Gemstone Caverns

Legendary Land

If Gemstone Caverns is in your opening hand and you're not playing first, you may begin the game with Gemstone Caverns on the battlefield with a luck counter on it. If you do, exile a card from your hand.

{T}: Add {C}. If Gemstone Caverns has a luck counter on it, instead add one mana of any colour.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	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
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (48)

Balaam__ on 101% Mono Black Burn

3 months ago

Thanks for posting, Cloudy2024. I think I considered the Chancellor at the time I was building this, but ultimately decided to forgo him for a couple reasons. I believe at the time he was very expensive and I don’t think I own any, and while that’s no longer true I also left him out because I just seem to have the worst possible luck with those Gemstone Caverns type ‘opening hand’ cards. I could shuffle the deck 100 times and in 99 of them all four copies will be near the bottom. Maybe it’s a good addition for someone with better luck than I, ha.

DeinoStinkus on Layla, Planar Heartbeat

4 months ago

I think maybe the first ability is just kind of weird in that it insta-wins completely based on luck, which isn't normally something that cards do in MTG, at least not as explicitly. I think some kind of effect based on enchantments could be neat, as a possible synergy to build around and since all leylines (except Leyline Axe and Gemstone Caverns iirc) are enchantments.

legendofa on Layla, Planar Heartbeat

4 months ago

There's also Gemstone Caverns.

My concern here is that it's a little gimmicky--different leylines support different strategies, so it will be kind of hard to make it cohesive. Assuming 35-40 lands, there's still 32-37 other cards to fill out the deck with. I would probably go for proliferate for the experience counters, but it's still going to need a payoff if you don't hit the jackpot. 5-Color Goodstuff is always an option.

Also, how does this work in Legacy and Vintage? I know it's not the intended format, but the second ability needs to be tracked through the game. If you write down your starting permanents, you're giving away deck hints. If you don't, everyone needs to remember and agree how many permanents you started with.

Icbrgr on What makes a card or …

6 months ago

Gemstone Caverns/Simian Spirit Guide/Desperate Ritual/Chancellor of the Tangle/Mox Opal there have been a lot of free win via Blood Moon decks over the years in various ban lists and formats and mulligan rules to pull off putting out the moon on turn 1.

Truthfully even fairly casting Blood Moon on turn 3 and the opponent just not having an answer or able to play afterwards just feels bad in general when I go to my local game store and it's just a non game I feel bad playing moon.... but its certainly a necessary evil to police the game in the same way Chalice of the Void does.

sergiodelrio on Eldra-Zero

10 months ago

That's exactly my point tho... any land other than Deserted Temple would provide you with 3 mana total from all land sources on turn 2 as well (*if you play a tap2 land on T1)...

• T1, play Ugin's Labyrinth or Eldrazi Temple
• T2, play Deserted Temple, tap Lab for {C}{C}... now, if you spend {C} to activate Deserted Temple and untap Ugin's Labyrinth (to tap it again for 2 mana) you end up with {C}{C}{C} in the mana pool, which is nice, but any other land would just naturally tap for that third mana anyway, if you start your T1 with Labyrinth... Deserted Temple is almost a basic Wastes in most cases unless you have a bunch of mana and a Urza's Saga on II.

I guess what I'm saying is you could look for replacements of Deserted Temple which add maybe utility or sth else without actually sacrificing anything important here imho. Maybe even go with a split: 1x Gemstone Caverns 2x Cavern of Souls 1x Blast Zone you have many great options actually ... Inventors' Fair, Mutavault.

Sorry if I'm being annoying, that's not my intention, I just feel you're overselling the role of Deserted Temple in this particular deck imho, which I still think is very nice no matter if you keep deserted temple or not.

Cheers!

nuperokaso on Bridge to Sanctuary - Land Prison/Punishment

11 months ago

• Don't play Ornithopter, it does nothing for your game plan.
• Roiling Vortex also works with Personal Sanctuary. You may want to add one or two.
• Board the Weatherlight doesn't work for you. Cards that you are interested in are not Historic.
• You have a lot of mana intense cards, and as such you need some mana acceleration. You may add some Knight of the White Orchid or Loyal Warhound. They work well with your Path to Exile. Or you may go the other way with acceleration - Gemstone Caverns decrease your hand size which is fine with Ensnaring Bridge.

fluffyeel on You draw you lose

11 months ago

Some small recommendations I can think of:

• You have a lot of drawing for all parties, but your opponents will also be discarding (quite likely, especially given the Memory Jar). I therefore recommend Megrim, which actually is the reason Memory Jar became the first emergency ban in MTG history. You could also run things like Animate Dead, Reanimate, and Necromancy to take advantage of loading up your opponents' graveyards. Of course, Rise of the Dark Realms is a nice showstopper, though it's quite pricey...
• Archfiend of Despair is a delightful combination of Wound Reflection (already recommended) as well as stopping lifegain. I love using it wherever I can. (It's also a demon, so it synergizes with one of your alternate win cons.)
• You could also consider going more of a snow-covered route, so replacing your basic swamps with the snow-covered kind and going with Extraplanar Lens to amplify your black mana. Crypt Ghast also is another mana accelerator.
• The Meathook Massacre and Massacre Wurm are also "board wipe with benefits" that I highly recommend. I also almost always play Kokusho, the Evening Star in every black deck I run. Archfiend of Despair could also be another fun option for removing things and punishing your opponents.
• Some of your artifacts and tutors could be better. Rather than Wayfarer's Bauble, I could suggest Expedition Map instead. Grim Tutor, Planar Bridge, and Beseech the Queen could also make for fun tutoring.
• I'm not sure if Gemstone Caverns and Mox Diamond are worth it here: sure, they're fast and get you more mana quickly (always a good thing), but the multicolored mana isn't so necessary. There are options I might prefer like Mox Amber, Mana Vault, Volrath's Stronghold...
• For a mono-black deck, Contamination might be a great way to lose all friends. I highly recommend it.

nbarry223 on Green...Control?

11 months ago

Manamorphose is just a filler card to let me run under 60 cards essentially. Boseiju and PYP both didn't exist back when I made this deck, guess it is time to update it.

Also, as far as the lands to cut, Gemstone Caverns is amazing in here, as we just want to go fast, since the sooner we get to 5 mana, the better. Boseiju, Who Shelters All is also really needed against control, and we are actually a spell based deck, the creatures are only there to ramp or eventually be a win-con, but the main goal is to get to Plow Under or Primal Command to start topdecking their lands and forcing them to redraw them.