included Valakut Exploration and/or Sylvan Library. These cards have a high ceiling, but also an extremely low floor.

Valakut Exploration is expensive, slow, and only really goes off when you’ve got regular Exploration in play. Put another way, it asks for a lot to go right, and doesn’t help you when things are going wrong. It looks really impressive when it does its thing, but there are too many games where it does nothing, gets countered, or you have to side it out.

Sylvan Library is at least cheaper, but it similarly asks a lot from the board state and from your opponent. If your life total is under pressure, you can’t draw many cards off it, and if you don’t have a fetchland or Loam to dredge, it’s easy to get Library locked for a few turns, which can be game losing. It’s similarly bad against opposing counterspells, which really hurts because the rest of the deck is so good against them.

With Urza’s Saga and Loam giving Lands all the late game inevitably we need, I’m more interested in high floor plays versus high ceilings. We don’t need to work as hard for card advantage with cards like Valakut Exploration and Sylvan Library in an Urza’s Saga world.

Faithless Looting feels like the perfect card for this slot. It’s cheap, efficient at what it does, great against counterspells, and is a nice hit off of a Loam dredge. We also have great tools to turn Looting into card advantage by discarding lands and getting them back with Loam or discarding Punishing Fire and getting it back with Grove of the Burnwillows. 

I know Looting has seen some play in Lands in the past. I’m wondering if it got put aside because the deck needed a more consistent late game engine. Urza’s Saga with Loam checks all of the late game boxes, so Looting seems well positioned to round out that slot. It’s possible four copies is too many, but I really wanted to stress test the concept, and I haven’t felt like I’ve drawn too many Lootings yet.

Second, there is a potential different build of Lands I’ve had in mind. I don’t have a finished decklist, but basically, something like a Bant control list that leans more deeply into the Lands package, with a playset of Mox Diamonds, Urza’s Sagas, Loams, some number of Crop Rotation, and maybe Exploration. I like the idea of combining the inevitability of Lands and Urza’s Saga with Uro, counterspells, and the removal you get from blue and white cards.

I’ve seen a few decks move in this direction. Kyle Vjorn’s 4c Loam deck from the Nerd Rage Gaming Legacy event hits on a lot of these concepts. There’s also the 4c Green Sun’s Zenith deck that has been popping up everywhere, which is basically playing Zenith and a suite of creatures to tutor instead of the Lands and Urza’s Saga package. 

I’m not sure what the threshold is for a deck to be considered “Lands,” but I think this idea has a lot of promise and I’d love to explore it more. Putting Urza’s Saga together with the best interaction in the format seems like a good place to be.

RavenousPanda21: Other than Alpine Moon as sideboard tech, nothing really stands out to me too much at the moment other than exploring other colours.

Alli has been doing some good work exploring Bant lists and I’ve tried a few different colours as well (mostly mediocre). I think I am mainly waiting to see if anything changes with the Legacy ban list and if there are any new interesting cards in the new Kamigawa set.

NetherLands: I still think that Uro + Exploration is very strong. 

And blue has some other merits. 

But I think that Lands should not play blue.

Philip Neoshinji Tribbia: I tested it out earlier as a joke, but ended up getting positive results with Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer.  Land into Mox Diamond into Dash Ragavan felt strong.  It enabled some turn 2 Lages as well as just give me information to what I was facing.  I feel like the correct number is 2x Ragavan but decided to not invest any more time/money into a card that was a good candidate to get banned in the future.  Depending on when or if a ban happens, I will revisit Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and possibly adding a Stomping Ground to help smooth out the mana base.

Adam Wasburn-Moses: I haven’t seen many people playing Kaheera lately, which is mostly a free pitch card for Force of Vigor and Endurance.  The information gained by your opponent game 1 isn’t as relevant as many people make it out to be.  Endurance maindeck has been extremely good for me as well, and I’m surprised it isn’t catching on right now.

Going into 2022, how do you think Lands is positioned in the Legacy metagame?

Dave Long: I think Lands is very well positioned at the moment and would be an excellent choice for any legacy event. We will have to wait and see if any upcoming bans shakeup the meta at all but at present the deck is very strong.

ZoneEnder120: I think Lands continues to be a strong choice. I think the biggest weakness is Doomsday followed by sometimes cards don’t line up well or the plan we have isn’t as effective. But if the metagame is heavily fair I would say we are our own worst enemy and might have to even consider our mirror match going forward.

McBain: If Ragavan is banned, as I would argue for multiple reasons the least of which being power, then we could see a resurgence of decks that play Lotus Petal (Doomsday, Sneak, Omni, etc.) all of which are generally rather bad for Lands. If we continue on business as usual I think things could look pretty interesting.  

Matt Brown: I think that Lands will always continue to be reasonably well positioned and given the current metagame and the apparent reluctance to change the Daze/Brainstorm/Force of Will dominance, it means that Lands should be pretty well positioned going forwards since there is little combo around at the moment.

urawik: Depending on the ban revision, if nothing changes, I think you are in a good position.

However, if Ragavan becomes a ban, there will be concerns about an increase in combo decks. But with more combos, Yorion Piles like Blue Zenith are expected to go down. This is good for Lands (because it’s a bit of a disadvantage).

Overall, I don’t expect the position to change significantly in either case

Squid: In my opinion, creature-based Meta continues. If so, Lands keeps good position.

Pearson Caldwell: A lot of my answer to this question depends on bans. There’s a lot of talk about Ragavan getting banned, and Urza’s Saga could certainly see a ban as well. 

As long as Ragavan stays in the format, I think Lands can adapt to stay well positioned against the Ragavan decks. It’s possible people respond to Ragavan decks by moving into more combo decks that ignore mostly Ragavan like we’ve seen happen with Reanimator, at which point Lands could be in a tough spot. 

If Urza’s Saga were to get banned, that would really change the equation for Lands. If nothing changes, I think Lands is in a great position in the metagame. It’s putting up decent results as is, and it feels like decklists are still getting refined daily. There’s also still a ton of room to innovate in Lands deckbuilding, which will hopefully keep the gameplay fresh. 

RavenousPanda21: I think Lands is in a pretty good place overall outside of combo decks being a challenge (but they always have been).

Most of the top decks I’m not super scared of: UR Delver, Control, Elves, Death & Taxes

Reanimator has been growing in popularity and can be hard if you get t1’d, however we have more interaction than ever, especially if playing mainboard Endurance.

The one deck I am a bit scared of is Blue Zenith. While I have only played against it a few times, the matchup feels quite tough and the general consensus is that it is a very difficult one for RG builds. This is one of the decks that could result in me changing things up if it continues to get more popular.

Only time will tell with regards to the overall meta and I am interested to see how things shape up over the next year. All in all it’s a good time to be a fan of playing too many lands in your deck and still not finding enough of them. As we all know, Urza’s Saga is the story of a man who could not find his glasses, so he built some robots to help find them. Similarly, I’m going to need some glasses after typing all of this out!

NetherLands: I think it’s always tier 2, something like that. Not tier 1 or 0.

But it’s always hard to play against when you are a good pilot and I think you can still do well in big tournaments. It can adjust to the meta. Especially online. 

But it will be always hard(er) to win big tournaments with it.

Philip Neoshinji Tribbia: For 2022, I see nothing but good things for Legacy Lands per usual.  This is large part to how helpful everyone is in the Lands Discord Channel.  If decks like DNT, Bant Control, and 4C Zenith continue to be more popular Legacy Lands might be stuck in the uncomfortable position of having to chose between metagaming vs UWx Control/Combo or URx Tempo/Combo.  In my opinion, it is very difficult to have a configuring that is both good vs Tempo and Control at the same time.  I already have some ideas of how to pivot if such a metagame comes to fruition, but not worried.

Adam Wasburn-Moses: As long as people keep playing Delver and beating the combo decks, the deck will continue to be well positioned.

And there you have it! A big thank you to all our contributors and to the wonderful Lands community all around the world. Much love and Happy New Year!