Pattern Recognition #12 - Lands Matter

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

12 January 2017

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Hello, and welcome back to Pattern Recognition! This is TappedOut's weekly opinion article, and seeing as how I haven't worn out my welcome yet, it's time for another article. So let's get right to it today, shall we?

Today's subject is something that piqued my interest after a comment from TheRedGoat in a previous article. He said:

So saying though, berryjon, would you feel an article is worth making like this one in regards to base-game mechanics or specific card type stuff? Like how landfall, constellation, prowess, or even metalcraft/affinity are things that obviously support playing a specific type of card, or cards that utilize a specific game mechanic (there was that one centaur that specifically helps out trample creatures).

Well, I did think about it. And the only real thing that jumped out at me in terms of the suggested subject matter was Landfall, and why it happened. Well, Landfall went with the Zendikar block, which for the first two sets, had the subtheme of "Lands Matter".

Then the Eldrazi hit, and things went pear shaped real quick.

And then it hit me like a Leaping Lizard! ((Oh yeah, how many of you remember the days when Green had native access to flying?)) Landfall was a mechanic that tried to address one of the fundamental problems of Magic. How do you actually make lands matter?

Quick! Raise your hand if you've ever been in a situation where you've either had too many land, or not enough? Everyone? No? You there! In the back! Yes, you, on the other side of the screen. You didn't raise your hand. Well, let me welcome you to playing Magic the Gathering. I see you haven't played any games yet, so bear with me while I explain some groundwork about the game in preparation for your first match.

Let's first look at the case where you are low on lands and mana. Mostly because I have promised to look at Wizards' solutions for this in a future article and therefore I can simply skim over most of this before moving on to the other problem.

"Mana Screw" is the colloquial term for a player whose game state is such that they have insufficient mana production on the table to play their cards. Mana Screw is also an Unset card that we will promptly ignore. A player in this state will often (in my experience), after accepting their loss one way or the other, check how far down the next viable mana course is for both player's edification. I have never seen a case of Mana Screw as being held against a player, even by the worst of Spikes. It's an accepted fact of the game, and can happen to any player at any time.

The most obvious solution to this problem is to simply include more mana producing cards in your deck. Now, I want to be clear that I'm not saying more lands. Simply including more lands is not a solution that everyone wants as that would mean that there is less room in your deck for other cards that people may want to use. No, the way to get both is to include Mana Rocks and Mana Dorks.

Rocks and Dorks are casual terms thrown about to describe artifacts and creatures that produce mana respectively. Mana Dorks include such classics as Birds of Paradise to the less well known Sisters of the Flame. Each of these cards has the ability to produce additional mana for your mana pool, while at the same time not taking up a land drop. And when you have sufficient lands for all your deck's needs, then they are also creatures to throw into combat, or use for other purposes. Rocks are artifacts that do the same thing, from Basalt Monolith to Abzan Banner to things no one bothers using like Black Lotus. Now, when an Artifact Creature produces mana, such as with Cultivator's Caravan, then the descriptor of Dork takes precedence over Rock. Got that?

So, to summarize lest I take more material from the future, I want to make it clear that Wizards knows about Mana Screw and takes constant steps to keep solutions available in all sets. It's a problem, and one that can't be solved without re-writing the game completely.

Then what is the opposite problem? Well, it's called Mana Flood, and this is what this article is actually going to address. But first, History!

All the way back in Alpha, there were two types of lands. Basic and Dual. Thanks to the limited format of the time, games tended to not last long enough to need to worry about having too much or too little mana. It was a very casual game for a very casual time.

However, as the game expanded, lands became more important. And the risks of mana flooding became more apparent. In Arabian Nights, the first proper expansion, held eight lands whose primary purpose wasn't to produce mana. Well, alright, City of Brass produces mana, and unlike the dual lands of Alpha, can get any colour of mana as the cost of a single point of life. But the rest? All had different effects.

This is the first example of how Wizards tried to make mana flood bearable - by giving lands non-mana effects. In doing this, Wizards made sure that these lands weren't dead draws, unable to be used except as more fuel for the inevitable Fireball. And the nice thing about this is that it works. Wizards keep printing lands that do non-mana things, and with the general toning back of land destruction over the years, land-based sources of abilities is seen as a legitimate thing.

Besides, you can still tap them for mana! Well, mostly. There are still lands that don't produce any mana, such as Arena or Dark Depths, Eye of Ugin, Glacial Chasm, Halls of Mist, and others.

So there's your first option to keeping mid-to-late game Lands relevant - give them static or activated abilities that make them more than simply a basic land.

The second option is actually an outgrowth of this. I'm talking about Man Lands. The first one that I can pin down is the classic Mishra's Factory, from Antiquities. This card helped codify and bring respect to the idea that you can 'animate' non-creature cards into creatures.

Man Lands are not creatures by default, but rather, with the exception of Dryad Arbor, they have to be activated into such things. Mishra's Factory only needs a simple cost of while on the other side of the concept, Celestial Colonnade from Worldwake represented an allied color cycle of Man Lands that wasn't complete until Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch with cards like Lumbering Falls.

So what makes Man Lands different from Mana Dorks? Well, let's look at where they are similar first. They both produce mana. And they both can be creatures. That's it. It's how these two concepts approach the mending of land and creature that causes more interesting interactions.

Man Lands are lands first. They take up the land drop for the turn, and can be tapped for mana as soon as they come into play (with the exception, of course, of Dryad Arbor). Man Lands also need to have an activation cost paid to become a creature. On the other side, creatures have summoning sickness (Unless Haste is also on the creature), still need to be cast - although this means you could put more than one into play on a turn.

Its the direction from which they approach the same problem. Man Lands are Lands first. Dorks are Creatures first.

But I'm getting away from myself here. With the idea that Lands can be more than just mana producers, that still leaves two problems that go hand in hand. First is Basic Lands still can't do anything special, lest they stop being basic, and the other is the four-of limit for all non-Basic Land cards in the deck. (Yes, I know about Relentless Rats...)

Which is where Landfall comes in. Landfall, for those of you who haven't encountered it before, and haven't gone to look it up while reading this, is a triggered ability that can be found on permanents that says "Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, do something". Now, because of the way this ability is formatted, it can trigger multiple times in a turn - thanks to fetch lands - and has a clear and distinct method of actually being triggered. However, outside of a very few conditions, you'll only get to trigger it once.

Landfall also works out because it doesn't care about the type of land that enters the battlefield, just that one has or does. Because of this binary measurement, I think that the mechanic is very friendly to new players. It's a reward for playing a land each turn, even if they don't mind up casting a spell that turn. Oran-Rief Hydra even allows for the distinction between lands to further teach new players the differences, and to reward certain plays over more generic ones.

Because of this simplicity in formatting and how it works, I would love to see Landfall show up more often - if not go full Evergreen as a mechanic. Because no matter what is in the set, there will be lands. And depending on the ability, it can be relevant in all formats, from Limited to Standard to Modern.

The last way to make sure that Lands matter is to ... well ... have them matter. It's a little more complicated than that, but what I want to get across is the idea that while the lands themselves may not matter, having more of them in play does.

Consider for a moment, the case of Korlash, Heir to Blackblade. This guy cares about Swamps in two different manners. The first is the most obvious, and one that isn't that rare in Black as it's also seen on creatures like Nightmare - the number of swamps you control determine his power and toughness.

Please remember that this guy was also printed in the block that brought us Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

The other way he counted Swamps was through his Grandeur activated ability, whereby he could get more swamps out of your library and into play. Although this is less applicable to the subject at hand as we're dealing with making lands matter and more applicable to the game state than simply having more of the same.

Unless you want to trigger Landfall twice? At instant speed? On your opponents turn? Nah. I couldn't see anyone ever wanting that. ;)

This is the most passive of measurements, where simply having lands gives you a bonus, rather than, say, tapping everything you have to throw a Fireball at someones face, only to have it taken out by a simple Counterspell. Not that has ever happened to me.

Coming to a close, I want to point out a few facts for the summary. First is that Lands aren't going anywhere. We simply can't remove them from the game and expect Magic to keep staying Magic. At that point, it would be Hearthstone. Because of this, while the use and practicality of lands in the early game is well known and understood, it's when the game goes on that their purpose and their relevancy become less and less clear.

Wizards has tried to fix this up with some of the things I've talked about today. I've hit up most of them, but there are others, like holding lands in hand to discard to a card's effect that I haven't really addressed as they are more fringe cases. It's simply the result of a game that has far exceeded its original design scope, and there is no easy fix for this problem. So the next time you're overloaded on mana, just remember that it could still be worse.

You might not have enough.

Join me next time when I talk about ... Actually, I haven't decided yet. I'm sure I'll think of something. If you do have a topic suggestion for me, mention it in the comments below. And until then, here is my 'Lands Matter' deck, where everything matters, including the basic lands!

Lands Matter

Modern berryjon

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