Why fetch lands for mono?
General forum
Posted on April 25, 2020, 4:41 a.m. by Genderfluidia
Just a quick question: why are there all these mono decks using cards like Prismatic Vista to fetch basic lands, taking an unnecessary point of damage, when it could have been a basic land itself? If there isn't a variety of basics in the deck, what's the point??
Genderfluidia says... #3
That article you posted was deeply enlightening. Thank you.
April 25, 2020 5:58 a.m.
ThePerilousRealm says... #4
Could be helpful to trigger Landfall abilities.
April 25, 2020 4:05 p.m.
Fetchlands give you a way to shuffle your deck. When combining this with cards like Sensei's Divining Top, Scroll Rack, Sylvan Library, and many other similar effects, it means you have another way of manipulating your library.
There are also benefits to having cards in your graveyard for effects like delve or escape.
April 25, 2020 8:40 p.m.
deck thinning
deck thinning
deck thinning
did i mention
DECK THINNING!
April 26, 2020 7:39 p.m.
I've put a few in mono-colored decks. Generally it's because I'm running Crucible of Worlds in a graveyard based deck but I've also tried a couple in my Krenko deck because I have a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle in there and I like the idea of using them as Lightning Bolts in the late game.
April 26, 2020 8:22 p.m.
Genderfluidia says... #8
Welp, after reading the maths, I don't buy the deck thinning premise, but at least I know why people are doing it now, which was the point of my question.
April 27, 2020 2:27 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #9
People like to think that it is deck thinning, and while that's technically true, it's not quite as effective as it might seem. Fetchlands in a mono-color deck might act as Manamorphose... but it's unlikely.
A Fetch's thinning capabilities are rather limited. Oftentimes, running Fetches can(theoretically) reduce your deck size by 1-2 cards, possibly 8 if you really work at it. That's definitely not insignificant, but it's not great when it costs you significant amounts of life and a pretty high pricetag.
In most cases, running Fetches for deckthinning is not really worth it. Cracking one fetch would bring up your chance to draw a nonland ever so slightly, but not enough to say "this is insane!!!". Opt is much better if you want to be drawing exact cards, not to mention Serum Visions and let alone Ponder and Preordain, Once Upon a Time and Demonic Tutor and friends.
However, if you actually want to be at low life, or you don't care, or your deck really needs a 0.1% better chance to draw a nonland, then go for it. 8-rack, burn, etc. might benefit, but those are the only decks that would get anywhere. Everything else either has good enough card draw/selection that the fetching is pointless or their cards are good enough that they're better able to survive a dead draw or two.
Personally, though, I like the shuffling. I find myself drawing 5 lands in a row too often, so I always have to add card selection of some form into my brews in order to stay relevant.
April 27, 2020 12:21 p.m.
when i came in 9th at legacy worlds for 5 straight years i ran 20 lands in my sligh.
before fetchlands i had problems with drawing into too many lands. fetches thinned out the deck and sped it up and i would never run a deck without them... thought about going to 6... they are completely worth it.
May 19, 2020 5:26 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #11
magwaaf gives a perfectly good reason to run fetches in monocolor -- the specific situation that he wants to draw enough lands to get to 4 eventually(the first Slight list I found on google has land destruction and Blood Moons in the sideboard) but he also wants to not draw more lands later on in the game. That is the exact situation that I referenced in my previous post in which you would want fetches in a monocolor list.
Granted, I don't understand them in EDH. If you're going competitive EDH, the only reason I could see for running fetches is if you're running storm, but EDH has such effective card draw that it's almost pointless.
May 19, 2020 9:31 p.m.
TriusMalarky: Having fetches in the graveyard is not a bad thing.
Every colour has access to Crucible of Worlds and Sensei's Divining Top and being able to shuffle unwanted cards from the top of your library is nice.
Green has Ramunap Excavator in addition to Crucible. It also has Mirri's Guile and Sylvan Library which act similar to Sensei's. And then there's all of the landfall effects and cards like Titania, Protector of Argoth and Splendid Reclamation.
White has cards like Sun Titan which, if you're playing mono white then you want as much ability to consistently hit land drops as possible.
Black and Blue both have a slew of delve cards and eating a land to play Dig Through Time seems like a solid play.
Not every mono colour deck wants to run fetches, if you're running stax yourself or are used to playing against it, then it seems bad to crack a fetch into an Aven Mindcensor where you don't have to. Or to play an early fetch into a Blood Moon. But that doesn't mean that they don't have their place.
As for the reason we don't see a lot of fetches in mono colour decks (which aren't mono green lands based decks) is that typically the fetches sit in a price point between casual where stax isn't generally a thing and competitive where stax and even one shot stax effects like Aven Mindcensor very much are a thing. i.e. casuals don't want to pay for them and competitive decks don't want to be hit by stax. Yes, this is an overgeneralisation however I also don't think it's wrong (though I'm sure there are other factors than just this).
May 19, 2020 10:29 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #13
Ah, forgot about Crucible and such. Although it is easier to justify in a multicolored deck, that is a worthy use.
MollyMab says... #2
OK, so this is one of my bugbears. Some people put fetches in and say deck thinning except this is a flawed argument. See this: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/print.asp?ID=3096
Fetchlands can have a purpose in mono-colour decks such as enabling delirium and threshold. Shuffling the deck after using ponder/brainstorm/top. A ramp engine with crucible of world effects. The life loss can be relevant (for example if you need to be on an odd number of life for something like Heartless Hitsugarda). There could even be a fringe argument for them as copies 5-8 of something like Mystic Sanctuary .
April 25, 2020 5:27 a.m.