Natural Balance

Sorcery

Each player who controls six or more lands chooses five lands he or she controls and sacrifices the rest. Each player who controls four or fewer lands may search his or her library for X basic land cards and put them into play, where X is five minus the number of lands he or she controls. Then each player who searched his or her library this way shuffles it.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (38)

Beebles on Mono White Ramp/Draw

2 years ago

Yeah. I also hope we see more cards like welcoming vampire. Or that they find additional ways for white to draw.

As for green being too good at ramp and the social contract preventing MLD, I would love Wizards to print white versions of Natural Balance or similar (without getting into Global Ruin or Balancing Act territory). I think that card is a pretty good way to keep land ramp decks check while not totally wrecking games. I also liked Strict Proctor as a fair way to punish landfall decks without completely stopping them. Tectonic Hellion was an underwhelming attempt, but if they would staple such effects on cards that people will run for other reasons, we might start to get some more useful tools.

Dopellama on

3 years ago

Mass sacrifice cards like Wave of Vitriol and Natural Balance would do ridiculous things pumping your team while leaving all your creatures on the battlefield too. Given you would need to have enough basic land cards to support wave of vitriol, so that would fit in a more budget build. Even though it seems counter intuitive, you will want a large amount of basics in your deck anyway, especially if you are running as many fetches as possible. I find that its much more important to never run out of lands in my library than to have slightly better mana fixing early. I also loved Pir's Whim since it tutors a powerful land like Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, lets you politic, and gives you sacrifice triggers.

TheSlowestBro on The Entmoot

5 years ago

Claws of Gix is a card I should really have in here, and it's cheap to buy also, always a plus. I'm on a semi-budget, basically I buy myself an expensive new addition a few times a year (I don't know if I'll ever get my hands on a Gaea's Cradle heh). My next planned purchase is a Command Beacon which honestly seems pretty broken with Titania ^^

Lotus Vale and Akroma's Memorial are definitely on my radar, but I feel like the beacon is more important at this point, the memorial is definitely awesome though. I also used to run Natural Balance , but I too often found it sitting in my hand for too many turns in a row, so I ended up cutting it.

I was interested in your Squirrel Wrangler inclusion, I hadn't considered it with Gaea's Cradle , the combo with Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip is cool, but it's not tutor-able like the cradle is to combo with the Squirrel Wrangler , do you find the wrangler to be good on it's own without the cradle as well?

Ah yeah, that's a good reminder! Petrified Field was out of stock last I time I ordered and since then I just kinda forgot about it. I'm definitely going to pick one up together with the Command Beacon .

CastleSiege on The Entmoot

5 years ago

Claws of Gix is nice to run alongside Sylvan Safekeeper and Zuran Orb for the sake of consistency. You have to pay mana into it, but it lets you sac any permanent. You can sacrifice your creatures, mainly Titania, should an opponent try to steal her.

My pet favorite sac outlet is Squirrel Wrangler . If you ever get a Gaea's Cradle , or even Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip, it has a powerful synergy with both.

Natural Balance is a "fair" Armageddon . I used to run it in my original build.

Lotus Vale is almost a Scorched Ruins , but for colored mana.

Deserted Temple and Petrified Field are also favorites of mine for their utility.

Akroma's Memorial is also a good include. Pretty self explanatory lol

CommanderNeyo on Gitrog Combo Control

5 years ago

Looking at your decklist, I don't think I would really consider this deck a control deck. I think you should consider adding Death Cloud and Natural Balance. Since you are built around sacrificing your own lands, the drawbacks of Death Cloud are significantly reduced. Natural Balance is really nice when coupled with Squandered Resources (perhaps my favorite card with the frog), as you can sacrifice all your lands (getting mana and drawing cards), then cast Balance for more lands while making your opponents sacrifice lands if they have too many (which is good against other greedy green players).

Arvail on Commander League

5 years ago

Honestly, the worst league I've been a part of lasted a month and always had a true dual as a prize as well as about $200 in store credit across the top 3. The collusion for the top spots was insane.

I think rather than force people off of certain archetypes or punish 'bad' playstyles, just be reasonable human beings. Talk about it. Is there someone at the shop who's running a 3K Grand Arbiter deck and making everyone mad? Maybe ask him to run some suboptimal cards or ask them to cut down on the number of stax or tutor cards. Don't force them off their deck. Or maybe suggest they play something very close but clearly lower in power level. Playing Arcanis the Omnipotent where all of your combo pieces have an enchantment in them slows the combo player way down and makes it so that the combo pieces are much harder to dig up. Someone loves blowing up lands because of the 15 ramp deck in your league? Maybe point out that there exists cards like Natural Balance that help address ramp without resorting to Armageddon.

My point is attempting to reach a state where people self-police is far better for the group than establishing hard restrictions. In addition, when someone goes too far, it sets the stage for others to gang up on the player.

hkhssweiss on

5 years ago

Lombardi

Hey welcome to EDH!!!

You are right in adding in a lot more ramp cards to trigger more land fall effects, cards I can think right off the top of my head that can accelerate you are Exploration, Burgeoning, Oracle of Mul Daya, Wayward Swordtooth, Mina and Denn, Wildborn, The Gitrog Monster, and Azusa, Lost but Seeking.

Mana dorks are efficient as well, and I would highly recommend Orcish Lumberjack as it pairs super well with your commander! Aside from that I would also incluse the efficient land ramp cards like Nature's Lore, Farseek, Rampant Growth, and Kodama's Reach. For some more triggers that can be amazing for a finisher would be Titania, Protector of Argoth. There are some cards that would synergize well with her and your deck such as Lotus Cobra!, Sylvan Safekeeper, Crop Rotation, Scapeshift, and Natural Balance.

One last card I would definitely recommend for your land package would be Realms Uncharted super amazing card for a land deck! Hope that helps and feel free to ask for more help if ya like!

goldlion on Google Ghave and The Search Engine of Doom

5 years ago

hkhssweiss - I actually pulled a Standard Bearer in a booster pack from an old box a store had, just last month. Usable if I have a good recursion package out, and keeps to the "jank" theme for sure!

I really like the idea of things like Dense Foliage in this, especially played at the right time. If I wanted to follow that theme of control, I'd need to make sure I threw in some Ghostly Prison and other pillow forts to protect me from people's scary creature. I think that's the biggest worry with this deck, some sort of battlefield presence to stay alive.

I got a neat side idea for pulling ahead! I think the mass land searches that heavily favour me when Ob Nixilis, Unshackled is out could go great with the one card you recommended, Natural Balance... It'd be a strategy for a little later in the game if I have in my hand a couple cards like Weird Harvest or Collective Voyage that give everyone the option (to search themselves to death), I could play Natural Balance to cut everyone's land mass in half, then jump ahead in a huge way. The Ramunap Excavator or Crucible of Worlds also put me ahead. Ohhhh. Now I just need some extra ways to make use of that extra value I could have.

So - on your idea, hkhssweiss, what are some good instant or sorcery recursions to keep bringing them back? Eternal Witness is off the top of the head, but there must be some more good ones. Revive. hhmm