(Expedition Map | Art by Franz Vohwinkel)

Everything is Normal. Don't Question it.

Well, I see no reason to dilly dally. Let's pick up from where we left off, number 317!

Yep, 317. Absolutely no number shenanigans happening here. Nothing suspicious here. Definitely didn't write out this article and then realize I missed four lands and have to renumber everything again, cursing myself for not putting this all in a spreadsheet the whole time.

Nope, nothing like that at all.

317: Starlit Sanctum: 316 Decks

Not quite the 'Cleric tribal only' land it appears to be. There is just some random value by playing this. Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Ravos, Soultender, and Tymna, the Weaver are all clerics. Mother of Runes? Cleric. Grand Abolisher? Cleric. Soul Warden and Soul’s Attendant? Clerics. Brushwagg? Still a Brushwagg unfortunately, maybe someday.

Over, Under or Just right? Just right: If none of that convinced you, I have one final piece of evidence. Would you like to guess the creature type for Shadowborn Apostle?

316: Blighted Gorge: 324 Decks

The blighted cycle! It's fine. I’m still annoyed these have a generic mana symbol yet the very next set in the same block introduced a specific colorless mana symbol. They even drafted the two sets together so it looked extra strange.

There's the obvious one that most people think of from this cycle and we'll get there much later but the rest of the cycle has merit. Have you ever wanted a Stensia Bloodhall that only hit one thing and you had to sac it when you used it? Ok, maybe not the best example.

Over, Under or Just right? Overplayed: It’s free in the sense that there’s not much downside to running it but I would hope to come up with something better for my utility land slot.

315: Contested War Zone: 333 Decks

What a weird land. Giving an extra power to all attacking creatures for one mana is pretty good, but the downside is strange. So is it good? That's a great question! The downside is pretty big. If someone steals this from you turn 3, it feels pretty bad, even if you have a way to get it back. It’s not even great in something like a token deck because you almost want to leave a blocker back so you don't lose it. On the upside, this doesn't care who's attacking, so in a deck that gives everyone tokens, you can pump your opponents' stuff. It’s cute and has some neat synergies. It’s strange and has some weird low points. I'm just gonna give it the middle rating so I can stop thinking about it

Over, Under or Just right? Just right: I am a little surprised it’s not being run more in Zedruu, the Greathearted. In fact, why am I not running it in my Zedruu? One moment.

314: Ice Floe: 336 Decks

What if Maze of Ith was bad? That’s basically this card. I’m quickly running out of things to say about these lands that don’t tap for mana. Sure, the land might deal with one creature but that creature has to hit you first and if you ever want to tap another thing, you have to wait an entire turn cycle and then let the first thing go.

Over, Under or Just right? Overplayed: Every time you get the urge to run one of these, imagine someone shaking their head in disdain, with a mixture of confusion, disappointment and the slightest bit of disgust.

313: Stalking Stones: 349 Decks

Yeah, this is the progenitor of the re-re-numbering. I try to write these a little in advance so when I got to Dread Statuary, I said "Hey, this seems like a worse Stalking Stones, I wonder where that is in comparison," and then found out that it and a couple other random lands somehow didn't make it on. I've now triple checked my list so this shouldn't happen again, but don't get your hopes up. I may be missing Serra's Bathhouse or something.

I guess I should talk about the card. It's weird that the ability just makes it a creature forever. It dies to sorcery speed removal but I think a one time activation cost is better when the ability is so expensive and a 3/3 is not a bad body.

Over, Under or Just right? Just Right: Most decks still don't want to pay six mana for a 3/3 but in colorless decks that want manlands, it seems fine.

312: Glimmerpost: 350 Decks

Cheaper then a basic Wastes, take a shot. Or don’t, I’m not your dad. Drink responsibly!

Over, Under or Just right? Just Right: Here's the other Locus for Cloudpost so if you're running that, why not run this too?

311: Tendo Ice Bridge: 352 Decks

I understand that cheap five-color lands are hard to come by, but I wouldn’t resort to this. If you must have five-color lands in your deck, you can’t afford to have a land that will tap for colorless most of the time. It’s not even that cheap at 2 bucks a pop.

Over, Under or Just right? Overplayed: Not even cheaper than a basic Wastes.

310: (Tie) Hostile Desert: 352 Decks

Have any of you heard of Holistic Wisdom? When I first saw this card, it seemed bonkers. "I can get back anything? Multiple times if I need to?" It seemed perfect in any graveyard deck. But in practice, exiling cards from your hand that you'd rather have in your graveyard for future value is really awkward when you could just run a Regrowth.

Hostile desert reminds me of that card. It’s best in a deck that can consistently has lands in graveyards. The decks that can do that the most are land decks like Lord Windgrace or The Gitrog Monster, but those decks want to keep their lands in their graveyard for stuff like Crucible of Worlds, Splendid Reclamation, and Centaur Vinecrasher. So the decks that can consistently make this card work don’t want the card because of the cost.

Now that doesn’t make the card useless, it just needs a different type of deck. One that can enable it and pay the cost. For example, Holistic Wisdom doesn’t go in my graveyard decks but it’s amazing in my Wort, the Raidmother deck. The deck likes to cast Shamanic Revelation multiple times and doesn't mind losing stuff like Krenko's Command. Hostile desert needs a deck that can put land reliably in graveyards but also doesn't mind using those lands for other purposes, maybe Mina and Denn, Wildborn?

Over, Under or Just right? Overplayed: I don’t think it goes in the land value decks but I think it does have a home, if people get creative.

309: Soaring Seacliff: 354 Decks

Uh, sure! Why not? I'm normally not a fan of the mono color tap lands because the effects on them are often super minimal. But evasion on a land for one turn sounds decent. The decks that want evasion are going to be playing real cards for that but they could always use more. Stuff like Rafiq of the Many would love another way to have him smash face!

Over, Under or Just right? Underplayed: It's not amazing but it has its uses, unlike others. There is a small cost to playing these but in this case, I think it's worth it.

308: Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind: 357 Decks

I think this is the first of the Guildhall cycle? They were a cycle of lands from OG Ravnica to show the guild nature of the plane. They gave these lands some really awesome names but then gave them some really lackluster abilities. Starting with this card. Five mana (because you have to tap the land that has the ability too, don’t forget that when evaluating these) to maybe draw a card. I guess it works well with stuff like Scroll Rack which will allow you to pay five mana to definitely draw a card. Wooooooooooooooooo……

Over, Under or Just right:? Overplayed: How are you this desperate for card advantage in blue-red?

307: Plaza of Harmony: 364 Decks

It’s not a Gate. Once the disappointment wears off, consider it is a Reflecting Pool for the gates deck with upside. The Gate deck always has a gate or two between all the land tutors, and having a land that can untapped and tap for three or four colors seems like all upside.

Over, Under or Just right? Underplayed: I would guess because of how new this card is, plus the fact it doesn’t show up in searches for lands with a Gate type, are to blame for the low numbers.

306: Smoldering Spires: 378 Decks

See, compare this with Soaring Seacliff and it shows how meh these lands are. They aren't bad, but why would you waste your utility slots on these? Imagine the scenarios where Smoldering Spires is good. It requires one person to have only one good blocker. That's pretty narrow and it assumes you want to hit the person with only one derpy creature, as opposed to the guy with the crazy board state.

Anything 2+ colors does not want this, they already are having trouble squeezing in utility lands and dual lands. So really only mono-red would want this, and while I can imagine a scenario where this effect is good, I don't think it's worth the tempo loss.

Over, Under or Just right? Overplayed: It’s just so meh.

305: Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai: 383 Decks

The fact that this card is legendary looks kinda strange, but it has to do with how the rules used to work. With the old legend rule, if there were two of the same legendary permanent on the battlefield, they both died. So I assume the original idea with this land was to get two of these in play, sac them both and get two Spirits. Huzzah!

Nowadays, no one is ever going to blow up a colorless land that wants to be blown up unless they're on mass land destruction, and good luck fighting that with a derpy 1/1. So really, it’s only going in decks where the controller can sacrifice permanents. There’s some cute stuff with Barrin, Master Wizard but not much practical use after that.

Over, Under or Just right? Just Right: Cheaper. Wastes. La-di-da-di-da!

304: Seaside Haven: 399 Decks

BIRB!

Birds are honestly really well supported. Derevi, Empyrial Tactician has gotten a reputation that has basically made it impossible to run as a casual Bird commander. Ignoring him, there's still Kangee, Aerie keeper, Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker, the new Kykar, Wind's Fury and even Morophon, the Boundless. There's not only some decent Bird support but also some great support for flyers!

Over, Under or Just right? Just Right: Obviously outside of maybe putting it in Morophon as a weird sac outlet, Seaside Haven doesn't see play anywhere else. Birds are one of the more legit tribes that people try to build and if they ever go back to Birds, stuff like Soulcatchers' Aerie is going to be a lot more than $0.69.

303: Barbarian Ring: 401 Decks

I played this in mono-red for a couple years and I only activated it once, and I lost two games specifically because of the damage. If you aren’t running a ton of creatures and are more burn focused, it’s pretty difficult to get Threshold until the late game. The ability is probably the second most relevant of the cycle. Being able to Shock anything on a land is really good. It's just surprisingly tough to turn on, and like I said, that little bit of damage will get you. It may not seem like much, but play one against a Xenagos, God of Revels deck and it feels bad.

Over, Under or Just right? Just Right: Despite all my rambling, this card is fine. It's one of the few lands for an aggro EDH deck I'm kinda into.

Some Day We May Actually Escape the 300's

That's all I've got for now. Are you running Bird Tribal? Did you find a home for Hostile Desert? As always let me know. As I've said, I love reading the comments on these because they catch things I never see so please, let me know what you think!

Next week, maybe I can start do a constant number of lands per part. No promises.

Joseph Megill

Joseph started playing in Theros Block but decided that the best way to play the game was to learn every single card and hope that would somehow make him good at Magic. It hasn't. He is a college student in Santa Fe, New Mexico and also enjoys reading and other games of all shapes and sizes.