Oops All Lands

Commander / EDH SwiftCheese

SCORE: 47 | 16 COMMENTS | 18432 VIEWS | IN 25 FOLDERS

Added Value and Reduced Mana fixing —April 11, 2020

In the past couple of sets we've gotten a few more lands with really good ability value as well as versatility. All props go to Throne of Eldraine for comming out swinging on that front.

After adding Cascading Cataracts and Crystal Quarry in the previous rework, my mana fixing has been so much better. So much so, that I felt comfortable enough to remove weaker mana fixing cards in favor of value.

Removed

• Cave of Temptation
• Mirrodin's Core
• Urza's Factory
• Reliquary Tower
• Homeward Path
• Wandering Fumarole

As I've already mentioned, I felt comfortable enough with my mana fixing to cut the ones that weren't doing as much work. Mirrodin's Core is slower and more inconsistent than most of my other mana fixers. Compare Cave of Temptation to Path of Ancestry to understand that removal decision. Mana is super tight so paying mana to get colored mana is not an easy thing to do.

On the topic of tight mana, Urza's Factory is removed on account of costing 7 whole mana to get a not great token. Luckily, it will be replaced with a new token generator that is cheaper and works better.

Reliquary Tower and Homeward Path are both extremely situational cards. I haven't, at the time of writing this, utilized the ability of either of these cards. They are both staying close with me for sideboarding at least, but there value in most games just isn't there. That being said, Homeward Path will probably come right back the first time Child of Alara gets hit with Mind Control.

Wandering Fumarole was a tough removal. When I first made this deck I really wanted to put every manland in no matter what. I even considered running card:Svogthoss, the Restless Tomb despite the fact that, at best it would be a 1/1 and at worst it would die if i animated it. As this deck has gotten closer and closer to being a barely viable deck, I feel better about cutting bad manlands for the sake of actually having a good deck. Don't let that make you think I will ever break the cardinal rule of the deck.

Added

• Idyllic Grange
• Castle Ardenvale
• Castle Vantress
• Castle Locthwain
• Witch's Cottage
• Labyrinth of Skophos

The additions are always more fun to talk about.

Idyllic Grange, Castle Ardenvale, and Castle Vantress were the easiest adds ever.

Idyllic Grange has the plains land type. That means it's tutorable with my plains tutors, it can be sacrificed for Kjeldoran Outpost, it counts towards Emeria, the Sky Ruin, and it even has the chance to give something a +1/+1 counter as the cherry on top. I wanted to increase the plains in the deck already so putting in a plains with a little potential benefit is free.

Castle Ardenvale effectively goes in replacing Urza's Factory. Ardenvale is cheaper and the tokens it produce are white so they help to enable Mistveil Plains

Castle Vantress Scry 2. That ability is great. Piloting this deck is about always getting answers, and I'm still not satisfied with the deck's ability to dig for them. Castle Vantress is a huge boost in the direction of getting what you need fast.

Castle Locthwain goes in for the same idea. I feel a lot less good about putting this one in though. This deck has no ability to actually reduce it's hand size. Unless your opponent is making you discard, you'll be draining yourself 6 to 8 health for just a single card draw. This card is already on the chopping block as it goes into the deck but I'm putting it in for now because it's hard to find good card draw around here.

Witch's Cottage goes in for a simple enough reason. It's a situational Mortuary Mire. More of those effects are nice and I believe that the situationality of needing to have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the field is better than the cost of putting yourself behind a land by sacrificing something like Memorial to Folly.

Lastly, Labyrinth of Skophos is another maze. More control is great to have.

Notes

This special thought was brought on today by thinking about the usefulness of Castle Locthwain. In future brewing I want to look at the possibility of using cards like Bazaar of Baghdad to get cards out of my library and hand and into my graveyard. From there I could use Mistveil Plains to take cards that I will want out of my graveyard to put them back into my library. This method seems difficult to enable, but there is a chance that it is more consistent than the mostly hope centered strategy that the deck currently runs on. I haven't put enough thought into this idea to warrant deck changes yet so for now it's just a footnote. I'll see what I might be able to do in the future.