Crop Rotation vs Fetchlands
General forum
Posted on March 16, 2014, 12:39 a.m. by CLGRazor
Why are fetchlands such as Misty Rainforest better than Crop Rotation
(Argument with friend) :P
lolipop666 says... #3
cause Crop Rotation takes a spot where you could have spells
March 16, 2014 12:45 a.m.
Misty Rainforest is half the cards and one less mana to use than Crop Rotation , and can only ever be stopped by things like Stifle .
Crop Rotation causes you to sacrifice the land as part of the casting cost of the spell. It can be countered by any Counterspell and you still lose your card AND your sacrificed land.
March 16, 2014 12:46 a.m.
2 things. It's not 1 mana, (you have to tap the fetch, and you can sac the land you tap for rotation, and both come untapped) rather, it's 1 card vs 1 life, and secondly, they're not necessarily better, but in most cases are. If people valued having 1 life over having 1 more card, then Shock would be banned. Cards are more valuable to a player than life, and as such, a card that pays you 1 life to fix your mana is going to see more play than one that sacrifices a card in your hand to fix your mana, and not even gain you a land, rather, just replace an old one. In other words, Crop Rotation uses itself, plus another land to get 1 land. 2 cards - 1 land = -1 cards for you. Misty Rainforest sacrifices itself to get a land. 1 land - 1 land - 1 life = -1 life for you, and as i explained before, 1 life is less valuable than 1 land, however, sometimes crop rotation is more useful, as the land you search has no restrictions. Glacial Chasm , Maze of Ith , Wasteland or Gaea's Cradle can't be tutored by a rainforest, but in most cases the rainforest is better.
March 16, 2014 12:50 a.m.
I don't really understand the mana cost argument since you have to tap the fetch in the activation cost, which means you don't get mana from it. I completely agree on the counters though, and crop rotation requires green mana, a color that is not used in all decks. The advantage of the fetches is that it can fix incredibly well your mana base no matter what color you play.
March 16, 2014 12:56 a.m.
Fetch lands come into play untapped, so you can still use the mana on turn one for Thoughtseize for example
March 16, 2014 2:27 a.m.
For the same reason that Mutavault is a better card than Grizzly Bears . One is a land and the other takes up a spell slot in your deck. Having your lands innately have utility is more useful than dedicated a spell slot for for the same effect. This effectively allows you to run more spells.
March 16, 2014 2:31 a.m.
Also, Crop Rotation costs G, which means you have to play a green source t1 to activate it, in which case you probably don't need to fetch. The only exception is if you want a colour other than green, in which case a fetch land does exactly the same job.
March 16, 2014 5 a.m.
Schuesseled says... #10
If all you wanted to do was mana fix and keep your land drop that turn. (not miss out on that one sexy mana) a fetchland has a slight lead in that it only needs itself to function whereas crop rotation requires you play a Forest first. Not an unlikely scenario, but a 1 card combo > 2 card combo.
However if you also wanted to grab utility lands, lands that do stuff, and mana fix on occasion. Then Crop Rotation is the card you'd want to use.
But if there were no budgety concerns, you should simply use both.
March 16, 2014 8:04 a.m.
@showda As does any basic forest, and the land you get to fetch can either come into play untapped and give you another mana or come into play tapped and be awesome.
Remyth says... #2
Because 1 life is better than 1 mana. Crop Rotation can get any land (which can be incredibly useful), but generally the one mana just to mana fix isn't terribly desirable for competitive decks.
March 16, 2014 12:44 a.m.