My name is Albert Lindblom (alli) and I just finished 2nd in the Legacy MOCS Qualifier last weekend. This was an event with 27 players, namely the Top 8 of the last 3 Showcase Challenges plus 3 people that had qualified in Last Chance Prelims. Considering that each Showcase Challenge had +200 players you could say that I competed with +600 (with the obvious risk of double counting) of the most fierce online grinders and came in second. I am super proud of this achievement. This is not the first time that I have run deep in a big online tournament. In fact I have a pretty high confidence that I will do well every time that I play in these events because I have found a strategy that allows me to be competitive in Legacy. I will try to share this strategy with you here. This text will be split into two articles. In this first article I will give you my background, and explain what I have done to level up as a Legacy player, and in the second article I will write about how I prepared for the MOCS Qualifier as well as a tournament report. I hope you enjoy this.  

Like most boomers I don’t have unlimited time to devote to magic. I have a busy family life with an amazing wife, two wonderful daughters, and an apartment plus a summerhouse that needs constant care. I am also the coach of my girls football team two days a week, and I was their home schooling teacher for the most part of last year (when we were in lockdown). On top of this I have a very demanding job. I work as the Head of the Front Office Desk Quant Team in Scandinavia’s Largest Bank, and my team implements the new Technology Platform for our Trading activities in Fixed Income and Derivatives. I am not writing all these things to brag and try to paint myself into some sort of super human because I’m not. Most days when I come home from work my brain is completely washed out, I am so tired that I cannot even muster the energy to cook dinner, and I instead order some takeaway and park the girls in front of an iPad while I take a powernap in the sofa. It’s not productive to turn on MODO on these types of days. My brain is just not capable of making good strategic decisions and I won’t remember the games the day after. I have set up the following schedule for my MODO play and I try to make the most of the limited time that I have to play magic.

1. Every Monday Prelim (and maybe a League afterwards).
2. 0-2 additional Leagues each week.
3. As many big tournaments as I can (Showcase Challenges, Eternal Weekend, etc).

Is this enough to compete with young people that have much more time to dedicate to Magic? Well it can be if we focus and use our time wisely.

How It Started

I have played magic since Ice Age came out in 1995. I was 11 years old at that time and I instantly fell in love with the lore of the game. I also fell in love with destroying lands. Me and my friends didn’t really understand the competitive rules, we thought that we could play unlimited copies of every card, and we had a deck with 7-8 Stone Rains in it. I was actively trying to trade more copies of Stone Rain in order to add them to this broken deck until someone found out that we could only play 4 copies if we wanted to play in tournaments.   

This was one of the first cards that I fell in love with

I took a long break from magic after Onslaught was printed but I picked it up again around 2010 when I moved from Stockholm to Copenhagen. I used to play every Tuesday at our LGS and we had some really strong players there. Andreas Petersen (ecobaronen), Hans-Jakob Goddick (HJ_Kaiser), Thomas Enevoldsen (Scabs) and Michael Bonde (lampalot) were just some of the Legacy All Stars that used to play in these weeklies. I initially had some success with UW Landstill and I then managed to build Storm (TES). I was really successful with this deck for a few years. People told me that TES was a hard deck to play but I felt that it was pretty easy because there were only a few cards from my opponent’s deck that I cared about. Instead of learning combat math, or what type of trades that are beneficial, I could focus on mastering my own sequencing and lines.  

I used my winnings with TES to invest in a Legacy collection and after a while I could play any deck that I wanted. At this point I started switching deck every week and my win rate went down. In 2014 I was the kind of player that would show up 2 times a month and go 3-2 (with the occasional spike). I then moved to London to work as a Quant for a Commodity Trading House, and I had to take another long break from magic.

How It Ended – Why Lands?

I moved back to Copenhagen in 2017 as me and my (Danish) wife wanted our kids to start in a Danish school. I wanted to play Legacy again but I found that most of my old friends had stopped going to the LGS and they now played online instead. I installed MODO and bought a Storm deck. I was doing fairly well until Deathrite Piles became the de facto best deck online. I lost so many times to Hymn + Snap + Hymn that I decided that it wasn’t fun to play Storm. I went back to playing a few different decks (to the normal 3-2 score) before I decided that I wanted to level up. It all started with a guy writing on Facebook that he had a NM English Tabernacle for Trade (not for Sale). I met with the guy and we somehow managed to agree on a Trade (it involved me giving him some HP Power). People in my LGS told me “Lands is a very hard deck to play” but I was excited. The main selling points to me were:

• It was a Tier 1* deck at the time.
• It did not lose to Hymn to Tourach. In fact Deathrite Piles seemed like great matchups.
• I got to destroy people’s lands. 
• It may be a difficult deck to play, but it’s also a hard deck to play against. It’s a non-linear deck with many options and I figured that it would be easy to mess things up when playing against Lands.
• It was a niche deck and I thought that if I only dedicated enough time to it then I would get an edge as I would know the matchup better than my opponent.

*I know that Lands is not considered a Tier 1 deck anymore but it’s underrated in my opinion. I think a version of the Prison-Combo-Ramp-Control shell will always be competitive. I have played Lands for 3 years and during this time me and the Lands discord have continuously managed to find a good list for the online meta. Just look at these results from various metas during the last few years.

• Casey Lancaster won a Starcity Classic at the peak of the RUG W6 Delver meta. 
• I came in 4th and 10th in the 2 Showcase Challenges where Underworld Breach was legal in Legacy.
• UG Uro Lands was one of the best decks during the Companion era. Kellen Pastore Top 8’d a Legacy Super PTQ with the deck and I ran fairly deep in one as well.
• I came 9th (on breakers) in both a Showcase Challenge and an online Eternal Weekend at the peak of the Snowko and RUG Arcanist Delver meta. 
• I just finished 2nd in the Legacy MOCS Qualifier in the post MH2 UR Delver meta.

Level 0: Grinding Leagues

I have played Lands on MODO for 3 years. During this time I have likely played 4-5 Leagues per week (I play less now but I have also played way more at times). This is 3,000 – 4,000 matches (and +10,000 games) of playing Lands. I have easily played over 100 matches against all common Legacy decks and I have learnt how to approach these matchups and what cards that are good / bad against each of these decks.

Obviously I didn’t play optimally from day one, but I became pretty good rather fast. I was already a decent combo player and the combo aspect of Lands was better and came up more often than I had initially thought. But more importantly, I really enjoyed playing the deck and even when I lost I was learning new lines. At the end of each game I could barely wait to play a new one. I started watching Casey Lancaster (Koleigh1) whenever he streamed Lands and this would teach me a lot. I watched his games and then I played some Leagues and then I rewatched his games. As I watched his stream I used to think for myself what lines I would take if I played instead of him, and at some point I started to realise that many of the lines that he took were also ones that I would have done. This is about the same time as when I started getting 5-0’s in Leagues for myself.

I also realized that jamming games blindfolded wouldn’t get me to the next level. I created a spreadsheet where I kept track of all my results and sideboard plans. I aggregated decks into archetypes that are similar to play against such as Delver, UW, Storm, KoTR, etc. I became more active in the Lands discord and I got help to tune the last open slots in my deck week after week. I wanted to start playing in Challenges but they are at the worst possible time for me. 5pm on a Sunday just doesn’t work for a family guy like myself and I couldn’t make that happen consistently. But around the New Years of 2018 / 2019 I finally had the chance to play in a Challenge and I reached out to Andreas Petersen (ecobaronen) who was the best player that I know from my LGS and I asked him about the expected meta in Challenges. He told me to write down the Top 32 from the last 3 challenges to get my own feeling for the “online winners meta”. I did this, and I am still doing this today, as it’s a great way to learn what decks that are doing well online. 

Example of Challenge Winners Meta during the Underworld Breach era

I was lucky enough to Top 8 this Challenge but I lost to Lands master Dull04 in the Top 8. After this I felt invincible (but that was a false positive) and I wanted to play more High Stake Legacy tournaments. As I couldn’t play in Challenges I organised my own tournament that I called the Nordic Legacy League. I managed to get some very good players to sign up to this one and I got absolutely crushed. This was a true wake up call for me. I remember playing against Death & Taxes and it felt like my opponent knew exactly what to do but I didn’t know what to do. My hands were good and I still lost. I felt truly outplayed.

Level 1: Professional Coaching

After the Nordic Legacy League I decided to try and level up my game. I wanted to play better against better opponents and I wanted to feel like I could compete in premium events such as Showcases and Legacy PTQ’s. I contacted Andreas Petersen and asked him if he wanted to become my coach and he said yes. I didn’t really know what to expect for the first session but it was great. We started by talking about my prerequisites and my goals. I explained that I had a limited amount of time that I could spend on MODO and why I was playing Lands. I also explained that I had no interest in broadening my skills and that I wanted to learn how to play better against better opponents. We talked about how I could make stupid punts in high stake games, or how I could lose the oversight when I was under pressure, or how I could make super risky plays because I thought that I didn’t have a chance to win against a better opponent.

We also played a League together and I specifically remember how we crushed a Grixis Control opponent. It was cool to see how Andreas played our game from our opponents perspective. He would for example say something like “our opponent will try to sneak in a win here by casting Angler and then try to take us down to Bolt + Snap + Bolt range. Can we Gamble for Maze to prevent that from happening?”. This was interesting because it was not something that I had really done before. I had many sessions with Andreas over the next few months and we did dedicated training of Lands vs Delver, and Lands vs Taxes, and Lands vs Maverick. In these sessions Andreas would sometimes stop and ask me “can you guess what cards that are in my hand right now?” This was fantastic training. 

I would also take screenshots of interesting plays and then we would discuss them together. I would explain why I took a certain line and then we discussed if we thought it was the correct play or not. It became quite obvious that I would often base my conclusions on the outcome of my plays and this is a bad idea. I could say things such as “this play was bad because my opponent had Daze and I lost”. Andreas would stop me and say that I need to judge my plays based on the information that I had at the time. Did I make the right play given the context I was in? When trying to improve our ability to see the optimal line, with imperfect information, then it’s not always helpful to draw conclusions based on the actual outcome of a given play.     

These sessions were hard but they really helped me to improve as a player. In January 2020 they paid off big time as I Top 8’d my first Showcase Challenge.

I used to switch decks every week to a mediocre result. Two years ago I got a Tabernacle and I have only played the same deck ever since. This year I tried to level up by taking coaching lessons with @ecobaronen . Today I managed to Top 4 the Legacy Showcase Challenge. Amazing! pic.twitter.com/yJov1Et3oi

— Albert Lindblom (@alli_on_mtgo) January 26, 2020

I also became friends with Jörg Heinrich (EronRelentless) around this time. We both had spreadsheets with MODO data and we started sharing these with each other. Jörg asked me if I wanted to do dedicated matchup training and these sessions largely replaced the coaching sessions that I had with Andreas. I still take sessions with Andreas before big events though. Jörg has taught me a great way to do these sessions. We first play 3-6 preboard games and then 3-6 postboard games. This gives a great feeling for the matchup and there is less focus on “who did win”. After each session we discuss the matchup on Discord. I have started doing similar sessions with other Legacy grinders and in my opinion this is a more effective way to improve your skills compared to jamming Leagues.

Level 2: Legacy Podcasts

Another thing that has helped me level up my deck building and also helped me keep me on top of the Legacy meta is to listen to Legacy Podcasts. My favourite Podcasts are Elo Punters, EverydayEternal and Eternal Glory. I try to listen to these when I am alone and have time to focus. Here are two key takeaways that I used in the MOCS Qualifier this last weekend.

• Be proactive (Daniel Goetschel). Daniel once said something along the lines: “A reactive card such as Mana Leak is only good if you also have a threat that can give you an advantage every turn that it stays in play”. Once I really had understood this sentence then it changed how I build my deck, but also how I mulligan and sequence my plays.
• Ignore (unpopular) bad matchups (Julian Knab). Julian once said something along the lines that if you want to win a tournament then you have to get lucky also in the matchup lottery. It is therefore better to ignore (unpopular) bad matchups in order to have a better edge against more popular decks. This is something that I used in the MOCS Qualifier. I knew that only 1 Storm player and 2 Show & Tell players had qualified and I built my sideboard to be worse against them but better against Delver and GW Depths.

Level 3: My Current Level

I am currently at a level where I feel that I can compete with the best online players in Legacy. It will never be easy to play against me. I will show up to large online tournaments with a deck that is tuned for the expected meta, and I will know my role in every matchup (and most situations). It is also likely that I have more reps in a given matchup compared to my opponent. I no longer get nervous when playing in PTQ’s or Showcases and it’s unlikely that I will completely punt a game. I still make mistakes of course but I make less mistakes now compared to 2 years ago. Finally, I don’t get tired after 7-8 rounds of high stake Legacy, and I often find myself playing better the longer the tournament goes. 

This does not mean that I expect to Top 8 every tournament that I join, but I will have the basics right, and I expect this to allow me to win most of my matches. If I am then also able to play tight at the right spots, and if I am having a bit of luck, then it will often take me there.

OK, this was all in the history and process section. In the next article I will write about the Showcase Challenge that I Top 8’d in order to qualify for the MOCS Qualifier and what I did to prepare for this high stake event. I will finish that article off with a detailed tournament report including video recordings. Stay tuned!

Lately it’s become an almost nightly ritual for me to unwind by watching ancient Legacy matches on Youtube. And while the Saturday Challenge does start at 5am my time, I was not about to skip this important activity. So late on Friday night, I was curled up watching GP Prague 2016, round 7, Death & Taxes against Shardless BUG. Watching Enevoldson duck and dodge, weaving circles around these BUG value decks inspired me to take my own dumb no-cantrip toolboxy pile of cards and see if I couldn’t destroy some blue mages myself. Since you’re reading this and no one writes reports for 0-3… you can probably imagine that I was somewhat successful.

Decklist

The Lands community has been sort of torn lately on how many Sagas to play. Some are on just 1 for utility, some on 4 and a pile of artifacts. Personally I’m not on the full 4 since you can quickly run out of meaningful targets and your mana gets unstable as they kill themselves. But still, the upside of producing blockers/threats and having access to a whole new toolbox has been very powerful. When you consider that via Expedition Map each Saga is essentially a very slow crop rotation, then you could say this build is running a virtual 8 land-tutoring effects. That makes assembling Lage against Delver very easy, and on top of that you get access to Needle which can stop opposing Wastelands or Vials or Knights. So I landed on 3 Saga as my final number.

The downside of Saga is that you have to commit a lot of slots to it, and that usually means you end up playing less Rishadan Port, which is very sad because the card is super cool. But it’s also not at its best right now in my opinion. In this list the singleton Port is essentially Wasteland #5, could be something else if need be.

As for other notes, the spells are pretty much just all the normal spells you’d play – perhaps 4 Valakut Exploration is a bit more than some but the card is an absolute powerhouse against everything non-combo, so I was sold on it. 3 Maze is a concession to the fact that you want t1 answers to Ragavan, as well as answers to Murktide Regent. If I were making any changes to the list, I might cut the Spellbomb for a Retrofitter Foundry since an extra Maze covers creatures well and it would be nice to have a more real threat to get with Saga. I’m not playing Reclaimer because although the card is amazing, without it I can trade up against all creature interaction and still have a ton of blockers, threats, and selection thanks to Saga.

The sideboard is also pretty stock at this point. You got your Blasts, your artifact and enchantment hate, your GY hate, and your Spheres. Choke is taking up the 2 flex spots and that’s because, well, the card wins games. Given how little combo there is lately, however, it may make sense to just not play all those Spheres and find some more interesting or flexible tools.

With all that said, let’s get to it!

Tournament

ROUND 1 – Jeskai Delver

G1

I mull to 6 OTD and my opening hand has Diamond, Exploration, Valakut Exploration, Stage, Depths, and Karakas. Against Delver this hand is just a slam dunk; can make Lage on turn 2, has Karakas for Ragavan, and can follow up with Valakut Exploration if those plans fall apart. It just needs to draw a land and it should be good to go.

I draw the land, and my Karakas draws out their Wasteland since they want to make their monkey work. I make Lage pretty soon thereafter and the monkey doesn’t get to do anything.

G2

In the second game my hand is a bit slower but we’ve got Diamond, Punishing Fire, Grove, Endurance, Stage, Wasteland, and Pyrite Spellbomb. Lots of interaction on all fronts, and this hand sets up a lot of great topdecks since Loam can wastelock them and any of our virtual 11 Dark Depths can help call Marit Lage.

Should be great but my opponent shows me white mana for the first time when they Prismatic Ending my Diamond and then Waste my Grove. Suddenly I’m on just a Wasteland as my mana source, not feeling too good.

So I Waste them back but a few turns later they drop a giant dragon on my face. Still, I’m able to play a Map and find a Maze to stem the bleeding, and Punishing Fire helps deal with a little baby DRC as I buy enough turns to get my mana under me. Their next DRC gets ambushed by my Endurance and now it’s Dragon vs Maze & Endurance, but I’m the one with a Valakut Exploration on the table.

Valakut Exploration leads to OG Exploration leads to Choke leads to Crop Rotation for Marit Lage and the game is over.

1-0

ROUND 2 – UR Delver

My last opponent I was able to look up and know they were on Delver from the get-go. This time, however, my opponent is more inscrutable, and it looks like they usually play Aluren? Which is not an ideal matchup for me.

But it turns out they’re actually playing Delver so that’s great.

G1

Keep a 6 on OTD that is pretty slow, with just Saga, Blast Zone, Waterlogged Grove, Punishing Fire, Crop Rotation, and Pyrite Spellbomb. I can’t even use 2 of my spells and the only green source I have will cost me life but it’s more or less ok I guess…

My opponent leads on Ragavan, I lead on the Exploration I just drew, but it gets Dazed. The next few turns see my opponent get a lot of treasures and play out a Delver against my motley collection of lands like Saga. Lucky for me, Delver decks are super soft to Blast Zone these days so I rotate for Zone, saccing the Saga with its final chapter on the stack. Blast Zone mops up their board and next turn they scoop to my Life from the Loam since they see I’m about to get back Saga and Blast Zone. Seems slightly hasty but I’m not complaining. Delver has been low on Force of Negation these days and that leave them with zero answers to the Loam engine MD. Without any threats on the table maybe they felt it just wasn’t worth the time.

G2

My opening hand has the combo, a forest, Loam, Map, and two red cards (Punishing Fire and Pyroblast). Forest is good since it’s basic, bad since it means I can’t cast these spells.

I lead on map and figure I’ll just sorta assemble the combo and try to go from there. My opponent plays DRC and a Wasteland to make my life difficult, so I figure I should be more defensive. I tutor up Grove and start going to work on their threats. Murktide takes off Delirium for DRC so I tag it with Pfire and then Pyroblast the dragon. When the dust settles it’s their two Volcs and an Island to my Taiga, Grove, Stage, and Forest, me with Loam, Saga, and Depths in hand, though they did Surgical my Pfires.

They find another threat in Delver, while I’m doing silly things like copying their Wasteland to bait it out. Soon their board is full again with two Delvers and a Channeler. But I manage to fade the lethal Delver flip and trade a construct for a baby Delver when it attacks. Next turn I make Lage (baiting Wasteland may have been silly but it did the job). They can’t find the Bolt they need to finish the job and Lage takes us home to the icy depths.

2-0

ROUND 3 – Jeskai Standstill

These games were long slog fests, since that’s the kind of game Standstill generates. That said, Standstill the card is probably at its absolute worst against Lands, so I can’t complain too much.

G1

OTD again, keep a 6 with no acceleration. It does have Crop Rotation, Saga, Loam, and Blast Zone, along with the mana to make these things work, though.

My opponent just slams a turn 2 Standstill and I’m internally quite happy, especially since they don’t immediately follow it up with Saga. Instead, my Saga is able to do some work and I make a couple constructs.

They do eventually find their Saga though, and theirs is slightly better since it can find Retrofitter Foundry and crack open the Saga mirror. I find Map with mine since I didn’t want to Needle something that wasn’t even in play, but in retrospect needling Foundry probably the better play. I follow up this misplay with another when I refuse to pop my Blast Zone to kill their Foundry, instead using my mana to go find Dark Depths with my Map.

That enables me to make Lage the next turn, but Foundry is a pretty good answer to Lage and I’m bleeding life against a big construct and some servos.

Eventually I do get around to breaking my Blast Zone, and they break their own Standstill to Stifle the ability. Things are looking pretty dire as their army just keeps growing; I Rotate for the Maze that will save my life… but my opponent, who hasn’t cast a spell for several turns, has some countermagic. Go figure.

G2

It’s ok, I tell myself. Let’s just slam some Chokes and make this easy. My opener doesn’t have Choke but it does have Field, Saga, and Wasteland, along with all my colors, a Pyroblast, and a Crop Rotation. Seems solid, let’s do this.

We trade resources a bit in the early game and I get a Saga going and even do the Stage thing where you copy it and make an eternal robot factory. There’s also a Depths in my hand, though they have Karakas to hold it back.

A few turns pass (making a robot factory takes a long time) and eventually they get their own Saga and drop a Standstill on me. I’m a little surprised, since I have Blast Zone for any Foundry, an eternal Saga, and a Field that is close to making Zombies. They can Needle one of those things but not all of them…

Soon enough they’re forced to pop their own Standstill and draw me into Choke. While they can apply pressure at that moment, I am able to stabilize thanks to Choke and my own robot factory (though my dumb butt made it a Volcanic Island earlier so now it gets hosed by my own Choke).

With Choke in play they are very low on resources and my Field is coming online. Things are dicey for a second when they play a Murktide, but I have the Waste for their Karakas, Rotation for a Maze, and the Depths to make a Lage.

G3

My hand is Stage, green lands, Endurance, Map, Exploration, and Blast Zone (which is kind of becoming the MVP of this tournament now that I think about it). Seems fine – we can accelerate and find whatever land we need to shore up the situation until we draw a real engine piece.

My opponent starts off a bit slow and takes the aggressive line of Forcing my Map. They do follow that up with a Saga, so I guess they just didn’t want to get Wasted. I’ve drawn a Force of Vigor, however, so I copy their Saga with my Stage and let them do their construct thing while I just develop my mana.

Force of Vigor ends up tagging the Needle they got and one of their robots, and I’m sitting on my stage-saga and a pile of lands, with Endurance and Punishing Fire in hand. Meanwhile they’ve got a 1/1 construct and a couple Jeskai duals on their side of things. Things are looking good.

But then I get a bit greedy and toss my Endurance into a Daze. Then they Stifle my Stage when I try to turn it into a regular land. THEN they play True-Name Nemesis. In Magic, as in life, things sure can change fast.

That Blast Zone from the opener trades with their Nemesis and I find another Saga, a regular one this time. My opponent Stifles its ability to make robots. Stifle put in a lot of work for them, kind of impressive. But I draw into Choke and then a second Saga, and then finally find Loam.

With Loam and two Explorations, and my opponent with only three forever-tapped lands, the party is over before Lage even shows up.

3-0

ROUND 4 – GW Depths

GW Depths is a matchup I used to be very scared of. Now, having played it a lot more and with 4 Valakut Exploration in the deck, I think it’s pretty manageable. I’m hesitant to say either side is truly favored, but it no longer feels like I’m always fighting to survive. Saga also helps a lot since Needle is an ace in this matchup.

That said, the matchup can be massively complicated and your gameplan can change frequently based on the boardstate. My opponent was no slouch either so I did not have an easy time of it.

G1

We’re on the play, and our opener is just a massive slam dunk for this matchup. Mox Diamond, Exploration, Valakut Exploration, and then Stage, Saga, Wasteland, and Grove. Give me a Loam and the game may as well already be over.

I slam VE on turn two and just start dropping lands all over the place while roaring through my deck. Add a few constructs to the mix and suddenly the chip damage from VE is starting to look pretty real. My opponent is gaining a little traction with a Knight and their Reclaimer. But their life total is quite low at this point and I’m able to make 3 landfall triggers in one turn to wrap things up.

Ok, let’s just do that again please!

G2

My hand this time is a little slower, but it has good tools. Diamond can get us on the table fast enough, and we have Loam, Stage, and Maze so we shouldn’t just die too fast.

My opponent, however, has a turn 2 Knight thanks to GSZ for Dryad Arbor. Knight is probably the best creature against Lands and I can’t find my Valakut Exploration (or even just regular Exploration). They use their Knight to get together the combo pieces, and while I have a Maze, a Ghost Quarter, and a lot of Stages, I don’t have much else.

Here’s a Depths puzzle for you. You’re my opponent – win next turn without casting a spell.

My opponent saw the line and masterfully maneuvered through several layers of interaction where they Waste my Ghost Quarter, so I Ghost Quarter their Stage, so they Fetch a Depths and copy it, so I copy their Depths, so they copy their Depths with the second Stage…

Well played, opponent. I lose.

G3

Force of Vigor is a very mean card that only Lands players should be allowed to play, that was my big takeaway from this game. My hand is solid but my opponent has an early Force of Vigor to hit my Valakut Exploration and Diamond. Then they have Endurance for my Loam and follow it up with Sylvan Library. I struggle for a while but the game is essentially over.

3-1

ROUND 5 – UR Delver

Ok, Delver again. Thank god, this time I won’t have to think so much.

G1

My opener is another greatest hit – Exploration, Loam, Valakut Exploration, plus Grove, Stage, Wasteland, and Tabernacle. I snap it off, regretting only that I’m on the draw so their Daze is live against my Exploration.

They lead on DRC and do in fact Daze my Exploration. Next turn they replay the land and cast Ponder. I draw a Crop Rotation for my turn and take a pretty risky line where I rotate my land for a Wasteland. This line is pretty bad against any countermagic, but if it resolves I get to Waste their land and play Tabernacle to kill their lil’ angry person.

We dodge the countermagic and DRC is too angry to pay their tithe so it dies. They don’t seem to have much in the way of further creatures so I just cast my Loam, figure I’ll get things going a bit. They Force of Will it, and I’m a bit confused until they follow up with Wasteland on my only green source. Nice move opponent.

But they don’t have any threats to follow it up, and another green source shows up pretty soon thereafter. From there it’s only a couple turns until we resolve Valakut Exploration against their empty board and they scoop.

G2

On the draw and both players mull to 5. Usually this favors the Lands player since they have a lot of catchup mechanisms like Loam and they can also win with just a pair of the right pair of lands.

In this case, my final 5 is Endurance, Exploration, Saga, Forest, and Wasteland. They have the t1 DRC, and the Daze for my Exploration (maybe jamming it early wasn’t right in this context). Then they land a second DRC and things are looking a little shaky. But I find a second green source and a second Endurance. My first one gets hit with Unholy Heat, but it still makes their girls into 1/1s. The second eats a force and now my opponent is on no cards.

Meanwhile, I’ve still been playing lands, including a Depths and a Saga, which is now creating a blocker. They attack into it and bolt me in combat, trying to surveil their way into lethal delirium, but they can’t get there and my construct eats a Channeler.

Next turn, my Saga dies into a Map which dies into a Stage which dies into Marit Lage. My opponent has zero cards in hand and I’m at 2 life. Their first draw finds them Expressive Iteration which turns on Delirium, but doesn’t find a burn spell. DRC has to attack into my 20/20 and it dies. My opponent follows her into the underworld, like poor Orpheus pursuing his lost Eurydice.

4-1

ROUND 6 – Moon Stompy

Moon stompy is a weird matchup. Lands is basically just dead to a Blood Moon in g1, especially a build like mine without Reclaimers. Games 2 and 3, however, seem to be all about getting your opponent to help you make Marit Lage. Or, if they don’t play a moon, you can almost always just outvalue them since they will spew a ton of cards to set up an early threat, and we have the acceleration to keep up (plus we can always just make Lage the normal way).

G1

Fairly confident my opponent knew what I was on (pretty easy to find out if you have the patience to type my incomprehensible screenname into Google). They mull to 5, make a t1 Moon, and while I make a show of trying to burn them out with Valakut Exploration, we both knew it wasn’t gonna happen.

G2

My hand has Diamond, Exploration, Loam, Valakut Exploration, Stage, Wasteland, and Saga. My opponent is on 5 cards again. I can’t answer a moon effect but the hand is so good if they don’t have a moon that I keep it anyway.

They don’t have a moon. I Waste every land they play for a few turns (the new Den of the Bugbear they play means they have a lot of nonbasics) and am about to make Marit Lage.

Unfortunately, they land a Magus of the Moon just in the nick of time. Fortunately, I draw Punishing Fire myself. I kill their Magus and Lage emerges from the moon this time instead of her usual icy prison.

G3

My opener once again cannot answer Blood Moon. Their opener can do nothing except make a Blood Moon as they go from 6 cards to 0 on turn one just moon me. Rude.

But the game isn’t over and I have a ton of turns to dig through my deck for Force of Vigor and, hopefully, Dark Depths. That’s essentially what happens as they keep playing lands and lock pieces while I find a Depths and a Force of Vigor to go with it a few turns later.

5-1

ROUND 7 – Elves

Elves is a very interesting matchup. It usually ends up being a race to the combo, and we have a lot more tutors for our pieces than theirs, at least in my experience. The matchup is a lot easier if you have Glacial Chasm and to be honest I almost registered one (I lost a win-and-in to Elves in the last Challenge and was feeling sour). I was kicking myself a little for that, and was also a bit nervous since I knew my opponent was a master of the archetype and had actually tested the matchup with him before where he stomped me thoroughly. But there was nothing to do about it now, so I just took a deep breath and said a little prayer to Mama Lage for luck.

G1

I’m on the play and my hand has Exploration, Stage, and a green source, among other things. That puts me at 7 topdecks that can make a t2 20/20. Lage answers my prayers – the top card of my deck is Dark Depths.

G2

My hand is an interesting one and I almost mulligan. It’s Loam, Waterlogged Grove, Map, Saga, Diamond, Valakut Exploration, and Tabernacle. Tabernacle is a monster in this matchup, but we have no combo pieces and the engines we have are slow. If my opponent has even just a Cradle, they can blank Tabernacle and go nuts on us. Still, I keep, reasoning that Tabernacle will buy us some time and we do have Map so that is sort of a combo piece in a way.

I get a little lucky and my opponent does not have Cradle. They develop slowly, and though they are able to start applying a little pressure, I’m also able to draw a Stage. Unfortunately, there’s a Collector Ouphe jamming up my colored mana and my Map, so I can’t really do much with all this.

They’re chipping in, and eventually I find Blast Zone to kill their Ouphe (told you that card was the MVP). They have white mana, but they have to use it to pay the tithe, so I can go for Lage pretty safely.

6-1 and locked for top 8

QUARTERFINALS – GW Depths

I had never top 8’d a Challenge before and it’s been a goal of mine for a while now, so this was a dream come true. Still, I didn’t want to get into the whole ‘happy to be here’ mindset – why stop at top 8 when we could win the whole thing? So I focused in and resolved to make more Marit Lages than anyone has ever even dreamed of.

In the quarters I came across the same opponent that had given me my loss in the Swiss. A little spooky but it also gave me a chance to redeem myself.

G1

I’m on the draw with 6 cards: Diamond, Pfire, Tabernacle, Map, VE, and Bog. Not amazing but if we can find some lands maybe we can set up VE and go from there.

My opponent seems to be moving slow, with nothing but a t2 Library. They pay 8, cast Reclaimer. I kill it with fire. They pay another 4, cast Sylvan Safekeeper. I play VE, and have another in hand.

At this point my opponent is low enough (7) and has little enough pressure that my plan is just to burn them out with my Valakut Explorations. I need to avoid dying to the combo and try to get as much landfall as possible but also my deck is a giant pile of answers to the combo and ways to get landfall triggers so… we get there.

G2

My opponent is on a mull to 5 and I’m on a medium 7 with Grove, Saga, Spellbomb, Force of Vigor, Exploration, Pfire, and Endurance. Not exciting but more or less fine I guess.

We trade resources a bit and they go to 0 cards to play Ramunap Excavator, a card I truly do not like to play against. Luckily I’m able to kill it with my two burn spells together, but not before I get wasted into oblivion. So now my only mana sources are a Diamond and a Saga with 2 chapters on it. I draw a land for the turn, float mana with Saga, find Diamond, and cast my Endurance just to have a creature to pressure them and hopefully take the game home in a few turns.

Unfortunately they draw PE to kill and then a Sylvan Library to get them back in this. I’ve got just a Crop Rotation and a dinky little Rishadan Port.

Another brain teaser – we just sacced Port, what would you get?

I thought that since they’re at 15 with only 1 card, I don’t want to let them go hard with Library. So I rotated for Saga in their end step, figuring I could make a couple robots that would be quite large and kill them pretty quick. The other play was to hope to find a land or else pitch my whole hand to cast Force of Vigor on their Library.

I’m not sure I did the right thing, but I did it. Unfortunately, their 1 card was a Crop Rotation too, and they Wasted my Saga before it could even make mana. From there I was too far away from casting Force of Vigor in time and they took over the game with an army of Elvish Reclaimers.

G3

So we’re on to game 3, but at least I’m on the play this time. My hand is Diamond, Exploration, Loam, Needle, Map, Karakas, and Bog. Needs to draw some lands but we have Loam and Exploration, that’s what we play this deck to do. Let’s go!

My opponent hits my Diamond with Prismatic Ending and I have no colored mana. I end up having to crack my Map for a fetchland but a few turns later we’re under way again, and they’ve done nothing but make land drops and End my Exploration in the meantime.

Unfortunately, when I finally go to Loam back my fetch so I can get red and cast the Valakut Exploration I drew… they have an evoked Endurance for my graveyard. And then they rotate for Bog to tag the Loam as well! That’s a lot of resources from them though and when all is said and done they’re on three lands and two cards, while I’m on 4 lands (Waste, Karakas, Forest, and Bog), staring at the two VE in my hand and dreaming of red mana.

We play draw-go for a while but I eventually do find red mana. They find an elf, but I Needle it. I play out both my Valakut Explorations and get to enough mana to cast double Punishing Fire. Since Endurance has mopped up their graveyard, this means they can’t really land a creature that’ll stick.

While they have FoV for my Valakuts, I’m able to keep the board clear. They’re 6 minutes below me on clock and getting into the red as the turns tick by and I keep killing the creatures they play. Their only way to win from here seems to be finding the Depths to go with their Stage. I port their Stage each turn to hold it off, and like I said, my deck is a pile of answers to that combo. They concede with 30 seconds on their clock after I’ve found more Valakut Explorations and am pretty firmly in the drivers seat.

7-1

SEMIFINALS – Eldrazi Post

G1

With no idea what my opponent is on, I mull to 6 and keep a reasonable Loam, Diamond, Stage, Needle, Depths, Grove. Needs a land to make a turn 3 Lage, and can do it through Wasteland thanks to Needle. If you’re wondering why there are so many mulligans in this report, Lands mulls a lot but it also mulls pretty well, as this hand shows.

My opponent leads on Eldrazi Temple and I am ecstatic. Anything can happen, of course, but Eldrazi is usually quite easy for Lands. I summon the Witch on schedule and win.

G2

Another 6, this time with Pfire, Grove, Maze, Diamond, Stage, and Valakut Exploration. This is a hand that should do fine against Eldrazi Stompy. Turns out my opponent was on Eldrazi Post (didn’t see any of those posts in g1, though maybe the Cascading Cataracts should have clued me in?).

They have a Chalice on 1, and TKS follows soon after. I’m trying to set up the combo here but it’s taking some time as I have to wait for a Saga to get a Map and then sac that and the whole thing. By the time I get there it’s been telegraphed for ages. My opponent plays a Karakas and their Chalice stops my Crop Rotation from answering it. I lose to TKS beats.

G3

On the play my opener has Exploration, Force of Vigor, Depths, Blast Zone, Maze, and Saga. Another hand that will Saga into the combo if you want it to. I play Exploration and Saga, getting myself set up. My opponent plays multiple ancient tombs and a Grim Monolith over the next turn, which leads to Karn and an Ensaring Bridge. I am too vigorous for Bridges, however. What’s more, a strange twist of fate causes the baddest robot in the multiverse to be murdered by one of Urza’s lil’ ol’ constructs.

At this point I’ve got two 3/3 constructs and my opponent is at 14 from their own Tombs. They go to 12 to cast a Spyglass naming Stage (there is a Depths and a Map on the table, after all). But even if Marit Lage isn’t invited, the constructs know how to party without her, and take the game home in a couple attacks.

8-1

FINALS – Jeskai Delverless

I knew I’d be playing against either this or Doomsday in the finals and was really hoping it wouldn’t be Doomsday. I’m essentially never going to win against a practiced Doomsday pilot and Kai is much more than just practiced. So when it was another fair blue deck that got through to me, I figured I might actually have a shot.

That said, I must confess that I often feel a little lost playing against these Jeskai piles. I don’t really know what to expect – are they on DRC? Do they play Swords or is it just Prismatic Endings and Bolts? Do they have Force of Negation? Wasteland? Who knows anymore?? If you have any advice on this please let me know.

G1

I’m on the play and I mull to 6 keeping three lands, Exploration, and two Valakut Exploration. I feel like I just cannot lose, if even one of these VEs sticks I will just run away with it.

My Exploration resolves, and on turn 2 I jam VE into a possible Daze, thinking I have a second one anyway and I want to get on the table. They have the Daze. Next turn I can’t really play around Daze because I only have 3 mana available. And they can’t have the second Daze, can they?

They do. I’m dead in the water after that and don’t draw anything particularly relevant while some monkeys and a True Name kill me.

G2

My hand is Ghost Quarter, Port, Wasteland, Saga, Taiga, Diamond, Needle. Not super exciting but the mana denial can buy us a lot of turns and we have Saga for a threat and selection.

My opponent, however, has an early monkey that I can’t really interact with right away. Saga promises to make some blockers, but they have Alpine Moon to get rid of it.

When True Name joins the unanswered monkey, I fall to the JMML plan – Just Make Marit Lage. I’m doing ok on that front – I have all the combo pieces and just need the turns to play them and activate. Unfortunately, my opponent flips a Crop Rotation with their Ragavan and rotates for a Wasteland. That’s one more turn it’s gonna take me, and probably the last turn I can afford, even if they don’t have any burn spells. Next turn their monkey steals a Loam, so they get back their Wasteland and do it again. I can’t make Lage in time now and I die as my old Nemesis and a new one join forces to crush me. Feels a bit bad to go out on a monkey-stealing story but so it goes, the card is good.

8-2 for 2nd place

As someone who just picked up Lands in January last year, I was overjoyed to have made it as far as the finals of a Legacy Challenge. I’ve done well at local events, but up to now had only middling results in these Challenges, and to finally break the top 8 and even make the finals felt like a vindication of all the time I spent on this silly deck. Big ups to the whole Legacy and Lands community and in particular to Jarvis Yu, whose coaching helped me a lot and made me realize that I actually do want to do well in these events.

If you’re looking to pick up the deck, be assured that while you may lose in the finals of an event to some bad monkey beats, you will crush fair blue decks most of the time. In fact given the current meta, with there being only one real combo deck in Doomsday, Lands feels very well-positioned. It’s a prison-control-combo-aggro deck that can kill on turn 2 and plays several tutors and insane value engines in Loam and Valakut Exploration. What’s not to like?

I hope you enjoyed this report as much as I enjoyed the event. Until next time, may Lage preserve us.

There is always a viable form of a control deck in the Legacy format and there are many great players that almost exclusively play control. If you run deep in a Legacy tournament you can expect to play vs control one time or another in the tournament. I hope this guide can give you an idea on the roles and strategies that are effective versus the various flavours of control decks. But I also want to give you a heads up that this is a fairly tricky matchup, and games tend to go long, so there are many chances to mess things up (from both sides). This means that the person with the most experience will have an edge, and I therefore recommend that you do dedicated practice of this matchup.

Matchup History

I started playing Lands in the peak of the Czech Pile era. During this time (but also after Deathrite Shaman was banned and up until Modern Horizon 1 came out) the Legacy control decks came in two distinct forms namely UW and 3-Color control.

UW decks were naturally good against Lands because they built their deck to ignore most of our strategies and cards. First of all they played many basic lands so our Wastelands were often dead and this made the Prison role hard to execute. They also had clean answers to Marit Lage, in the form of Swords to Plowshares, and this made the Combo strategy unreliable. Finally, it was difficult to control the board with Punishing Fire as they had recursive counterspells in Counterbalance, or threats that were hard to interact with such as True-Name Nemesis or Monastery Mentor. Their top end with Jace or Entreat could also go over anything we did, and if this wasn’t enough they often played main deck Back to Basics to completely lock us out. I did not enjoy playing against these UW decks as I felt unfavoured (especially in G1) and the games would often go long so I would spend a lot of time drawing bad cards and losing. 

3-Color control decks were in many ways the exact opposite of the UW decks as most of our cards, and all of our strategies, were good in this matchup. They had a shaky manabase and we could Wasteland them out of many games. Marit Lage was also a reliable kill because they were Grixis or BUG coloured and didn’t have access to Swords to Plowshares. Further, their discard based disruption did almost nothing against us as our hands were typically filled with lands and recursive cards. I really enjoyed playing against these 3-Color control decks as I felt favoured (especially in G1) and the games would often go long so I would spend a lot of time drawing good cards and winning.

Overall I felt that Lands was a great choice vs the fair blue decks at this time. Half of the fair blue decks were on Delver (and we were favoured vs these) and at least half of the blue control decks were on 3-Color control (and we were favoured vs these). This meant that we were favoured in +75% of the fair blue matchups. On top of this the hate that we played against Storm and Show and Tell (such as Choke, Pyroblast and Sphere of Resistance) lined up well vs the UW control decks, and this meant that in the post sideboard games we could adopt a heavy Prison role and I felt favoured in the post sideboard games.

Then Modern Horizon 1 was released and everything changed. Arcum’s Astrolabe was an absolute nightmare printing for Lands as an archetype. It effectively made all control decks into “UW” (although they often played 5 colors). All of these decks now had access to Swords to Plowshares and Oko as clean answers to Marit Lage, and they played many basic lands to blank out our Wastelands and Prison plan. They often also played non-basic hate in the form of Blood Moon to lock us out. These decks were also harder to Prison out because their “late game cards” were cheaper and they could often operate solely on Forests and Swamps and hence Choke was unreliable. Not everything was bad though. We also got a new printing in Field of the Dead and this card gave us access to a new Ramp strategy (on top of the Prison, Control and Combo strategies that we already had access to). The Ramp strategy is very effective against control decks and we could adopt our deck to optimise this angle if we wanted to gain extra percentage points against control (such as playing Uro and Primeval Titan for example). We also got the printing of Valakut Exploration and this card quickly replaced Gamble in RG Lands decks. Valakut Exploration is a card advantage engine that doesn’t rely on the graveyard and it’s very good at fueling Field of the Dead.

As you all know Arcum’s Astrolabe has since then been banned and this was a huge benefit for Lands against the blue control decks. Modern Horizon 2 has also been released and this set has given new tools to both sides. In the rest of this article I will explain how I approach the current iterations of control decks in Legacy.

UW Control

There are currently four different flavours of UW control decks that come to my mind, and I have tried to give them a short description below. 

• Bant Control is by far the most popular UW control deck in today’s Legacy meta. It is built to abuse Uro (sometimes together with Sylvan Library). These decks have played up to four copies of Force of Negation (yuck) alongside Mystic Sanctuary. If you have not lost to this combination before then I can assure you that it feels just as bad as it sounds. The latest version of this deck seems to cut down on Force of Negation as they have picked up Prismatic Ending to answer resolved permanents. They still have plenty of answers to Loam though as they now play Endurance in the main deck. Bant Control has a fairly shaky manabase and it’s a better matchup today compared to during the Astrolabe era in my opinion.
• UW Miracles (with Mishra’s Bauble and Predict) is very similar to the UW Miracles decks of “pre Modern Horizon 1” and it has a rock solid manabase and plays annoying cards such as Counterbalance, Entreat the Angels and Back to Basics in the main deck.
• UWr Sharkstill is an interesting deck because even though it’s a (more or less) two coloured deck the mana base is fairly shaky since they play Hall of Heliod’s Generosity and Blast Zone, and the red splash is certainly not free from their side. G1 is a fairly good matchup for Lands as Standstill is not a good card vs us. After sideboarding the games get harder as I expect both Monastery Mentor and the red non-basic hate.
• Esper Mentor is really just a Grixis control shell that plays Swords to Plowshares instead of the red cards (it could as well have been listed under 3-color control). I think this is the easiest of the UW decks because they only play 4 basics and their discard based disruption is not effective vs Lands.

There is also a fairly new UWR deck that plays Ragavan and Urza’s Saga and Standstill. This deck has shown impressive results online but I don’t consider this a control deck and hence I won’t cover it here. I do think Lands is favoured vs this deck though.

Game 1

This is the one matchup where mana acceleration is not crucial (especially if we are on the play). I would rather keep a hand with Sylvan Library than Mox Diamond against UW control. I have also found that good UW players tend to counter our engines instead of acceleration and I therefore value engines higher than acceleration in my starting hand. If I for example mulligan to 6 and see a hand with 2 Explorations and 2 Sylvan Library then I will bottom one of the Explorations. In the following section I will explain the various Lands strategies that are available against the UW matchup.

Strategy 1 – Prison-Ramp

What does good look like in the Lands vs UW matchup? Imagine that we get to untap with Exploration, Valakut Exploration and 4 lands in play on turn 3. It’s very hard to lose from this position. Valakut will “draw” 2-3 extra cards per turn, we will have plenty of mana and can use Rishadan Port to stop our opponent from casting their spells, while also making 2-4 zombies on every turn. This gamestate can be achieved when we have a good hand i.e. one that contains both mana acceleration and an engine (ideally two engines to ensure that one sticks around). This is how I would rate our various engines in this specific matchup.

1. Valakut Exploration is in my opinion the best engine against UW decks. It’s important to optimize how we sequence our lands once we have Valakut in play. We should ensure that we have green mana open after we play our first land (just in case we will flip Exploration or Crop Rotation). Also, if our opponent cast a spell that will destroy Valakut then we should respond by fetching and / or casting Crop Rotation as any card flipped with Valakut can be played even if Valakut is destroyed. Actually the EOT trigger doesn’t happen if Valakut is destroyed and we can play the exiled cards indefinitely.
2. Sylvan Library used to be the best possible card against UW decks but it has gotten worse due to their effective answers in Prismatic Ending, Narset and Hullbreacher. It is still a good card in the matchup and an early Library often leads us to victory. If I resolve an early Library then I will use my life aggressively in order to get ahead on cards before my opponent finds an answer. Swords to Plowshares on Marit Lage will also give us 5 new cards and hence if I have Sylvan Library in play then I am  more inclined to summon the 20/20 monster.
3. Elvish Reclaimer can be an engine if we also play Flagstones of Trokair. This combination will ramp us one land per turn and get us closer to having Field of the Dead online. It’s unlikely that the Elf will survive though as they have plenty of answers to creatures.
4. Life from the Loam is probably the worst engine against UW control as these decks are built to ignore many of our lands (so getting 3 back is not that strong). It is also often difficult to get lands into our graveyard in this matchup and Loam can be stranded in our hand. UW decks also tend to play recursive counterspells, such as Force of Negation plus Mystic Sanctuary or Counterbalance plus Brainstorm / Jace, and the recursive nature of Life from the Loam is less useful in this matchup.

If I am lucky enough to get to untap with an engine then I will go heavy on the Prison role as I want to maximise the number of turns where my engine gives me an advantage. 

Screenshot of what good looks like in the Lands vs UW control matchup.

Things don’t always go according to plan as our opponent runs counterspells and removal such as Prismatic Ending. Luckily it is possible to play the Prison-Ramp strategy even without an engine online (I call this the naked Prison-Ramp strategy). I have won many games against UW control without casting a single spell. Lands cannot be countered or targeted by their removal and it’s therefore possible to leave our opponent with dead cards stranded in their hand while we are getting closer and closer to having 7 lands with unique names in play. We also have plenty of mana sinks and can use our mana even if we are not casting spells. Here are some early indicators that the naked Prison-Ramp strategy can be viable.

• My opening hand has both Field of the Dead and multiple copies of Rishadan Port.
• My opponent leads with a non-basic land into Ponder and chooses to shuffle.
• My opponent misses their 2nd or 3rd land drop.

Let’s delve deeper into the Prison angle of the Lands deck as this is so important at this point in the game. Rishadan Port is my favourite magic card and here are some more pointers on how to use it against the UW deck. 

• It’s obviously best if we have more Port activations then our opponent has lands and we should therefore copy Rishadan Port with Thespian’s Stage to maximise the effect. 
• We should set a stop in our opponent’s upkeep and in their draw step. This way if they float mana in response to our first Port activation then we can pass priority and force them to tap more lands (if they for example want to cast a card with flash such as Ice Fang Coatl or Snapcaster Mage). We can now use our remaining Port activations in their draw step to tap down their remaining lands.
• We should tap our opponent’s fetch lands in their end step. If they crack the fetch in response to our Port activation then we can tap their land in their next upkeep and the “protection” that a fetch provides is gone. If they choose to not crack their fetch in response to our Port activation then we have the chance to Waste their tapped fetch on our turn (assuming that we draw a Wasteland or have one sandbagged in our hand).
• If our opponent continues to draw lands and end up with more lands then we have Port activations then we have some interesting choices about which lands we should target with our Rishadan Ports.
  • Blue is the hardest and most risky color to try to cut off. It’s hard because most of our opponent’s lands produce blue mana and it’s risky because many of our opponent’s blue cards (such as Brainstorm, Ice Fang, Snapcaster Mage, Hullbreacher, Predict) can be cast at instant speed. However, it can sometimes be a good idea to try to cut them off blue as it prevents them from casting Ponder and Preordain to dig for more lands.
  • Green is a good color to take out against Bant control as they have some green sorcery speed cards that are strong against our mana denial plan (such as Abundant Harvest, Sylvan Library and Uro). It’s not completely without risk though as both Ice Fang and Endurance can be cast at instant speed.
  • White is probably my default color to target against non-green UW decks. It’s a safe choice as all white threats (such as Monastery Mentor, Stoneforge Mystic, Entreat) are deployed at sorcery speed. 
  • Red and Black are typically not a priority in G1 as there are few red or black cards that we care about in the pre sideboard games. This changes after sideboarding though as there are plenty of great non-basic haters in red (such as Blood Moon and From the Ashes). 
• Dark Depths can be used as extra copies of Rishadan Port. If we have Thespian’s Stage and Dark Depths in play then our opponent will not be able to use all their white mana while also holding up mana for Swords to Plowshares. In this situation the Dark Depths combo is effectively a “free” Rishadan Port.
• Tabernacle can be used as extra copies of Rishadan Port activations. We will let our opponent pay the upkeep cost for their Ice Fangs and / or Snapcasters before we use our Ports on their remaining lands.

I find that the naked Prison-Ramp strategy wins if we continue to draw more lands than our opponent. At some point we will have found Field of the Dead and then once we have obtained 7 (unique) lands in play the game is effectively over. We can now turn gears and copy Field with Thespian’s Stage to effectively start creating 4-8 zombies on every turn. This will quickly overwhelm our opponent. 

An alternative (although harder to execute) way to win is to tap down all of our opponent’s white mana sources and then assemble Marit Lage in our opponent’s end step. Ghost Quarter can be used to destroy basic Plains, and Thespian’s Stage can copy Ghost Quarter to give us more copies of this effect. It’s a good idea to keep track of how many basic Plains that are played in the UW decks of the time (it typically varies between 1 and 3). It’s super important to be patient here. It’s not uncommon for me to pay 30 mana (over many turns) to naturally assemble Marit Lage. Thespian’s Stage will often make more use as another copy of Rishadan Port instead of as a “1 for 2” trade when assembling the 20/20 token.

I have found that the naked Prison-Ramp strategy can lose games where our opponent draws more lands than us (especially fetches are strong against this strategy). If they are able to cast a card such as Sylvan Library or Uro or Jace, then they will start to accrue an advantage each turn, and this will help them find more lands and counterspells. It’s important to delay this point as long as possible. If we already have Field of the Dead online when they are able to cast Sylvan Library or Jace then we can often handle the situation. In my experience the only cards, from the UW deck, that can outclass Field of the Dead are Shark Typhoon and Entreat the Angels, and both of these cards are hard to resolve under Rishadan Ports. If they do manage to sneak in a big Entreat then the only answer that we have is to copy Blast Zone with Thespian’s Stage in order to create a Blast Zone with 0 counters on it.

There can be a tension between our expensive cards, such as Valakut Exploration, and the Prison-Ramp strategy. Force of Will / Force of Negation can be cast even with no untapped lands and if we spend all of our mana to cast Valakut, and have it countered, then the game can be over as the UW player will now have all their lands available on the following turn and can deploy one of their snowballing threats. If we continue to draw lands, and are able to use our mana on Rishadan Port and Dark Depths activations, then there is often no need to expose ourselves to the tempo gain of Force of Will. Life from the Loam is cheaper than Valakut Exploration but I also have patience with Loam. It’s often better to cast Loam on turn 4 (to ensure our 4th land drop) instead of turn 2 or 3. This way we can use the mana from one of the lands that we returned to activate Rishadan Port on the following turn. 

I think the decisions on how to navigate the naked Prison-Ramp strategy is the hardest part of the Lands vs UW control matchup and inexperienced players will lose games where they cast their spells on the wrong turn.

Strategy 2 – Uncounterable-Aggro

This is a new strategy that is enabled by Urza’s Saga. In this strategy we try to blank our opponent’s counterspells by letting our lands do the heavy lifting. Let’s assume that our hand has a Mox Diamond and Urza’s Saga. In this case we can have two 4/4’s and an Expedition Map in play at the end of our 3rd turn. Expedition Map can find another Saga and at the end of our 6th turn we can have four 7/7 Constructs, one 1/1 Servo, and a Retrofitter Foundry in play. This is pretty good for a single uncounterable land (although we did also put in plenty of mana into this sequence). 

Thespian’s Stage can copy Urza’s Saga and this interaction is broken in a slow matchup such as against UW control. If we copy a basic land with Stage in response to the “search your library” trigger then the Stage actually gets to keep the ability to make constructs. We now have a token generator that is immune to non-basic hate such as Back to Basics. I have won many games against UW control where I used Crop Rotation to find Saga at the end of my opponent’s turn and copied it with Stage. We can execute this line as soon as we have 3 lands in play. It’s important to note that we need 6 mana 2 turns later in order to activate both Saga and Stage (to make constructs) on the same turn. Saga can find Mox Diamond on its 3rd Chapter, and this ramps us, so we can get there from 3 lands if we have 3 extra lands in hand. If we don’t have 3 extra lands in hand then it’s safer to start this chain with 4 or 5 lands in play. This sequence requires less resources than Field of the Dead and can be executed earlier in the game.

Urza’s Saga also has the nice upside of making both Life from the Loam and Crop Rotation better against UW control. Urza’s Saga will naturally hit our graveyard and it’s a great land against UW decks and it therefore “fixes” 2 of Loam’s historical problems in this matchup. Crop Rotation is weak against decks with counterspells since it’s a “1 for 2” trade if we get it countered. But if we rotate away Urza’s Saga in response to the “search your library” trigger then it’s only a “1 for 1” trade if Crop Rotation is countered (it’s even a “2 for 1” trade if the counterspell is Force of Will).

I think the Uncounterable-Aggro strategy is strong against UW decks but it’s not guaranteed that it will lead us to victory. UW decks are very good at answering creatures and Swords to Plowshares plus Ice Fang / Endurance can lead to complete blow outs. Also, this strategy is mana hungry and it can be hard to execute it at the same time as we put pressure on our opponent’s mana. This means that we expose ourselves to scenarios such as Terminus or Dress Down plus Uro or Jace on the same turn. 

I want to talk a bit more about Dress Down. Bant control currently plays 2 or 3 copies of this card (primarily) as an answer to Urza’s Saga. Dress Down can come down at instant speed and it kills all constructs (as it turns them into 0/0’s). If my opponent is signaling that they have Dress Down then I will wait until their end step to make tokens. We typically don’t want to make new tokens on our own turn pre-combat (even if this will grow our other constructs) as they will then all die to a flashed in Dress Down.

Not all Lands decks go all in on Urza’s Saga, as they require many slots, and they tend to compete with either Rishadan Port, Sylvan Library or Valakut Exploration. Further, some of the 1 mana silver bullets are sub-par cards that increase our chances of bad top decks. My current opinion is that the 1st Urza’s Saga is very good as it makes us more non-linear and it improves the control and midrange matchups. However, I don’t think that it’s worth maxing out on Urza’s Saga. This can of course change depending on the metagame and if they print new cheap artifacts.

Strategy 3 – Combo

Going for a fast combo kill is not recommended against UW decks as they have plenty of answers to a 20/20 and it’s bad to set ourselves back 2 land drops. There are however certain edge cases where I will create a Marit Lage token into open white mana.

• If I feel extremely behind on board then I may go for a hail mary Marit Lage. Say for example that my opponent has a Monastery Mentor and will kill me on the following turn.
• If I have an unanswered Sylvan Library then I am more inclined to create a 20/20 monster. It feels great to gain 20 life with Sylvan Library in play.
• If I have Exploration and Life from the Loam but nothing else going then I may try to start creating a 20/20 on every turn and try to outrun my opponent’s removal. This is risky though as Force of Negation or Endurance can stop the recursion.

A more common combo line is if my opponent taps out on their turn when they have a blocker such as Ice Fang, Baleful Strix or Endurance in play. I have won many games where I create Marit Lage in my opponent’s end step and then untap and kill their blocker. This line is better if we play Abrupt Decay as removal instead of Punishing Fire.

Even though I won’t typically create Marit Lage into open white mana I do like to “Sword check” my opponent. If my intention is to pay 3 to remove 1 counter from Dark Depths at the end of my opponent’s turn then I will tap my lands so that Thespian’s Stage is the last land that is being tapped. This way it can look like I am actually copying Dark Depths with Stage.

• If my opponent has Swords to Plowshares in hand then they will typically let the Dark Depths trigger resolve instantly. 
• If my opponent stops and thinks in response to the Dark Depths trigger then I can get a read that they don’t have Swords to Plowshares. I have even had opponents that concede when I remove 1 counter from Dark Depths this way. This actually happens more often than you would think (especially in MODO Leagues).

Game 1 from the UW Perspective

In order to ensure that I have not missed anything important I did reach out to the UW experts Marcus Ewaldh (Iwouldliketorespond), Thomas Mechint (mechin), and Anuraag Das (AnziD) and asked them how they approach G1 from the UW side. This is what they told me.

Marcus

If I don’t run graveyard hate in G1 then my opponent will eventually get Field of the Dead online and I need to figure out a gamestate where I win before or despite that. This mostly revolves around cheesing in an Entreat the Angels, or having Stoneforge Mystic + Kaldra Compleat, or Monastery Mentor, or Uro (if I am playing that card). Jace is also very good in this matchup as it’s very hard for the Lands deck to remove him. We can use Jace to find a few counterspells and then start fatesealing our opponent while we temporarily counter Life from the Loam with Spell Snare and Force of Will. We can also use Jace to find more counterspells while we beat our opponent down with Snapcaster Mages.

In the early game it’s key to develop our mana with basic lands. I also try to have a play that I can do in response to a Rishadan Port activation (this way I can get some tempo). We can usually get a lot of extra time if Force of Negation hits a Life from the Loam, or if Force of Will hits an early Valakut Exploration.

Dark Depths is something that I have to respect but the Lands deck now has Field of the Dead and Urza’s Saga so Depths is not as important as it used to be. I also don’t think that Swords to Plowshares on Marit Lage is a game winning play in G1 if the Lands deck already has Life from the Loam going.

Finally, it’s also important to know how much our and their cards are worth in different situations. This is something that comes with experience and it’s not something that can be generalized. Field of the Dead is scary in the lategame but unless our opponent has Life from the Loam it’s only one or two 2/2’s per turn. In this case we need to have navigated the game to a spot where it’s OK that our opponent get’s one 2/2 on every turn. If we use Ponder to find Swords to Plowshares for a zombie token then we are doing something wrong. We will lose that game a few turns later and the Ponder could have been used better. 

Thomas

My G1 strategy is to construct a robust manabase and quickly find a Swords to Plowshares (in order to not die early). I won’t focus on Exploration but on Loam or Valakut Exploration, and I try to kill my opponent with planeswalkers.

I usually lose games where my opponent has an unanswered Sylvan Library or Valakut Exploration, or when I have mana issues and get rekt by Wasteland and Rishadan Port.

I mostly win games when my opponent has slow starts, or hands that lose to one counterspell / removal spell.

Anuraag

Historically the Lands vs Control matchup has always been very exciting, though not in a traditional sense. The pre board game boils down to which player can successfully prevent the other from executing their primary game plan. Lands will attempt to leverage Life from the Loam to snowball cards like Exploration and Valakut Exploration into hard mana lockdown via Rishadan Port or an unstoppable onslaught of Zombie tokens from Field of the Dead. For modern day UW, the plan is to use a combination of cards like Endurance and Force of Negation to prevent the proactive Lands strategy and find a window to resolve a game-ending haymaker like Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Shark Typhoon. 

When CounterTop was legal, executing the UW control plan was particularly easy as the deck was very consistent at assembling the artifact-enchantment duo with a CMC 2 card on top to lock out Loam and Punishing Fire. After that, find Swords to Plowshares to shut down Marit Lage and the game was wrapped up. Nowadays though, the matchup is much more complicated as the RG deck has significantly evolved since the “good ol’ days”. 

The baseline plan for new age control in the matchup is pretty simple – draw your whole deck and counter everything your opponent tries to do. It’s no surprise UW has a million tools to do this, but what really changed things was the printing of Oko, Thief of Crowns and Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath. These two cards fundamentally changed the matchup by bringing to the table tools control previously could not leverage optimally – a reliable board presence, ramp, card draw, and life gain. Pairing these cards with Sylvan Library allowed for crazy games where Oko could swiftly tempo out the Loam opponent or Uro could gain too much advantage. 

The biggest evolution I felt from the Lands side to match these new cards was the inclusion of haymakers like Sylvan Library, Pyroblast, and for a while even Abrupt Decay at the expense of more all-in cards like Gamble. What this meant to me was a something far more dangerous than “teching out” a list. It meant a shift in framework, a new approach to the matchup that involved playing far slower than before, but loading the deck up with far more cards that could single-handedly win the game. 

So how do I approach the matchup then? Well… relatively the same. Draw your whole deck and counter everything. But wasn’t that always the plan? Well yes, but prior to a certain set the matchup was relatively close in that the control didn’t actually have very many good maindeck answers to what the Loam strategy was trying to accomplish. It was basically Force of Will critical enchantments and Force of Negation Loam or bust. Literally if even a single Library or Valakut Exploration stuck or Loam went unchecked for a few turns the game was over on the spot, full stop. That sounds scary, but it was still close as UW still featured upwards of 7 or 8 free counters in addition to planeswalkers that could help find them. 

However now, with Modern Horizons 2 released, two cards have fundamentally changed the matchup. Enter Prismatic Ending and Endurance. Prismatic Ending may be the most ridiculous removal spell of all time. It just… answers everything that control previously struggled with. Chalice of the Void? Check. 2019 Planeswalkers? Check. Sylvan Library? Valakut Exploration? Check, check. The card is quite simply too versatile and in my opinion a 4x in any control maindeck. Even Endurance is insane – maindeckable Loam hate that can profitably block Delver of Secrets and chump Marit Lage to enable sorcery speed removal? Sign me up! The point is, while control was able to keep up sometimes against Lands before MH2, the introduction of new maindeckable cards relevant in the matchup means there’s actually an overabundance of answers for the threats Lands presents. 

This translates to a shift in macro strategy for the control side. Now we are allowed to put a higher emphasis on drawing cards since all our answers are just so generically good in the matchup. Obviously the age-old mantra still applies – fetch basics and develop your mana so you don’t lose to Wasteland or Rishadan Port. But spending more card slots on Sylvan Library or Jace the Mind Sculptor is suddenly more reasonable, as is taking more tempo turns to draw cards off Uro for example because you’re more likely to find a critical Endurance or Force of Negation.

Here are some other short notes on cards I like in the matchup and have in my maindeck.

Dress Down: Excellent against Urza’s Saga, another grindy “Library-esque” card designed to outvalue control. Dress Down removes the abilities of the artifacts to get +1/+1 for other artifacts, making them measly 0/0 creatures that instantly die.

Shark Typhoon: This is the answer to Field of the Dead. 2/2 Zombies are cool, but they are no match for 5/5 Sharks. The fact that the Shark tokens also have flying is huge as it mitigates Marit Lage effectively.

Sideboarding from the Lands side

My sideboard tends to have somewhere between 5-8 cards for the control matchup (this is excluding Sphere of Resistance). Sphere is a defining card because if we take them in then we are almost certainly playing a heavy Prison strategy in the post sideboard games (and the games where we simply run our opponent over are less likely to happen). I like to ask myself “if we both are casting spells, who wins?” and if the answer is my opponent then I will bring in the Spheres. To be a bit more specific, I tend to bring in Sphere vs UW decks with Monastery Mentor but I don’t like to take them in vs current iterations of Bant control (as Prismatic Ending is such a good answer to Sphere and they play plenty of creatures so they can put pressure on us under a Sphere). It can also be play / draw dependent if I take in Sphere of Resistance or not. I also think Sphere of Resistance is better if we play Urza’s Saga and in these builds I am much more inclined to take them in.

All in all this means that we need to find somewhere between 5-12 cards to side out. I like to go down to 30 lands in the post sideboard games and there are some obvious choices such as Tabernacle, 1-2 Maze of Ith, 1-2 Wastelands, Karakas and Bojuka Bog (unless they play Uro of course). I will also cut some Crop Rotations (and all Gambles if I play them), and I will shave down on Mox Diamonds and Explorations as mana acceleration is not important in this matchup. Life from the Loam is the worst engine and this can be shaved as well. Punishing Fire is a good card to handle planeswalkers but I don’t feel like I want all 3 copies. I will now give a bit more flavour to the cards that I like to bring in against the UW control decks.

Pyroblasts

These cards are exceptional against UW control as they can answer most of their problematic cards (such as Jace, Teferi, Narset, Shark Typhoon, Back To Basics, Hullbreacher, True-Name Nemesis) and they can also help to force through our key cards against opposing counterspells.  

Prison Cards

• Choke will win games where it resolves at the right time. Our UW opponent will have answers to Choke so we really want to resolve it when they are already tapped down. My favourite line is to wait for them to cast something like Back to Basics or Jace. Then I will Pyroblast that spell, untap and slam Choke. There is literally no better feeling in magic for me. 
• Sphere of Resistance is another prison card that I sometimes take in (as explained above). Sphere is very good alongside Choke as our UW opponent will often be forced to tap out simply to cast their cantrips. We are now in a spot where we can cast Choke without risk of it being countered.

Additional Engines / Bombs

If I have additional engines and bombs in my sideboard then I will for sure take them in vs UW control. This is how I rank the commonly played engines / bombs against UW decks.

1. Primeval Titan is probably the best possible bomb as it wins the game on the spot and it’s immune to Force of Negation (also to Force of Will if we play Cavern of Souls). Primeval Titan will find Field of the Dead and another land such as Thespian’s Stage or a fetch and this will almost surely ensure that Field is turned on. Unless our opponent untaps and casts Entreat the Angels or Shark Typhoon then I don’t think that we can really lose after a resolved Primeval Titan. Titan has gotten a bit worse since UW decks started playing Dress Down. 
2. Field of the Dead is typically my main plan against UW decks and I sometimes have a 2nd copy in the sideboard. I really want to have 2 copies against these decks as I am also shaving down on Crop Rotations and it can be hard to find Field on time otherwise. 
3. Valakut Exploration is one of our best cards against UW control and if I have additional copies in the sideboard then I will take them in.
4. Tireless Tracker is a great card in this matchup and we will win most games where we get to untap with her. Even if they remove her instantly we are often left with one or two Clues. Tracker is also better if we play Urza’s Saga as the Clues help grow our Constructs.
5. Chandra, Awakened Inferno is an uncounterable bomb that cannot be killed with Prismatic Ending. I never really liked Chandra, as 6 mana is so expensive when I also want to use Rishadan Port, and she doesn’t straight up win once she is resolved. I think that current iterations of Bant control can race a Chandra with Uro and Endurance.
6. Klothys, God of Destiny used to the very good vs Uro builds as she was unkillable and answered all future Uro’s as well as their Ice Fangs. Klothys would also eventually win the game on her own. However, after the printing of Prismatic Ending as a clean answer to Klothys I don’t think this card is good anymore.

Disenchant effects

It used to be mandatory to take in 3 Krosan Grips vs UW control as an answer to Counterbalance, Rest in Peace and Back to Basics. I find that current builds of UW decks focus more on planeswalkers than enchantments and it’s not certain that I will bring in Force of Vigor in this matchup. It depends on what I see from my opponent.

Example of a sideboard map

Here is an example of how I could sideboard vs Bant control in a RG list with 1 Urza’s Saga.

Here is an example of how I could sideboard vs Bant control in a RG list with 4 Urza’s Saga.

Sideboarding from the UW side

Marcus has told me that he likes to bring in disenchant effects, non-basic hate, graveyard hate, and additional win conditions in exchange for all non-free countermagic and sweepers. I will now put some flavour on the cards that I often see from UW decks post sideboard.

Non-Basic Hate

UW control tends to have 1-2 copies of non-basic hate in their sideboard. This is how I would rank the non-basic hate against Lands.

1. Blood Moon is a slam dunk against Lands as it shuts down all of our strategies. It’s a 3 mana card that will blank all lands that we have in pay and all lands that we will draw in the future. It even stops us from casting our own spells. Sure, in magic christmas land we can remove the Blood Moon and get a “free” 20/20 but I find that this never works against decks with Force of Will. 
2. From the Ashes is a one sided Armageddon in this matchup. This is often enough to crush us. From the Ashes do cost 4 mana and if I see it in G2 then I will bring in all Sphere of Resistance and really push the Prison angle in G3. 
3. Back to Basics has to come down early in order to make a difference. A timely Back to Basic will still win games, but if it comes down when we already have Field online it is often too late.

Life from the Loam Hate

I expect UW control to have 2-4 answers to Life from the Loam mostly in the form of graveyard hate. This is how I would rank the commonly played answers to Life from the Loam.

1. Rest in Peace is a permanent answer to both Life from the Loam and Punishing Fire. Rest in Peace can also give the control deck virtual card advantage as now all of my remaining Life from Loams become dead draws.
2. Relic of Progenitus is very good if it comes down early. The “tap ability” is often enough to keep my graveyard empty and this turns off all future Loams that I draw and provides virtual card advantage. Relic can also be cycled later for additional value or if the UW deck is desperately looking for a specific answer such as a Swords to Plowshares.
3. Endurance can slow me down but it’s not a permanent answer. However, a hard cast Endurance is very good because it also provides a clock. I don’t have many ways to kill Endurance in post sideboard games.
4. Surgical Extraction removes all copies of Life from the Loam. However, if I have already used Loam to get 3 lands back, and then it gets hit by Surgical, I am now up 3 cards and this does not feel bad. Surgical can also hit Punishing Fire but it is fairly easy to play around Surgical if we have multiple Groves or Grove + Stage in play.
5. Meddling Mage is an answer to Loam or Punishing Fire but we have plenty of answers to Meddling Mage as we take in Blasts. 

Disenchant Effects

I do expect the UW deck to take in around 2 disenchant effects and these are of course very good vs Lands. I actually think disenchant effects are better than graveyard hate against us.

1. Force of Vigor is absolutely backbreaking. This is probably the best card that can be sided in vs Lands outside Blood Moon. There is no worse feeling than having your dream hand of Mox Diamond plus Sylvan Library absolutely blown out by Force of Vigor. Force is also cheap enough that it can easily be cast under both Sphere and Choke. 
2. Wear // Tear is a one mana answer to Choke, Valakut or Sylvan Library. It also has the upside in being able to hit both a Mox or Sphere and one of these enchantments.
3. Engineering Explosives is very good if I am on the Sphere plan. Explosives should be cast with X equal to 1 if I have 1 Sphere in play, and X equal to 0 if I have 2 Spheres in play. This way the control player only has to tap 2 lands to resolve Explosives but they are still able to give it 2 counters.
4. Disenchant / Force of Nature / Wilt are all good cards against Lands as they can hit one of our key engines.

Game 2 and Game 3

I don’t think that the post sideboard games are dramatically different from G1 as we have the same overall strategies available. However, there are a few differences.

• It will be harder for the Lands deck to stick an engine as the UW deck will have brought in answers. In particular Life from the Loam feels unreliable as an engine post sideboard as we have sided out lands (so dredging Loam is worse) and they have taken in graveyard hate. I am typically very happy if I can trade my Loam for 3 lands.
• Both players will have cut many of their dead cards and less games are decided by whoever draws the right half of their deck.
• Both decks will have options to lock the other player out of casting their spells and both decks also have answers to these in the form of counterspells and removal. Some games will therefore become a delicate dance over who can cast their lock piece last. I have won countless games where my opponent has slammed Back to Basics on turn 3, and then I destroy it with Force of Vigor, and counter their Force of Will with Pyroblast, and then finally untap and slam Choke. I have also lost countless games in the other direction i.e. where I slam Choke and then they counter it and untap and cast Back to Basics.  

I tend to play the post sideboard games a bit slower and with even more patience. I prefer to cast Sylvan Library on turn 3 with Pyroblast backup then on turn 2. I do like to slam Sphere of Resistance as soon as possible though as these should come down early in order to make it harder for my opponent to cast their early cantrips.   

Game 2 and Game 3 from the UW Perspective

Marcus has also given me some great pointers on how he approaches the post sideboard games from the UW side. He told me that post sideboard he considers Sylvan Library, Valakut and Choke as must answer threats but that Sphere of Resistance is only really scary if the Lands deck has a fast hand with another threat.

He also uses Back to Basics and other non-basic hate to put “fear” into his opponent’s head, and stopping them from tapping out. It’s typically good for the cantrip deck if the Lands deck slows down and holds mana up for Pyroblast. 

Marcus finally said that although it’s important to control the graveyard for Life from the Loam (and Punishing Fire) he is not that worried about Loam in the post sideboard games. He explained that the UW deck has many ways to contain Loam and the card is only really scary if we also have Field of the Dead or Valakut online.

3-Color Control (no white)

3-color control (no white) are either BUG or Grixis coloured decks. These decks are not popular in the current meta as Prismatic Ending seems to have removed any incentive to play black in your control deck. BUG decks can play annoying creatures such as Leovold, Scavenging Ooze and Endurance but I still find them much easier than the UW decks.  

We can adopt the same general strategies against 3-Color control as against UW control. They are just more effective here. It’s easier to adopt the Prison role as Wasteland is better against these decks, and more importantly Dark Depths is significantly better against these decks (as they only play a few and clunky answers to Marit Lage).

Final Words

Lands vs control is an interesting matchup that highly rewards practice. Both decks are built to ignore a certain part of each other’s cards. We don’t play creatures and our lands are uncounterable (so we can sometimes ignore Force of Will and Swords to Plowshares) and the (UW) control deck is built to minimize the impact of Wasteland. This means that some games are won by whoever draws the right part of their deck. 

Other games are complete slam dunks where we for example lead with Exploration into Valakut Exploration and run our opponent over, or where they manage to Force of Negation or key engine and then return the Force with Mystic Sanctuary and counter everything else that we do (while also drawing extra cards every turn with a Narset, Jace or Sylvan Library). 

But many games are determined by key decisions on either side. If they counter the wrong spell they can easily end up losing the entire game and hence how we sequence our spells matters. Similarly if we cast an expensive engine at the wrong turn, instead of holding mana up for Rishadan Port, we can also easily lose a game.

Finally, the games tend to go long and both sides have lots of game actions to perform. Time is therefore often the most important resource in the game and I will try to always be “ahead on the clock” when I play this matchup. If I go into G3 with 10 minutes on the clock and my opponent has less than 5 minutes then I feel extremely favoured to win. They will be forced to take risks and play aggressively and I can slow the game down with Sphere, Choke and Rishadan Port.  

I think a normal RG Lands build is unfavoured vs UW control and favoured vs BUG and Grixis control. But the difference is not big and we can build a Lands deck that is favoured vs all control decks. It is often enough to add a 2nd Field of the Dead to make us favoured vs UW control, and if we cut Dark Depths and play Uro, Primeval Titan and Cavern of Souls we will be very favoured vs the normal UW deck. However, if they decide to play multiple copies of the red non-basic hate then the matchup can easily flip to their favour.

I hope this article has given you an insight into this matchup, and I hope that you all get to experience the feeling of resolving Choke when the UW deck is tapped out. 

Good luck and high five!

Introduction

Hello, my name is Squid (Twitter: @SquidJPN).

I started playing Lands in October 2020 and have been running Naya/4C lists since the end of the year.

My main results are:

• 01/03 Legacy Challenge: 5th place (4C)
• 07/10 133rd KMC with 98 participants: 6th place (Naya) (KMC is a Legacy tournament in Osaka, Japan)

I’ve also got a few Magic Online trophies.

I’m writing this because I’d like to increase the number of Naya/4C players, and I’d like to suggest an improvement to current Lands lists.

Also, please note that this article assumes that you already have some knowledge about playing Lands.

日本語版はこちらで読めます

A Japanese-language version of this article can be found here.

What is Naya/4C Lands?

The first thing that sets this deck apart from the basic RG Lands is the Reclaimer package.

The benefit of this package is that we can sacrifice Flagstones of Trokair to activate Elvish Reclaimer’s ability to increase the number of lands on the battlefield at instant speed.

The basic strategy is to combine this trick with Valakut Exploration and Field of the Dead to gain advantage in the fight.

Decklist

Here is the list I used at 133rd KMC.

(https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4115012)

At first glance, the mana base looks fragile, but it is stable with 15 white mana sources, 15 green mana sources, and 13 red mana sources.

The Reclaimer package consists of 4 Reclaimers, 2 Flagstones, and 4 Plains.

The number of copies of Field of the Dead and Valakut Exploration depends on the speed of the meta, but it should be between 1 and 2 copies for Field of the Dead and between 2 and 4 copies for Valakut Exploration.

Currently (right after the release of Adventures in the Forgotten Realms), the meta speed is generally faster due to the prominence of UR Delver, so only one copy of Field of the Dead is in the list.

I’m still building a 4C list, but this is what the list looks like now.

(https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4149423)

Both lists have 31 lands, which is a small number for a Lands deck, but the mana acceleration effect of the Reclaimer package makes it difficult for mana screw to occur. Color screws can occasionally happen in the first few turns, but mulligan well to avoid it.

The Merit of the White Splash

Another reason other than the Reclaimer package to splash white is the abundance of removal spells and hate bears.

We can play Swords to Plowshares, the strongest removal spell in Legacy format.

Of course, if we play this card, we will be able to remove huge creatures that are difficult to deal with in basic RG Lands.

We can also use other great removal cards such as these.

In particular, Council’s Judgment is a card that can deal with True-Name Nemesis, which is difficult to deal with except by countering it.

Another good point of white is that you can choose from a variety of excellent hate bears.

With these cards, we can expect to see an improvement in combo matchups, something that Lands is supposed to be bad at.

In particular, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Ethersworn Canonist serve as strong anti-storm and anti-SnT cards.

Hushbringer can disable Doomsday (Thassa’s Oracle’s ability is triggered when it enters the battlefield).

For 4C, we can hire Meddling Mage. This will also shut down combo decks that rely on a specific spell like Doomsday and SnT.

The Drawback of the White Splash

The downside to adding white to the deck is that we’re running out of space, as we can see from the fact that we only have 31 lands in our deck. We only have two copies of Punishing Fire and three copies of Thespian‘s Stage. This makes it difficult to play useful lands such as Rishadan Port, Ghost Quarter and Glacial Chasm. If the meta allows it, we might remove the Punishing Fire package.

We also have too many lands that work only as mana sources, which is both an advantage and a disadvantage. In addition, because of the high ratio of spells in the deck, it is not very strong to dredge for Life from the Loam. If we do, we‘ll often end up with three spells dredged, so we‘ll have to be very careful about when we decide to dredge.

Playing Guide Summary

Now let’s talk about the actual playing strategy.

We will divide the game into three steps.

Imagine up to the second step with your first hand and make a mulligan decision.

The following is an ideal example.

1. Preparation (Turns 1~3)

Accelerate our mana with Mox Diamond and/or Exploration, and set up Elvish Reclaimer and Sylvan Library. The goal here is to reach at least 3 mana, and if possible, 4 mana.

2. Deployment (Turns 3~5)

The goal here is to set up Valakut Exploration and accelerate our mana for Field of the Dead.

3. Finishing (From turn 5~6)

If Valakut Exploration is safe at this moment, we’ve already won. Crush our opponent with a horde of zombies or run them over with Marit Lage.

1. Preparation (Turns 1~3)

Our goal here is to connect to Step 2, Deployment. We’ll talk about how to actually play, and how to decide to take a mulligan.

Sample Hand 1:

We have Elvish Reclaimer and Flagstones of Trokair. And they lead to Valakut Exploration. It’s a great hand.

Forest→Reclaimer

(Next Turn)Flagstones→Activate Reclaimer to search Plateau and another Flagstones

(Next Turn)Valakut Exploration

If we can get this far, we win.

Sample Hand 2:

This is the hand that will eventually lead to Punishing Fire and Grove of the Burnwillows combo to deal with our opponent’s first action. And VE waits for its time.

If we can delay our opponent’s action with removal spells or Wasteland, keep it even if it’s too slow for what we want to do.

If we’re playing first, start with fetch land; if we’re drawing first and our opponent has a basic land, start with fetches; otherwise, start with Wasteland.

Sample Hand 3:

Sylvan Library can be played on the first turn. We can also see an early Valakut Exploration. If we can deploy our enchantments earlier, that’ s excellent.  We’ll keep it.

Plains→Mox Diamond(Discard Bojuka Bog)→Sylvan Library

If we think we are opposing the Delver deck and drawing first, play Sylvan Library 1 turn later.

Sample Hand 4:

This is a little difficult.

The only thing that can be deployed is the Reclaimer, so it depends on whether or not they stay on the battlefield.

We have two copies of Wasteland, Maze of Ith, and Swords to Plowshares, so if we are drawing first, we can keep it. If we know we’re playing against a creature based deck, such as Delver, we might keep it even if we’re playing first. We play Wasteland first to take care of Daze, and then cast Mox Diamond.

Sample Hand 5:

It’s not very good, and like example 4, it relies on the Reclaimer.

If we have Elvish Reclaimer but no Flagstones of Trokair, we can decide whether or not to bring in Flagstones by looking at our opponent’s lands and moves on the first or second turns. If our opponent doesn’t have any removal, we may be able to connect to Thespian’s Stage from Flagstones.

If the Reclaimer doesn’t stay on the battlefield, let “Life from the Loam” and “Wasteland” dance.

Forest → Reclaimer

If the Reclaimer survives the next turn: Savannah → Activate Reclaimer

If the Reclaimer doesn’t survive: Wasteland or Maze of Ith (keep green and white mana source in our hand)

Sample Hand 6:

That’s the worst. There is nothing to deploy. We also have two copies of Flagstones. In this situation, it’s the same as if we had mulled down to six or five, since we have four lands only for mana. If our hands are like this, we should take a mulligan in 0.5 seconds.

Sample Hand 7:

The spells are great, but the lands don’t match. It’s rare that we get a first hand that doesn’t fit like this, but make a mulligan decision with an idea of what we’re going to do by turn 3.

2. Deployment (Turn 3~5)

The goal here is to deploy Exploration, Sylvan Library, and Valakut Exploration.

When these three cards are on the battlefield together, the game is over.

Check the top three cards with Sylvan Library, and put a land card on the top, and we’ll be in the same situation as if we were casting Ancestral Recall every turn.

If Valakut Exploration is countered, we’re going to have a hard time generating value, so be sure not to be countered with Daze, and cry when it’s countered with Force of Will.

Also, always keep the combo of Thespian’s Stage and Dark Depths in mind, so that we can aim for a sudden death.

3. Finishing (From turn 5~6)

Valakut Exploration helps to find a second copy, and once we have multiple copies, victory is at hands. It’s like an enchantress deck with infinite resources to destroy our opponent.

The strategy so far is based on Sylvan Library and Valakut Exploration, but don’t forget that this deck is Lands. Be flexible and think deeply about what we can do to win the game.

Valakut Exploration

I’m going to talk about the core of this deck, Valakut Exploration, and the techniques, tricks, and knowledge associated with it. There is also a full article on this card on this site here.

1. Fetch lands

This is a basic trick that we use most often. When a fetch land comes into play and triggers VE, we can activate the fetch land before the triggered ability resolves and resolve the trigger twice in a row. In this way, the land we want to bring with the fetch land will not be exiled, and the library is thinned a little. Taiga or Forest are the preferred lands to bring in here, so we can play Elvish Reclaimer or Exploration when exiled. It also means that we can keep plains in our library to bring in with Flagstones of Trokair.

2. Thespian’s Stage and Flagstones of Trokair

You have VE on the battlefield, but no lands in your hand… that’s okay! Let’s activate the Stage targeting Flagstones. The legend rule allows us to send the original Flagstones to the graveyard, which will bring us a plains card and trigger VE. Even without VE, this technique can have various side effects such as fixing mana colors, thinning our library, and synergy with Life from the Loam.

Flagstones’ ability will not trigger if there are replacement effects on cards going to the graveyard in play  such as Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void.

3. VE, Flagstones, and Legend Rule

If we play a new Flagstones when we already have a Flagstones and VE on the battlefield, one of the Flagstones will go to the graveyard and we can search for a plains. In this case, the ability of VE is also triggered, but the ability of Flagstones and the ability of VE are put on the stack at the same time, so it doesn’t matter which one we resolve first. If we resolve Flagstones’ ability first, we can exile two cards in a row, just like fetch lands do.

4. Reclaimer Package and VE

If we sacrifice a Flagstones with a Reclaimer when we have VE on the battlefield, it’s a bit tricky.

Activate Reclaimer→Resolve Flagstones→Resolve VE→Resolve Reclaimer’s ability→Resolve VE

If we play with paper, the shuffling is a bit troublesome, and there is a possibility that the land we want to bring with the Reclaimer will be exiled. Let’s pray for it.

By the way, the ability of Flagstones is “may” ability. So it is possible the land we want to bring with Reclaimer is exiled. So if we don’t want the land we want to bring with Reclaimer to be exiled, we don’t have to bring plains.

5. Keep a land card in your hand.

In the middle of the game, when we have time and don’t seem to have any use for mana, keep a land card in our hand. We may draw VE, and if we don’t have a land card right after setting it up, it’s a useless vanilla enchantment.

6. Sevinne’s Reclamation

Be a little careful when flashing back Reclamation from the graveyard. If we want to put a land and VE together, target the land with the original Reclamation and VE with the copy.

7. We can play exiled cards even if VE is removed.

VE’s ability to send cards to the graveyard triggers at the beginning of your end step.  If VE is removed before the end step, this ability is not triggered and we can play cards exiled by VE at any time afterwards. It’s like having more cards in our hands.

Extra Tips

Here is some knowledge and tricks to help us play this deck.

1. Sevinne’s Reclamation and Chalice of the Void

This is especially useful against Red Prison and Stompy. When we cast Reclamation targeting a Reclaimer which was countered by CotV so that we can put it on the battlefield.

2. Elvish Reclaimer, Thespian’s Stage and Dark Depths.

If the Stage is already on the battlefield, activating the Reclaimer’s ability and bringing the Depths to copy it requires 4 mana, not including the Stage.

3. Other potential sideboard cards

Ipnu Rivulet

This is the ultimate anti-Doomsday weapon, used in 4C. If we add blue cards after the sideboard, put them together to count as blue mana source.

Deafening Silence

This is a combo counter card that can almost certainly be played on the first turn. Delay the combo and beat them with the creatures.

Flusterstorm

I like this card. Let’s target Doomsday, Show and Tell, and Storm spells.

Throes of Chaos

Not half the people who see the card’s name will immediately think of its text. Use it as an additional advantage source in slow matchups.

Pyroclasm

Burn down the elven forest.

Oblivion Ring, Cast Out

Put them in against SnT and control decks with a lot of PWs. It’s good that Cast Out can be cycled.

Seal of Cleansing

If we use Sevinne’s Reclamation, this is a good synergy.

Council’s Judgment

Huge enchantments or artifacts, Planeswalkers, True-Name Nemesis, anything can be removed with this one. It’s also good for removing Kaldra Compleat.

Nevermore

Meddling Mage in mono white. Use it in Naya.

Angel’s Grace

This is an anti-Doomsday and anti-Storm card. Our opponents literally can’t win the game.

It would be too long to list more than that, so I’ll stop at 10 cards.

Use your favorite sideboard cards according to your preference and the meta.

Conclusion

Thank you very much for reading this far. This is the first time for me to write an article about a deck, so it may have been difficult to read for some points. If you have any questions, comments, or requests, please feel free to contact me (Twitter: @SquidJPN).

See you in the next article, ” Guide for each Matchup”.

– Squid

Part 1: The List

After the release of MH2, I had been playing a lot of urza’s saga versions of the deck, to reasonable modo-league success.  The main list I used was similar to what is shown here but with:

• Maindeck: -2 ports -1 field +snow forest +4th saga or depths.
• Sideboard: -needle +field

I really like maintaining a high colored-source count – and think the 2nd forest helps a lot in matchups where your mana is under pressure like delver (casting sideboard hammer endurance through wasteland) or miracles (activating staged urza’s saga through back to basics).  I always regret registering 14, and think people are missing that shaving groves and/or fetches affects your even-more-fragile red count, which is vital in games where you want to be able to blast, and/or punishing fire multiple times.  

However, in the two weeks before the tournament, I was a bit overcome by events and hadn’t had the time to iron out the last few slots in the list.  I also hadn’t played any paper legacy in over a year (50% of the reason I’ve stopped playing Sylvan Library is to avoid manual dexterity violations) and was completely in the dark about the Phoenix metagame.  I was expecting the top three decks, based on last year’s information, to be Bant Control, UR Delver, and Taxes.   I was also expecting people to be extremely prepared for saga, since the Jeskai saga deck had just been breaking out on Modo – nightmares of getting my board serenitied, forced of vigor or melted down put the fear into me so I moved the field to the main. We’ll talk about this more later, but that was a mistake –  field is not good in your heavy saga deck because you spend so much time wastelanding yourself.  I knew that going in, many players better than me had said as much, but I was playing scared (If I actually wanted to commit to this metagame call I should have just gone to 1 or less saga.). I also cut two lands mostly at random for rishadan ports – I wanted a bit more hedge against the bant deck and opposing sagas. I had 5 sphere effects because that’s what you do as a lands player who wants to pretend to care about the combo matchups – registering a thorn is a sacrifice to ensure you don’t get matched vs lotus petal.  The sideboard needle was inspired by dull04 as a flexible 6th card against combo decks that also can force action in fair matchups.  So on the Thursday before the tournament, I sleeved it up, locked in my list and didn’t think about legacy until the event – stopping last-minute min/maxing is key to the mental game.  

The metagame ended up having almost zero bant (replaced by the surprising popularity of jeskai saga), but a good amount of UR delver and Taxes.   I think if I ran it back I would play:

• Maindeck: -field -yavimaya +port +snow forest

I sided field out in 7 of my 11 matches, and never activated my own field of the dead all day.   Meanwhile ports were great against the white decks and fine in some of the delver matchups.   

Yavimaya was exactly fine, but I want my 2nd basic back just for manabase stability reasons – could also imagine keeping it and cutting the 3rd port for the basic.  Also might miss Yavimaya once I can’t have it. Tbd.

I would also consider dropping pyrite for cursed scroll or maybe the 3rd punishing fire.  Pyrite was clunky all day, which is why I’m recommending a card that costs 3 to activate and sometimes does nothing… but my saga opponent had it and I was jealous.  

Quick note that I don’t want to claim to be any sort of expert – I’m a good enough player to get over the threshold where luck can carry me to victory…   I also was playing against a lot of people who didn’t seem to have a good handle on their Lands matchup and/or had built their decks in ways that didn’t respect it. I faced zero land hate harsher than wastelands, and got surgicalled once all day.  That said I 4-0’d my modern FNM with Esper control the night before the tournament so obviously I’m the next PVDDR and my word is gospel.

Part 2: The Event

The tournament is in Phoenix, an almost two hour drive from my house, at a store I’ve never heard of.  My darling cat had chosen this week to invent a new game where she aggressively wakes me up at 5:00 each morning and I haven’t played a match of legacy this month.  So I’m at peak performance.  The plan is simple – also in Phoenix is an excellent south indian restaurant called Udupi Cafe.  I’m going to drive up, cast some loams, and drop in time to get a dosa.   Now, it’s important to remember that Udupi Cafe’s Saturday hours are 11:00am-3:00, 5:00pm-9:00.  With a 12:00pm tournament start there’s an awkward break 3:00-5:00 where I might be out of the tournament before the dinner menu opens, so I bring my Kindle just in case. 

The morning of the tournament, I put a pot of tea on (using the last of my good yellow) and do a quick workout (wizard poker is a full-contact sport so I want to be warmed up).   Then I gas up my 2015 Honda Fit and start driving.   I listen to Florist’s “The Birds Outside Sang” (Emily Sprague, known magic player) on the drive up.  I skip back to hear “Thank You” a total of three times.  This is what the kids call “Manifesting.”

I roll into the store 25 minutes before tournament start and pay my 30$ to the cashier.  I ask for a deck reg sheet, and am informed that it’s all online. The future has left me behind.  They ask if I have a Facebook.  I tell them “I mean, vaguely.”  This is apparently obstructive enough that they hand me a macbook to type my deck into some google form.   I imagine myself  just straight omitting or miscounting a card from my reg sheet, which is done as a single line in a pedestrian textbox typed on an unfamiliar keyboard.   Nobody deck checks me all day so we never find out.

I look around the room and see that the two people who were also considering coming up from Tucson are absent.  “It’s so far,” they say.  Well it’s a long road to the finals either way.  I recognize legacy celebrity Tony Murata (into_play on twitch).   We’ve played exactly once and I don’t feel like bothering him with a parasocial relationship, so I chill until round one pairings come out, and then continue to chill until round 1 repairings are up (they told everyone at signup to enter the code into the app but magic players are known for being unable to follow basic directions).  72 players in attendance.  I think about my lunch order.  How many leftovers do I want?  

Round 1 v Elves (W: 2-1, 1-0 overall, Field to Sideboard 1-0).

I sit down at table one and make a joke about how that’s the last time I’ll be seen there (this is foreshadowing).    I start shuffling up and my opponent comments that based on the glance of a card I just revealed I’m playing the same deck as their wife and they can’t possibly win.   I joke back that they’re assuming a level of competence I don’t think I’m going to deliver while silently cursing myself for what I’m sure will be a long series of dexterity failures.  

Game 1: I play the tabernacle then combo and they die. 

Sideboard: -1 loam, 2 valakut, bog, field +needle, 4 spheres.

Game 2: They put a leyline into play and I mentally pump my fist.   I don’t think this card matters in the matchup.  I have a tabernacle and sphere but they have ouphe and enough mana to pay for dorks and are beating down.   I eventually waste them low enough that they have to sac everything but the ouphe and I triumphantly cast my pyrite spellbomb to kill it and free my diamonds.   Listeners at home will have already realized that you can’t kill ouphe with spellbomb. I had aggressively fetched for my lone basic forest (why would you do that against elves), so when a trophy kills my tabernacle i’m too far down on mana to do anything and die to the horde.  Fixing both of those plays would have given enough mana to combo.

Game 3: They have a slow start with another leyline against through my turn 2 sphere into tab.  They trophy the tab again and I create Marit Lage, a 20/20 black avatar creature token with flying and indestructible but they rip successive cradles to cast endurance through the tabernacle while I waste them in the abyss.  Apparently they had lethal with allosaurus pump if they rip the 3rd cradle but I didn’t consider it because math is for blockers and I don’t plan on blocking. 

After the match, my opponent shows me their sideboard plan which doesn’t involve any copies of run afoul, basically the only card that I’m scared of.

Round 2 v UR Delver (W: 2-1, 2-0 overall, Field to Sideboard 2-0).

My opponent sits down and politely introduces themselves.  They’re playing all printouts (which is allowed by tournament rules).   I appreciate that they took the effort to do that instead of what I’ve seen other people doing and sharpie-ing over other cards, which I find impossible to parse.   Defs came in planning to lose because I miss that a scoured barrens is actually wasteland or an island was secretly volcanic. 

Game 1:  They go turn 1 volc into ragavan, then force my exploration.   Ragavan flips only lands off the top, but they bolt my constructs and eventually I die to 200$ goblin piker.   

Sideboard: -field, 2 valakut, tomb, 2 crops +3 endurance, 3 Blast

(Maybe i want pithing needle in this matchup but I don’t want to figure out what to cut for it)

Game 2: They have a channeler, but it isn’t flipping so the clock is abysmal.  I’m wasting them really aggressively to try and keep them from cantripping, and use bog to hopefully block regent.   When they surveil a submerge into the graveyard I know the game is over – they have at least one in hand and I’m pretty sure their other cards are force + murktide.  So I eot rotate into force pitching regent, then untap, put a dark depths on the table and make marit lage, a 20/20 black avatar creature token with flying and indestructible.   Using my giant brain I have cleverly sandbagged two forests in my hand so they can’t cast their second submerge and we go to game three. 

Game 3: Now that I know they are on submerge I don’t play any forests, bait a wasteland with saga, make a token on turn 4 and they scoop.  Game is easy when they only play 5 mana answers.   

Round 3: UR Delver (W: 2-1, 3-0 overall, Field to Sideboard 3-0)

We’re back at table 1.   The player sitting next to me is someone I know is on ANT and makes a joke about all the filthy blue players clogging the high tables.   I comment that not playing blue in legacy is handicapping yourself.   I was on miracles the one time I played the ANT pilot and got completely ruined. Not smart enough to cast ponder. 

Game 1:  I go forest, exploration, saga and my opponent remarks that they had kept a hand that was good in the blue mirror.   I have successfully deployed psychological warfare.  They play a delver and we enter a race between my constructs and their 2 delvers.  I’m winning the race until they cast a maindeck TNN.  I ask them why they’ve decided to build their deck well when there are all these shiny new cards they could be playing.   They tell me that TNN is super good but I already know that and force it on blocking duty for my 4/4s.  A second TNN flips the race even though I summon the witch – they have maindeck borrowers and my opponent is rewarded for smart deckbuilding.

Board same as last round. 

Game 2: We enter the same game as before but my constructs get borrowed and they can’t find a true-name.  The tabernacle is keeping them from developing too much and karakas pins their ragavan.  Eventually they clear the tabernacle and have murktide+delver against my 5/5 constructs with punishing fire surgicaled.  They have one card in hand and appear to be considering it.   I make a joke about meltdown for 1.  They say “I guess so” and cast meltdown for 1. Shit.  I use my 2 diamonds which are my only green sources to crack map for stage, with depths in hand.  I see the stage on top of my library while searching and laugh.   Draw a second stage anyway the next turn decline a maze activation and show them Marit Lage, a 20/20 black avatar creature with indestructible and flying. 

Game 3: They have turn 1 delver which I punishing fire.  I waste them a few times and they are stuck on one land v ports for a few rounds.   Eventually they recover and play a murktide, which I blast.  I’m getting low on life against their delver when I draw into the combo.   They don’t have a borrower, I blast their delver and we enter Witch Time. 

This match was some of the most fun magic I’ve ever played and I’m really glad I was lucky enough that my opponent never cast a true-name in any postboard games.  

Round 4: UR Delver (W: 2-0, 4-0 overall, Field to Sideboard 4-0)

At this point I’m 3-0 and drop to table 4.  I wander around the room and scout the competition.  I immediately forget every linkage between face and deck type but definitely feel like I’ve prepared for my future matchups.  

Game 1: My opponent did not get the memo that they should play a bunch of TNNs and Borrowers so their ragavan flips lands for a few turns before getting karakas’d and their channeler is held off by maze before I waste their wasteland and combo in response.  Marit Lage, a 20/20 black avatar creature token with flying and indestructible, eats their delirious channeler and then eats their face. 

Same board as R2.

Game 2: My opponent is burning through their deck with channelers but I’m keeping them off with a maze and bleeding slowly.   I’m at two life when I play an urza’s saga, they overreact and dump their hand of 4 one-drops.   I rotate for blast zone, pick up the 4-for-1 and sweat bullets hoping they’ve sided out their bolts.   They cast a bunch of iterations but can’t find anything before I loam back my saga and kill them with constructs. Probably would have lost this one if they’d taken it a bit slower.

At this point I’m 4-0 and need one win out of the next 3 to probably make top 8. Delver matchup is feeling great.  Another lands player from the discord stops by to say hi, they’re 3-1 and really don’t want to have to play the mirror.  I’ll just keep winning and we’ll never worry about it.  I eat some almonds and prunes from my bag.  I walk down to the dollar store and buy a gatorade.  Hydration is essential and I left my refillable waterbottle at work.

Round 5: Madness (L: 0-2, 4-1 overall, Field to Sideboard 5-0)

I’m top seed and playing the pair down.  A bunch of scenarios flash through my eyes  where I lose and torch my breakers and get 9th.   

Game 1:  I’m on the draw and keep a medium hand with a diamond and a turn 3 lage + loam / waste.  They go badlands into burning inquiry.  We spend more time in this game randomizing discards than taking game actions, I lose my acceleration to the casino, decline to rotate for tabernacle thinking I can wait a turn to combo, and die to rootwallas + vengivine. 

I have no plan for my sideboard here so I bring in force, sphere, endurance and take out a pile of cards including field of the dead.  

Game 2: I keep a hand with sphere, combo pieces and endurance + pitch.  I endurance their turn 1 vengevine, draw expedition map instead of the mana source I need to combo and then die to rootwallas.   Rootwalla is the red delver and this is the most aggro legacy deck I’ve ever seen. Full respect. 

I take the L, consider dropping (our round was so blistering we have over 30 minutes left in the round and maybe I should just go get in position for 5:00 reopening of indian food).  I decide to stick it out for one more, but consider going on tilt. I decide not to go on tilt, eat some almonds and read a few chapters of Hugo-Award-Winning Novella “How to Lose the Time War” instead.  Book is pretty, not sure if I love it yet.   Other Lands player got the win so we’re in the same bracket and my nonsense alarm starts going off.  

Round 6: GW Depths (Unintentional Draw: 1-1, 4-1-1 overall, Field to Sideboard 5-1)

I dodge the Lands mirror and sit down against a player I know is on GW Depths.   They make a comment about beating their opponent through pithing needle with stage copying port.   I know I’ll be protected from that mistake because my needle is only naming knight.   This is a matchup I haven’t played enough and was pretty worried about.

Game 1: They go hard crop rotating for a fetch to save their reclaimer with pyrite spellbomb.  I put my bog into play after damage killing it.  They cast a knight but can’t buff it and it dies to punishing fire.  I untap with valakut on turn 5 or so and the game is over. 

Sideboard: -1 mox -1 ancient tomb -2 depths -1 tab + 3 endurance +1 force +1 needle 

Game 2: They have a bunch of prismatic endings that kill my explorations and valakuts then force my diamonds leaving me with zero colored sources.  They have an active reclaimer that they’re pushing up the chain but aren’t drawing any action.  Eventually they get field of the dead and start making zombies.  I leverage my ports to get a copy of their field but have less land volume than them and have trouble keeping up with zombies.  I use endurances to flash kill their reclaimer and eat zombies, but forget to maze a 4/3 knight of autumn and go from 12 to 8 unnecessarily.  Math is for blockers and I’m not doing it.  They are drawing stages and copying field while I draw mox diamonds and I eventually die to the alpha strike.  This game took over 30 minutes and we’ve got 1:30 on the clock going into game 3. 

Game 3: I make two constructs and have punishing fire grove but it’s not enough to get them to zero in 5 turns.  It’s possible I should have boarded in all my depths for yolo purposes over field / saga types of things.  I’m not actually the main character so my opponent doesn’t offer to scoop to me and we pick up a draw.

Round 7: Lands (Win: 1-0, 5-1-1 overall, Field to Sideboard 5-2)

And here we are.  Taking my draw last round means I need to win out to guarantee top 8.  Rolling into the Lands mirror just as we feared.  My opponent is 5-1 but because of my unintentional draw last round we can’t just draw to get two lands decks into top 8.  I feel bad here for letting down team tabernacle.  We shuffle up and get ready for the height of competitive magic the gathering. 

Game 1: We both mull to 5.  I pyrite my opponent’s reclaimer and we play silly buggers wasting each other for a few turns before I resolve valakut and run away with card advantage.  

Sideboard: -2 depths -1 tab -2 maze -1 pyrite +3 endurance +3 force

My opponent scoops to me after game one and goes home for brisket equity.  Thanks mate.  Hope we’ll make it pay off.  I got back to the dollar store to get a bottle of water.  I’m pretty anxious that the cashier will judge me for buying two separate items on the same day but honestly she was probably completely unbothered.   I read two more chapters of Time War and get hydrated.   People clap for top 8 announcements which is imo pretty gauche.  Loud clapping is something they invented in a time before people realized laudanum was bad for you.

Top 8:  Death and Taxes (Win 2-1, 6-1-1 overall, Field to sideboard 5-3)

Top 8 agrees to split prizes. Usually I’m on team “no splits kill them all” but it’s top heavy enough that the split (190$ credit at a store in a different town) is better than any finish below second and first place still gets an invitation to the master’s tournament at the end of the year so there’s still reason to compete.   It’s past 6 right now so I’m not planning on getting past top 8 in order to hit my dosa timing.  At this point I’ve eaten only almonds and prunes in the last 10 hours and my stomach is starting to hurt.  Someone mentions that top 8 is supposed to be open decklists, which is good to know. It turns out they hadn’t actually printed them out so I’m saved from the risk of comparing to my hastily-typed list from the morning and my opponent and I trade boxes to inspect lists ourselves.   

They’re on classic Death and Taxes, nothing fancy, 60 cards, Kaldra, 1 prelate.  With 2 rip 2 surgical 1 prelate 1 cataclysm in the board.   I think this matchup was extremely good prior to modern horizons 2 but Kaldra is basically unanswerable from the Lands deck which forces you to actually kill your opponent instead of just grinding for years which used to be the plan.  

Game 1: I keep a hand with diamond, reclaimer, loam.  They swords my turn 1 reclaimer then play stoneforge fetching kaldra.   I don’t have an answer for the stoneforge and try to loam for tabernacle (they have only two lands) while making Marit Lage every turn, but I keep flipping combo pieces and eventually they skyclave my exploration and I slow down.  I draw a punishing fire and think “now I can get my lage through flickerwisp”, they give it pro red and I swing triumphantly while forgetting that creatures with flying can literally just block other creatures with flying.   Bad look.  I die to dorks a few turns later.  

Sideboard: -1 diamond -1 loam -tomb -bog -ghost quarter -2 depths +3 force, 3 endurance, 1 needle

I think some number of endurance is decent, it blocks well. 3 might be too many.

Game 2: I keep a hand with force, two green cards, forest and stage + saga.  This is a great hand in the old version of the death and taxes matchup but ignores the new version where kaldra instantly kills you.  My opponent unfortunately knows what they are doing and casts turn 2 stoneforge for kaldra compleat.  They make a comment about it being sortof boring that that’s basically always the right choice.  I say “yeah these new cards are really good” while putting my urza’s saga into play.  They warp in kaldra on 3 and start beating.    I untap on turn 4, seeing the entire lands community laughing at me for losing to Taxes, which as everyone knows “is basically free,” topdeck my one-of dark depths and put it into play.  My opponent plays a land, swings for 6 and I decide it’s time to go for broke and just take it without blocking.   They tank for a bit before tapping out for cataclysm.  I know from seeing their deck that they don’t have solitude so I create Marit Lage, a 20/20 black Avatar creature token with flying and indestructible. I am very clear to everyone who will listen that I intend to not sacrifice the token to cataclysm, and we go to game 3.  My opponent apparently was just stuck with a bunch of graveyard hate in hand.

Game 3:  This one is on camera https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1083075225?t=00h30m46s.   This is what the matchup looks like when your opponent doesn’t get to put Kaldra into play.  My opponent mulligans and plays turn 1 vial so I decide to not play around surgical and go super aggro with mana denial. Maybe they went lower on graveyard hate after getting spooked last round by the token. I have an unanswered exploration + loam, force the vial before it reaches 3, my opponent tutors for prelate, I pfire their recruiter when they try to path it for mana, and they never cast another spell as the constructs roll in.  There’s a judge call in the middle where I miss my saga trigger but it’s a simple rewind.  Definitely getting sloppy in hour 10.

Top 4: Jeskai Saga (Win 2-0, 6-1-1 overall, Field to sideboard 5-4)

We check out each other’s decks.  My opponent is on the new hotness, a deck that I can’t believe exists – Jeskai Saga Control.  I’ve also never seen it played so maybe it’s busted but it’s a 3 color control deck with zero basics that can’t play any nonbasic hate outside of wastelands and only 2x artifacts as graveyard interaction.  I roll through their list and am pretty sure I can only lose if I brick completely and they kill me with goblin piker.  They want to wait for the madness v BR reanimator match to finish in order to be on camera but it’s after 7 and I want to blitz this match and eat Indian food so I convince them to jam round 1. 

Game 1: This one is unfortunately not on camera – it’s probably the sweetest game of the night.  I keep seven with zero colored sources.  Waste waste tab stage saga loam blast zone.  I didn’t bother counting but I thought the jeskai deck only plays 3 ragavan, and as long as they don’t play it on turn one I literally can’t lose.  They go fetch pass. I play stage.  They play saga.  I untap on turn 3, waste their saga.  They fetch tundra and stifle.  They are baited and outsmarted.   I play another waste and waste their tundra.  They have one land in play and it’s going to waste itself without generating value.  I deploy my own saga, we chat about the saga / stage interaction.  I make constructs, they cast murktide, murktide chumps the constructs, they cursed scroll themselves for lethal, revealing 3 force of wills.  I cast zero relevant spells. 

The badlands mirror finishes up – BR Reanimator defeats Madness.  I think to myself that either way badlands is a bad matchup for lands.  This joke does not deserve your respect but I’m pretty delirious. 

Sideboard: -1 mox, -4 crop -1 reclaimer -2 depth -1 tab.  +3 force +3 blast +3 sphere.  

In retrospect I’m pretty sure this might be the wrong sideboarding, their answers to spheres are unaffected by sphere (prismatic, explosives), and I think  would rather have the endurances to delay murktide and block in order to get access to our wildly superior endgame.   I also considered pithing needle to emergency shut off their wastelands or something but forgot to bring it in.  

Game 2: On Camera at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1083075225?t=01h31m50s.

My opponent has a turn 1 ragavan.  It’s 8:30 pm.  I need this game to be over right now so I’m not playing around daze.  Exploration resolves, then gets ending’d.  Ragavan flips sphere which I try to convince my opponent to cast.   They decline.  Valakut also doesn’t get dazed.  I have a second one in hand.  Ragavan flips exploration.   I joke that that actually seems good for them.  They take the bait and cast exploration, putting them crucially behind on artifact count and revealing that they have a bunch of lands in hand. They vomit 1 drops to 1 card in hand and their last card isn’t stifle so I get my second 4-1 blast zone of the day. They make another mistake the next turn by tapping out for murktide instead of getting full value from their sagas.  I see they have only one card in hand so I blast the murktide and waste a saga. They make the same mistake tapping out to ending my valakut.   Next turn force cleans up their last saga and a retrofitter construct and I’m free to become the better saga deck.   I played field on turn 1 this game and never activated it.  

Finals: BR Reanimator (Win 2-0, 7-1-1 overall, Field to sideboard 6-4)

I know my opponent is on reanimator, and gave the other Lands player their one loss in regulation.  Matchup is pretty terrible but endurance has given you some turn 0 interaction, just of a type that’s pretty easy to play around.  Game 2 of Semis went too long, it’s now too late to drive to Udupi.  Something along the lines of “I came here to win at magic and eat dosas, and one of those things is off the table” floats through my head.

We compare decks.  It’s a shame my opponent won’t be baited into bringing in their reverent silences but I get to see that they have no Tidespout, no children, no magus.  Instead they have the two targets from Modern Horizons 2, Archon and the Angel that gives protection from anything.    Both of them have apparently been completely off the chain.

Full match on stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1083075225?t=01h55m07s

Game 1:  I have the play being third overall seed.  This probably ups my winrate 20%.   I open close to the best 7 possible – green source, 2x crop, loam stage gq saga.  As long as I don’t get t1’d with Chancellor, I have bog through a discard spell.  My opponent keeps 7, I sweat through pregame actions, zero chancellor.  They try to turn 1 an ashen rider by unmasking self, zero protection.  I bog them leaving angel and petal in hand. They draw lands, I deploy saga, they looting into a reanimated chancellor, my constructs are 6/6, chancellor chumps.  I miss lethal by not getting pyrite spellbomb, they scoop anyway.  

Sideboard: -2 loam -2 valakut -1 reclaimer -1 exploration -1 pyrite -2 punishing fire -field -zone -tab +3 force + 4 sphere +1 thorn +3 endurance +1 needle

Game 2:  Great hand with endurance + 2 green cards, sphere, stage, waste, depths.  Our opponent knows what they signed up for and is uninterested in protection, going for turn 1 unmask self, reanimate grislebrand. I endurance pitching exploration, and draw a second endurance because we literally cannot lose.  I sweat a minute on turn 2 tapping myself out of endurance to cast sphere, they entomb in response which requires me to fade another reanimate.  I do and I untap, drawing a colored source.   They loot some more creatures into the grave and go for exhume which I endurance again.  That taps me off of the combo but my opponent scoops it up.

The win qualifies me for the end of the year masters event which means I don’t have to drive to phoenix for every monthly, and I think has min cash or something?  Who knows I’m starving and my phone is dead but I’m pretty sure I know where a waffle house is.  I walk outside into a gathering storm.  It’s the best weather in the world, the air is thick and wet and humming with electricity.

I make it to waffle house.  It’s closed. Lightning strikes in the distance.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index

I listen to Bell Witch’s “Mirror Reaper” on the drive home. 

Hello, I’m Base(@Dull04), and I got 4th in last Legacy Challenge. I’ve been playing Lands about 8 years, and have title of Japan Legacy Championship in 2016. Here’re my report and decklist, but please make sure that I was away from legacy for a long time. MH2 limited is soooo interesting! (I got no Urza’s Saga so can’t try Saga Lands…)

Here is the list

Basically, main deck is same, no change from before MH2. In sideboard, put 3 Endurance, 3rd Force of Vigor and 2 Choke. Endurance is quite powerful for its size, and can be the answer against Doomsday. Vigor is mainly for Saga decks like Affinity, but wasn’t enough. Should be changed Pithing Needle or some, and go towards Glacial Chasm loop for it.

Before playing Lands again, I thought it’ll be very tough to defeat Bant Uro deck. Originally, it wasn’t easy game and they got new option to touch Loam from main game, and 3/4 body is also good for Lands. 2 Chokes are mainly for it. Saga Lands is good deck, but that of Affinity, Jeskai Still, and other Artifact decks are also very powerful. I think lands can get crushed by an opponent’s constructs. And Saga requires many slots in deck. For those reasons, I think I’ll keep to playing this traditional build. OK, here’s a report for the games.

R1 Mono R Prison ×〇〇

Quickly lost first game to Blood Moon, and almost to a crowd of goblins in 2nd game. But they tried to play around my Punishing Fire, which was completely useless. As a result, I got 1 more turn and drew Fire and cast it to kill Magus, then Marit Lage appeared and comes into play thanks to Force of Vigor. In the third game, they mull twice and my hand was the best.

R2 UR Delver 〇〇

After some exchange, it became Marit Lage vs Regent. I had two Valakut Explorations, which means I won. And Valakut erupted in the 2nd game as well.

R3 Mono R Prison ×〇×

Game 1 they have turn 1 Hanweir. Game 2 I cast Punishing Fire on their Magus to make Marit Lage. Game 3 they played Magus again and I drew nothing for a long time but succeeded eventually in playing Slyvan Library and got Punishing Fire. I’d played Glacial Chasm before, so I got turns. And… I played Valakut, but that meant that I couldn’t play Fire to kill another Magus, which they flipped with Fireflux Squad.

R4 Death & Taxes 〇〇

The only creature they played was only PV for whole game 1. I got many cards before it by Sylvan Library. They have only 3 Flickerwhisp and 1 or 2 Skyclave, it makes the game easier. Library, Exploration, Valakut, Loam… I won the 2nd game.

R5 NicFit ×〇〇

There was a Partner, Yorion. I though it was a Bant Control but they played Veteran Explorer. Both Rectors were there, and Academy one calls Emrakul with Omniscience. After taking back the 2nd game with Field of the Dead, game 3 I got an all-in hand for Marit Lage. I decided to go, but they played Leyline and Karakas. My draw is only Moxes and Loams… and Crop. They played Rector on turn 5, with tapping Karakas and Plains. I countered it with Bojuka Bog and Marit attacked.

R6 GW Depth ×〇〇

For a long time, Lands has been threated by Knight of the Reliquary. That was game 1. In the 2nd game, he discarded Karakas to Mox on an early turn and looked to have forgotten it. He allows me to call Marit Lage with his Dark Depth and I won. Knight of the Reliquary collided with Endurance in the last game, and I won.

R7 Saga Still 〇×〇

In the first game, he only played Volcanic Island and 3 Wastelands. I wasted all of them so I didn’t know what he played. In the next game, it became clear. They were on the Saga deck with Standstill, which crushed with Constructs. Game three he played no Sagas and Ragavans, then Sylvan Library worked and chained with Rishadan Port and Choke. Move to Single Elimination with 4th Place…

SE1 Esper Blink 〇〇

This was an interesting deck. Based on Esper Vial deck with Solitude and Grief to play with Ephemerate. Squadron Hawk and Recruiter of the Guard supplies its costs. But for Lands, there’s few creatures and spells, so it became just a low clock creature deck. Pitch creatures do almost nothing. Never drew any spells or Punishing Fires, but copying Maze of Ith protected me for a long time. And once Marit Lage gave me 20 life, it meant that I can take at least 5 turns. I sent Marit Lage every turn and finally fulfilled the promise of victory.

SE2 Saga Still ×〇×

Paired again with the R7 deck. But this game, they played True-name Nemesis on turn 3. Saga and Still weren’t problem, but I was just defeated by this merfolk. Got back the 2nd game with Choke, but the last game was terrible. I was screwed with many Fires and Moxes, whiel their play was Needle, Wasteland, Wasteland, Nemesis.

As I said, I’m just getting back to Legacy so Top4 was just my luck. Loam is losing its power but Lands is still good deck, please try if you got interested, and give me your best Saga Lands decklist! Thank you.

As a Lands player, I’m always on the lookout for cool new lands, so when Urza’s Saga was spoiled, I was very excited. Now it’s been a couple weeks since we’ve been able to play with the card, so I thought I’d do a little write-up to share some thoughts on the card and help out anyone who is still wondering how it works in Lands.

This will be organized a bit like an FAQ – click the questions below to jump to that part of the article, or just read them all! If you prefer to watch it in action, check out Jarvis Yu’s video or some of the vods on my own channel.

• What is Urza’s Saga and how does it work?
• What does Urza’s Saga do for Lands?
• What artifacts should I search up on the third chapter?
• What are some drawbacks of playing Urza’s Saga?
• How does Urza’s Saga interact with Thespian’s Stage?
• Does Urza’s Saga replace Field of the Dead?
• How does Urza’s Saga interact with Blood Moon?
• What does a list with Urza’s Saga look like?

What is Urza’s Saga and how does it work?

Urza’s Saga is an Enchantment Land with the Urza’s and Saga subtypes. Pretty self-explanatory, right?

Wrong! This card is very strange, but here’s the basics. It is a land, so playing it takes your land drop, can’t be countered, doesn’t pass priority, all the usual land stuff. It is also an enchantment, so it can be destroyed by Naturalize. So far, it’s not much different than any of the artifact lands.

Where it gets weird is that it is a saga. This means that like every other saga, it gains lore counters – first when it enters the battlefield, and then as a trigger at the beginning of each main phase. In particular, when it first enters, the saga’s first chapter will trigger, giving it the ability to tap for mana (note that you can destroy it with this trigger on the stack, so that it never gets the chance to make mana). On your next main phase, it will trigger again, this time gaining the ability to make constructs. Then, at the beginning of your third main phase, it will trigger another time. When that trigger resolves, the land will die, but with the trigger on the stack you can sacrifice it for Crop Rotation or activate any of its abilities – none of that will stop the final trigger from resolving and giving you an artifact.

An important thing to remember is that you can only find artifacts with a literal 0 or 1 in the top right corner. Artifacts without mana costs (like artifact lands), colored mana costs, or X in their mana cost cannot be found. This is because Urza’s Saga specifies a mana cost and not a mana value (a mana cost, not a converted mana cost, for us boomers). In other words, you can’t find Engineered Explosives but you can find Triangle of War.

What does Urza’s Saga do for Lands?

Urza’s Saga the set gave us Exploration, and Urza’s Saga the block gave us Crop Rotation, so I think it’s safe to say Urza’s Saga did a lot for Lands. Urza’s Saga the card keeps this trend going and also does a lot for our deck. Most importantly, it provides a land-based threat that is self-contained and can be deployed early. It also has obvious synergy with Life from the Loam since, as a saga, it sends itself to the graveyard. And of course, it allows us to play a toolbox of 0 and 1 mana artifacts.

Unlike Field of the Dead, Urza’s Saga can make constructs as early as turn 2. These constructs aren’t small either – if you activate it twice and search up a random artifact, you will have 2 3/3s. Throw in a Mox Diamond and they’re 4/4s and you can have 2 of them as early as turn 3. This means we can present real threats and clock opponents without needing the Lage combo or having to get to 7 different land names.

Against creature decks, Saga puts up very real blockers to gum up the board. Against control, you can spew an early Saga to put them on the back foot and force them to deal with a pair of creatures that could very well kill them, all while you keep Loaming and developing your board. Against combo, you can use Saga to actually clock opponents quickly while Sphere and Wasteland delay their win. Turn one Saga, Diamond, Sphere is a pretty great start against most combo decks in the format.

Life from the Loam and Thespian’s Stage both work to make Urza’s Saga not just a one-off but a repeatable source of board presence. Loam recycles it so you can replay it, and Stage can copy it and, thanks to some weird layers tricks (see below), can end up as a land with the permanent ability to create constructs every turn.

On top of this, there are several nice silver-bullet artifacts you can run, which I’ll explore in the next section. For now, suffice it to say that Saga provides, in addition to the threat of attacking constructs, an additional layer of selection and flexibility.

What artifacts should I search up with Urza’s Saga?

Whatever your heart desires, my friend. Get your Chimeric Coils and Dark Spheres and lets go wild on some people.

On a more serious note, here are some the artifacts I’ve heard mentioned and my own thoughts on them (by no means gospel as things are still being tested).

Mox Diamond – Well, you’re playing this already so… just go get it if you want to keep your mana up, fix your colors, or what have you. Obviously extra good if you have Loam. Play 4 in the maindeck, ya dummy.

Pyrite Spellbomb – For my money this is the best artifact to search up other than Mox Diamond. It makes Saga capable of searching up removal or just drawing a new card off the top. Against matchups with Surgical, you can hold up Spellbomb to answer Surgical just like a canopy land. When you draw it naturally, you can just cast it as a Punishing Fire or cycle it, so its absolute floor is cycling for two mana. Play 0-1 in the maindeck.

Expedition Map – This is another way to help Saga give us redundancy and selection. Now Saga dies into a slow Crop Rotation of sorts – not a bad result. I’ve liked Map, but it is a bit slow and not everyone seems sold on it. If I had to choose two artifacts, I’d play Pyrite Spellbomb and the Map, but the Bomb would be cut before the Map. Play 0-3 in the maindeck.

Retrofitter Foundry – When Saga first hit the scene this card was very hyped. Having played with it for a while, I’m generally not impressed. It does enable you to gum up the board and spew artifacts to grow your constructs. But it’s also very slow and mana-intensive. Perhaps it’s worth playing if there is a lot of control in your meta, but consider that Expedition Map for Field of the Dead is probably just as good against control, while also having a lot more flexibility. Play 0-1 in the maindeck, maybe 1 in the sideboard if your meta has a lot of control.

Shadowspear – While our deck has very few creatures, so this card may seem like just a blank, it actually has some pretty great utility. First, it can provide trample to Marit Lage, allowing the witch mother to run over whatever blockers the opponent may have. Second, if you attach it to a construct, you can start gaining life, which can be quite a useful tool against aggressive decks like Delver. The ability to turn off hexproof/indestructible isn’t super useful but it can come up. Play 0-1 maindeck.

Pithing Needle – This is a great tool in a lot of matchups. Locking down Elvish Reclaimer, Knight of the Reliquary, Wishclaw Talisman, or whatever else can be very useful. Note that if your opponent lets the third chapter of Saga resolve, Needle will enter and name a card before they can respond. I say this to make you aware that you can tag their fetchlands (and so that you won’t let your fetches get tagged). Some people have played this in the main, but to me it feels like a sideboard card. Play 1 in the sideboard, maybe 1 in the maindeck if you’re feeling like you can rely on your opponents to let you hit their fetches.

Meekstone – A great card against the creature decks of the format; turns most of Delver’s threats into Lightning Bolts and keeps opposing Knights or True-Names tapped indefinitely. It has the downside of keeping our constructs tapped too, however. Play 0-1 in the sideboard.

Zuran Orb – This card is so cool and I can’t say I’ve played with it but it also doesn’t seem that good? Gaining life is fine but there are better things we can do (and if we just want life why not get Navigator’s Compass or something?). Still, I encourage you play with it and report back. Play 0-1 in the sideboard.

Soul-Guide Lantern/Relic of Progenitus/Tormod’s Crypt/Grafdigger’s Cage – I haven’t personally played with these but I also haven’t really missed them. If Uro picks up, then perhaps these can be worth playing. Play 0-1 in the sideboard.

Brainstone – I know some people have been excited about this. It has potential, but I haven’t played it myself. It does enable Saga to generate pretty solid card advantage, which is nice, and we are pretty good at clearing the top of our deck with either Loam or fetches or Crop Rotation. Worth Testing. Play 0-1 maindeck.

Triangle of War – Only mentioning this card because it’s super cool. Make Marit Lage fight their creatures! Play 0 but if you play 1 you’ll be my hero.

Mishra’s Bauble – Honestly, no one is playing this but also they shouldn’t. If you’re just trying to draw a card, you should play Pyrite Spellbomb since it can also kill things. Play 0.

What are some drawbacks of playing Urza’s Saga?

The biggest drawback of the card is the space it takes in your list. It is good in multiples and good early, so playing just one is ok but probably not optimal. So then you have to think about how many colorless lands you can really play, and what you’ll have to cut. Different answers have been given to that question – see the decklist section for more discussion.

The other drawbacks are that (1) it sends itself to the graveyard; (2) it is an enchantment; and (3) it is somewhat mana intensive. Sending itself to the graveyard means that it puts you down a land when it dies. You can often find Mox Diamond with it so that you don’t lose mana, but that’s not always an option and you don’t always have Loam to get it back. As an enchantment, it is a prime target for opposing Force of Vigors, which can be a bit back-breaking when they tag your Mox and your Saga. It also enables your opponents to turn things like Disenchant into land destruction (though does anyone play Disenchant anymore?).

The card is also quite mana-hungry. To get the full two constructs, you need to spend effectively 6 mana over two turns. Six mana over two turns for a pair of constructs and a 1 mana artifact isn’t a bad deal, but it can be clunky when you want to cast other spells and have to choose between constructs or Sylvan Library, for example. In the early turns when you want to drop lock pieces or be porting your opponent, your mana can be somewhat strained.

These drawbacks are far from making the card unplayable, but they’re things to keep in mind.

How does Urza’s Saga interact with Thespian’s Stage?

When Saga was spoiled, I was blowing up my judge friend’s phone with questions. Every interaction was more confusing than the last, but to answer the main question – yes, you can end up with a land that can create constructs forever and will not die to being a saga.

To explain how this works, imagine Thespian’s Stage as a troupe of actors, and the play they’re learning is the story of Urza’s Saga.

When Stage first copies Saga, the actors have just started learning and can’t actually do anything except be actors. In real magic terms, this means that you will have an Urza’s Saga with 0 chapters and thus with no abilities (except the Thespian’s Stage ability). At this point, the actors can’t even figure out how to tap for mana. Note that this is true no matter how many chapters are on the Saga you’re copying. Stage copies only the text printed on the card, not any abilities the card may have gained. Thus it will always be a blank saga to start out with – your actors don’t have any clifnotes.

Then, when you hit the first main phase of your turn, the actors learn the first chapter of the Saga. At this point, your land will gain a lore counter and, in the process, gain the ability to tap for mana. Good job, actors!

In the next first main phase, your actors are really getting into it and now they can build constructs just like Urza used to! Like the original Saga, the Stage-Saga will gain another lore counter at the start of the main phase and thus gain the ability to make constructs just like a normal Saga could.

But now here comes the tricky part. When your Stage-Saga hits your first main phase for the third time, your actors are so engrossed in the Saga that they are willing to die to stay true to the story. In the game, this means that if you don’t copy a new land, the Stage-Saga will get its third counter and go the graveyard just like a normal Saga would.

But you don’t have to do this. Instead, while the third chapter trigger is on the stack (or at any point before it resolves), you can use Stage’s copy ability to copy another land that is not a saga. If you do this, you will now have a land that has (1) all the abilities of the land you copy; (2) the usual Stage ability to copy other lands; and (3) the abilities Stage gained while it was a Saga. Because of how layers work, Stage will have ‘gained’ abilities, not just copied them, and thus it will keep those abilities as it turns into other lands. Your actors are now a traveling troupe, playing Urza’s Saga at different locations. If you choose to copy a fresh land with the third chapter trigger on the stack, you will even get to search up an artifact for your troubles, all without sacrificing your Stage (since it will not be a saga when the third chapter ability resolves). The result is that you could well have a basic forest that can make constructs. Kinda neat!

Does Urza’s Saga replace Field of the Dead?

Urza’s Saga could replace Field of the Dead if you want it to. Because of the interaction with Stage, Saga can be used to create a creature every turn and thus provide the same kind of threatening inevitability that Field does, all while being available a lot earlier and asking much less in the way of setup. Plus Saga’s creatures are just bigger – 4/4s and 5/5s vs 2/2s. For more arguments in favor of cutting Field for Saga, watch Jarvis Yu’s stream.

That said, I’m not personally 100% sold on the idea of cutting Field. Unlike Saga, Field can create multiple creatures in a single turn, which can often be the difference in bailing you out of a bad board position. Field also has the potential to make zombies the turn you draw it, requires no mana investment, and does not ask you to have a free Stage for it to be effective. Copying Saga with Stage and then copying a fresh land means taking several turns and a minimum of 6 mana to get a permanent source of constructs; that’s a lot of mana in the early game and a lot of time in the late game where every top-deck can matter. So while I would probably play 3 Sagas before the first Field, I think the potential upside of one Field is worth not playing the 4th Saga.

How does Urza’s Saga interact with Blood Moon?

Urza’s Saga has an odd interaction with Blood Moon, Spreading Seas, and other effects that turn a land into a completely different land. When these effects hit Saga, it turns into an Enchantment Land – Saga Mountain (or Island, or what have you). But it also loses all its other relevant saga abilities. This means that its max chapter is no longer determined by the text of the card, but instead defaults to zero. Then, since its number of lore counters is greater than or equal to the max chapter number, it goes to the graveyard as a state-based effect.

The details may be a bit tricky, but the bottom line is – Blood Moon destroys Urza’s Saga upon resolution.

What does a list with Urza’s Saga look like?

Ok, so maybe you’re sold on the card, maybe you’re not, but at the very least you’ve heard enough to need some actual lists. The crucial question for these lists is: what do we cut for Saga? To this there are more or less 2 different answers. You can cut Rishadan Port, since it is another colorless land. Or you can cut nonland threats like Sylvan Library/Valakut Exploration since Urza’s Saga increases your threat density and thus makes those kinds of threats less necessary. Below are a series of decklists to give you a sense of what people are trying (apologies for the differing formats, but people like to post their lists in different places). If necessary, open the images in a new tab to make them bigger.

Here are some examples of the first school of thought, where we shave a few Valakut Exploration but ultimately still play a decent suite of value enchantments alongside Sagas:

The common theme in these lists is that you don’t really get to play Port. Some are playing a single extra Ghost Quarter instead, which is an interesting alternative.

Next we also have the Library-less lists like the semi-experimental one Jarvis Yu played on his stream:

And this other option from Monroe on the Lands discord:

These lists are going harder on Saga (playing the full set) and leaning on it together with the traditional Lands package to carry them. They don’t have value enchantment engines, but the thinking is that with Saga, you don’t need them.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention another super cool piece of technology due to alli – BUG Saga Lands, a list that leans heavily on artifact synergies and Academy Ruins along with Urza’s Saga!

The interaction between Academy Ruins and Baleful Strix is pretty great, and Saga can find Nihil Spellbomb here for what is likely the best 1cmc graveyard-hate artifact there is.

Wrapping up – where does Urza’s Saga fit?

Of course, none of these lists are definitive or set in stone. What is clear is that Urza’s Saga is a powerful effect and one that Lands is uniquely suited to take advantage of. That said, I’ve played maybe 30 or so matches with the card, so I can hardly claim to know all of its ins and outs.

I do expect that it will eventually be staple of our deck, but whether it settles as a 4-of or just a 1-of or gets cut completely will depend a lot on future testing and the way the metagame shapes up. For now, let’s keep trying to do cool stuff with it see where the saga of Lands takes us!

EDIT: as of February 2022, 3-4 Saga is effectively stock in almost all Lands builds. The most common targets are Expedition Map, Pyrite Spellbomb, Shadowspear, and Pithing Needle, more or less in that order. See these articles for recent lists.

So I found out about this event literally the day before it began. The event was double elimination, meaning that you played until you hit two losses. I liked this format but it also led to weird things (when the field came down to three players one of them essentially got scooped into the finals and $250).

But whatever the structure, it’s not like I had any question in my mind about what deck I’d bring. I haven’t seriously played anything other than Lands for over a year, so… let’s do this!

Decklist

A couple notes on some choices. In the maindeck, I chose to play a 2 copies of Lightning Bolt. These were a concession to Ethereal Forager and just the general need to have fast removal against Delver. As it would turn out, Delver was by far the most popular deck in the tournament, so it worked out pretty well. I also chose to play a Glacial Chasm over what would likely have been a second Field; this was mostly because I like Chasm but also because I had heard people were playing Price of Progress, which is just cruel and something clearly no one should ever do. Progress should be free.

In the sideboard is where the spice is. Shifting Ceratops, a great find by fmessina and alli in the Lands discord, is just a massive hammer for smashing Delver decks. Uncounterable means they can’t fight it on the stack, 4 toughness means burn spells have a hard time with it, protection from blue and the ability to gain reach means it can block virtually everything in their deck, and 5 power means it can often outrace opposing threats and just end the game. The card was great and won me more games than it should have. If I had known I’d be paired against this much Delver I would have played 3.

Speaking of pairings, let’s get to it!

Tournament

ROUND 1 – No Show

This was an online tournament and I guess my opponent overslept. Not the most honorable victory, but I’ll take it.

1-0

ROUND 2 – UR Delver

I hope you like hearing about this matchup because I played it 5 times in this event. Game one I usually just aim to make Lage fast, and then the other two are often grindier with more back and forth. Open decklists were a big help in showing me what my opponent’s outs were and none of them had g1 outs to Lage.

G1

I’m on the play with a turn one Library. Follow it up with Exploration and I start wasting their lands and Loaming. My opponent can’t seem to put up much in the way of threats and eventually I get Ghost Quarter for their basics. I play Chasm and make a ton of zombies before saccing it to kill them in one turn.

G2

I again have Diamond and Exploration in my opener, and draw a second Diamond for a pretty busted start. Loam adds fuel to the fire and I make Lage through a Wasteland pretty soon thereafter.

Sideboard Plan

+3 Choke, +3 Pyroblast, +2 Shifting Ceratops
-2 Crop Rotation, -1 Karakas, -1 Chasm, -1 Sylvan Library/VE, -1 Field of the Dead, -1 Bojuka Bog, -1 Life from the Loam

I shaved a Library/VE depending on play/draw. I think I may have a couple too many cards for this matchup since ideally I wouldn’t be cutting those. Chasm seems bad here because it’s hard to enact the lock through their Wastelands and Forces, and I knew my opponent didn’t have Price. Still, could see keeping it.

2-0

ROUND 3 – UR Delver

More UR Delver. My opponent had the coolest basics I’ve seen in a long time, all black with some kind of ethereal figures on them, looked almost like an alter? Can you do that on MTGO?

G1

I’m on the play. They don’t play any threats, just cantrip and counter a few things, and then I make Lage on turn 5 and they die.

G2

This game was eternal. My opener is two blasts, Diamond, and Choke. I sequence a little wrong but still go for Choke with blast backup and mana for Daze. They have double Force. I then proceed to draw virtually no action (though a good deal of removal) for something like 15 turns. My opponent also draws nothing and floods out very hard, though they have several Wastelands that are stopping me from making Lage. This is a game where I was slightly punished for cutting Field since it would have been great in this spot.

Eventually, they draw actual spells, have the Submerge for Lage when I finally make it, and I die.

G3

My opener has the dino – snap keep. They play a little early pressure and we do a little mana denial dance but their one Delver cannot beat my Dino. They attack for 3 and I attack for 5, eventually killing their creature with Punishing Fire and that’s all she wrote.

Sideboard Plan

+3 Choke, +3 Pyroblast, +2 Shifting Ceratops
-2 Crop Rotation, -1 Karakas, -1 Chasm, -1 Sylvan Library/VE, -1 Field of the Dead, -1 Bojuka Bog, -1 Life from the Loam

3-0

ROUND 4 – UR Delver

There are worse matchups to play three times in a row, so… ok!

G1

My opening hand has only Diamond as a mana source but also has Exploration, Crop Rotation, and Depths. Let’s see if we can get there. Exploration gets forced and I draw Stage. It gets wasted. I still make Lage thanks to Crop Rotation, but my opponent at this point has several elementals, a Delver, and a Whale. Luckily, Maze of Ith gives my monster vigilance so she can play defense as well as offense. They chump for a few turns and I think I would have lost to double Bolt, but I keep them off double red and eventually they run out of blockers.

G2

Solid opening hand with Exploration, Punishing Fire, Grove, and some Diamonds. However, they waste my Grove and surgical my Fire. Having spewed my hand, I pray for a Stage go with the Depths I’m holding. I do find a dino, but they have Stomp plus Bolt to kill it and I die shortly thereafter.

G3

Opener threatens a turn 3 dino and has Crop Rotation plus Dark Depths, so I’m feeling pretty good. I land the Ceratops and they don’t have double burn spell. Maze again gives my boy vigilance and I keep up green to help him reach the the flying whales and bugs. Port and Waste keep my opponent off double red and they die to dino beats. Vengeance is mine.

Sideboard Plan

+3 Choke, +3 Pyroblast, +2 Shifting Ceratops
-2 Crop Rotation, -1 Karakas, -1 Chasm, -1 Sylvan Library/VE, -1 Field of the Dead, -1 Bojuka Bog, -1 Life from the Loam

4-0

ROUND 5 – GW Depths

Lands is usually a favorite against depths, but GW depths flips that on its head. They run the full playset of Knights and Reclaimers, both of which are very obnoxious cards for us to deal with. Usually the games don’t even involve Lage, but just end up being about mana denial and their creatures vs our Field/Valakut Exploration. What’s more, all land-based matchups are massively complicated since everyone is playing a ton of tutors and one wrong step can basically cost you the game. Not only that, but I knew my opponent was a very good player (they literally run a podcast with Depths in the name) and they wouldn’t throw away any obvious edges.

G1

I waste their first land (a wasteland itself), loam back my waste, and waste their second land. They don’t have another and scoop a few turns later. I’m overjoyed at the free win; they mentioned they kept a hand with a lot of good cards in the matchup but that folded to exactly Wastelands, so I guess we got a little lucky.

G2

Knight of the Reliquary is a very good card. I try to defend myself for a bit, but Knight + Reclaimer beats get me in the end.

G3

This game was very close. I have some solid engines with Exploration + Sylvan Library in the first couple turns, but they also land a t2 Knight. I take a decent amount from my Library and get maybe a little bit too greedy at one point, falling to 8 life. Still, I land a Valakut Exploration, and that, together Exploration and Library in play, plus Loam and two Crop Rotations in my hand, should mean that I can take over the game in short order, provided I survive.

That said, I’m at 8 and my opponent has a Knight and a Reclaimer. They play a second elf and swing in so that I fall to 3 life after blocking with Maze. Next turn I have to Ghost Quarter my own Bog to get enough green sources to do anything worthwhile, but I missequence my lands a little so that after loaming I can’t play the Bog again to shrink his creatures. The result is that any elf that hits me is lethal. My opponent has Knight to find Wasteland and kill my Maze, and while I have Crop Rotation to replace it, one Maze doesn’t stop 2 Elves.

My opponent, however, misses the fact that I have two Mazes in my deck. They do find Wasteland with Knight, but they declare attackers before using it. This means that I can Maze one elf, then Port their Waste to make them use it, rotate the land they aim for, and get a second Maze to stay alive. Thanks to that, I live to see another turn. Next turn I do the whole landstorm thing with VE and two Explorations in play. Ultimately I rotate a land for a Field, make a ton of zombies, and the game is essentially over. Like I said, complicated matchup.

Sideboard Plan

+2 force of vigor, +2 shifting ceratops
-1 glacial chasm, -3 dark depths

(I’m pretty sure this is wrong, Chasm is fine against them and cutting all the Depths is not ideal; having a single Depths likely would have let me steal game 3 a lot more easily)

5-0

ROUND 6 – UR Delver

Being 3-0 vs Delver so far made me feel pretty confident going into this. Reading my opponent’s name, however, did not make me confident, since I knew they were one of the famed Delver masters. Still, I figured I’d do my best. And hey, they don’t have outs to Lage in the maindeck so maybe my faith in Our Dark Lady of the Ice would be repaid and she’d work a miracle for me.

G1

My opener has Exploration and Loam – snap keep. Exploration resolves (always dicey on the draw) and I just start dumping lands, including a Port, Waste and Tabernacle. My opponent does land some threats in the form of Dragon and Delver, and things are looking a little tense, especially since Loam isn’t finding me much of anything.

Another Delver joins the fray and they both flip. I find a Crop Rotation and with no combo pieces in sight, I rotate for Ghost Quarter. My opponent has fetched all their basics so Ghost Quarter plus Loam kills two of their lands this turn, taking them to one mana and, thanks to Tabernacle, one threat. I take the hit and fall to 4. Next turn I ghost their last land, play Field, and the game is essentially over from there – I’m at 4 life so even a Bolt won’t save them.

G2

My opener is slow, but I have Ceratops, Choke, and Punishing Fire. I fire their t2 threat, and then find another for their Dragon, though that gets forced. They also have Force for my Choke, but at the end of the day Dragons can’t beat Dinos. And while Dino vs Dragon is a bit of a stalemate, I’m lucky enough to find a second one. There’s a little back and forth as their other threats stop me from comfortably attacking, but eventually I get Grove online, kill their smaller creatures, and attack with one dino while leaving the other back to block the Dragon.

Sideboard Plan

+3 Choke, +3 Pyroblast, +2 Shifting Ceratops
-2 Crop Rotation, -1 Karakas, -1 Chasm, -1 Sylvan Library/VE, -1 Field of the Dead, -1 Bojuka Bog, -1 Life from the Loam

6-0

ROUND 7 – Doomsday

Doomsday is one of the worst matchups for Lands. Combo in general is not great, but this one is particularly resilient to mana denial since it runs a couple basics and only needs to get to 3 mana. Once it’s gone off, a good a player can play through wastelands and ports pretty easily.

G1

My hand can’t make Lage but it can slow them down a lot, so that’s what I do. They go off and thanks to open decklists I can tell they made a very slow pile of just lands, Oracle, Petal, and a Street Wraith. I have a Bolt for Oracle so if they try it too early maybe I can steal this? I port and waste and see what happens, but with a Petal it’s easy to just go land, Petal, Oracle. They do that with one card in their library. I bolt it, they cycle Street Wraith, I lose.

G2

I bring in a ton of cards and manage to land a Valakut Exploration and then a Ceratops before they go off. Doomsday cuts their life to 8, and thanks to a natural land drop plus Crop Rotation for a fetchland I’m able to hit 3 landfall triggers and kill them with Ceratops and VE.

G3

They counter an early Choke, and go off around turn 3 or 4. Their pile is a lot like it was in g1, but this time with a brainstorm as well. Mana denial doesn’t get there and they draw through their miniscule deck and kill me.

Sideboard Plan

+3 Choke, +3 Pyroblast, +3 Sphere of Resistance, +1 Thorn of Amethyst, +2 Shifting Ceratops
-1 Bojuka Bog, -2 Lightning Bolt, -2 Punishing Fire, -1 Karakas, -2 Maze of Ith, -1 Tabernacle, -2 Valakut Exploration, -1 Glacial Chasm 

6-1

ROUND 8- UR Delver

Only had to win two or three more matches to win the whole event, so I figured I could give up a match to Doomsday, no big deal. Shook off the loss and figured I’d do my delver-slaying thing one more time and go from there.

G1

My opponent goes wide with Young Pyromancer and has just the right Wastelands and Force of Wills to close off my outs in time. I may have scooped a little early; I think I could have rotated for Chasm to buy a few more turns. Still, a frustrating game where many opportunities were closed by them having exactly what they needed and they won with maybe 1 card in hand.

G2

There’s a bit of back and forth and they land an early Delver. They have a Relic cramping my style so I can’t loam effectively, but their own mana is pretty constricted as well. I land Exploration and Library, and kill their Delver with Punishing Fire. They play Court of Cunning to become the monarch, but I soon assemble Marit Lage with Pyroblast backup to steal the crown and the game.

G3

This game starts a lot like game 1, with my opponent playing a Young Pyromancer. They also play an Ethereal Forager and a Sprite Dragon and things are looking a little dire for our hero here. Fortunately, a big ol’ dinosaur joins the party and starts totally stone-walling their threats, while I also erect a Tabernacle to stone-wall their mana.

So it’s Young Pyromancer, Whale, and a Sprite Dragon staring down my dinosaur. I have a couple Stages and Ports, nothing too crazy, but a lot of live draws that can slam the game shut. I make bit of a misstep and blast their Forager, reasoning that even if they attack and I just eat it with my dinosaur, it’ll give them their Expressive Iteration back and draw them more cards. In retrospect, I think hitting the Dragon might have been better.

Anyway, between Blast and a Punishing Fire I whittle down their board and eventually it’s just Dragon vs Dinosaur. A bit of a precarious situation, but I’m confident my deck will give me something worthwhile as we sit at a bit of a stalemate for a few turns. Eventually my opponent plays a second dragon. At this point if either dragon gets to 13 power they can attack with both and end me.

They tap out, I draw Choke. Since they’re on four cards and I haven’t had a chance to play a spell for several turns, I’m thinking that my opponent must have countermagic. So I debate trying to draw it out with a Valakut Exploration that I also have. But I figure their dragons are close to killing me and being able to catch them with all their lands tapped vs my Tabernacle is too high upside. So I slam it. They Force. Ok, fine, still a lot of good draws left. Next turn they tap out again for some cantrips – those Dragons are getting big! I draw a second Choke and thank the gods of blue-hate. I slam it and yes, their last two cards are Force plus blue card. Oof. Fine, fine, we have about another turn, two if we’re lucky and they whiff on spells.

My next draw is Dark Depths. I make Lage. Their last card is Submerge. Marit Lage, long used to sleeping in the icy depths, apparently can’t handle being submerged in water. I lose.

Sideboard Plan

+3 Choke, +3 Pyroblast, +2 Shifting Ceratops
-2 Crop Rotation, -1 Karakas, -1 Chasm, -1 Sylvan Library/VE, -1 Field of the Dead, -1 Bojuka Bog, -1 Life from the Loam

6-2 finishing in 5th place

Was a great event and overall I’m happy with how I played. There were a couple moments that I could have made different decisions that might have led to different outcomes, and a couple sequencing errors, but no glaringly obvious mistakes as far as I could tell. Given the field, Lands was an excellent deck for the event. We may not be the 90% favorite to beat Delver we were in the past, but it definitely still feels like a good matchup – I’m personally at a 75% winrate against Delver over 15 matches since the Arcanist ban. If the field is going to continue to be 25-30% Delver like it was at this event, I’d be happy to take Lands into that. In fact, the other Lands player (Matt Brown) ended up 5-2, and based on win rate Lands was the highest performing deck in the event.

Thanks for reading! Until next time, may all your ships come safely into port.

I chose to play Lands at this event for two reasons. First, I posted a SB guide to Miracles on Twitter 2 days ago, gamers were going to be expecting me on this game so I wanted to change. Second, Lands is one of my favorite archetypes in the game, I’ve always had good results with it, and I also expected a lot of Delver, which is a matchup that Lands excels at.

Decklist

As usual, I prefer RG lists to 3-color lists; the deck is more consistent, more robust against wasteland and the mana denial plan is more efficient. Indeed, the first cut to fit the non-RG-duals is usually Rishadan Port. The black and blue splash of Lands essentially try to correct the weakness of the RG versions, in particular the combo matchup. In my experience these matchups are still very unfavorable and splashing a color makes your deck more sensitive to variance and weak against wastelands.

Thanks to Albert Lindom for the list. You will notice that it has quite a few differences from the one that allowed me to reach the legacy challenge final in December.

In recent days we have noticed that the lists are less focused on Valakut Exploration. The card in the past metagame had established itself as an excellent counterplay to Oko. Games today are faster and Valakut Exploration is often too slow, which explains the 3 MD copies.

Tournament

ROUND 1 – UWR STONEBLADE

Usually an even matchup, and you have less dead cards for this matchup than against other control decks. But the deck play a bunch of basic lands, MD answers to Marit Lage, and True Name Nemesis is a pain and pretty hard to interact with.

G1

I have a busted start, t1 Exploration + Mox, t2 Valakut Exploration + fetch into another Exploration. My opponent concedes.

G2

Despite an unchecked t2 Tireless Tracker my opponent wins some time with Teferi and takes advantage of a me being tapped out to play B2B. I lose a few turns later to a True Name Nemesis equipped with a Batterskull.

G3

Like game 1, I quickly put together the Exploration + Valakut Exploration combo, and a Field of the Dead outlasts a Batterskull in a few turns.

Sideboard Plan

+2 pryroblast, +1 red elemental blast, +1 tireless tracker, +2 force of vigor, +2 choke 
-4 crop rotation, -1 mox diamond, -1 tabernacle at pendrell vale, -1 maze of ith, -1 life from the loam (not sure about this) 

1-0

ROUND 2 – URZA ECHOES

This deck is your worst matchup, along with Reanimator and Show and Tell. They play a lot of mana rocks, you can’t interact well with their threats and their combo, and Karn shuts off your Mox Diamond and provides to them outs for graveyard/Marit Lage .

Your best way to win is to make a 20/20 pretty fast .

G1

Even with double Mox Diamond turn one, my opponent lock me turn two with Karn + Liquimetal Coating thanks to Lion’s Eye Diamond.

G2

I mulligan to 5 and my opponent kills me quickly with Hullbreacher into Echo of Eons + Sai, Master Thopterist, who made the 20/20 not reliable .

Sideboard Plan

+3 force of vigor, +2 pyroblast, +1 REB, +4 sphere of resistance, +1 thorn of amethyst
-4 loam, -2 elvish reclaimer, -1 tabernacle, -2 maze of ith, -2 sylvan library

I chose to cut Sylvan Library here because your opponent has tons of answers in the forms of Narset and Hullbreacher. I cut most of grindy cards because your opponent can overpower everything you do easily. 

1-1

ROUND 3 – BANT MIRACLES

I know people dislike the matchup, usually because the deck plays tons of basics, answers to Marit Lage, some planeswalkers, and a high number of force of negation. On top of that you also have lot of dead cards . But without any bragging, I think I’m an expert of Miracles and know the deck pretty well. The result is a good matchup comprehension and usually a win. 

My advice is to not play long games if your hand can’t. If you can go off turn t4, you should do it if you can’t play a long game.

G1

The first game is long. Teferi keeps my sylvan library outside of the game, but a few turns later I can tap the only white source from my opponent and I kill him with a 20/20.

G2

Sphere turn 1, Sphere turn 2, Choke turn 4, and two Rishadan Ports later I won when my opponent have only one plains available each turn.

Sideboard Plan

+4 sphere of resistance, +2 pyroblast, +1 REB, +2 choke, +1 tireless tracker
-4 crop rotation, -1 mox diamond, -1 tabernacle, -2 maze of ith, -1 life from the loam, -1 punishing fire

I’m still unsure about sphere. I think the cards is medium most of the time against Miracles and keeping some Crop Rotation makes sense nowadays because you have a lot more must-counters and Field of the Dead to find with it. But most others players in Lands like to side in the spheres. 

2-1

ROUND 4 – ELVES

One of your best matchups. The deck is pretty weak to all of your angles of attack; Punishing Fire , 20/20 combo, and Tabernacle are all pretty hard to deal with for them. But this is still a combo deck with some busted starts that can kill you turn two. I recommend to never keep a hand without early interaction.

G1

I find a Tabernacle quickly and destroy all of my opponent lands with Ghost quarter + Wasteland. They can’t stick a creature on board and they concede.

G2

I have Sphere + Tabernacle against my one-lander opponent; even if they keep ooze on board for 5 turns, I assemble the combo and kill him with 20/20.

Sideboard Plan

+4 sphere of resistance, +1 torpor orb
-2 valakut exploration, -2 maze of ith, -1 bog 

You can keep some Valakut Explorations if your opponent have lot of sideboard cards, and sometimes bring Force of Vigor if you see Leylines. But in the dark I prefer to keep the deck simple.

3-1

ROUND 5 – NINJAS

Ninja seems to be a slightly favored matchup, but sometimes they can put you in trouble. The deck has a robust manabase with basics, flying creatures and lot of card advantages with their ninjas. Usually their deck is pretty weak to Punishing Fire.

G1

I have slow start against lot of basic lands + some counters; I lose quickly.

G2

Me and my opponent have good starts, I kick off half of his board with a blast zone, and I kill him a few turns later with a 20/20.

G3

My opponent starts with t1 underground sea into ponder, shuffle. I waste without any hesitation, they miss 4 lands drops, and I easily win with Valakut Exploration + Exploration.

Sideboard Plan

+2 pyroblast, +2 choke
-1 bojuka bog, -2 sylvan library, -1 ghost quarter

4-1

ROUND 6 – SULTAI MIDRANGE

Sultai is as usual one of the best matchup for Lands. Their deck always has a weak manabase, no credible out to Marit Lage and not enough pressure. Usually I aggressively destroy the opponent’s manabase or make a 20/20. Be careful after sideboarding since Sultai usually has tons of grave hate.

You can see the match on the opponent’s twitch – ( https://m.twitch.tv/videos/957772615 at around 4:45)

G1

My opponent put me on miracles and kept a solid hand with lands, cantrips but 0 relevant interaction. My opponent’s deck plays 0 basic lands and they concede when I cast Loam on Tabernacle + Wasteland + Thespian Stage.

G2

The game is pretty one sided again. My opponent is forced to Surgical his Ponder after a Brainstorm lock. They draw several lands successively with his cantrips, and when they wants to cast Loam, I answer with Crop + Bog. I play a choke on my turn and will win the game a few rounds later with combination of Rishadan Port + Wastelands.

Sideboard Plan

+2 pyroblast, +1 red elemental blast, +2 choke, +1 tireless tracker
-2 maze of ith, -3 crop rotation

5-1

ROUND 7 – GRIXIS DELVER

Grixis is usually the easier delver matchup for Lands. Their manabase, like Sultai, is pretty weak to Wastelands, Young Pyromancer is a mediocre threat against both Tabernacle/Punishing Fire, and their deck has no outs to Marit Lage… The only real problematic card in their deck is Gurmag Angler who’s hard to interact with. 

G1

I mulligan to 5 for a mediocre hand. My opponent makes a slow start but draws all his 4 Wastelands. So I will lose under the onslaught of Gurmag Angler, Young Pyromancer and Delver in the late game.

G2

Like the last one, my opponent draws a lot of Wastelands. They also play Surgical on my Dark Depths. But a Maze prevents his Gurmag Angler from attacking, a Punishing Fire keeps his Bitterblossom in check, and I end up drawing Choke + Loam and win the game a few turns later.

G3

I choose to cast my Exploration on turn 2 to resolve it around Daze and Force of Will, and I have a Pyroblast in hand. My opponent counters my Exploration with Force and Dazes my Pyroblast. At this point they have Young Pyromancer + some tokens. On my turn I’m able to Crop Rotate into a Tabernacle which holds their Young Pyromancer in comfortable zone. My opponent ends up cracking under the pressure of Wasteland and Tabernacle which kills every single creatures. My opponent finally concede.

Sideboard Plan

+2 choke, + 2 pyroblast 
-1 karakas, -2 sylvan library, -1 bojuka bog 

During the tournament I sided in Tireless Tracker because my opponent had a lot of sideboard cards against me and aggressively surgicalled a Dark Depths in game two.

6-1

QUARTERFINALS – ICE STATION ZEBRA

I streamed the top 8 matches and a VOD is here – https://www.twitch.tv/mechint49170/video/958222703

One of your worst matchups, but much easier than Reanimator. Sometimes they draw the wrong part of their deck against you, like the 20/20 plan. Also their deck mulligans a lot and it is not uncommon to win because they just do nothing. Your goal is to make a 20/20 and shoot, be careful to not play Dark Depths without Stage, since your opponent can just copy it with Stage and make their own 20/20 .

G1

My opponent starts his turn 1 with swamp, Lotus Petal, Thoughtseize. So I think they’re playing Dark Depths. It’s a very good matchup and I have a very strong hand against that deck. Finally my opponent plays Entomb at the end of my turn, reanimates a Griselbrand and kills me turn 2 with a Laboratory Maniac (Children of Korlis feeding Griselbrand)

G2

My opponent mulligan to 6 and then I play a Sphere on turn 1 and turn 2, destroy the opposing lands and my opponent concedes.

G3

My opponent mulligan to 3, and I keep an average hand of 6. My opponent plays an Entomb at the end of his turn 1 and reanimates a Griselbrand in his turn 2 when they topdeck an Exhume. Fortunately my turn 1 play is Karakas, and when they discard a Griselbrand in his discard step, I can play a Bog and buy some time. Finally I play a Valakut Exploration and several fetches which allow me to inflict the last 5 life points on him.

Sideboard Plan

+4 sphere of resistance, +1 thorn of amethyst
-1 maze of ith, -1 tabernacle at pendrell vale, -3 punishing fire 

7-1

SEMIFINALS – BANT SNOW CREATURES

My opponent plays a brew which is a hybrid between Miracles and Maverick. They has access to a GSZ toolbox and disruption in the form of blue forces and white removal. 

I think this a an unfavorable matchup since, they have a robust manabase, wasteland, removal and some good threats against you. 

G1

I lose the first round pretty quickly after a misclick when I keep a bad hand at 7.

G2

I keep a very average hand of 6, but which contains a Torpor Orb. As my opponent takes the lead I draw an Elvish Reclaimer which stays unchecked for multiple turns. The elf allows me to find Karakas to bounce Uro, Tabernacle to limit the opponent’s board, and finally Field of the Dead. My opponent makes a mistake by attacking with his scavenging ooze against my 7 lands  and an elvish reclaimer with mana open and a Field of the Dead creates a surprise blocker. I will win the game a few laps later with multiple Fields of the Dead thanks to Thespian’s Stage.

G3

I had a great outing with Loam + Exploration, I outclassed the opponent’s board quite quickly and killed my opponent with a 20/20.

Sideboard Plan

+1 torpor orb, +2 pyroblast, +1 red elemental blast, +1 tireless tracker
-2 crop rotation, -1 maze of ith, -1 mox diamond, -1 wasteland

8-1

FINALS – URZA ECHOES

G1

My opponent opens with LED + some artifacts that cost 0 + Echo of Eons, which finds another LED, Echo, and Hullbreacher. They repeat this twice and I lose pretty fast.

G2

This time I have a fast start with a t3 Marit Lage and my opponent lets me untap (he forgot to add a stop on his endstep on mtgo) so that I can Pyroblast his Petty Theft on my Marit Lage.

G3

My opponent has a slow start and I have Sphere of Resistance to slow down the game. I choose to delay Marit Lage for a turn to play Force of Vigor on my opponent’s artifacts and play Bog on my turn to prevent flashback from Emry. The next turn I make a Marit Lage EOT and my opponent doesn’t have Petty Theft this time.

9-1 and Challenge Champion!

2020 was supposed to be the year of Marit Lage, and while maybe Lage herself wasn’t queen all year, she sure wrought some devastation. Despite all the chaos, the year saw a lot of cool innovations and additions to Lands. We got some nice new printings, got to meme people with sushi, and even got our own website to brag about it on. So now that the year has been rotated out for another, I thought it might be fun to take a look back and reminisce about all the strange times.

Uro & Theros Beyond Death

The year started off with a bang when Theros came out. A lot of Lands players were hyped on Uro – more land drops AND graveyard synergy? What’s not to like? But for a while Uro had to take a back seat to Underworld Breach. As Breach terrorized the format, us Lands kids played a lot more Null Rods and Leylines to try and fight the Breach menace. This would kind of become a theme of the year as Null Rod’s stock just went up and up as more broken artifact synergies got printed.

When Breach was finally banned, Uro did have its time to shine – in the 4-color control decks. Just kidding, it was fine in Lands too. In fact, Uro breathed a lot of new life into UG Lands, which had basically been dead until his printing. With Uro as a card advantage engine and a way to cope with threats, UG shored up one of its common weaknesses (lack of removal) by being able just go over whatever the opponent was doing. While people were working on this before Ikoria, it was the companion meta that really pushed it over the top.

Lurrus & the Companion Meta

When Lurrus was spoiled, Lands players were very excited. The card basically cost us nothing to include in our decks, and it promised to cure one of the biggest feel-bads of the deck by letting us replay Exploration after it was dredged. Pretty soon people were brewing up cool lists with Dark Confidant and other spice.

This is actually a pretty tame sample – there were definitely Mishra’s Bauble lists and even some playing things like Entomb to use as a tutor with Lurrus.

Of course, Lurrus was also being used by everyone else. Lurrus Delver and Lurrus Miracles, Lurrus Storm and Lurrus Depths were all out there. Lands players who didn’t opt for Lurrus opted for what was, for my money, the best Lands variant at that time – UG Uro Titan Lands.

These builds were almost more of a ramp deck than a Lands deck. With Uro, Exploration, and Manabond, you could easily get a lot of mana quickly. Then you’d use Cavern of Souls to jam through Uro over and over until your opponent was dead. A lot of lands in play also meant a lot of zombies – note the 3 Field of the Dead. This version of Lands went light on some of the interaction in favor of an unbeatable late game. It also eventually dropped the Stage-Depths combo entirely (as in this list) and relied on Uro and Field to win games.

Against other decks, UG Lands packed a ton of sideboard hate for combo – 3 Chalice, 4 Null Rod, and 3 Mindbreak Trap in this list. With the immense popularity of Lurrus Delver, which played no basics, Ghost Quarter became Strip Mine against a lot of the opposition. So UG went for the full 4 of both Wasteland and Ghost Quarter, with an extra Tabernacle to back it all up. Prime Time in the sideboard was conveniently a giant so that Cavern could push it through against countermagic. Once he resolved it was typically game over for opposing control decks.

Although the deck could suffer from variance when it didn’t find one of its engines, when UG Lands got going it was truly insane.

Eventually though, Companions would be banned and nerfed.

Post-Companion & Zendikar Rising

When Companions left the meta, UG Lands lost one of its best matchups in the Lurrus Delver decks of that time period. While it’s still a solid choice today (especially with the printing of Valakut Exploration as an additional engine), it’s not the obvious choice for the discerning Lands player of 2021.

Most people went back to their RG roots, sometimes splashing black for Abrupt Decay or trying out things like Experimental Frenzy in the sideboard (a build with Frenzy actually placed two in the top 8 of the 4seasons event in Italy). It was a quiet period until Zendikar Rising gave us a big new printing in Valakut Exploration.

This card fit naturally into our deck and a little testing showed that it was truly a force to be reckoned with. If a fetchland can trigger it twice, then with Exploration two fetches can trigger it 4 times a turn. And that’s not even mentioning Crop Rotation giving us extra triggers. Lands could easily draw 2+ extra cards every turn with this in play. I could go on and on about how good the card is in our deck (and I have, here), but I’ll spare you. Suffice to say, every Lands build after Zendikar Rising would try its level best to be playing some red.

Here’s a sample of a list from shortly after Zendikar’s release.

Grasping Dunes was new tech against Dreadhorde Arcanist, and note also the inclusion of Lightning Bolt to beat the same card. While people started with 2 Valakut Explorations, it would soon be up to 3, often 4.

Post-Zendikar Innovations pt. 1 – Sushi Lands

Sushi Lands was a version of Lands developed by alli, a long-time Lands master and innovator. The deck uses a land aura from Urza’s Saga called Spreading Algae.

The problem with this card is that the opponent might not have swamps. But thanks to Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, they do have swamps. Now you can destroy basics whenever they foolishly tap them, and you can even force them to tap by using Port. It started as a meme, but it quickly spread all over and while it may not be the best Lands build out there it’s certainly a lot of fun to play.

Here’s a sample list.

The deck plays a lot like classic Lands, but can lean harder on mana denial because of the Spreading Algae.

As for the excellent name, that is due to fmessina in the Lands discord. Something like algae = fish = sushi? Or is it because seaweed is used in making sushi? Whatever it is, it stuck.

Post-Zendikar Innovations pt. 2 – Naya+ Lands

A little after Sushi Lands first hit the scene, a more, shall we say, competitively-minded innovation was made. For a long time people had been trying out white in the Lands, most often for Sevinne’s Reclamation or Hall of Heliod. But it was Japanese player Yekcat that was able to use new Zendikar printings to push the deck to the next level.

The primary synergy that this build leaned on was that between Elvish Reclaimer and Flagstones of Trokair. If you sacrifice Flagstones to Reclaimer, you get to search for not one but two lands: one plains for Flagstones, and one of anything for Reclaimer. This meant that Reclaimer became not just a tutor but a ramp and card advantage engine.

Combine this multiple landfall tool with Valakut Exploration and throw in some Skyclave Apparitions for flexible removal and you had a Lands deck with a strong engine and a lot of variety in its threats.

White also gave us strong anti-combo tools in the sideboard. These lists tend to lean less on the Stage-Depths plan and often don’t play any Crop Rotations in the maindeck, relying instead on Reclaimer alone.

These innovations let Lands adapt to the Delver + Snow meta. Reclaimer as a blocker that kills Arcanist, and Skyclave Apparition as an answer to Okos and Uros, all were a step up compared to Crop Rotation (which is a liability against counterspells) and Abrupt Decay (which doesn’t really line up well against Uro).

As the deck developed, blue was added for a 4-color no-black build.

Blue lets us play our own Uros and opens the board up to Flusterstorm and Meddling Mage. Both of those line up quite well against Doomsday, which is one of the premier combo decks of the format at the moment.

At the time of writing this article, something like Naya or Naya + blue Lands is, for my money, the most competitive build of Lands out there at the moment. Straight RG is always going to do well in the hands of a master, but these versions take advantage of a lot of new printings and are built to attack the meta, all while staying true to the Lands core. If you’re a Lands player, give them a try.

Card Choices – Biggest Winners & Losers from 2020

Regardless of archetype, Lands changed a lot over the course of the year. A few cards rose in prominence while others faded into the backdrop.

Winners

Elvish Reclaimer – Reclaimer’s ability to eat Dreadhorde Arcanist in combat, it’s synergy with Flagstones of Trokair, and the fact that you don’t have to sacrifice the land up front really showed up this years as advantages over Crop Rotation. While it’s obviously slower, it can serve as an engine all of its own and was increasingly played over the course of the year. There are even full-on GW Reclaimer decks that lean heavily on the little elf. Hopefully a new printing with better art is on its way.

Lightning Bolt – I haven’t mentioned it before, but this year was the year Lightning Bolt really took off as an inclusion in Lands. Before Dreadhorde Arcanist, Punishing Fire was favored for its recursion. But as time went on it became clear that we needed cheap efficient answers to the Arcanist, and Bolt does the job better than most.

Null Rod – With Breach and Lurrus and Lutri and Urza decks all happening this year, Null Rod had a lot of time to shine.

Losers

Rishadan Port – While we all wish it was still good, the fact is that Port is very slow. With Astrolabe in the format, Port was no longer a real way to cut a control deck’s colors. As time went on people cut more and more of them, until some builds like Naya Lands are playing 0-1. That said, in Sushi Lands you get to play the full playset so…

Crop Rotation – At several points in the meta this past year (and including the current meta we’re in now) people were cutting Crop Rotations. Crop Rotation has never lined up well against countermagic, and at this point the top decks of the format are both playing 6-12 counterspells. The ability to make a quick Lage has also been less important since combo has been less common and Doomsday plays its own counterspells. So Crop Rotation has often been cut to 2 copies or else relegated to the sideboard.

Conclusion & Personal Note

Lands may not be the tier 0 deck we all wish it was, but it’s still a lot of fun and pretty powerful in the right hands. At the moment, Naya or Naya with blue seems to be the strongest build, though Dark (Jund) Lands is still a solid choice. But who knows what Kaldheim will bring. For now, we’ll just keep on wasting people out and hitting them with tentacle monsters, though now maybe we’ll explore Valakut or smash some flagstones while we’re at it.

On a final, personal note, I just wanted to give a big shout-out to the Lands community. I’ve played Legacy for a lot of years but it was only this year that I started playing Lands and I have to say the community has been one of the most relaxed, fun, innovative, and just happy I’ve had the pleasure of joining. This website was a project to give something back to that community and I’m glad that so many people have been able to enjoy it. If you, dear reader, have any comments, suggestions, Lage tokens for the gallery, or even want to write/record something for the site, feel free to contact me. A special shout-out goes to Morgormir for writing the incredible primer that forms the backbone of this site, to alli for all his innovations and the guide on playing against delver, to cap-n-dukes for the excellent write-ups on Stage tricks and how to buy into the deck, to fmessina for his excellent 4seasons tournament report, and to every other Lands content creator and streamer and player. Lots of love and happy new year to you all.