This is an article by the great Japanese player Dull04.
https://note.com/dull04/n/n031da59622b5
Like their other writings, it is originally written in Japanese, but the translation via Google is effective enough to render it readable. The article makes some excellent points about his approach to the Delver matchup, as well as how to build Lands for the current meta.
Ever since money was invented, people have been finding tricky ways to steal it from each other. One of the most insidious of these is currency conversion, where you have to pay a fee just to switch what dead people are depicted on your bills or what squiggles go in front of the numbers. I wish I could say that us Lands players would never get involved in such an abhorrent practice but the truth is that greed makes fools of us all and as soon as Currency Converter was printed we were at work trying to figure out how to maximize our profits with it. Here’s the card in question:
The reason to try this card in Lands is that it functions as a 1cmc artifact value engine that you can pick up off Saga. It also has inherent synergy with the deck since we often have extra cards to discard, whether they’re lands of Life from the Loam, Punishing Fires we can get back with Grove, or irrelevant Mox Diamonds drawn late in the game. What Lands doesn’t have, however, is a way to discard consistently; if we just slot this card in, we have to rely on its own activation to generate value (aside from the occasional Mox Diamond).
Enter Dack Fayden, the greatest thief in the multiverse.
Dack was always a fun card people liked to mess with in Lands – we often have extra cards in our hand and can easily undo the discard with Life from the Loam. That said, he’s never really been good enough. But with Currency Converter promising to generate even more value off his +1, people started trying him again. After alli, tim, and others in the Lands discord posted several good results in Leagues, I was sold on it. I played a few matches and while I wasn’t blown away, the deck felt good enough to take to the TCG Con Legacy 2k that was happening in our area.
I know deck pics can be hard to parse so here’s a link to a typed out decklist to go with it. The biggest change for this kind of deck compared to traditional RG Lands is the addition of blue. Blue gets you Dack in the maindeck, but it also gets you a suite of powerful sideboard cards. In my case I was playing 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Spell Pierce, and 1 Blue Elemental Blast. This setup allows you to play differently against combo. No longer do you need to set up 2cmc lock pieces – instead you can interact from turn 1 and do it at instant speed so that you don’t slow down your own development.
The rest of the deck was built with an eye to beating fair decks since I know my local meta has very little combo and a ton of Death & Taxes and blue control. That’s why you’ll see Field of the Dead in the maindeck and Drop of Honey in the board. 8Cast was also a consideration (hence the Chalice in the board), but I couldn’t think of cards that would be good against both it and the rest of the field so I just planned on dodging it or making the Witch as soon as possible if I did have to play against it.
I started the day by eating an overpriced egg and avocado sandwich just to confirm my status as a millennial with poor spending habits (as if buying tons of cardboard didn’t prove that already). But soon enough we were in the convention center and off to the races!
I knew this person was on Burn because I had seen them filling out a deck list before the event. I’ve heard a few different people tell me that Burn is a bad matchup for Lands but in my experience it rarely plays out that way, even with Glacial Chasm mostly absent from the 75 for the last couple years. It’s just a race and while they can kill you fast if you do nothing, we have a ton of interaction for their stuff while they have basically none for us.
I’m on the play and I keep a 7 that makes Lage on turn 4, one land drop at a time. Not ideal but we have 9 cards in the deck that will speed us up by a turn so I keep it. They start getting in with Goblin Guides and giving me cards, but I’m able to pick them off with Punishing Fire so I don’t take too much damage. On the crucial turn before I can kill them, they have a suspended Rift Bolt and I’m at 10. I do the math and if they have really anything plus Fireblast I will die.
They go to their draw step without taking a time counter off their Rift Bolt, missing the trigger. The judge offers me the choice of whether to take it off suspend and, well, I don’t want to take 3 damage so I say no thank you. I end the turn at 7 life with Marit Lage ready to win me the game. They show me the Fireblast when I attack them.
In: Counterspells
Out: Dack, Currency Converter
I don’t remember exact sideboarding for each match but I’ll give the general idea as we go. Game 2 my hand is one card off a turn 2 kill. I draw the right card, make Marit Lage, and that’s it.
1-0
My opponent this round is playing 60 card taxes with some atypical card choices like Esper Sentinel. But they’re a strong player and I’m sure they’ve thought through the decisions (Esper Sentinel did draw them 2-3 cards one of our games, seems interesting in the deck). In all, Death & Taxes is usually not too bad a matchup, but with the right pilot on the other side it can get tricky, and both my white weenie opponents on this day were pretty skilled.
In game 1 they curve Mother of Runes into Stoneforge Mystic. I have Punishing Fire but I’m on the draw without the proper acceleration to deploy it in time. So Kaldra soon hits the field and starts chunking me. I do lock them under Tabernacle a bit, and eventually set up a Maze to stem the bleeding. At this point with Punishing Fire and Maze up, I’m doing alright but my life total is low and I’m dead to Rishadan Port or Wasteland out of their deck. I pick off their creatures but they keep replacing them, and one of these is a Giver of Runes. So at this point their board is Kaldra, Giver, and Spirit of the Labyrinth, with me a 3 life. I have the mana to burn two creatures, but I pass to their turn so that they’ll have to pay the tithe. Unfortunately, I realize my mistake too late. Where before they were attacking with all their creatures, this time they just attack with Spirit & Kaldra, leaving Giver behind. I can’t burn Spirit without burning Giver, and if I burn Giver, they’ll protect Spirit before I can get back Punishing Fire. I lose.
In: 2 Force of Vigor, Drop of Honey, 1 Endurance
Out: Bojuka Bog, 1 Mox Diamond, 2 Dark Depths
In Game 2 they mull to 5 and my hand has Loam + Exploration. I get the engine going unimpeded and they scoop pretty quickly thereafter.
Game 3 sees me with a similarly powerful start and them on a mull to 6. My start does almost falter when they cast March of Otherworldly Light on my Mox Diamond, leaving me with just one mana. Luckily I draw another land and am able to start Loaming away. They don’t have the Stoneforge for early pressure, instead their mana is cramped and they’re playing a lot of 1 drops – 2 Moms and an Esper Sentinel. I have Needle for their Vial, and soon thereafter a Tabernacle drops and sweeps their board. Dack joins the party and starts burying them in cards. If they hit a Rest in Peace earlier there may have been some hope but at this point I’m starting to make zombies and they scoop.
2-0
Of course no Lands player prefers to play against Storm, and I’ve seen my opponent around enough to tell they know what they’re doing. Luckily I’m on the play game 1 and I get to open on Saga, Currency Converter, Mox, pitch a land, activate Converter for a treasure. Not exactly the world’s most broken start but at least we have some pressure and our mana is set up well.
They take their first turn to just cantrip a bit, and I just play more lands and start loaming looking for combo pieces. I pass with Saga and a treasure untapped.
On their turn, they play their land and dump their hand using Wishclaw to find Ad Nauseum and cast it with no mana floating. This is about as good as an Ad Naus can get for us since they’ll need zeros to get anywhere from there and we have a tutor lined up next turn. I’m also staring at a Punishing Fire in my hand praying that they’ll go to 2 life and I can steal this one.
They flip Echo of Eons and take 6 so it looks like we might get there, but they stop short at 3 life. Their pile of cards, however, can’t do anything other than LED into Echo. So I burn them to 1 with that on the stack, again praying to Lage that their 7 will be bad. Lage does reward her faithful – their 7 spins up some more mana but ends up just casting Galvanic Relay, setting them up to win next turn.
There won’t be a next turn though. I Wishclaw for a Punishing Fire and finish the job.
In: everything except Endurance & Drop of Honey
Out: a ton of creature killing stuff, Dack, Currency Converter, Karakas, that kind of thing. I left Tabernacle in case they’re the one TES player who is still trying to cast Empty the Warrens.
Game 2 I’m on the draw. My hand makes a turn 2 Marit Lage so I vacillate a bit but end up keeping it. Their hand makes a turn 1 Tendrils for 20 so all that agonizing over the keep/mull was really pointless since they had plenty of agony ready for me in their hand already.
In game 3 my hand has a lot more interaction, including a Spell Pierce and a Pyroblast. Aside from that we’re not doing a lot but their deck is pretty all-in and doesn’t play discard. So I figure if I can stop the first try I can get there. I lead on a fetch so that I can cast either Pierce or Pyroblast as needed. On their turn 1 they spew their hand into a Burning Wish with 4 mana floating. I have to Pierce this, and luckily that means they can’t get Relay or anything else that would set them up next turn. Instead they have to pick up Echo of Eons and hope to draw mana/LEDs to cast it.
The game inches on from there. After a few scary turns trying to dodge LED, I find a Chalice that I set to zero. Eventually I set up to kill them with Lage, at which point they ritual into their Echo. I have the Pyroblast though and that’s the match.
After the games they mentioned that they had boarded out a lot of their anti-counter stuff (Defense Grids and Veils) and brought in answers to permanents (Abrupt Decay). It looks like leaning on blue instead of Spheres paid off, especially as I didn’t show them blue cards in games 1 or 2.
3-0
This time it’s a more typical Yorion Death & Taxes list, though again piloted by a veteran. Luckily in game 1 I’m on the play and I kind of run away with it, just doing Lands stuff, though they do get some hits in.
In: Drop of Honey, 2 Force of Vigor, 1 Endurance
Out: 1 Mox Diamond, 2 Dark Depths, 1 Bojuka Bog
Game 2 gets a bit more interesting. They lead on Vial, but I have Exploration and the natural Needle for their Vial. Then their turn 2 play is Port into Stoneforge Mystic for Kaldra. At this point I’m wondering if should have held Needle for this situation, since this setup is the main way I lose this matchup. But what’s done is done and I’m a little lucky since I have a Crop Rotation so I can find Maze. I also have Dack. So I drop Dack and hold up green mana so I can protect him with Maze. This won’t last forever, though, since they have Port and will be able to tap Maze as the turns go by.
The next turn plays out as planned – they put in Kaldra and I Maze it, saving Dack from Mirrodin’s voltron. They also missed their land drop, which bodes well and makes that Needle on Vial look pretty good after all. The next turn is still dicey, but Dack lets you see a lot of cards, and I have Exploration up already. I find Loam, and then I also find a second Crop Rotation. So when they tap my Maze, I rotate it for a second Maze and buy Dack another turn. Now the engines are revving up and I can loam back the first Maze and starting Wasting their lands. My Sagas are popping off too and finding Currency Converter which, with Dack, means I’m making a ton of treasure so I’m sitting on a pile of mana.
With two Mazes it’s quite hard for them to kill Dack and though they do eventually answer Loam with a Recruiter for Faerie Macabre, the game is a bit out of hand, especially as I find Tabernacle and Field of the Dead. They scoop when I find a Punishing Fire on top of it all. But while I did win, they stole from me the thrill of using Dack’s emblem to steal Kaldra with Punishing Fire. Perhaps it’s my opponent who is the greatest thief in the multiverse after all.
4-0
At this point I’m 4-0 and since everyone knows that the first 4 matches of a tournament demonstrate your skill far more than the last 2, this means that I’m gifted the honor of making it to the top8 via intentional draws. I know I’ll be paired against 8Cast and my list is not very well suited to the matchup (no Shadowspear, only 2 Force of Vigor). I’d be happy to split, but we end up playing it out.
8Cast isn’t a horrible matchup for Lands but it isn’t particularly good. And while it may seem like Dack would make the matchup great since he can steal artifacts, in practice that rarely works out too well. You can maybe steal a Seat of the Synod to deny mana, but the rest of their artifacts are mostly baubles and creatures that either turn tiny when you steal them (constructs) or have ward 4 (turtles). That said, I always keep a 20/20 in my back pocket, and sometimes that’s just the trump card you need.
My opponent is a very nice player who drove over 4 hours to be here. Always cool to see that dedication to the format. In game 1 they counter my Exploration and lead on turn 1 Chalice for 1. This slows me down a lot – I would have had an early Lage via Crop Rotation otherwise.
Following this they play an Emry. I struggle to constrain their mana through this but eventually they sacrifice it to Tabernacle after I Bojuka Bog their graveyard. My relief is short-lived, however, as they just play another one and get the engines going. They even fetch Aether Spellbomb with their Saga, making it that much harder to get Lage through.
I do manage to needle their Spellbomb (this would be a theme in these games). But Chalice prevents me from rotating for the second part of the combo. When they attack for lethal I do a quick check to see if maybe they forgot about their magic void cup but they counter my Crop Rotation through some kind of mystical mixology and I lose.
In: Blasts, Chalice, Force of Vigor, Drop
Out: Dack, Currency Converter, Field of the Dead, 1 Maze, Blast Zone
My primary plan in this matchup is to summon the Witch and attack for 20 damage. The secondary plan is to starve their mana. I cut a lot of the grindier cards because they don’t really fit with either plan. I wish I had the Shadowspear to punch through thopters, but I feel like I heard someone say that 8Cast boards out Sai against Lands. Which seems wrong to me but maybe my opponent heard that too and we get lucky.
In game 2 they don’t have the Chalice and their hand stalls out a bit as I waste them to relatively little mana. They get the Spellbomb from their Saga but I get the Needle off my Saga. After a while they start to pick up steam with an Emry but by this point I’m able to activate Thespian’s Stage targeting Dark Depths in order to create Marit Lage, a 20/20 black Avatar creature token with flying and indestructible.
Game 3 I’m on the draw. My opponent’s hand seems like it must have been somewhat speculative. He has the natural Spellbomb this time, but the rest of the hand seems like it’s just air. So while I waste an early Saga, there isn’t a lot else going on and I even have time to make some constructs off my own Saga. When Saga dies, my opponent has a decision point. He can cash in the Spellbomb for a card, or keep it and force me to Needle it.
Perhaps having seen Needle on Spellbomb for the last two games running, and wanting to find some action as he stares down my constructs, he decides to just cash it in now. As a result, I’m able to get a Mox Diamond instead of the Needle so that I can set up my mana. At this point I have 2 3/3 Constructs attacking in, as well as a Dark Depths in play. I keep drawing Pyroblasts and countering their Thought Monitors. One of these blasts gets Forced, but I’ll call it a win since they pitched Brazen Borrower and I’m eyeing the Crop Rotation in my hand. With them sitting on one card I decide I should press my advantage and finish this. I rotate for Lage and they scoop.
5-0
I felt a bit lucky to have pulled off that win against 8Cast, but now I’m out for blood and turn down the split in top 4. I know my opponent is on traditional RG Lands with Valakut Exploration. I also know that their deck is beautifully foiled out (indeed, this event had two people with foiled out Lands decks in it; apparently my region is a hotbed of Lands activity). But I also also know that they haven’t played the deck much and aren’t super familiar with Legacy since it can be hard to find games in paper. That bodes well for me since the mirror is very tricky and provides many opportunities to leverage experience.
In game 1 my opener is Loam, Currency Converter, and 5 mediocre lands. Too slow, I think, so I ship it. My 6 is essentially the same but without the Loam. So down to 5 we go. That 5 isn’t horrible and I’m able to lead on Mox Diamond into Loam, which is a decent setup in the mirror.
Their 7 has Exploration into Crop Rotation for Bog. Then they Waste my only mana producing land and follow it up with Valakut Exploration. I’m drawing Loam after Loam but no mana to cast them. Finally I do find a land and cast Loam on nothing to start getting things going, but they’re looking at 4 cards a turn so they find their Loam too and Waste me again. With them having every engine and me having none, I scoop.
In: 2 Force of Vigor, HydroBlast, Spell Pierce
Out: 1 Maze, 2 Dark Depths, Tabernacle
In game 2, we both mull to 6 but have decent starts, me with the Mox + Currency Converter opener and them with Exploration and a grip of lands. I have Stage and Wasteland in play, so I can do some tricksy stuff, and I make a rogue token to start pressuring them a bit.
At this point they play out Stage + Depths on their side of the field. They know, however, that Wasteland blows them out, so they don’t go for it. I’m not too worried, especially as I draw a Karakas. This actually puts me in an interesting position, since I can make Lage off their Depths and answer any Lage they make themselves. On their next turn, they play an Endurance, presumably to start blocking my rogue token. They end their turn with Forest, Stage, and Depths untapped, though Yavimaya is in play so they can make Lage if they want. I copy their Depths and they say OK. I pick up Drew Tucker’s wonderful rendition of an old lady being served tea by a fox on the back of a DanDan artist proof (that’s my 20/20) and put it into play. My opponent does a double take and tells me I that I don’t have a Dark Depths. I tell them I copied theirs. They scoop. This is the kind of thing I meant when I said the mirror is tricky. In retrospect though I should have started by wasting their Stage to force the action, so I can hardly claim to be a master either.
In game 2, I mull to 6 and they mull to 5. They lead on Diamond into Saga, leaving them with 2 cards. I waste the Saga and they concede.
At this point the bloodlust has left me (plus my finals opponent is 8Cast again, and quite good with the deck). We split the prizes and call it a day.
6-0
I’m not 100% sure that RUG is the definitive build of Lands for the current meta but I will say it’s a lot of fun. I do think that the blue counters are a lot better positioned than Spheres at the moment. Being able to interact turn 1 against combo without also slowing yourself down, as well as countering the key spells out of control decks (e.g. Ruination, Blood Moon, Price of Progress) means I’d much rather have those in the board than some 2cmc artifacts that can often hurt me as much as my opponent.
I have seen lists that splash blue just for those sideboard cards but don’t have the Currency Converter + Dack package. Personally, however, I found Dack to be pretty good overall (shoutout to tim for convincing me to play the planeswalker on the night before the event). The GOAT Thief is a good engine in our deck, especially as we can ramp into him and no one is bringing in Pyroblast against us. The lists without Dack tend to just run maindeck Endurances instead, but I feel that having the additional engines is more valuable than a random 3/4, albeit one with a powerful effect.
With regard to the list going forward, the maindeck felt very solid. I particularly liked having 13 untapped green lands (so 17 turn 1 green sources, compared to the usual 15-16). I don’t think I had to mull a green-free hand all day. That, combined with Currency Converter making treasure tokens, makes playing three colors a little more reasonable where before it’s been a bit hard to justify the damage it does to your manabase. I’d love to fit in a Ketria Triome but coming in tapped isn’t the best, and the slots are pretty tight. Field might be a flex slot depending on your meta, but mine is full of slow fair decks so it felt good to have.
For the sideboard, I probably would not play Drop online, and the 3 Endurance are mostly flex slots. I had them to beat Delver and provide splash damage against a lot of combo decks. I could see Surgical, Shadowspear, Grafdiggers Cage, or even Choke (we have only 1 Island) in those slots, depending what you want to target. I’m still on the hunt for something that can powerfully hose 8Cast while also being useful against other decks, and when I find it maybe that’s what I’ll slot in there (Meltdown or the 3rd Force of Vigor maybe?).
In all, it’s just great to see innovation in the Lands shell pay off. I want to say thanks to TCG Con and the TO for organizing what is probably the biggest Legacy event our area will see for a while, and a big thanks to our local legacy community for coming out. Some people drove from way up in the mountains and that’s wonderful to see.
Until next time, happy loaming!
G’day Lands lovers and greetings from Down Under!
I’m a long-time enthusiast of the Legacy Lands deck and a big fan the work aslidsiksoraksi has done to create the Pendrell Vale website. After reading and listening to so much amazing content, I wanted to give something back. However, I’m far from a Legacy expert, so I decided the best thing I could do was to highlight how Lands is played in the coolest Magic format that you probably didn’t even know exists: 7 Point Highlander.
7 Point Highlander (also known as Australian Highlander or 7PT) is a constructed singleton format popular with Magic aficionados in Australia since its creation in 1996. The format uses the Vintage card pool and ban list, balancing deck construction and gameplay through a points system whereby you can only run 7 points worth of powerful cards in your 60-card deck and 15-card sideboard. A common saying in the format is “you can play all the best cards, just not all at once”. You can sleeve up a Black Lotus, but it will cost you 4 points (and a small fortune). Everyone’s favourite shirtless friend Oko, Thief of Crowns got himself run out of Modern and Legacy, but he has a home here…for 2 points, of course. Efficient tutors are often pointed and WotC’s latest F.I.R.E. design mistakes will quickly find themselves added to the list. It keeps the format feeling fresh and relatively balanced (it’s an Eternal format, so, you know, blue) while adding an interesting layer to deck construction. On that note, here is the current points list as per the release of Streets of New Capenna:
5 points: Ancestral Recall; Time Walk.
4 points: Black Lotus; Thassa’s Oracle; Time Vault.
3 points: Demonic Tutor; Mana Crypt; Mox Emerald; Mox Jet; Mox Pearl; Mox Ruby; Mox Sapphire; Sol Ring; Underworld Breach; Vampiric Tutor.
2 points: Channel; Dig Through Time; Flash; Imperial Seal; Lurrus of the Dream-Den; Lutri, the Spellchaser; Mystical Tutor; Oko, Thief of Crowns; Protean Hulk; Strip Mine; Tinker; Treasure Cruise; True-Name Nemesis.
1 point: Balance; Crop Rotation; Deathrite Shaman; Dreadhorde Arcanist; Enlightened Tutor; Fastbond; Force of Will; Gifts Ungiven; Green Sun’s Zenith; Gush; Intuition; Karakas; Library of Alexandria; Lim-Dul’s Vault; Mana Drain; Mana Vault; Merchant Scroll; Mind Twist; Mishra’s Workshop; Mystic Sanctuary; Natural Order; Oath of Druids; Profane Tutor; Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer; Sensei’s Divining Top; Skullclamp; Snapcaster Mage; Survival of the Fittest; Tainted Pact; Time Spiral; Timetwister; Tolarian Academy; Umezawa’s Jitte; Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath; Urza’s Saga; Wasteland; Wishclaw Talisman; Wrenn and Six; Yawgmoth’s Will.
In addition, the following cards are banned in Legacy but are unpointed in 7PT: Arcum’s Astrolabe; Bazaar of Baghdad; Demonic Consultation; Earthcraft; Frantic Search; Gitaxian Probe; Goblin Recruiter; Hermit Druid; Memory Jar; Mental Misstep; Mind’s Desire; Necropotence; Wheel of Fortune; Windfall; Yawgmoth’s Bargain; Zirda, the Dawnwaker.
Chaos Orb, Falling Star, and Shahrazad are banned in both formats.
At the release of each new standard legal set the points list is reviewed by the Points Committee and cards can receive their first point, additional points, or have existing points removed. The most recent change saw Lurrus of the Dream-Den receive +1 point to move from 1 to 2 and Mind Twist receive -1 point to move from 2 to 1. Additionally, the committee will outline their current “watchlist” of points being considered, which currently consists of:
A card being on the watchlist does not indicate that a change is inevitable, merely that it is being discussed. Similarly, cards not on the watchlist can (and do) receive points without first needing to be watchlisted.
The points list allows the format to remain balanced while still allowing players to enjoy the entirety of their Magic collections. If you see an old favourite on the points list that you’d love to play once again – I know there’s a lot of older Legacy players out there still sad about the banning of Survival of the Fittest – then I’d highly recommend giving the format a go. It’s great fun and has recently expanded into MTGO with more regularity. The most recent MTGO event featured the largest ever contingent of international players who were all drawn in by the chance to enjoy a unique format…and maybe a tiny bit by the first-place prize, a (real life) Mox Emerald.
Of course! Lands is the best deck in Magic, so naturally people will play it in every format where the key cards are legal. One of the key selling points of 7PT is that every card is legal (well, every card that’s legal in Vintage. Sorry Shahrazad, we hardly knew ye). This means that not only do Lands players get access to all their favourite cards such as Life from the Loam, Exploration, Dark Depths, and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, but also to some mouth-watering additions in Fastbond and Strip Mine. There are many different builds of Lands in 7PT, however a quick glance at the points list reveals an abundance of pointed cards that feel at home in the archetype: Strip Mine (2), Crop Rotation (1), Fastbond (1), Green Sun’s Zenith (1), Karakas (1), Mystic Sanctuary (1), Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath (1), Urza’s Saga (1), Wasteland (1), and Wrenn and Six (1) to name a handful. That’s 11 points already…Judge!
The singleton nature of the format creates an incredible array of diversity even within specific decks, so it’s difficult to outline exactly what a Lands deck looks like. While there’s a clear and largely green core to the deck that probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone, players naturally take their builds in directions that suit their playstyle or local metagame. I’ve been playing the deck for a while now, but there’s always more to learn. Being curious to learn more about the archetype, I recently spoke to a few notable Lands players to find out more about their decklists and experiences.
Loke was one of the first players to play decks that resemble the modern Lands shell and in the video above he goes through one of his builds from the 2016-2017 period. When we discussed his early builds, he recalled a slightly different list that was inspired by the recent printing of The Gitrog Monster. It was 4 colours with a base of green and black, splashing white for Knight of the Reliquary and blue for Trade Routes. In a theme that ran through all his early iterations, it included a Living Wish package as Loke felt that the deck was first and foremost a combo deck that had a midrange back up plan. Loke recalls that one of his main points of inspiration for the deck was
“Trying to make a ProsBloom deck (the Prosperity + Cadaverous Bloom + Squandered Resources combo) and when that failed, I looked at Lands as a way to use Squandered Resources”.
In recent years Loke has been rotating through decks rapidly but manages to sleeve up Lands builds on occasion and still incorporates a Living Wish package when he does. One of his most recent concoctions, pictured below, used the points spread of Strip Mine (2), Wasteland (1), Lurrus of the Dream-Den (1), Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer (1), Deathrite Shaman (1), and Wrenn and Six (1) – though note that Lurrus of the Dream-Den went to 2 points in the most recent points update (April 2022).
Aside from helping popularise the archetype in 7PT, Loke also coined the fitting name of Gardening Australia, although I’m not sure how well it translates internationally (Gardening Australia is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s premiere TV gardening program…my mum never misses an episode).
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/9LDcje4YH0CaRnlOa2v1mg
Alex has a long history with Lands and has managed to top 8 several large Highlander events using 4c Lands (sans blue) and Jund Midrange across both paper events and MTGO including Top 8 of the Bluebell Open, Top 8 of the 1st Highlander MTGO League (Win and Underground Sea), Top 8 of the Win a Scrubland Highlander Event, and Top 32 of the 2nd Highlander MTGO League (Win a Mox). His current build is a Naya configuration running the points of Strip Mine (2), Wasteland (1), Fastbond (1), Crop Rotation (1), Wrenn and Six (1), and Green Sun’s Zenith (1).
Alex describes this build as “a midrange deck that uses Loam and cards like Tireless Tracker, Knight of the Reliquary, and Elvish Reclaimer as an engine” and mainly focuses on establishing a decent amount of card advantage/board control before using the Depths combo as an “I win” button. However, he notes there are certain games/hands where you just go for the win as early as possible. He sees the main pull into white as being Knight of the Reliquary, noting its high power as a land tutor, while red adds Wrenn and Six which is “way too important to give up” compared to the Abzan builds he tried prior to its printing. Alex decided on Naya after deciding the manabase was too poor for 4c, though he notes that Jund builds are also well positioned due to discard spells such as Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Collective Brutality being effective against the prevalence of blue decks.
When I asked Alex whether he ran any cards that others tend to overlook, he highlighted Orcish Lumberjack.
“It’s either very strong, providing a large amount of ramp (the possibility of a turn 2 Titania, Protector of Argoth or Primeval Titan) or occasionally does nothing. I like it for its ability to fuel some of your Life from the Loam + Tranquil Thicket turns where you end up dredging a large number of cards into your graveyard”
Unlike a lot of Lands players in 7PT, Alex didn’t draw too much inspiration from Legacy builds when constructing his 7PT list and got into the archetype after an Abzan list caught his eye during his initial foray into the format. He then started researching Legacy decklists to refine his Highlander build. Despite having success with the archetype in the past, Alex doesn’t see it as being particularly well positioned in the current metagame and has been frequenting his “Boomer” Jund Midrange list at tournaments. However, he notes that the recent de-pointing of Life from the Loam (it went from 1 point to 0 in February 2022) has breathed new life into 7PT Lands.
An older Jund list: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/kGHUDN3fXk-9uxs-PM6HxA
An older Junk list: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/7LFMnfYkd0yZMwqxbiWI3A
Jake has been jamming Lands builds in every format for a long time now, including 7PT Lands of all colours and builds, Legacy Lands, Modern Amulet Titan and BtL Scapeshift, and Mono Green Devotion in Pioneer. Jake has achieved success in 7PT with numerous top 8 finishes including at CanCon. His current build for 7PT Lands is a 4-colour list (pictured below, left) featuring the points spread of Strip Mine (2), Wasteland (1), Fastbond (1), Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath (1), Wrenn and Six (1), and Urza’s Saga (1). Notably, he has shifted away from the Dark Depths + Thespian’s Stage combo to the increased printing of answers to Marit Lage such as Brazen Borrower//Petty Theft, Prismatic Ending, Solitude, Otawara, Soaring City, and Boseiju, Who Endures.
He has been enjoying the addition of blue to the deck, which has provided:
“The busted cantrips, some soft permission, Uro, and Tameshi, Reality Architect, who is quickly becoming a favourite. He can re-buy Saga and draw a card for only 1 mana, get back value pieces such as Courser of Kruphix, Expedition Map, and Soul-Guide Lantern, return all parts of the Zuran Orb + Fastbond + Crucible of the Worlds combo, or even just pick up a land for more Field of the Dead triggers”.
His current list has 61 cards as he tests out options for the upcoming Eternal Weekend, though at FnM he enjoys running the “61-card special” for now. His recent acquisition of a Bazaar of Baghdad has seen him devote some time to refining his “Bazaar aggro” list (pictured below, right) which, naturally, has a strong Lands subtheme and runs Crop Rotation, Elvish Reclaimer, Life from the Loam, Dark Depths, Thespian’s Stage, and Urza’s Saga.
I asked Jake about how he saw Lands moving forward, and his view was generally positive.
“I feel that Lands will always be competitive. People in Canberra [his local meta] are having a lot of success with Rx to combat all the “Greed Piles”, which certainly hurts, but early Strip locks are lights out against most decks in the format and if they keep pumping out cards like Field of the Dead and Urza’s Saga, then Lands will always be powerful”
“Though if they print another Blood Moon or Back to Basics type effect, we could be in trouble”
“Magus of the Basics. Ew!”
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/0mdkTrPxjkCmXap0FRMLZQ
Justin’s list is a classic Jund build running Strip Mine (2), Crop Rotation (1), Fastbond (1), Wrenn and Six (1), Deathrite Shaman (1), and Wasteland (1). These builds are popular for a reason as they offer fantastic answers and often incorporate a healthy discard package. Dark Confidant is a notable staple of the build given nearly half the deck costs 0 (i.e., are lands). Justin started running the deck as he felt the Jund colours were the strongest to oppose his local meta and enjoys Jund in general because it “always seems to be at least semi-relevant”. He describes the game plan as being to disrupt the opponent’s early game with hand attack and removal before getting Loam into the bin and begin digging for relevant combo pieces. In particular, he highlighted Field of the Dead, Zuran Orb, Deathrite Shaman, and Titania, Protector of Argoth as the MVPs of the list.
Justin describes himself as being fascinated with land cards ever since he began playing Magic back during Revised and says drew inspiration from a variety of different Legacy builds when constructing his 7PT list. He loves the 7PT format for being “a magical Christmas land for a brewer” and the Lands archetype for having a wide range of build options including midrange, combo, reanimator, and more. At the end of our discussion, I asked Justin for his “hot take” on the archetype.
“I’m actually starting to suspect that Abzan might be a better colour combination than Jund”
“Having access to cards like Knight of the Reliquary is bonkers”
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/xl8LqXhwOES6XCMzv6J6eg
Tal plays a Naya midrange brew that they describe as “Maverick-esque Lands as opposed to dedicated Lands” and utilises the points selection of Strip Mine (2), Wasteland (1), Wrenn and Six (1), Karakas (1), Crop Rotation (1), and Green Sun’s Zenith (1), though occasionally substituting Fastbond for Karakas. While they most often play in local weekly games, Tal piloted an earlier version of their list to a top 4 finish in the Adelaide Eternal Highlander Challenge of October 2019.
Tal came to the format via Modern and from listening to LoadingReadyRun discussions of Canadian Highlander and the Lands builds present there. They developed their list by taking elements of CanLander builds and combining them with variants of Legacy “Punishing Maverick” lists. Their current build incorporates some “light stax” pieces such as Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Archon of Emeria which they describe as being “powerful on the play and operating in the same realm as Strip Mine and Wasteland to put on pressure while assembling your own gameplan” and noting that “forcing base blue decks to cantrip around them to find answers is very powerful”.
Tal describes their game plan as leveraging mana dorks to allow free use of their land drops for utility purposes including stifling mana while also presenting threats. Tutors are utilised to give redundancy while also allowing the transition into “unfair” plans such as the Depths combo or Strip locks. In more recent times they’ve shifted away from sold old favourites in Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows, which lose some power in a singleton format and can often feel mediocre without the other half. In general, Tal agrees with Alex about the currently unfavourable positioning of Lands in the format, citing a recent trend whereby “synergy midrange has been underperforming relative to raw individual card power”.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/UmbUckfToU6zPW_SDQjBCg
I’ve named my current build of Lands the “piggy” brew due to my decision to forego my old Jund build in favour of a “greedy piggy” 5 colour approach. My current points are Strip Mine (2), Fastbond (1), Wrenn and Six (1), Crop Rotation (1), Urza’s Saga (1), and Intuition (1).
In a similar vein to Loke’s initial build, my list has a stronger combo focus than most and settles into a midrange plan when key pieces are lacking. It leans more heavily on the power of Fastbond and uses Intuition as an “I win” card to assemble infinite landfall combos such as Fastbond + Oboro, Palace in the Clouds + Retreat to Hagra by fetching Sevinne’s Reclamation and the necessary pieces. Additional cards like Courser of Kruphix, Tireless Provisioner, and Glacial Chasm allow you to circumvent the life loss from Fastbond and generate infinite Landfall, which can be useful to:
The 7-point restriction means I’ve dropped an archetype staple in Wasteland due to it being less effective than Strip Mine when being consistently recurred (in fact, Ghost Quarter does a better job here too, given infinite landfall). The card I’m running that’s probably the most “flex” addition is Armageddon, which is unsurprisingly a great play if you’re able to play lands from your graveyard and your opponent can’t (particularly if you can follow it up with a Tabby, or better yet a Tabby + Strip Mine). Older Legacy players might enjoy the throwback to Sascha Thomsen’s 43 Lands deck from 2006 and its 3 sideboard copies of Armageddon.
Naturally, playing cards across all 5 colours while also maintaining a high density of utility lands has its downsides and this brew is one that’s geared slightly more towards fun than being consistently competitive. That’s fine, as 7PT has room for both. I run this list at weekly events at my LGS or in “kitchen table” games against friends.
Like a lot of Lands players in 7PT, I initially learned about the archetype from Legacy Lands and was hooked ever since watching Jarvis Yu take out a flawless victory in the Grand Prix Seattle-Tacoma 2015 Finals. While I don’t often play Legacy anymore, I try to keep an eye on how the list is developing via the discord and articles on Pendrell Vale. I think that a lot can be gained by examining similar archetypes from different formats and understanding the utility of specific card selections and how they might be applied in your format of choice (I’m currently keeping an eye on the testing of Currency Converter in Legacy builds). In a similar vein, I built my list to maximise the effectiveness of cards that have been deemed too powerful for Legacy in Fastbond and Strip Mine (and to a lesser extent Wrenn and Six) because, well, they must be good!
In contrast to the more refined and focused builds present in Legacy, the singleton nature of the 7PT format naturally results in a more diverse array of builds and card selections. While the Legacy Lands deck can function more effectively in a “prison/control” role due to 4x Wasteland, 4x Rishadan Port (4x everything), players in 7PT have only a single copy of each key piece and must build accordingly. This Loam is your Loam, protect it well!
Whether you prefer a focused list with 4x staples or enjoy showing off a wider range of Lands synergies depends on your mindset, however in each format it’s possible to see the core principles of the archetype in both card choices and play patterns. In my opinion, the beauty of the Lands deck that is shared across both formats is the flexibility and “toolbox approach” which allows the pilot to adapt to a wide range of scenarios and still come out victorious. Well, that and the beauty of jamming down a Tabby and watching your opponent squirm.
I would encourage all 7PT Lands players to seek out the knowledge available on the Pendrell Vale website and in the broader Legacy Lands community, and on the other hand, I hope this article encourages even one dedicated Legacy Lands player to check out the 7PT format and join us in refining the Lands archetype under our ruleset. Whether you’re tempting by the chance to sleeve up the raw power of Fastbond and Strip Mine or just keen to jam a 5-drop in Titania, Protector of Argoth (or a 6-drop in Primeval Titan!), I would suggest checking out the 7PT website (https://7ph.com.au/), Discord (https://discord.gg/Xcq72wJPv5), or Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/266315333384411) as a starting point.
Happy Loaming!
This past weekend I split the Finals of the Legacy Showcase Qualifier with 8 Mulch. I have played Legacy often in the past, almost exclusively on non blue decks. These include Lands, Death & Taxes, and Humans. Recently a deck that caught my eye by defeating me at FNM was 8 Mulch Lands. I have long personally felt that Mox Diamond was not a good card, since it is inherently card disadvantage. Seeing a Lands list that stayed away from Diamonds interested me, and I decided to explore it in preparation for both the Super Qualifier, and the Showcase Qualifier.
I started with a list I found in the Lands discord. I liked the Gr list, since I knew with the popularity of Delver that the Red Blast effects would be strong. These initial lists looked similar to this:
Things I did notice through initial testing included that the Delver matchup felt very good, Collector Ouphe was strong in several matchups, notably 8 Cast, and that the deck was a little shaky at turning on Field as well as having enough Green and Red sources. Also, even though it is awkward, you wanted 2 Yavimaya since it makes the deck function so much more smoothly if you have it.
The above list is what I registered in the Super Qualifier, where I ran into 2 Storm decks and Reanimator. I ended up going 3-3, but still felt confident about the deck overall. If you aren’t playing Delver you can’t beat everything, and I liked the game plans the deck had against the most popular decks.
After talking about the deck some on the Lands discord I was convinced that trying to beat Storm was a fool’s errand, and that a second Tabernacle was good against Delver.
That led me to this list. You can see I shaved on Stage and Depths for a Tower of the Magistrate and a Fetch. The Tower is purely a meta call against 8 Cast and D+T, but it makes 8 Cast much easier to beat. The fetch is just for improved consistency, as well as making the Loams stronger. Without Mox Diamonds they are actually harder to turn on than you would think. Finally, I also like 1 Ghost Quarter as a flex slot in the main. It plays well against Needle and Surgical on Wasteland, lets you kill the island out of Delver, and is just a fifth waste effect in Depths mirrors.
The sideboard changes were simple. I cut the three Mindbreak Traps for an Ouphe, a Pyroblast, and a Tabernacle. These changes improved my plans against both 8 Cast and Delver, while still giving me a protect-the-Ouphe plan against Storm.
I wasn’t super hopeful coming into the tournament. It was a 9 rounder and I knew I needed to hit the right matchups. The main thing going for me was I was hoping to hit Delver, so just needed a little luck for that to happen.
I get my desired matchup, and keep a strong opener game 1, with Exploration into possible turn two Marit Lage. My opponent Forces the Exploration, but I get Manabond down turn 2, and still get the 20/20 down early. This wins the game.
Sideboard: +1 Tabernacle, +4 Blasts, +2 Flame Jab, -2 Manabond, -2 Crop Rotation, -1 Life from the Loam, -1 Tower of the Magistrate, -1 Karakas
This is my SB plan against Delver. Essentially I think natural Tabernacle is strong since it ties up their mana, making the the cantrip engine substantially less impactful. Perhaps most importantly it means that Expressive Iteration comes online much later, or at one less card. Apart from that Jab can kill both one drops, and the Blasts can fight over Murktide or Iteration. Don’t be afraid to counter Iteration, you don’t want them digging towards more Wastelands.
Game 2 I have 2 Explorations and a Tabernacle. Opponent leads on Delver, and since I have 2 Exploration I decide getting Exploration dazed doesn’t matter. My opponent does Daze the Exploration. They then flip a Daze to the Delver. I decide to play into the Daze with my second Exploration, and my opponent decides to Daze it as well. This leaves them with no lands in play thus allowing for my Tabernacle to kill the Delver and buying me significant time. My opponent is a bit threat light, and I am able to 1 land drop at a time build up a board presence. I eventually draw Field, but the opponent has a Wasteland. I proceed to punt as I play my Field as my 7th different Land. This lets the waste deny me a zombie. You should play it as your 8th, so you get the zombie through Field being wasted. My opponent doesn’t have Price in their deck though, so I am not punished and win with loam eventually.
1-0
This is a difficult matchup. I can’t really kill their guys, Flame Jab doesn’t kill big dudes, and they have more land tutoring than I do by a large margin. Also with Safekeeper Depths is a win con for them in a way it is not for me in the matchup. Game 1 they mull to 5, I lead on Exploration in a strong hand, and they ending it on their turn 1. I end up not being able to turn on field before I lose to Reclaimer and Knight of the Reliquary.
Sideboard: +1 Force of Vigor, -1 Tower of the Magistrate
My Sideboard does not have any strong options for the depths matchup, just cards that are situational. Fortunately the main deck has few cards that are truly dead in the matchup. Game 2 I have a slow start. I think I have lost when my opponent untaps with a Knight of the Reliquary. I am fortunate when they play a Ramunap Excavator, and then activate the Knight in their mainphase to get a Wasteland to recur with the Excavator. I have 2 Crops to make a 20/20 in response to the proactive Wasteland activation and that is enough to win the game.
Sideboard: +1 Force of Vigor, +2 Surgical Extraction, -1 Tower of the Magistrate, -1 Tabernacle, -1 Dark Depths
I decided in game 3 that Tabernacle was bad, and Depths was a liability. Game 3 the only pressure they draw is Endurance, and I am able to Loam Lock them out eventually. I am pretty sure I played this poorly, since at one point I was dead to Sejiri Steppe, but it worked out anyways.
2-0
In game 1 I mull to 6, and see this as my Hand. I choose to keep.
Now this isn’t a good hand against most decks. But I feel strongly that Tabernacle into Maze is a strong opener against creature based Delver draws. So I keep because of the overwhelming presence of Delver in the meta. I luck out and opponent leads on Delver. I don’t draw much, so I lose but the game goes to turn 8 with the time this hand bought on the draw. This will also not be the last time I keep such an opener in this tournament.
Sideboard: +1 Tabernacle, +4 Blasts, +2 Flame Jab, -2 Manabond, -2 Crop Rotation, -1 Life from the Loam, -1 Tower of the Magistrate, -1 Karakas
Game 2 I Flame Jab an early Delver to buy time. I follow this up by using Mulches to fill my hand. Over the course of the game they counter 2 Crops cast in response to Wasteland activations, which gives me the opening to get down a Manabond that makes a lethal board presence with Field of the Dead.
Game 3 I keep a Red Blast and Maze heavy hand with a Jab. They lead on Delver, which I Jab. The protect the Delver with a Daze, but Mazes answer the early threats. The Blasts counter Iterations, and eventually I wasteland them out 1 land drop at a time. The early interaction also kept my life total high enough where I never was dead to a Price of Progress. If you are playing from behind Price of Progress becomes a card you can no longer afford to play around.
3-0
This is not a good matchup. I have 4 Crops and 2 Surgicals, but they have enough discard to win through it. Game 1 I lead on Manabond and pass on the play. They turn 1 Archon me and we are on to game 2.
Sideboard: -1 Maze, -1 Tower, +2 Surgical
Game 2 they have a slow hand, but Show and Tell gets in Archon through my GY hate. They attack into a Depths and Stage, and so I eat it in combat. I untap, attack them to 5, and then Wasteland them. They can’t reanimate the Archon again and I win.
Sideboard: -1 Maze, -1 Tower, -2 Manabond, +2 Surgical +2 Pyroblast
Game 3 I board in 2 Blasts for 2 Bonds, but just get turn 1’d after setting to mulling to Crop.
3-1
This is the deck I played at the FNM where I lost to 8 Mulch. The matchup is complicated, with lots of interaction on both sides. I believe 8 Mulch and Lands decks are advantaged overall. Even without Punishing Fire the ability to gain resources without using the graveyard with the Mulch effects gives 8 Mulch a resilient game plan. Game 1 I mull to 5, but Mulch and Loam draw me plenty of lands. I use Tower of the Magistrate to answer a Kaldra Compleat, and follow it with a sandbagged Manabond to flood the board with the undead to win the game. It is important to sandbag Bond in matchups where opponents have sorcery speed answers to the enchantment, like Skyclave Apparition. This is the opposite of Delver where you want to get it down before they can draw counterspells.
Sideboard: -1 Ghost Quarter, -1 Bojuka Bog, -1 Loam, -1 Crop Rotation, +2 Force of Vigor, +2 Flame Jab
So, boarding out Crop Rotation might be a mistake, but I liked my other cards and it is technically card disadvantage so I did it anyways. Game 2 I mull to Bond, Jab, Winding Way and lands. Opponent has Leyline of the Void, and leads on Mother of Runes. I jab it off of a fetched Stomping Ground. This list has 2 Taigas, and I knew with the Way and the Manabond I would be trying to win with Field of the Dead. I felt the risk that I draw both Taigas and turn on Field too late was more likely than the chance I lose to the 2 life lost. Opponent just has Thalia and some beaters, and I end up getting there with Bond and Field making me a horde of zombies.
4-1
Game 1 I lead on Manabond since I believe that to be right against Delver, and in the blind I sequence as if the opponent is on Delver. Opponent Prismatic Endings it on their turn 1. I proceed to do nothing but play lands that provide no pressure until I get locked out with Narset and Day’s Undoing.
Sideboard: -1 Maze of Ith, -1 Tabernacle, -4 Crop Rotation, +4 Blasts, +1 Force of Vigor, +1 Surgical
So, I boarded in Force of Vigor in case of Moon or Back to Basics, and they had Ruination. So it was bad. Surgical is also meh, but I thought it might hit Narset and make the game easier. Either way I mulligan to a slow hand, they ruination me into Narset Day’s Undoing with a Force for my Blast. I lose shortly after.
4-2
Game 1 I keep a hand with Mulch and Exploration. They lead Delver, I play Wasteland and pass. I only had non-basic Green sources, and I knew I wanted to respect Daze on my spells. Wasteland was the best way to get to 2 mana. They miss 1 turn on Delver, and I am able resolve my spells. I go down to 4 before Making Marit Lage which protects me from a lethal attack from Delver and Murktide. I am then able to Blast Zone the one drops which forces Murktide to chump and wins me the game.
Sideboard: +1 Tabernacle, +4 Blasts, +2 Flame Jab, -2 Manabond, -2 Crop Rotation, -1 Life from the Loam, -1 Tower of the Magistrate, -1 Karakas
Game 2 I have Flame Jab to kill an opening Delver. This Flame Jab also slows down the Delver player from committing to the board at all, buying me much more time than a normal spot removal spell. This time is used to get a Marit Lage which wins the game.
5-2
Game 1 I play Exploration into Daze on the draw. They didn’t lead on threat, so the upside of slowing down their cantrips seemed like an okay tradeoff. It gets dazed, but they are slow, and I make a 20/20 as the first threat and win the game.
Sideboard: +1 Tabernacle, +4 Blasts, +2 Flame Jab, -2 Manabond, -2 Crop Rotation, -1 Life from the Loam, -1 Tower of the Magistrate, -1 Karakas
Game 2 I have a decent hand that can stabilize, but doesn’t have a win condition. I take some hits down to 12, before stabilizing 3 Mazes for their three threats. I then get priced to 2 and lose to a Wasteland killing my 3rd Maze of Ith. Can’t always beat Price.
Game 3 I keep Manabond and 2 Mulches. All of them resolve, so I make a Horde of Zombies and also wasteland my opponent out of the game.
6-2
At this point I am 13th in the standings, and figure I just need to win to make Top 16. I don’t think I have a chance at Top 8. Game 1 they have Loam, I have Mulches and Exploration. I think I make many mistakes, but eventually the horde of Zombies pull through. This is helped by the opponent dredging over their Pithing Needle so my Maze of Ith can blank their Shadow Spear.
Sideboard: -1 Tabernacle, -1 Maze of Ith, -1 Manabond, -1 Dark Depths, +2 Surgical, +2 Force of Vigor
I left in a Depths so I couldn’t get all my Fields Surgicaled and lose because I can’t win.
As can be seen in the screenshot the game goes well for me. 24 Power on turn 3 is tough to beat.
After the game is over I wait on the off chance I breaker in. As I wait I see all the x-2s ahead of me have Lost, and I start to gain hope. And luckily enough, the large number of match results I needed to get 8th has happened, and I qualify for the Legacy Showcase by playing some sweet Rebecca Guay Mulches.
7-2
Game 1 I keep Loam and Exploration. I also have a Stage and a Field. Everything resolves, but I have no way to slow down the opponent, and Bolts, DRC, and Murktide finish me off before I get a turn 4.
Sideboard: +1 Tabernacle, +4 Blasts, +2 Flame Jab, -2 Manabond, -2 Crop Rotation, -1 Life from the Loam, -1 Tower of the Magistrate, -1 Karakas
Game 2 I keep a hand full of Mulches with a Blast on the Draw. I blast a Delver on turn 1, and then get my Mulches forced. My opponent plays no threats, and I end up locking them out with Loam and Wasteland.
Game 3 Tabernacle and Maze help to slow down the game, and then I am able to assemble Loam plus Wasteland in part due to my opponent having to use a Surgical in order to get down a Murktide.
8-2
Game 1 I have early Tabernacle to slow things down, and get a Bond into Depths Combo to seal the game up.
Sideboard: +1 Tabernacle, +4 Blasts, +2 Flame Jab, -2 Manabond, -2 Crop Rotation, -1 Life from the Loam, -1 Tower of the Magistrate, -1 Karakas
Game 2 I keep a hand with Maze, Blasts, and Mulches, but no Red. Double DRC applies a lot of pressure, my Mulch hits all spells, and I get Wastelanded off of Green. Then my opponent also has Price.
Game 3 I keep a hand that can’t cast any spells.
But yet again I so believe in the power of Tabernace and Maze against Delver I quickly determine this to be a keep. The combo is enough to prevent all pressure from the opponent, as their only wasteland has to be held up for Depths as the game continues. I eventually draw a green, get depths online, and only take 14 from Price to seal up the game.
9-2
Me and my opponent agreed to split the finals, with him taking the win since he cared about MOCS points and I did not.
Overall I got fortunate in how many of my games played out, and fortunate that I got Delver so many times. Overall I think it is clear that slowing down Delver’s mana is important, and without the ability to cast early cantrips Murktide, DRC, and Iteration all get noticeably weaker. They also start to miss land drops furthering the impact of other mana denial. I truly believe Tabernacle is very effective against the current Builds of Delver.
Online it is easy to play even four copies of Tabernacle, but in real life the price of the card leaves this strategy out of the reach of almost all Legacy players. I also believe when Lurrus was legal two Tabernacle was a strong option. Legacy is fun, Lands is fun, and trying out all sorts of cards is fun as well. I wish it was more accessible to more people.
This is an article by the great Japanese player Dull04.
https://note.com/dull04/n/n031da59622b5
While it is originally written in Japanese, the translation via Google is effective enough to render it readable. The article makes some excellent points about Saga’s strengths and weaknesses and why Dull04 prefers a build with just one Saga.
I have been experimenting with proactive combo-oriented Lands builds in many forms for a long time. I started with creating Ad Nauseam lands way back in the Miracles meta, and have gone through many iterations of Treasure Hunt memes.
While Crop Rotation and Dark Depths are very powerful cards, and key parts of traditional Lands and Turbo Depths, they take up a lot of deck space and provide a point of weakness against common hate like Force of Will and Wasteland.
I discovered Mulch while testing a Treasure Hunt Lands list. Even though the upside was nowhere near as crazy as Treasure Hunt, the consistency was far higher, and it got me excited about diving even deeper into the Mulch plan.
The deck is based on using traditional Exploration as well as Manabond to get as many lands into play as possible to power the land threats Field of the Dead and Urza’s Saga. To back this up, we use land-advantage spells like Life from the Loam, Mulch and Winding Way, which all can easily be 3-for-1 land card advantage.
The printing of several new powerful cards enabled this deck to rise in strength, making it a new viable archetype:
Urza’s Saga – A more consistent and powerful threat than Dark Depths. It doesn’t require tutor support to put on pressure.
Boseiju, Who Endures – Flexible card that gives a maindeckable, recurrable, tutorable answer to common problems such as Dark Depths, Blood Moon, and Leyline of the Void.
Winding Way – Mulch 5-8. With access to 8 Mulches, we can consistently find them.
Roadside Reliquary – This land is very easy to turn on with Urza’s Saga alone easily covering both card types. Divination on a land gives the deck another line of card advantage that is not disrupted by graveyard hate.
Commune with Spirits – This awkward cantrip actually works in this deck, since it adds consistency at hitting the 1 mana enchantments in green.
12-0 Match streak, showcasing the raw power of the deck. Shoutout to isthetim for ending my streak with LANDS. Here are some of the lists I and others have done well with.
5-0 By Me, Bryanftw
Safer version with less power:
5-0 By Me, Bryanftw:
5-0 By PunishingWaterfalls learned of the deck, got excited, and took it for a spin.
Bonus Memes for high rollers:
Fast Combo
(Storm, Belcher, Doomsday, Omnitell)
These are very bad matchups, as they are for most land-based decks
GY Combo
Reanimator, Dredge, Oops
Can be favorable with enough sideboarding
Delver
Slightly favorable, but can get delvered just like everyone else
Slow Control
(Bant, Miracles, etc)
This is why we play the deck, if you have an uncontested exploration, you WILL win.
Land-based
(Lands, Depths)
Skill matchup, slightly favorable since we are faster and have many tools to answer depths
Death and Taxes
Very favored, bury them in inevitability
Prison
Very favored, good luck with Blood Moon or Chalice of the void against Boseiju. If you get a basic forest against Moon Stompy you win the game.
Hullbreacher/Day’s Undoing Combo
Unfavored, we don’t have enough answers for hullbreacher, narset
Elves
Even-ish. We have Cage and Spirit out of the board, but rely heavily on Tabernacle like traditional Lands
Making zombies is fun. Winning a G1 against a reanimated Griselbrand and Archon is also fun.
In addition to the screenshot, there are a number of gameplay videos thanks to PunishingWaterfalls, who played the deck to a 22nd place finish in the 2/26/22 Legacy Challenge. Their content can be found on Twitch and on YouTube (and just below).
Challenge run:
League Matches:
I don’t know what the best version of this deck is. I just know that there’s enough power here for the 8-mulch deck to become its own archetype. Should we splash blue for Uro and flusterstorm? Red for Valakut Exploration and blasts? Is there space for inevitability engines such as Hall of Heliod’s Generosity? I would love for you to come join in enjoying the archetype to help figure it out.
This weekend I decided that for the legacy challenge I would want to play a version of Lands slanted towards combo because of the recent uptake in the Creature/Temporal Mastery version of Doomsday so ended up registering a list close to something that @Alli_on_mtgo posted a few weeks ago with 3 main deck Sphere of Resistance and 3 Rishadan Port. There were a few card changes due to the deck being just over my Manatraders limit such as the Shifting Ceratops in the sideboard.
I think that a lot of the card choices are pretty common knowledge at this point but some selections change with the introduction of the main deck Spheres + Ports. The main one is playing Bolt > Punishing Fire + Grove. When you introduce Sphere + Port while still having 4 Saga in the main deck then your mana is a lot more constraint and the difference between 1 and 2 (or 2 and 3 under Sphere) can become a pretty big deal so Lightning Bolt becomes more appealing then Punishing Fire. The selection of tutorable 1 drops for saga are also quite important and I have been happy with having access to all 4 in game 1s with the only thing that could change being the addition of a 2nd map.
Side note that you should be playing 1 or 2 Boseiju in the deck but I was unable to find one after being unable to rent it from manatraders for the event. The addition of Boseiju would also allow you to cut the Return to Nature for a more specific hate card in the sb such as a 3rd choke or a 2nd surgical.
Round 1 I mulligan to 5 on the play to a hand of Sphere, Ancient Tomb, Depths, Stage, Port. I make turn 1 Sphere and my opponent leads with Saga + Chrome Mox + Chrome Mox + Chalice for 0 and while they are stumbling to cast their spells efficiently I make a turn 3 20/20 and we move to sideboarding.
I sideboard in the 4th sphere and some naturalize effects for a Maze, Spellbomb, Tabernacle and a Mox (I Generally like cutting 1 Mox vs Karn/Teferi decks and I expected my opponent to have Karn)
Game 2 I mulligan to a hand of Force, Exploration, Mox, Forest, 2x Saga but my opponent had a turn 2 Karn + Coating into turn 3 Curse of Misfortunes which was too taxing and I lost pretty quickly.
Game 3 I keep a 7 of 2x Mox, Ancient Tomb, Depths, Exploration, Loam, Shadowspear and make as many permanents as I can on turn 1 while loaming back my lands. Opponent’s turn 1 was Saga go while my dredge found me a Saga of my own and a stage so I can set up for a turn 3 20/20. My opponent makes a Construct on turn 2 then passes with edict mana up. My 20/20 falls to a Sudden Edict but I am far enough at this point that my loam + Exploration can make a 20/20 every turn and eventually overrun my opponent
1-0
On the draw I keep a hand of Misty, Maze, Tabernacle, Exploration, Loam, Crop, Shadowspear. Opponent mulligans to 6 and leads with Plains + Esper Sentinel, I draw Taiga for turn and decide to let my opponent draw a card from sentinel so that I can deploy Exploration + Tabernacle. Opponent doesn’t pay for Sentinel and instead makes Plains + Stoneforge Mystic to get Lion Sash. I draw Urza’s Saga, play 2 lands and cast Shadowspear. Opponent doesn’t pay for their mystic, casts Sash and passes and quickly gets overpowered by Construct tokens.
I sideboarded in some artifact destruction and unholy heat for some spheres and lands. I mulligan in game 2 to a hand of Mox, Bolt, 2x Saga, Depths, Stage so lead with Mox + Saga after my opponent’s turn 1 of Plains pass. They follow up with Stoneforge for Lion Sash and I draw Exploration to allow me to turbo out my hand by playing the second saga to try and take over the game with constructs. Opponent makes Sash and Wastelands my Saga on 1 counter but my drawstep was Loam so instead of making a construct I fetched up Pyrite Spellbomb for the sash, cast loam and make 2 more Sagas which quickly got out of hand for my opponent.
2-0
On the play I kept a hand of Forest, Taiga, 2x Saga, Wasteland, Exploration, Shadowspear and deployed Forest + Exploration + Saga. My opponent responded with Forest + Needle on Saga which shut down my entire gameplan, this is a spot where the Boseiju would’ve been excellent if I had access to it. The next few turns involve wastlanding my opponent to try and keep them low on mana but I fail to draw relevant cards for many turns and eventually lose to a cast Ulamog.
I sideboard some forces + return to nature for Spheres and keep a mediocre 6 of Saga, Forest, Mox, Force, Exploration, Loam. I forced my opponent’s t1 needle so that I could try to make constructs and win the game quickly but that was shut down by a second needle and I lost pretty quickly to Primeval Titan.
2-1
Game 1 I keep a reasonable hand and die to Turn 1 Blood Moon (another spot where Boseiju means that I am not dead on the spot.)
Sideboard in some Forces + Return to Nature again as well as Unholy Heat and keep a 7 of Yavimaya, Saga, Port, Wasteland, Crop, Bolt, Loam. I lead with Yavimaya so that I can crop for a basic against Blood Moon but had an even better outcome than that.
Game 3 I mulligan to 6 and am given the below 7 cards to pick from after my opponent quickly kept 7. I considered what to put on the bottom for a minute before putting Maze on the bottom with a potential turn 1 Blood Moon in mind but eventually settled on Maze with the assumption that I am likely to draw a non saga land in the first 2 draw steps.
My opponent made a turn 1 moon and I was rewarded by drawing a Taiga. I made Waste + Map and my opponent followed up with T2 Magus. I draw unholy heat, make Taiga and pass. My opponent’s turn 3 was a Goblin Rabblemaster. I EoT Force the Moon and crack my map for depths, untap and make a 20/20 which was good enough.
3-1
Game 1 OTP I mulligan to a quick hand of Mox, Foothills, Saga, Stage, Wasteland, Exploration. I make Mox, Exploration, Saga which my opponent responds with Steam Vents + DRC. I draw Dark Depths, waste them and make a 20/20 and we head to game 2.
I decided to keep Spheres in on the basis of seeing the Steam Vents and assuming they are locked under Choke + Sphere while also bringing in Red Blasts, Endurance and Heat. I keep a 7 of 2x Exploration, Sphere, Wasteland, Forest, Foothills, Endurance, my turn 1 Exploration gets dazed and my opponent replayed their Island and makes Delver. I untap, make the 2nd Exploration and a Sphere. Opponent has little followup pressure and I get to eat a Delver with Endurance before starting to Wasteland their fetches, Loaming back waste and hitting their duals and the game quickly ends
4-1
I know that my opponent is on Elves so keep a good 7 of Taiga, Saga, Exploratio, Loam, Bolt, 2x Crop. I lead with Taiga + Exploration + Saga to which my opponent leads with Fetch > Forest > GSZ for Dryad Arbor. I untap, crop my saga for a fetch, fetch, loam back my 2 lands and bolt the Dryad. Opponent Bojuka Bogs me and makes an Allosaurus Shepard, I draw Wasteland, kill their Bog, cast Loam and pass with Saga mana open. Opponent makes an Elvish Visionary so I decide to main phase make a construct and then crop my Saga before it sacrifices to go get a Tabernacle + Pyrite Spellbomb and the game quickly ends from the constructs.
Game 2 my opponent mulligans to 5 and puts a Leyline of the Void into play while I keep a 7 of Wasteland, Forest, Taiga, Tabernacle, Yaviyaya, Exploration, Loam. I lead with Exploration + Tabernacle after my opponent’s T1 Forest > Heritage Druid. They played Verdant Catacombs and passed, I drew a 2nd Loam so made 2 lands and passed, EoT they fetched Dryad Arbor. They untapped and made Cradle + Shepard so I copied my Thespian’s Stage into a Dryad Arbor to be able to block if needed because I have enough mana to pay for Tabernacle each turn. I untapped, wasted their Cradle and passed. They sacrificed the Druid and attacked for 1 while my next draw step was Dark Depths which prompted the concession.
5-1
I keep a hand of Mox, Sphere, Loam, Tabernacle, Taiga, Depths, Saga OTD and am happy to have my Sphere resolve after my opponent’s t1 Island Ponder but it meets a quick demise at the hands of Prismatic Ending. I make saga and loam back my depths while my opponent makes Karakas + EoT Hullbreacher. I draw exploration and make my 2 land drops holding up Crop. Opponent untapped, casts Brainstorm and then casts Day’s Undoing with Force backup and we move to game 2.
I sideboard in some Chokes, Unholy Head, Red Blasts and a Return to Nature (because I didn’t want to have 0 outs to a sideboard Blood Moon, another spot where Boseiju would’ve been great). I keep a 7 of Mox, Crop, Choke, Stage, Wasteland, Taiga, Misty. I make T1 misty and my opponent makes T1 Island Ponder. I untap and slam a Choke which gets Force of Negationed, the opponent plays Tundra + Prismatic Ending on my Mox so I get to untap, waste their Tundra and make a Sphere. A couple of turns go by of playing lands and my opponent casting a Ponder before I crop rotate for a Saga EoT. I make 2 constructs over the next 2 turns and go fetch up Pyrite Spellbomb to protect against a Hullbreacher while Wastelanding their Volcanic Island. My opponent responds with a Meltdown for x=1 to destroy my constructs + Spellbomb off of their lands of Island, Plains, Mountain. I cast Loam on Saga + 2 lands to start trying to make constructs again and my opponent spends their turn on a Prismatic Ending on my Sphere and a Surgical on my Loam. I draw exploration so am able to develop my lands while holding up a Saga activation and also make a stage into a saga. I make some more constructs while turning my Stage/Saga into a Forest that can make constructs and beatdown my opponent while they never find more lands.
Game 3 I mulligan to a mediocre 6 of Bolt, Forest, Taiga, Waste, Stage, Port with the hope of porting them into a longer game and having a bolt for a Hullbreacher but thankfully I drew T1 Exploration so begin developing my lands. Opponent casts some cantrips and I draw another port so begin the mana denial plan. They continue to draw lands and cast a Snapcaster mage in response to my first Port activation in their next upkeep and flashback a Brainstorm. I have only drawn lands so turn my Stage into a Port EoT to continue the mana denial. Next upkeep they use the mana to cast a Hullbreacher in response to Ports which I use my Bolt on and continue taking small beats from the Snapcaster. My next draw step was Saga which meant I could Port twice and then copy saga with my Stage/Port which allowed my opponent to cast a Teferi which I had the pyroblast for. I start making constructs while continuing to port my opponent who casts a few cantrips. My draw step Sphere was countered by a force of negation while I fetched up a pyrite spellbomb to have some protection against hullbreacher, unfortunately they had Narset which found a Prismatic Ending for one of my constructs. I untapped and turned my stage/saga into a basic with the search trigger on the stack and went to get a Pithing needle on Teferi to keep the pressure up. I attack Narset with my 3/3 construct but snapcaster jumps in the way. I double port my opponent but they still had mana to cast a Day’s Undoing which drew me into a bolt. I untapped, killed the Narset to stop them digging deeper and then double ported holding up a construct activation, my opponent cast a brainstorm and fetched afterwards passing with 7 cards in hand. I made a construct and untapped, went straight to combat with two 4/4 constructs and my opponent at 12. They flashed in a hullbreaker but decided not to block which meant that making another construct meant that my pyrite spellbomb was lethal post combat!.
6-1
OTD I keep a 7 of Sphere, Exploration, Mox, Wasteland, Blast Zone, Saga, Taiga and am surprised to be met by Plains go, I draw crop and proceed with Taiga, Mox, Exploration, Saga, Sphere. My opponent untaps, wastes my saga and passes, I draw a tabernacle and make 2 lands. They miss their land drop so I crop for a saga and start going to town, a few more missed land drops and we are going to game 2.
I sideboard in some forces, return and heat but have to mulligan to a mediocre 5 that never really gets going and I get buried quickly by Stoneforge Mystic making Batterskull and Lion Sash.
I keep a 7 of Crop, Exploration, Force, Depths, Port, Taiga, Yavimaya and lead with Yavimaya, Exploration and Port. Opponent has Plains pass, I draw bolt, make my other 2 lands and pass. Opponent plays a land and Stoneforge Mystic so I decide to bet it all on no Solitude by Crop Rotating for Stage. That’s all she wrote!
7-1
Finals of the challenge, I’ve been here twice before and lost both times… third time’s the charm?
I’m on the play and keep a 6 of Foothills, Blast Zone, 2x Bolt, Loam, Mox and start by casting loam on my 2 lands. Opponent leads Scaling Tarn > Mountain > Dragon’s Rage Channeller. I dredge over 2 more lands including a saga so I bolt the DRC and get my lands back. My opponent makes Polluted Delta and passes so I decide to draw, make saga and pass to which my opponent double bolts me to set up a large Murktide Regent the following turn. I dredge to try and find an answer to the 5/5 but miss and pass with construct mana open. Opponent finds a Wasteland for my saga to stop me searching and gets in for 5, I continue dredging to try and find an answer to Murktide or a stage to go with my depths but can’t find anything.
Game 2 I keep 2x Saga, Forest, Spellbomb, Crop, Exploration, Loam. My Exploration resolves so I have an explosive start with Loam to blow out my opponent’s T1 wasteland and run away with the game through the pair of sagas + Shadowspear.
Game 3 I keep a hand of Loam, Pyroblast, Mox, 2x Wasteland, Port, Stage. My opponent lead with Volc > DRC so I waste and run out my Mox, they crack a delta and cast ponder which I decide to Pyroblast to be as efficient a possible. I draw and play tabernacle which is met with Fetch for Island + Delver, I make Saga + Loam which gets FoN’d leaving a card on top with DRC. Opponent reveals Ponder to Delver, pays for their creatures attacks me to 14 and passes. I draw and cats exploration, play 2 lands and hold up a construct which holds off the DRC. Opponent didn’t find wasteland which allowed me to make 2 constructs, find Shadowspear and get in for 5 lifelink, opponent can’t find an answer and I remember to pay for my constructs and swing in for the win!
Was very relieved to have finally won a challenge and to do it with my favorite deck at the moment makes it feel even better. The best part was winning a set of Kamigawa so that I could play a Boseiju without buying it! Am still not 100% sold on the main deck Spheres but Port definitely felt very good and feel like it could make a comeback to the deck now but could entirely depend on the build.
Was not previously sold on 4 Saga being the correct number but after this event I can’t see myself not registering 4 again, the card just does so much by creating another axis to attack on much faster than Field of the Dead could.
Went 5-2 in the Sunday challenge and 15-5 in manatraders bringing me to 28-8 over the last 3 days which is not a bad record and I am looking forward to running it back in the Manatraders swiss this weekend! @mattbrown_mtg
On Friday, 2/11/22 I was informed that I was positive for COVID. Two days later, I was 6-1 and locked for top 8 of the Sunday Legacy Challenge. What’s the secret to making this happen? Funny you should ask.
Just play Lands, the deck is absolutely cracked. Here’s a decklist:
On Saturday I woke up at 4am thinking I’d play the Saturday challenge because hey why not, I had the day off because I was sick. But the challenge didn’t start until 5am my time, so I went down for a quick snooze before it started and… woke up at 6am. Not really a bad outcome to be honest – I got to spend the day watching Jarvis play Modern (thanks Anuraag for the great stream!).
On Sunday, the challenge happened at a much more reasonable hour and I even had some time to think about my decklist. So here’s the thinking behind some of the choices:
No Spheres – Sphere of Resistance has been worse and worse for a while and I think I’m finally willing to just let it go. Back in 2020 Freya beat Sneak & Show in the finals of the Leaving a Legacy Open with her (S)Fearless Lands and today I wanted to follow in her footsteps. The thinking here is to just play 4 Depths and a pile of tutors so you can combo faster than your opponent. We do have 4 Endurance, 3 Blasts, and 2 Surgical Extraction, all of which can help against combo, but these cards also have application in fair matchups. The plan worked pretty well in this event, which actually ended up being unfortunately full of combo.
3 Expedition Map – Most people played just one Map until Anthony Rivera won the AZ Legacy Masters with a 3 Map build. While I’m not sure 3 Maps is correct (2 seems like it might be enough), they do provide a ton more selection and they let you chain Sagas into Maps repeatedly. This can be a big game against control, for example. Since it puts the land in hand, Map’s stock also goes up with the printing of this next card…
1 Boseiju – I might have played 2 but I lent one to a friend. The card is very good but it didn’t end up coming up much for me this event. Overall quite excited for it going forward.
1 Field of the Dead, 2 Valakut Exploration in the sideboard – I wanted a hedge against Death & Taxes and the control decks. It turns out all the blue pile players were in Philly, but still. Playing 0 Spheres gave me room to tech for those matchups.
4 Endurance in the sideboard – Is there a matchup where this card isn’t good? Some people are even playing it in the maindeck of Lands, but I was too attached to my Pyrite Spellbomb to cut them for the cow (deer?). I wanted the full four since it functions as both anti-combo and anti-delver tech.
I hadn’t played a ton of Lands until about a week or two before this event. After doing decently well in a couple challenges during the Ragavan era I kind of lost interest in Legacy and mostly just played weird Lands builds at my local stores. But after the ban I slowly started playing more online, and the deck has changed a bit. It seems that these days Valakut Exploration has fallen out of favor, and people are really making Urza’s Saga work as the long-game plan. The deck plays a little differently built like this, but in a good way. We care a good deal less about resolving any particular spells and have a lot of selection with multiple Maps. This means that whatever land-based game plan we want to enact, we can usually find the pieces to do it.
So, armed with this pile of digital assets, and with my head still slightly throbbing from the disease of the decade, I paid my 300 play point fee and registered for the Challenge.
I’m always nervous in these events. It’s gotten better since I started playing them more often, but my stomach gets tight and I constantly feel like I need to take a deep breath. That physical tension is the main reason I sometimes don’t play at all, and it’s at its worst right at the start of the event.
Still, no pain no gain, so lets do this. I start off on the draw and keep a 6 with Map, Crop Rotation, Saga, Maze, Grove, and Boseiju. A slow hand but serviceable. I play out Map and my opponent plays some fetchlands. I look them up and I’m in luck – their entire list is online. It’s a UW deck with Delver, Stifle, and a Stoneblade package.
They play Stoneblade, find Kaldra, and start beating down. I muster some meager defense with my constructs, but I can never seem to get my mana together to do anything. When I finally make a hail Mary pass to Marit Lage, Stifle jumps in with the interception and I lose.
Out – 2 Crop Rotation, 1 Expedition Map, 1 Forest, 2 Dark Depths, 1 Karakas, 1 Bojuka Bog, 1 Crucible
In – 3 Endurance, 3 Pyroblast, 2 Valakut Exploration, 1 Pithing Needle
Tempo decks that play Swords to Plowshares suck. Didn’t they get the memo that you shouldn’t give your opponent life when you’re playing tempo? My usual plan against Delver is to just make a 20/20 and kill them, but white Delver builds always cramp my style there. So I shave a few Depths and bring in the Valakut Explorations, planning for a longer game.
Once again I mulligan, and my 6 has Diamond, Endurance, and an assortment of lands including Stage and Wasteland. I lead on a fetchland, but when I crack it on my second turn, they stifle the activation. This, however, gives me the window to waste their newly-fetched Tundra.
Unfortunately, they have a Surgical for my Wasteland, which is extra sad because I just drew Life from the Loam and was looking forward to locking them. Instead, I land an Endurance. From here they spend a lot of resources trying to deal with my green sources – a Meltdown hits my Mox and a Wasteland hits my Taiga. I’m not really in danger of running out though, so I just keep loaming and attacking and they just scoop pretty soon therafter. I’ll take it!
In game 3, I keep my first 7 of the event. I’ve got Crop Rotation, Loam, Blast, Map, and plenty of colored sources. The beautiful thing about Lands is how the whole deck is always at your fingertips. This 7 has two tutors – I could do anything with this.
My opponent leads on a fetchland and I play a Grove. On their next turn, they fetch a Volcanic Island and cast Brainstorm. Then they follow that up with Karakas. To me this means their mana is shaky and they’re brainstorm-locked. So when I draw a Diamond for the turn, I get to play Diamond, pitch a land, rotate my Grove for a Wasteland (holding up Blast for countermagic), waste them, and then play a land and Loam back my Wasteland.
My opponent misses their next land drop, I waste their Karakas, and they scoop. Let’s just say if I ran Alcatraz, Clint Eastwood would never escape. 1-0
I look up my opponent (is this shady? It seems no different than just walking around a room during an event but it feels slightly off) and I see that they usually play Sneak & Show. Not fun.
Game 1 I’m on the draw and my 7 has Exploration, Stage, and Karakas. One card off a turn 2 Lage, and with a little insurance as well. I draw Depths for the turn (praise Lage), and they scoop two turns later. Nice!
Out – 1 Crucibe, 3 Punishing Fire, 1 Tabernacle, 1 Shadowspear, 1 Maze of Ith, 1 Bojuka Bog, 2 Life from the Loam
In – 3 Pyroblast, 2 Surgical, 3 Endurance, 2 Force of Vigor
I’m on the draw again and my 7 is a little less exciting, but it does have Exploration, Crop Rotation, Stage, and Yavimaya. That means another turn 2 20/20, though this time it’s weak to countermagic and I do have to draw another mana producing land.
Instead of the land I draw a Mox Diamond, so it takes me a minute to assemble everything since I have to use a Map to find the Depths. But turn 3 Lage is almost as good as turn 2, and my opponent picks ’em up.
Looks like the 4 Depths and pray plan is working out pretty well so far! 2-0
I keep 6 with Diamond, Loam, Map, Wasteland, Port, and Forest. Not amazing but it can do stuff. My opponent has turn 1 Diamond into Exploration into Saga into Loam. Basically the Lands dream start, and exceptionally good in the mirror.
I Bog their Loam but they keep copying their Sagas with Stages and finding more Sagas with Maps and I can’t waste them fast enough. Eventually robots kill me.
Out – 3 Punishing Fire, 1 Spellbomb, 4 Dark Depths, 1 Tabernacle, 1 Maze of Ith
In – 2 Valakut Exploration, 2 Force of Vigor, 2 Surgical, 4 Endurance
My sideboard is full of graveyard hate and the two Valakut Exploration are exceptionally good in this matchup. I’m feeling pretty confident overall.
I keep a pretty slow 7 with multiple green sources, Loam, and Valakut Exploration, but no acceleration. I get pretty lucky though and draw an Exploration on my second turn. My opponent plays a Retrofitter Foundry and a Sylvan Library, but I’m soon running away with it as Valakut Exploration finds me a second regular Exploration. They don’t have the Force of Vigor they’d need and even though they Boseiju my VE, I’ve got Loam, Map, and multiple Sagas going off on them. They scoop before I make the first construct.
In the third game, my hand has Crucible, Rotation, Endurance, Diamond, Wasteland, Maze, and Blast Zone. This hand has answers to anything the opponent can do and has its own engines as well. Not broken, but solid.
My opponent kindly fixes my mana by playing a Yavimaya, but they also have the perfect mirror start of Exploration plus Loam. Luckily my Endurance puts an end to their Loam and they’re left with 1 card and an assortment of lands in play, none of which really do anything. When they play a Saga to get something going, I have Force of Vigor plus a now-endless stream of Wastelands thanks to Crucible.
They do draw their own Endurance, but they can’t endure the endless stream of robots. Another victory for the deer (cow?). 3-0
Does this deck have a name yet? Does it deserve one? I leave those questions to those wiser than I. All I know is that it’s a deck that plays Swords to Plowshares and can’t kill me very fast.
In game 1 I keep a 6 with Crop Rotation, Crucible, Diamond, Port, Fetch, and Dark Depths. They lead on a Scalding Tarn, so I lead on Port + Diamond. On their second turn, they play another fetchland, and this one is Arid Mesa (the worst fetchland in all Jeskai decks). On their end step I port their Tarn. They oblige me by fetching a basic Island.
My turn two sees me drawing a Diamond so that I’m able to play a Crucible with mana to spare. They fetch a Tundra with their Mesa in order to clear a Brainstorm. So here’s the board at the end of that turn:
What’s the play? You could just grind out value with the Saga and hold the Crop Rotation for down the road. However, with Crucible in play, it’s valuable to keep your opponent off 3 colors of mana, because then they can’t cast Prismatic Ending to destroy it.
So in their upkeep, I rotate my Port into a Wasteland and tag their Tundra. That means that they will not hit a third color for the turn and Crucible will live to see another day. They respond by casting a Snapcaster for their Brainstorm, which strikes me as a slightly desperate move. My suspicions are confirmed when they pass through their turn without another land drop, and the Brainstorm sits there uncast. At that point the game is essentially over and they scoop.
Out – 1 Crop Rotation, 1 Life from the Loam, 1 Tabernacle, 1 Depths, 1 Shadowspear, 1 Maze of Ith
In – 3 Pyroblast, 1 Field of the Dead, 2 Valakut Exploration
My opener has Exploration, Pyroblast, and Field of the Dead, plus a pile of other lands. Pretty solid. However, I don’t have enough colored mana to play Exploration with Blast to protect it, so it gets countered.
From there, the game moves along slowly, with me porting them and inching up to 7 land names. I also assemble the combo along the way, but I can’t port them entirely off of white so I don’t go for it since I want the land names. Unfortunately, despite several layers of interaction (Pyrite Spellbomb is great) they eventually do their whole Narset + Day’s Undoing thing. Which isn’t really a huge deal since they already had 6 cards and I was on 3.
I’m starting to make zombies and getting close to taking them off white altogether when they land a Blood Moon. I actually have reasonable outs to that with 3 Map and a Boseiju, but then they steal my Mox with Dack. I’m a bit over it at that point so I figure we’ll just go to game 3 and I’ll bring in some Force of Vigors.
My game 3 hand again has Exploration and Pyroblast, but the rest are 5 lands with no real engine. I have a Depths but no Stage, and no other payoffs. However, the matchup is pretty slow so I figure I can just ride it out and hope to draw into something. I’ve got 1 Field, 4 Saga, 4 Stage, 3 Map, and 3 Crop Rotation, after all, and any of them would turn this hand into something reasonable.
Exploration resolves and my deck shows me the love by giving me a Field and a Stage. Soon I’m making zombies like no one’s business and my opponent can’t tap out because I’ll Lage ’em. When Loam joins the party, they pack it up. 4-0
I’m getting worried because I notice the names that are undefeated are almost all combo players. And as luck would have it, I have to play against Doomsday this round. Just the normal turbo kind, not the fancy Murktide kind, but still.
I know what my opponent is on, so I keep a hand that makes a turn 3 20/20. This is a little slow, however, since the doomsday clock ticks to midnight on turn 2. So they resolve Doomsday and have basic Island and basic Swamp in play. From here, the highlight of this game was me spending 5 minutes clicking my Boseiju wondering why I couldn’t tag their basic Island with it. I even restarted my client thinking something must be wrong. Eventually I asked my opponent, “is there any reason I wouldn’t be able to channel Boseiju here?”
“My lands are basics, so, you can’t target me with that,” they say.
Wow I’m dumb. Lage will not answer the prayers of her idiot apostle, and she’s still a turn away when Thassa’s Oracle foretells my demise.
Out – 3 Punishing Fire, 2 Life from the Loam, 2 Maze, 1 Karakas, 1 Tabernacle, 1 Bog, 1 Crucible, 1 Exploration
In – 3 Pyroblast, 4 Endurance, 2 Surgical Extraction, 2 Force of Vigor, 1 Pithing Needle
My opener threatens Lage on turn 3 and has Endurance. Snap keep. You’ve probably noticed that I look at every opener and think about when it makes Lage. With this many Crop Rotations and Maps in the deck, basically every opener can summon the Witch, it’s just a matter of when. A good thing to be aware of, especially in combo matchups.
I do some cute Port stuff, and even play an Urza’s Saga, and on the turn the cast Doomsday, I’m ready to rotate for Depths and summon our Dark Queen. Who’s doom is it now, huh??
Unfortunately, that question remains undecided, since they have a Force of Will for my Crop Rotation. I use the floating mana to copy my Port so now I have two of them. When a Wasteland joins the party, I’m able to keep them to no lands in their main phase. Apparently they weren’t anticipating this and they scoop.
In game 3 I’m on the draw and I have a turn 2 Marit Lage backed up by Endurance. My opponent mulligans to five cards and I start to think I might finally win a match against this godforsaken deck.
Their five-card hand has turn 1 Ritual into Doomsday. They have Force for my Endurance and Marit Lage is a turn too slow. 4-1
It was a bit of a bad beat but well, we never really expected to win. I shake it off and focus in. This round for sure we’ll get paired against Delver and it’ll be a walk in the park.
No such luck. I’m on the draw an my opponent leads on a Chancellor trigger. Which is unfortunate because my hand is actually pretty solid against Reanimator – I’ve got two Crop Rotations. But it’s no use, I can’t cast them in time. They reanimate a Chancellor, which is more or less fine – I’ll have Lage next turn. But then they get a Griselbrand, and then Griselbrand brings his kids from Korlis to visit him. It’s a whole thing. I die wrapped up in Tendrils of Agony.
Out – 3 Punishing Fire, 1 Crucible, 1 Spellbomb, 1 Maze, 1 Blast Zone, 1 Shadowspear, 1 Tabernacle
In – 2 Force of Vigor, 4 Endurance, 2 Surgical Extraction, 1 Pithing Needle
Of all the combo decks, Reanimator is one that I actually feel my sideboard can do decently well against. I’ve got a lot of turn zero interaction, and Lage is still a 20/20 at the end of the day.
I’m on the play and my seven has Crop Rotation plus a Diamond. I keep this knowing that I can beat a Chancellor, but not discard + turn 1 reanimation. My opponent has the discard, so I use the Crop Rotation to get a Karakas. They don’t seem to have anything to reanimate, though, since they cast Faithless Looting and put nothing in their yard.
They continue loot and sometimes destroy my artifacts with Shenanigans, all while I’m slowly assembling my own combo and drawing a Surgical to back me up. I get there first and create Marit Lage, a 20/20 black Avatar creature token with flying and indestructible.
So now it’s game three and I’m on the draw. Showtime! My 7 has Crop Rotation, Exploration, Endurance, Dark Depths, and a bunch of lands, including a green source. That’s turn two Marit Lage with two pieces of interaction for you viewers at home. We keep those.
My opponent mulls to 5 and opens on Faithless Looting, pitching Griselbrand and passing the turn with three cards in hand. I weigh my options.
We could play Taiga into Exploration and hit their Badlands with a Wasteland. This would leave us with only one layer of protection since we won’t have any green mana so we couldn’t cast Endurance and Crop Rotation. But it puts them on 1 land so they’d need exactly Reanimate or else some free mana to do anything exciting.
I take a safer route and just play Taiga and pass. That play lets you beat discard + reanimation, and stopping them from reanimating is probably good enough to buy you the turns it takes to make Lage.
As it happens, they don’t have discard, they just have Exhume. I evoke Endurance, and then Exhume it back. A few turns later we win. 5-1
My breakers are great (my Doomsday loss is the only undefeated player), so 5-2 should make it. But no one likes betting on breakers, so lets do this. Luckily, I know what my opponent is on. I also know they’re a master so… it won’t be easy!
I mull to 5 trying to find a Crop Rotation. They discard it. Listen, it’s Reanimator, no one wins game one, lets all just move on.
Out – 3 Punishing Fire, 1 Crucible, 1 Spellbomb, 1 Maze, 1 Blast Zone, 1 Shadowspear, 1 Tabernacle
In – 2 Force of Vigor, 4 Endurance, 2 Surgical Extraction, 1 Pithing Needle
I start game 2 with a Surgical Extraction and an Exploration, plus Stage, Port, Wasteland, and Taiga. Plenty of mana denial, good outs to find the combo, and some interaction. Solid.
I lead on just Taiga in order to represent Crop Rotation, since they don’t have any lands in play yet for me to kill. They seem to want to take it slow, just playing a fetchland and a petal. Over the next few turns I port their fetch and they sac it. Eventually they go for it but I still have the Surgical so I tag their Griselbrand and summon the Witch on the next turn. Just how we drew it up.
In game 3 hand is weird but pretty strong I think?
We can’t really make mana very well, but we have two forms of free interaction. I keep.
My opponent is on the play and leads on the classic Swamp into Ritual into Entomb into Animate Dead on Griselbrand. I have the Surgical and I see their hand – Faithless Looting, Reanimate, and a fetchland.
On my turn I needle their fetchland (no need to needle Griselbrand any longer). I draw into Ports and Sagas and there is some token defense from my opponent but the game is essentially over. 6-1 and locked for top 8.
I’m ecstatic to be in the top 8, but playing against Reanimator again is a bit much. I guess all the blue players are in Philly so the combo kids are running the Challenge.
I know what I’m up against and I mull to 4 to find anything reasonably fast in game 1. They have discard plus turn 1 Griselbrand. Woooo. Hopefully they spent their luck on this and I can take the next two.
Out – 3 Punishing Fire, 1 Crucible, 1 Spellbomb, 1 Maze, 1 Blast Zone, 1 Shadowspear, 1 Tabernacle
In – 2 Force of Vigor, 4 Endurance, 2 Surgical Extraction, 1 Pithing Needle
My game two hand has Endurance and Crop Rotation, plus Depths, lands, and Exploration. Good to go. They loot some creatures away and then cast a discard spell. I respond by getting rid of their graveyard. From there they have Serenity, which is pretty great against my Diamond + Saga, but they aren’t really able to put a lot else together. I make Lage and win.
It’s time for game three and my initial 7 has no interaction. My 6 has Crop Rotation but no green mana. My 5 and my 4 have nothing but lands and Force of Vigors. I finally end up keeping a 3 card hand of Yavimaya, Crop Rotation, Thespian’s Stage, and a vial of my mother’s tears, cried over her son’s brutal defeat in the quarterfinals of the 2/13/22 Legacy Challenge.
I lose. My breakers are still great, so I end up in 5th place. Good enough for me. 6-2.
Although the matchups weren’t exactly ideal, we still managed to pull out a decent finish. And while the event was overshadowed (rightly) by the Legacy 10k in Philadelphia, 5th out of 93 people is still a solid showing.
I know I say this all the time, but Lands feels like a great deck to be on right now. We won the 2/12/22 Challenge and had two players in the top 8 of this one. A big part of this of course is that combo continues to be at an all time low. The most common combo deck, Reanimator, is the one that we’ve historically been fine against, and with the right sideboard we can consistently beat them if we want to. Doomsday is played only by a few eccentric masters who sleep under waterfalls, and Storm is basically dead except for Bryant Cook, who will keep winning events with it because he doesn’t just sleep under waterfalls, he is the waterfall.
Despite all the combo in this specific event, I have no regrets playing a list without Spheres, and I actually loved how streamlined the deck felt in my matches. I’d run back the same 75 again in the next event, though maybe I’d find room for the second Boseiju.
Thanks as always to the whole Lands community for being amazing and especially to Tim for lending me the 4th Endurance. Much love to all the legacy players out there and don’t forget to live, laugh, and loam.
Last time that I played in a Showcase Challenge was in June 2021 just after MH2 had been released. This was 8-9 months ago! I have a real itch to get back into these big tournaments, and I have therefore chosen to dedicate Season 2 of Competitive Lands to demonstrate how I prepare for such a tournament. We will cover the following topics in this season:
The tournament that I am preparing for is the Legacy Showcase Challenge that takes place on the 10th of April 2022. I hope that you will enjoy seeing me prepare. This intro article is also available as a video in case you prefer that medium.
I define a goal as something that you want achieved and where you have full control of its outcome. I define a dream as something that you want achieved but where you don’t have full control of its outcome.
For example if someone says “I want to be well prepared for the tournament” then they are expressing a goal because if they put in enough work then they will be well prepared. It is within their own control whether or not they will achieve this goal. But if someone says “I want to Top 8 the tournament” then they are expressing a dream because it’s not fully within their control if they will Top 8 any given tournament. They will in fact need a fair share of luck in order to make a Top 8 even if they are a very good player.
Why do they need to get lucky in order to Top 8? If you look at the best Legacy players online their long term winrate is between 60% and 70%. In order to Top 8 an eight round tournament you need to go 7-1 or 8-0 (some players sneak in at 6-2 but let’s ignore that for now) and you therefore need a winrate of +87.5% for this given tournament. If we assume that you have 65% probability to win every match, and that the outcome of each match is independent of each other, then the probability that you go 7-1 or better is 17% (this is calculated as 8 * (0.65^7 * 0.35) + 0.65^8). Seventeen percent is far from a safe bet and as you can see you will need to get lucky in order to Top 8 a tournament (but if you play in 5-6 tournaments per year then you will on average get one Top 8 every year).
This does not mean that you should not work hard towards realizing your dream. If you don’t prepare then you will not have a 65% winrate. Your winrate will more likely be close to 50% and now your probability to Top 8 an eight round tournament drops from 17% to 4%.
I have formulated the following dream and goals for Season 2 of Competitive Lands.
My dream is to qualify for the Legacy Showcase Qualifier in June. This will be achieved if I Top 8 one of the next two Showcase Challenges or if I go 5-0 in one of the Last Chance Prelims.
In order to maximize my chances to realize this dream I have put up the following goals for myself. I will try to complete these goals before the Showcase Challenge on the 10th of April.
Strategy Goals
First step to get an edge over the field is to have a good estimate of what “the field” will be and then to register 75 cards that are well equipped to beat the expected top decks. It’s also important to know your role(s) against these decks. I have defined the following strategy goals to help me achieve this:
Gameplay Goals
Macro strategy is very important but it’s also important to get the basic gameplay right. Most games of magic are won by the player who makes the fewest mistakes. We make thousands of micro decisions in a tournament and there are plenty of opportunities to make bad plays and mess things up. I have set the following goals to help me improve my basic gameplay:
Mental Goals
In the math example that I gave above I did a simplification that you had a 65% winrate in every match. In reality your winrate changes from match to match. Two things that influence this is of course your matchup and your opponent but these factors are out of your control. Another thing that influences your winrate is your mental stamina. I have lost many late round matches against good matchups where I was tired and made bad plays. Likewise I have won many times when I felt fit and where my opponent messed things up. I have defined the following goals to ensure that my mental stamina is on top for the tournament:
I don’t feel like playing too much before the new Channel Lands are available on MODO as I believe that these (in particular Boseiju, who Endures) will change how we build Lands. I do want to decide rather early what type of Lands deck that I will play and a key driver for this decision will be the control matchup. I will therefore schedule a dedicated testing session vs control already now in February.
My aim is to be well prepared for the Showcase challenge on the 10th of April. There is also a Showcase challenge on the 6th of March and I will use this as a “practice round”. I don’t expect to be fully prepared for this tournament but I will play in it anyways, and I have also talked to Jarvis about having a coaching session afterwards to review my plays and give me advice on how to notice and correct in-game mistakes.
I have a busy life with work and family but I will try to dedicate 1-2 nights each week to playing magic. Taking this into account I have created the following plan for how to prepare for the tournament.
| Week (starting with) | Actions |
| 7th of February | Kick-Off. |
| 14th of February | Choose target decks. |
| 21th of February | Matchup-testing: Control. |
| 28th of February | Build a sideboard map. |
| 6th of March | Legacy Showcase Challenge (Practice Round). |
| 7th of March | Coaching with Jarvis to review my play in the Showcase. |
| 14th of March | Review of my deck choice. |
| 21st of March | Legacy Prelim and / or matchup testing. |
| 28th of March | Legacy Prelim and / or matchup testing. |
| 4th of April | Review Sideboard map. |
| 10th of April | Legacy Showcase Challenge (The Tournament) |
| 11th of April | Last Chance Prelims |
I am super motivated to play in the Showcase circuit again and I hope that you will enjoy seeing me prepare for the Showcase Challenge on the 10th of April. I will do my best to achieve all goals that I have set out in this article, and I believe that this will give me the best chance to get lucky and realize my dream to qualify for the next Showcase Qualifier.
As always the Competitive Lands project is a combination of articles, YouTube videos and live discussions in Discord. You can use this link to find all places where I post my content.
Thanks for reading!
Anthony Rivera here, winner of the 2020/21 AZ Legacy Masters Series. Before saying anything else, I would love to thank the stores and the tournament organizers for the series, as putting on any event while having to navigate the last two years is a massive undertaking. The series was very impressive, considering it was organized by a small group of guys in their free time.
RG Lands
4 Exploration
3 Punishing Fire
4 Life from the Loam
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crop Rotation
3 Expedition Map
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Shadowspear
4 Thespian’s Stage
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Wasteland
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
4 Urza’s Saga
1 Maze of Ith
2 Taiga
3 Rishadan Port
3 Dark Depths
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Blast Zone
1 Forest
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
Sideboard:
2 Choke
3 Endurance
3 Pyroblast
3 Force of Vigor
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth: I want as many free wins as possible. I also want a shooter’s chance against any combo deck in the format. Playing three copies of Yavimaya first and foremost gives you way more natural turn three 20/20s. Also, the extra green mana opens up turns where you can cast multiple Crop Rotations to combo off out of nowhere. With so many colorless and non-mana producing lands in the deck, I pretty much always want one copy of Yavimaya on the field, especially with Endurance out of the sideboard.
3 Rishadan Port, 1 Ghost Quarter: I want to be able to disrupt any deck in the format. Rishadan Port is not something that Cloudpost or Bant players are expecting to play against these days. Additionally, firing off a fast Urza’s Saga and then using Rishadan Port or Wasteland to make sure that the opponent can’t answer the constructs is a very solid game plan in fair matchups.
3 Expedition Map: The Ragavan/Daze decks are very susceptible to specific lands. At any given point, you are going to want Tabernacle, Karakas, Bojuka Bog, Maze of Ith, or Wasteland. These cards allow you to make it into the midgame, when our chance of winning sharply increases. When we sideboard, playing multiple copies of Expedition Map allows us to take out the Crop Rotations against the Force of Will/Daze decks while still allowing us access to direct tutoring. Finally, playing multiple copies of Expedition Map allows us to chain Urza’s Sagas without relying on Life from the Loam (and thus the graveyard).
1 Ancient Tomb: Casting a turn one Sphere of Resistance is our best plan against most combo decks, and I want to mulligan less and increase my chance of having a second turn.
1 Shadowspear: This card is insane, and 21/21 creatures with lifelink and trample are also insane.
1 Pithing Needle: This is the ultimate answer to Aether Vial, equipment, Griselbrand, fetchlands, planeswalkers, and Wastelands—the list goes on. The card is extremely powerful in game one, when the effect is not usually expected. Its most common use is to name opposing Wastelands so we can run amok with our lands without fear of harassment.
The goal of this list is to be aggressive and play to the board quickly. I am not running any card draw or card advantage engines outside of Life from the Loam. I’m relying on Loam to be enough when I need to grind and Urza’s Saga to be enough when Loam is answered.
All this flows into the sideboard, with Endurance as a turn zero answer to graveyard and Thassa’s Oracle decks, Force of Vigor as a turn zero answer to Blood Moon and broken starts from 8-Cast, and Pyroblast as the best answer to the format.
Sphere of Resistance is the catch-all answer to anything that we don’t have a plan for: Aluren, Cephalid Breakfast, and Hullbreacher combo decks, among others. It’s just the best plan against random decks, especially with our land disruption plan.
The two Chokes come in and out as meta calls, but with the best control decks being blue-based, I like having the option to shut them out of blue mana for the easy win. Bringing in Choke and Sphere of Resistance is NOT my sideboarding plan against Delver. Choke comes in against the Jeskai decks, which aren’t as aggressive.
Please let me know if I missed any unusual cards, as I would be happy to discuss my choices further.
As this was a 16-player invitational, the first part of the event was a race to three wins before three losses, and the second part of the event was the Top 8 single elimination event that we all know. I came into the event as the points leader of the series, with three Top 8s and multiple 9th–10th place finishes.
My opponent is a standard noninteractive player who typically plays BG Depths. He has a GP Top 8 with the deck, but he has not been playing it in the current meta. I put him on 8-Cast or a random deck. He went the Spike route, playing Griselbrand. This round does not last long.
Game 1: I keep a great hand, but he has the turn one . . .
Game 2: I have the turn one Sphere of Resistance and follow it up with an Urza’s Saga and a turn two Sphere of Resistance.
Game 3: My first hand is almost the nuts. I have a turn two Marit Lage with Crop Rotation backup, but I feel like it isn’t good enough, so I mulligan for something better. I end up mulliganing to four cards, keeping a hand with a turn one Sphere off Urza’s Saga, but he goes off on turn one. I never saw a single Endurance.
I would attribute the less-than-perfect gameplay during this match to the fact that most of us have not played Legacy since November due to a postponement of the Masters Series from December to January.
Game 1: My opponent plays some fetchlands, and I tap my only red source, which gives him a window to flash in Hullbreacher, untap, and play Day’s Undoing. I completely forgot Hullbreacher had flash.
Game 2: This time, my opponent was the one who was a little rusty, and I am able to needle his fetchland off of an Urza’s Saga trigger. I was able to prolong the game with Rishadan Port and Blast Zone long enough to win with Punishing Fire (weird, right?).
Game 3: This was a weird game. I wasteland a Volcanic Island on turn one and play a natural Pithing Needle on Scalding Tarn, as he had already cracked a Flooded Strand. (My thought was that he would have played the Prismatic Vista if he had had it.) I get a Sphere of Resistance down, and we trade back and forth for a while. On a crucial turn, he cracks another Flooded Strand without remembering that his only Volcanic Island was in the graveyard. Thus, he couldn’t meltdown my board. Resolving Meltdown would have been a big deal.
Eventually he taps out for a planeswalker, which I blast, and I get to untap and resolve a Choke to go with my Sphere. I was sitting on Choke/Red Elemental Blast for a while, as the game was very slow, and with the Sphere down, I never had the chance to resolve the Choke with Red Elemental Blast backup.
This was a big win, and my mana disruption played a huge role.
This was another good matchup against an extremely good player who knew that Lands would be represented at this event. These games were not particularly close, as I had it all in both games, with Loam, Wasteland, Tabernacle, and acceleration.
Game 1: I have early Wastelands along with Loam and Exploration. Dredging Loam quickly finds Tabernacle.
Game 2: I have basically the same hands as above. He is able to cast Surgical Extraction, targeting Wasteland and then Loam. Thespian’s Stage and Rishadan Ports allow me to keep an active Wasteland and him low on mana until I am able to get an active Urza’s Saga.
Game 1: An early Pyrite Spellbomb stops Stoneforge Mystic from ruining my day. Pithing Needle stops the Vials from helping him out, and I can keep him low on mana while I beat down with constructs from Urza’s Saga.
Game 2: I have another turn one Pyrite Spellbomb to disrupt my opponent, and my constructs get too big too fast.
Yay . . . I wish I was a better sport, but I did text my fiancé to say I would be heading home shortly. Just like my last match against Reanimator, the games in this round were all decided on turn one.
Game 1: I have the Crop Rotation, but he has the turn one Griselbrand. I love interactive magic.
Game 2: I have the turn one Sphere, and he can’t get out from under it.
Game 3: I keep a seven card hand with Mox Diamond, Rishadan Port, Crop Rotation, Endurance, Exploration, and two Maps. He mulligans to five and leads with a turn one Thoughtseize. He takes the Crop Rotation, which means I have to commit more resources to keep his graveyard clear. We play draw go as I tutor for lands with Expedition Maps, and eventually, I have two copies of Endurance. I cast one to start to beat down, and he doesn’t draw anything that would allow him to beat the Endurance and Exploration (to pitch) that were still in my hand.
Game 1: My opponent allows me to resolve a turn one Exploration, signaling that he does not have counter magic. On his second turn, he taps his Volcanic Island and then plays Wasteland, activating it targeting my Thespian’s Stage. I have Crop Rotation, so I make Marit Lage in response, and we move on to game two.
Game 2: I keep a slow hand with Loam, and he has Surgical Extraction. He plays a Dragon’s Rage Channeler and attacks me to zero while finding multiple Wastelands for my Urza’s Sagas. I drew nothing of much importance.
Game 3: I go aggressive with Mox Diamond and Urza’s Saga, and he cannot stabilize.
With both of my games over relatively quickly, I was able to watch some of the best magic that I have ever watched. Arizona’s best Death and Taxes player was giving a master class on how to stone-face a Torpor Orb, playing three-mana Gray Ogres to beat both Jeskai Hullbreacher and Jeskai Control. Both games were on stream, and we were going wild in the casting booth. I couldn’t have watched from the tableside, as I would not have been able to keep quiet.
Game 1: I keep a slow hand that doesn’t have any way to pull ahead quickly, and we play back and forth. He has two copies of Mother of Runes and a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. I make a play error that goes unnoticed, and with the stream delay, the judge wasn’t able to try to rectify the error until we were multiple plays down the line. The judge explained that I still had a Crop Rotation in my hand that shouldn’t have been there. Instead of both of us getting warnings and continuing to play, I decided to concede in good faith.
I was supposed to sacrifice a fetchland to cast a Crop Rotation through the Thalia tax to get a Karakas to bounce Thalia, but instead I fetched for the Karakas directly, paying two mana but never playing the Crop Rotation. Additionally, I drew my last fetchable source that turn, so there was no way to easily rewind the game state that would have not involved the judge having to “take my word for it.”
Game 2: This was a super fun game, and it most likely decided the event. I get an early Punishing Fire and miss a land drop. On my opponent’s turn, he plays his fourth land and casts Armageddon. He makes a land drop the turn after, but I am stuck drawing off the top. In the best turn of events, I draw land, land, Loam to restock. After I cast one Loam, he slams Rest in Peace to shut me down again. I had two copies of Force of Vigor to stop anything egregious from happening on the other side of the table, and eventually I can start looping the Dark Depths combo. I end the game at 88 life, when he had finally run out of Swords to Plowshares effects.
Game 3: Game three was not as interesting as game two. I have an extremely fast start with double Mox Diamond, Loam, and Urza’s Saga, and I can slow him down with Rishadan Port while I attack through his creatures.
I have always been super happy with my list and was very happy with the results of the tournament, obviously. In the week since I first typed this up, Ragavan has been banned and Boseiju, Who Endures has been spoiled. I figured I would finish out by discussing those topics.
Ragavan was an obvious ban and should have never been printed. When it was spoiled I felt like most of the format knew the card was a mistake and we had to live in a fake format for months. This led to people stepping away from the format and hopefully the ban wasn’t too late to bring people back. On paper the ban will not change much with Delver being back in the UR decks (and still being tier 1) but now we get to see the power level of the DRC/Murktide/Iteration shell without the velocity and “Oops I win” factor of the monkey.
That brings me to the new Boseiju, Who Endures. A few months ago, I made a make-believe card that should be printed that I felt would “fix” the format. I believe it was ‘WW, Instant: Destroy Target Creature or Permanent’. Wizards came and printed Prismatic Ending and completely revitalized control decks in legacy. I feel like if we were going to create a “dream” card for lands (besides a Sphere of Resistance land) this would be about as good as it can get.
I do not feel the card will be format defining by any means, but for Lands players to no longer fear Blood Moon or Back to Basics game 1 (2/3) is huge. Slotting 2 of these into the main deck and being able to free up sideboard slots is also amazing as we can potentially have room for the 4th Endurance and the 4th Pyroblast. Expedition Map is now a more viable tutor as it puts the card in hand and those of us who are playing three Expedition Maps (me) should always have access to the card when needed. Lands players will have to formulate a plan to deal with the Bant/4c players that have started winning events, but I trust that the combo decks will keep them in check for the most part.
Thank you for reading and I would like to thank the Lands discord for being the best community in Legacy. Please look to the team at AZEternalMagic for future events and hopefully I can run it back in 2022!
Pendrell Vale, Home of Legacy Lands 