(Expedition Map | Art by Franz Vohwinkel)

Would Make Feature Matches More Interesting!

As this series goes on, I'm realizing how close some of these lands get to each other in rank. Sometimes the difference between #300 and #299 is just a deck or two, so I end up rooting for some lands to gain a few more decks as I'm writing. "Come on Spawning Pool! Get two more decks and get ahead of Quicksand! I believe in you!"

There's no point to this. It's just what I've been thinking about.

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289: Bazaar of Baghdad: 542 Decks

I could make a joke about how this is another land that doesn’t tap for mana, but Bazaar is probably one of the most broken cards of all time, so that seems indecent. I mean, if I owned one of these and I didn’t immediately sell it to build like three entire Commander decks, I would probably put it in any graveyard deck I owned. There are few better ways to get Golgari Grave Troll in the graveyard, and even outside of that, it's pretty good card selection. Going from four cards to three cards isn't great, but you get to pick from six cards. Are you running Faithless Looting? Because this is basically looting for free, that can be activated every turn.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just right: While the land is one of the most busted of all time, I can’t really say we should all drop $2,000 on a card that has about a million different alternatives.

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288: Goblin Burrows: 544 Decks

'Target Goblin' is weird. Goblins are about going wide, not hitting with one big thing. This seems to fit more with Soldiers or Humans than Goblins.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just right: +2/+0 is a lot but I don’t think it’s ubiquitous in Goblin decks. If the deck is uber aggressive or is a Voltron-style deck, then I am on board. Maybe Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin?

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287: The Depletion Lands: 556 Decks

(Hickory Woodlot; 809, Peat Bog; 712, Saprazzan Skerry; 550, Sandstone Needle; 418, Remote Farm; 292)

Pretty similar to the Empire ritual lands, but you get two uses out of these. The Empire ones are probably better because they can be tapped for one mana as much as you want, whereas these tap for mana twice and that's it. Any deck that wants one probably wants the other, though, and they both are the type of Magic I want to play.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just right: My love for these is disproportionate to how good they actually are in Commander.

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286: The Snow Dual Lands: 567 Decks

(Boreal Shelf; 881, Frost Marsh; 558, Highland Weald; 547, Arctic Flats; 488, Tresserhorn Sinks; 411)

This cycle is such an anomaly. When it comes to cycles like this, I would expect them to be weighted towards more popular color combinations; for example, Watery Grave shows up in more decks than Temple Garden. In general, I would expect an ally cycle to go in the following order of total popularity: U/B (8,967), W/G (7,888), W/U, (7,815), R/G. (7,132) B/R, (6,238). They won’t always line up exactly like this, but for the most part, this is the general pattern we should see.

Yeah, this cycle doesn’t do that. At first, I thought it was because of the colors that 'snow matters' cards appear in, but they seem to be spread out in every color but black so why is Frost Marsh so high? More importantly, why is Boreal Shelf touting almost twice the numbers of all the others? It hasn’t been reprinted, so it’s not the Precon Effect. Modern Horizons had some snow card but they were also in green, and Arctic Flats isn’t posting those same numbers. In fact, the supposed High Synergy cards from the pages for these lands are all other taplands. Are people just that desperate for dual lands? They aren't budget. They’re a dollar for what's basically identical to a Meandering River.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: I have no idea why these are seeing so much play. The numbers are nonsense. Honestly, running snow-covered basics seem better than these. I don’t understand why people are running them outside of snow decks.

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285: Dunes of the Dead: 581 Decks

A better Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai. It’s got some small upside by being a Desert, so the Desert tribal decks can tutor this up with Shefet Monitor. Again, no one will ever target this with land destruction, so it's only worth running in decks that can sacrifice it easily. The Gitrog Monster is also running it, for some reason? "Oh, yes I’m sacrificing all my lands to make a bunch of mana and draw a bunch of card only to get them back with Splendid Reclamation… but most importantly, I get a free 2/2."

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: Stop being cute, you flesh-eating, mind-controlling, swamp-dwelling frog!

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284: Cabal Pit: 589 Decks

The last of the Threshold lands for a long while. There’s one more, but we won’t see that one till much later. This is one I’m pretty into. The standard rules for the difficulty of enabling Threshold apply here, but black is probably the color that can achieve it the easiest. I think if this were -3/-3 this would be a slam dunk, but -2/-2 means it misses a lot of stuff. It’s still good at sniping utility creatures, but which utility creatures are you going to want to kill late game when this card will be active? I’m more into it as a combat trick to save your dorks and make attackers slightly smaller. It’s not a great effect, but one can only be so picky with lands that tap for colored mana.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just Right: It’s fine. I wouldn’t run it in any deck I have at the moment, but could imagine a deck that would want it.

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283: Desert: 582 Decks

The OG Desert! There is something amazing simple about a land just called 'Desert.' Not like a 'Sandbaked Crevice' or a 'Scorched Flatlands.' It’s just a Desert. Next set, I want a cycle of lands like this. No more Bountiful Promenade, now it's "Pier." No more Luxury Suite, now it's "Fancy Room." No more Island, now it's... hmm.

The card itself? It's not super relevant. Stipulating 'attacking creature' makes this a lot worse. If a creature has a toughness of 1 and sees that there's a Desert in play, then they just won't attack. It’s a better Oasis for Horobi, Death's Wail but it’s mainly seeing play as, you guessed it, another land for colorless decks with a bit of upside. It’s not actually cheaper then a basic Wastes this time though, so 0/10, too much sand.

Over, Under, or Just Right: Just right: It's cute in certain decks that care about damaging stuff or targeting things. Look out for Desert Nomads and Camel.

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282: Blinkmoth Well: 596 Decks

This seems like the type of card that is just good enough to be considered but not good enough to quite make the cut. It seems good at first glance. There’s always a Sol Ring or Hedron Archive to tap with this, and the best-case scenario is tapping a Winter Orb before your turn, which is deliciously evil.

But when you actually go through the artifacts you might want to tap down, it’s a small list. Restricting its ability to 'noncreature' removes a lot of the good possibilities, like Wurmcoil Engine or Myr Battlesphere. Mana rocks aren’t the worst to tap down but probably not worth the mana is most cases. Beyond that, there’s not a lot.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just Right: In the colorless Wastes lands contest, this probably ranks fairly high but I can’t think of a slot for it otherwise.

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281: Madblind Mountain: 599 Decks

Unlike the other members we've seen so far, at least I can see when Madblind Mountain would be useful. Mono-red is usually running a Top or a Ball or a Spinning Bookshelf, but I’m still not a fan. Maybe there's a deck that's running all the above ways to manipulate the top of the library and a few more, but I'm not sure that deck exists. I suppose if you can tutor Top consistently then maybe? Otherwise, it's not great.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: Less of a hard 'no' and more of a middling 'ehhhhhhhhhhhh.'

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280: Magosi, the Waterveil: 606 Decks

I’m sure many of you have heard of Time Vault. Probably the most abusable card in Magic. This is what they wanted Time Vault to be. No way to untap it manually. You skip a turn to get a turn and you’ll like it! A common mistake I see people make is thinking you can stockpile multiple turns with this card, but hidden in that last ability is the fact you have to return this land to your hand.

Off the top of my head, I was trying to think of a way to take multiple turns with something like Vorel of the Hull Clade and Amulet of Vigor with multiple Kiora’s Follower and Vesuva to copy Magosi but a quick google search reveals a really simple way to do it: Deserted Temple and Rings of Brighthearth. Tap Temple to untap Magosi, copy the untap ability with Rings to untap the Temple itself. Skip your turn with Magosi, untap both Magosi and Temple again. Take an extra turn, fork it with Rings. Done. All it takes is nine mana and three cards!

Back in the real world, in theory, skipping turn three for an extra turn eight isn’t bad but in practice, when are you even actually going to want to skip your turn? If you can cheat extra lands into play like with Patron of the Moon, I guess it's okay?

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: It’s the type of card that will be utterly brokentastic with a new card printed ten years for now, but today is not its time. In decks built around extra lands, it’s fine, but it can’t be played in any old blue deck.

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279: Crystal Quarry: 610 Decks

You probably are more familiar with Cascading Cataracts, which is basically always better than this (I look forward to being proven wrong in the comments). Not to say there aren't some decks that don’t want both. Indestructible isn’t even that relevant when everyone is a little skittish about land destruction. But why is this card 6 dollars? I think they made Cataracts to avoid reprinting this but there’s no reason not to have both. Five-color budget decks would love some better options, so why not reprint this?

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just right: Six dollars is steep for a sub-par land with a strictly better version. I hope they put it in a Commander deck to bring the price down.

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278: Meteor Crater: 623 Decks

Reflecting Pool is not a bad rainbow land, but it’s also $20, so it makes sense people want budget alternatives. Enter Meteor Crater, which is... fine? One of the cute things about Reflecting pool is that it works well with rainbow lands or the Vivid Grove cycle. Meteor Crater can’t do that. The upside, I guess, is that with your commander in play it’s a second command tower, but a five-color deck has to already have WUBRG to cast its commander. The first few turns are really when you want to have all of your colors. A turn six rainbow land when you already have all your colors doesn't sound that good.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: Yes, budget rainbow lands are hard to come by, but this one seems too high-risk for a low reward.

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As Opposed to Craters Not Made by Meteors

That's about all I got. I have to go back to my "place with buildings near water," AKA Port Town. As always, let me know what you think about this batch of lands. How can we break Magosi? What the heck is going on with the snow lands? Thank you again for the comments on the previous article! I really appreciate it.

Next week, we get to talk about one of my favorite colorless lands!