I am in the process of updating my decks to include a bit more graveyard hate. For this reason I ordered a bunch of Scavenger Grounds and now I am going through my decks looking for something to cut for these lands. I do not want to play excessively many colorless utility lands in decks with more than two colors, so I am considering other utility lands as potential cuts.
Do you have experiences with these cards? How would you rate them? Do you jam some of them (like Reliquary Tower) into any deck, or not play them at all, or only in specific strategies?
Riku of Two Reflections - Copy, then copy again | Shattergang Brothers - Token Sac&Recur | Gahiji, Honored One - Multiple attack steps | Karametra, God of Harvests - Landfall, Creaturefall, Shroud | Ruhan of the Fomori - Stop hitting yourself | Zurgo Helmsmasher - Equipment&Wraths | Crosis, the Purger - Dragon Tribal Reanimator | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - No stax, just tap and untap fun | Anafenza, the Foremost - Enduring Ideal Enchantress | Sharuum, the Hegemon - Sphinx Tribal Control | Noyan Dar - Spellslinger | The Mimeoplasm - Counterpalooza
Lists can be found here.
Still convinced the guy on Beseech the Queen is wearing a Mitra-type hat. Wake up sheeple!
Reliquary Tower to me is only good in a deck where you consistently are going to draw a bunch a cards and have more than 7 in your hand at your discard step.
If i am using Cultivate and friends, ill put in Temple of the False God but not in decks where I ramp with rocks. Myriad Landscape i put into most mono coloured decks, esp Black with Coffers, Red and White. Arcane Lighthouse seems meta dependant. If you see alot of hexproof voltron like Uril or Sigarda, then by all means. But you better be playing non basic land search like Sylvan Scrying or Expedition Map or else you wont be able to rely on it when you need to. And it will be a dead card 90% of the time.
Same goes with homeward path, I just rather use sacrifice outlets.
I only have Arcane Lighthouse in one deck(Merieke), and that's because my deck NEEDS to be able to target creatures. If you're running more board wipes, or stuff that works just as well on your own critters, I'd pitch that. Same reasoning for Detection Tower at that rate.
Reliquary Tower is an overrated EDH card. People get greedy and want to hang onto all their cards, but they never go above 4 or 5 in hand. Additionally, sometimes it's just as powerful to discard, and Reliquary takes that option away from you. I run both it and Library of Leng in my Niv deck, but again...it's not out of the question for me to have 14 or so cards in hand for a game with that.
Myriad Landscape - well, how often do you need to color fix? And for two basics? I'd say Myriad is best run in mono-color decks(or Gx decks that love to ramp), so if your deck is neither, that's another contender for pitching.
Homeward Path and Temple of the False God are the most useful of your utility lands. Path is useful for the odd theft/bribery tech you may run into, or for politics if you were NOT the one targeted for theft. Temple is slow, but good more often than not...the only real time you don't want it is in your opening hand with one other land.
End analysis: Reliquary, Arcane/Detection, Myriad, Path/Temple from most pitchable to least.
Thanks for the input thus far! One thing I forgot to mention in OP: Obviously I am also interested in your experiences with Scavenger Grounds, if you have played with that card.
Riku of Two Reflections - Copy, then copy again | Shattergang Brothers - Token Sac&Recur | Gahiji, Honored One - Multiple attack steps | Karametra, God of Harvests - Landfall, Creaturefall, Shroud | Ruhan of the Fomori - Stop hitting yourself | Zurgo Helmsmasher - Equipment&Wraths | Crosis, the Purger - Dragon Tribal Reanimator | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - No stax, just tap and untap fun | Anafenza, the Foremost - Enduring Ideal Enchantress | Sharuum, the Hegemon - Sphinx Tribal Control | Noyan Dar - Spellslinger | The Mimeoplasm - Counterpalooza
Lists can be found here.
Still convinced the guy on Beseech the Queen is wearing a Mitra-type hat. Wake up sheeple!
Detection Tower
See above. Doesn't help with Shroud - Lightning Greaves anyone? - and hexproof on players took a big hit with the rules change concerning redirecting damage to planeswalkers. 2/10
Homeward Path
Meta and Commander call. It can certainly help against theft heavy Metas or if your deck topples over with its commander missing for good and missing colors to protect it otherwise, like my Zada, Hedron Grinder deck. Outside of these conditions i think it's pretty useless. 5/10 in above cases 2/10 anywhere else
Myriad Landscape
Great in Landfall and mono-colored decks, especially the ones outside of G. 2C and up it is kinda slow and a sub-par option both for ramping and color fixing. Wouldn't run it there. 6/10 in Landfall decks 5/10 in mono decks 2/10 anywhere else
Reliquary Tower
Heavily overplayed card, if you ask me. It requires a lot of card draw to make this work and even then, what the heck are you doing, if the top 7 cards of your bunch aren't (good) enough!? Say you drew to 15 cards, how much better will your next turn be with those 15 cards compared to the turn with the top 7 cards? Usually marginally better.
Would run it in The Locust God, Edric, Spymaster of Trest, Zada, Hedron Grinder and similiar splashy draw engines. Would play a basic land over it anywhere else. 3/10 if your deck can hit 8+ cards in hand continuously 1/10 anywhere else
Temple of the False God
Sits in an akward spot. It gets less worse if your deck puts a lot of lands in play, so um Gx decks, yet if a deck can do that, why would i run a shaky land instead of more ramp? In addition to that you don't want to have this in your opening hand and it gets considerably weaker if your deck has complex mana requirements. With my curves dropping over the years i pulled this from every single deck.
Only exception, where it can be okay-ish are decks that can untap it over and over again. 1/10
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Scavenger Grounds
Unless you're running your own graveyard shenanigans this is strictly amazing. While Bojuka Bog doesn't require mana, this can be played anywhere, enters untapped and doesn't come with timing restrictions. 4C and up there are very few colorless lands i'd consider running and this is very close to the top of the list. 8/10 unless you need your graveyard a lot
On average, how many colorless utility lands do you guys run in your decks with three or more colors? How many in decks with two colors or less? Are there any utility lands that you almost always automatically include irrespective of the particular deck's strategy? Any other utility lands not mentioned so far that you often see but think are overrated?
Riku of Two Reflections - Copy, then copy again | Shattergang Brothers - Token Sac&Recur | Gahiji, Honored One - Multiple attack steps | Karametra, God of Harvests - Landfall, Creaturefall, Shroud | Ruhan of the Fomori - Stop hitting yourself | Zurgo Helmsmasher - Equipment&Wraths | Crosis, the Purger - Dragon Tribal Reanimator | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - No stax, just tap and untap fun | Anafenza, the Foremost - Enduring Ideal Enchantress | Sharuum, the Hegemon - Sphinx Tribal Control | Noyan Dar - Spellslinger | The Mimeoplasm - Counterpalooza
Lists can be found here.
Still convinced the guy on Beseech the Queen is wearing a Mitra-type hat. Wake up sheeple!
In a multi-colored deck, I usually just run Homeward Path and maybe Reliquary Tower. I kinda want to count Cavern of Souls as a colorless utility land though it does technically produce a colored mana for exactly one reason...
Myriad is good in mono and 2 color decks, and ok in 3 color decks that run a lot of basics. It depends on the meta though: its far too slow for competitive, but solid ramp and ok fixing anywhere else. Its only ok as fixing because it fetches identical lands, which can either be pretty good (you need tqwo of the same color) or pretty mediocre (you need to fix two different colors). I like it a lot more then Temple of the False God, which I've rated worse and worse the longer I've played. Myriad at its worst is a etb tapped waste, Temple at its worst does nothing. Temple at its best immediately ramps you 1 for free mid to late game, while Myriad at its best delayed ramps you a land and fixes your colors for essentially 3, and can do so fairly early.
Reliquary is deck dependent. Don't run it "just in case" you get over 7 in hand, run it when you expect to get over 7 in hand and you need them to stay there. Prevents you from discarding down to 7, which can occasionally be a drawback instead of a feature, but usually if I want to discard cards I have a discard outlet (and wouldn't be running tower anyway). This only really matters when you want to discard because of something your opponent is doing that plays off your hand size and isn't Nekusar (cause Nekusar will screw you either way).
Everything else is almost entirely meta dependent. Homeward Path however, can support shenanigans if you are exchanging your creatures for other permanents.
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Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Homeward Path - I like this one a lot in creature-heavy decks. Basically, if I lose the game because someone stole all my creatures (even for one turn), I want Path there to keep me alive. Detection Tower - Only good in a deck that will be targetting a lot. It only lets you target them, not other players. Arcane Lighthouse - A little better than Detection Tower because you can sometimes use it politically - i.e. "Does anyone have spot removal for that if I remove hexproof/shroud?" Getting one player to remove another player's threat is great. Reliquary Tower - Only good in decks where you draw a ton of cards. Temple of the False God - Don't run it in anything; I think this land is a stinker. I've seen way too many people stuck at four land but only three mana because this is out and dead. Myriad Landscape - Enters tapped, costs mana, not very good. I'd rather run Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, Ash Barrens, etc over this. Or just a ramp spell.
Homeward Path - Unless you are answering a specific deck in your meta, or you are somehow abusing the card, I think it should not be played.
Detection Tower: Can be useful if your win con needs to target your opponents. Tendrils of Agony, for example.
Arcane Lighthouse: Only good if you need this to answer a deck in your meta.
Reliquary Tower: Only play it when 1. You don't have graveyard interaction, and 2. When you draw a lot of cards in your deck. Sometimes, discarding to hand size is a great way to enable a reanimation spell, and I think this land is overplayed because of that.
Temple of the False God: Starting to cut in most of my decks. I think Ravnica bounce lands are usually better. If your general costs 6 mana, it becomes more interesting.
Myriad Landscape: I play it in my mono colour decks and in my less optimized two colour decks. Green decks prefer Blighted Woodland.
Which brings me to something else - Blighted Fen should be in every black deck.
My attitude toward Reliquary Tower is an odd one. I think it is a vastly overplayed card in general, and I have definitely overplayed it in the past, but even now I play it in a lot of decks because I run a fair amount of card draw, and often hefty draw at that, and because in most of my decks at many points in the game I would rather hold a lot of things in hand than put them on the board and vulnerable to removal. I think overextending one's board position is probably the most frequent misplay in Commander. So, I think it comes down to how one's deck is built and to one's playstyle. I you don't have a lot of ways to draw a lot or if you tend to vomit your hand onto the board at earliest opportunity even when doing so won't let you win in the next turn or so, it's probably a wasted card and you would be better off with some other utility land or a basic land (many EDH decks run far too few basics).
I loved Myriad Landscape when it came out, but later I took it out of a lot of decks because man, is it freaking slow. Most of the time a ramp spell is better, though I have found it to be pretty good (like everything else that interacts with lands) in Windgrace (thanks to Amulet of Vigor) or in U or UX decks that play a fair amount of untapping tech. Mono-colored non-green decks, it can be okay, albeit still really freaking slow. Always good with landfall, though.
I play Homeward Path mostly in voltron decks or other commander-dependent decks. It's rarely belongs anywhere else.
I never run Detection Tower, because Lightning Greaves and other older cards with shroud are a thing, but Arcane Lighthouse is a great card in decks that target things often, including decks with lots of spot removal and the sort of theft decks that make people wish they were running Homeward Path. Anywhere else, it should probably be something else, like maybe Scavenger Grounds.
Temple of the False God so often leads to awkward early game situations that I avoid it unless I am running decks that need to get to 6+ mana quickly, including ones with pricey commanders. Riku, Ruric Thar, Mayael, it's possibly worth it with those sorts of commanders, even on top of G ramp spells.
Scavenger Grounds is very underplayed. Unless you are yourself running a deck that utilizes the graveyard a lot (as is the case with lots of B and BX decks), it is almost always a solid choice. Most EDH decks run too little grave hate, in my opinion. Nothing shuts down my Windgrace deck faster than lots of grave hate.
I'd say that even running graveyard shennanigans yourself shouldn't stop you from running scavenger grounds in mono B or two color. You're in control of when it goes off, so if it hurts you more you just use it for Mana, and only crack it when it hurts your opponents more.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Reliquary Tower to me is only good in a deck where you consistently are going to draw a bunch a cards and have more than 7 in your hand at your discard step.
Even decks that frequently have 7+ cards in hand at their end step don't often need Reliquary Tower. Keeping the best 7 cards is almost always more than enough, and allows you to pitch things for graveyard interaction, too.
Homeward Path: Meta call; if you frequently play against theft-heavy decks, or decks which reanimate opponents' creatures and you're often the target, it's worth consideration. Even if you often play against decks with theft/reanimation, if you're not the target it may not be worth using, since the owner is likely to get more value out of a particular creature than the person stealing it. Outside of a meta call, there are a small number of decks that might consider it anyway, regardless of meta (eg, Zedruu the Greathearted, taking back creatures that were given away, or Trostani Discordant as a backup commander). Note: while I can't speak for all theft decks, I know my theft deck runs most of the Strip Mine variants, specifically to deal with Homeward Path. 1 Homeward Path vs. 5+ Strip effects, who do you think is more likely to have theirs available?
Detection Tower, Arcane Lighthouse: Meta call (do your opponents have important creatures with hexproof and/or shroud) on top of what's in your deck (do you have targeted spells/auras that you really want to hit those creatures with). Honestly, in most metas and for most mid-to-upper tier decks, I suspect the answer is "no". Many of the better creatures have already done their primary job by the time you can use a removal spell on them, and many metas can get rid of creatures without targeting them just fine.
Reliquary Tower: As I mentioned above, even decks that regularly fill their hands often don't actually want this card. It's almost criminally overplayed, and people need to learn to get used to discarding things. I used to run this card a lot, but after building more red and blue decks with looting effects (and with 45 decks at this point, I have plenty), I've come to realize that discarding is not a scary thing that needs to be avoided at all costs, and is often beneficial to me. As a result, I've stopped playing Reliquary Tower in most (all?) of my new decks, and when I've got a new land for an old deck, Tower is often first on the cutting block. There are some decks that might want it still (maybe Mind over Matter without any sort of combos? And yet, just yesterday I had MoM starting the turn with 1 card in hand and turned that into a victory on that turn, thanks in large part to MoM itself and not doing any sort of MoM combo...), and some metas where it might be useful (Cyclonic Rifts for days!).
Temple of the False God: Hard cut in a cutthroat, high-powered deck/meta. Okay in a slower deck/meta. Actually strong in a slower meta playing a deck that runs on land untappers along the lines of Ley Weaver and Krosan Restorer.
Myriad Landscape: Okay in a slower meta in a deck with colors that aren't good at ramp. Not great, but not terrible.
I'd say that even running graveyard shennanigans yourself shouldn't stop you from running scavenger grounds in mono B or two color. You're in control of when it goes off, so if it hurts you more you just use it for Mana, and only crack it when it hurts your opponents more.
Just like a board wipe in a creature-heavy deck, except you can still put it to use (other than cycling) when you're not gaining more benefit than your opponents.
For Titania and decks that appreciate lands "dying", Myriad Landscape is suddenly more valuable. The problem is that it only get you one type of lands, so not recommended in 3+ color decks. For decks with 2 or less colors, you could thin your deck nicely with it in the late game.
On average, how many colorless utility lands do you guys run in your decks with three or more colors? How many in decks with two colors or less? Are there any utility lands that you almost always automatically include irrespective of the particular deck's strategy? Any other utility lands not mentioned so far that you often see but think are overrated?
My three 3C decks run 3 colorless utility lands, my two 2C decks 4, my only 5c deck only 1 and my two mono-colored decks 3... I don't remember consciously setting the limit, so I think it's pure coincidence that they ended with the same numbers per combination.
There are no colorless utility lands I consider "auto-include" and I think the only utility land I might consider closest to "auto-include" is Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in all my non-5C B decks (I don't have a mono-B deck, it would be excluded as well if I had one) and that's because of a combination of mana fixing, Cabal Coffers (it's not the main driver for me, I don't really need all that mana, but it's a great incentive on top of the fixing) and other minor utilities such as enabling Swampwalk.
Truth be told I don't really value colorless utility lands as much, because I personally believe I can find most of these "utilities" in the form of other cards that are flexible enough to serve as utility or to further my gameplan when necessary. It's when I exhaust these flexible options then I start to turn to the utility lands to patch up what I deemed other cards to either not be sufficient or too rigid to be in the deck. Then again, I fundamentally think of my EDH decks more of a vanity project and therefore prioritize being able to display what the deck can do, so it skews my perception since utility lands are almost as boring as mana rocks to some degree. Therefore I generally prioritize smooth mana flow and fixing on my lands first.
As most people here had told you, it is always a meta call, I can talk about these ones:
Reliquary tower: I have it in my Oloro deck because there is no single game I dont end with 20+ more cards in hand, and this land is just onef my many "do not have hand size" effects.
If your deck is built for good draw draw, then it is a must, if not, well, not
I wouldn't consider any of those automatic inclusions for every deck. I do think that all of them have a place, but it's a pretty narrow one in every case and we're spoiled for colorless utility land options at this point. I think Brago summed up my feelings well a few posts up.
Homeward Path - Reasonable if your strategy revolves around a particular creature or if theft decks are prevalent. Generally not worth it if those aren't true. I've included this in a couple decks and it's typically the utility land that goes for the longest time between activations. It can be really clutch when it's good, though. Anyone whose deck is really hurt by this is going to have multiple answers for it - doesn't hurt its playability, but something to be aware of.
Detection Tower/Arcane Lighthouse - I'd never run Tower before Lighthouse and I'd only run Lighthouse if targeted effects were a key part of my plan. If I don't have a general or primary gameplan that wants to target opposing creatures, I'm not even looking at this one. It's too narrow to run if all you're doing is making spot removal slightly more flexible.
Reliquary Tower - Way overplayed. The best 7 cards in hand are usually good enough, even in decks that are drawing large grips. I'd consider this in decks where hand size is a relevant number (e.g. Multani, Maro Sorcerer), decks where I was planning on running Recycle and/or Null Profusion, and maybe decks with significant amounts of instant speed interaction. In the average deck, regardless of how much card draw you're running, this is a hard pass for me.
Temple of the False God - I'm not big on this one either. It almost needs to take the place of a ramp spell, because it can lead to some really awkward opening hands. Jumping from 4 to 6 is nice and it's solid late game but the hit to early development makes it awkward. I'd pass if you're not playing with a very top heavy curve or a significant number of land untapping effects.
Myriad Landscape - Needs some kind of additional support to really be good. As ramp it's on the expensive side, as fixing it's worse than cheaper effects. Much better if you have activated ability support, GY land interaction, or a use for instant speed landfall triggers. If you don't have something else supporting it, it's passable but not great. I'm a little higher on this than the community at large but it's still not for every deck.
I'm comfortable calling Scavenger Grounds better than all of those and I wouldn't take much convincing to call it the best utility land printed in several years. It's rare for me to play a game where GY hate isn't relevant and it's frequently game deciding. I've also considered running a small desert package a couple times and this is the primary reason for that.
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Homeward Path: Meta call. Is your Commander key to your deck? If so, you want some way to deal with anything that restricts your Commander. Detection Tower: Also a meta call. I wouldn't waste my time if my opponent was playing tokens, but obviously for, e.g. Voltron, something where particular creatures matter, it's useful. If you're playing burn as a win condition (e.g., Comet Storm), it might be useful. (Then again, this depends on how many players run Ivory Mask variants.) Arcane Lighthouse: Same, but losing "players lose hexproof", gaining "creatures gain shroud" and political applications. This is important, though, because many times mass hexproof cards are just a very expensive Sylvan Safekeeper, so it can be useful in a more competitive meta. Or against decks where lands dying is useful. Reliquary Tower: Include if you regularly have 8 or more cards in hand. (Or if you're doing something like Maro tribal or something.)
Do note, however, that if your deck has very few MM and MMM mana costs, and is three colors or less, these are still viable as a "why not?" inclusion. However...
Temple of the False God IT'S A TRAP!!! But seriously, it is. You only get that CC if you already have four other lands. So, you can go from four to six. Which is fine, it's not like four mana is the standard for green to pay for "search for two lands", and most other colors would likely rely on artifacts to get to four, making going from 4+X to 6+X (where X is the amount of mana you have from nonland sources) even more winmoar. Honestly, it's probably second only to Meteor Crater in terms of "post-Masques lands that effectively do nothing".
Myriad Landscape Basically, this is another one where your colors matter. I would never run this in a deck that ran four or five colors. I might in a deck that runs three colors, provided it's heavy on the basics (which can be a meta call itself, Blood Moon and Back to Basics cast a dark shadow over many a meta). I always will in two or three colors, though. Especially if one of those colors is green or white. In other cases, Ash Barrens is better.
Also, I wouldn't consider Temple of the False God or Myriad Landscape utility lands. Temple attempts to be mana accel but ultimately feels winmoar. Landscape is a fetch land that simply fetches two lands instead of one.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Temple of the False God - overrated in my book as a staple when it's merely "fine". I will run it in mono-color decks that have a high top-end (Daretti, Multani), or two-color decks that ramp with green spells. The fact that it's a dead draw on turns 1-4 is tough, so I really need a deck that has a high enough land density to hit five lands and also has enough 6, 7, and 8 drops to make the jump worthwhile.
Myriad Landscape - Insanely good in most mono-colored lists with a commander of CMC 4+; even with as slow as it is I'd consider it a near must-run. Gets much worse if your commander is low cost or has multiple symbols in it. Gets much worse in a two-color deck, and is likely unplayable in a 3+ color one. For instance, it was in my wife's Sygg, River Guide deck for a while since the deck is so mana hungry but wants to not dedicate a ton of slots to mana rock ramp, but it got cut for making too many awkward draws. Gets much much better if "landfall" is a thing for your commander (Gitrog, Angry Omnath, Titania). Slightly worse in Green or Black decks not utilizing those strategies, as it steps on the toes of green ramp and Cabal Coffers.
Reliquary Tower - Certainly not in every deck. Also seems pretty overrated. I need to be hitting handsize fairly often to include it. I run it in Multani, Maro-Sorcerer and my wife runs it in Zedruu the Greathearted as both decks often overdraw (and both decks have reason to want to keep more than 7 in hand if they can since Zedruu runs Venser's Journal and Psychosis Crawler). I'm also toying with it in The Gitrog Monster (but I'm also toying with going up to 45 lands) and Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow (hit handsize a lot but I hate lands that can't tap for colored mana in my aggro decks). I ran it in Mairsil, the Pretender due to my abundance of draw and propensity to hold lots of situational answers and combo pieces, but I think that was a mistake.
I actually never run the other lands you mention, so that should show you how little I think of them. To be fair, I don't think I own a copy of Homeward Path? I'd say Scavenger Grounds is absolutely better than the other three lands unless your meta is insanely high on Hexproof Voltron Commanders (and you lack other answers) and/or Stealing Effects as even out-of-the-box casual Commander decks are likely to abuse their graveyards.
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Commander - Currently Playing: RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G) RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B) WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
The problem with Temple is simply that it is a dead draw. I mean, yes, you can Nature's Lore or Sakura-Tribe Elder on turn 2 or Kodama's Reach on turn 3, but if you can do that, then you have better ramp options.
Actually, I'm changing my opinion on Temple. Meteor Crater is better. It has a much lower hurdle to clear. All you need is one colored permanent to get at least one mana out of it. And you're certain to have one colored permanent long before you have four other lands.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Actually, I'm changing my opinion on Temple. Meteor Crater is better. It has a much lower hurdle to clear. All you need is one colored permanent to get at least one mana out of it. And you're certain to have one colored permanent long before you have four other lands.
I've tried using Meteor Crater before. In my experience it does nothing a lot more often than Temple does nothing.
Reliquary Tower
Good in very specific decks, garbage everywhere else. The vast majority of decks playing this card would be noticeably improved by replacing it with a basic land.
I am interested in hearing your experiences with Homeward Path, Detection Tower, Arcane Lighthouse, Reliquary Tower, Temple of the False God and Myriad Landscape. I am especially interested in your experiences with the first three. For instance, I have been playing Homeward Path in my Riku of two Reflections deck since the deck's creation seven years ago but I cannot remember a single instance where Homeward Path was actually useful. Now obviously this might be very meta dependent, but I am looking to get a bit of anecdotal data about the average effectiveness of these cards in your personal experience. I personally haven't been playing with Detection Tower and Arcane Lighthouse long enough to have reliable in game experiences. Also, I am fairly high on Temple of the False God, whereas Myriad Landscape has sometimes been a bit too slow for my taste.
Do you have experiences with these cards? How would you rate them? Do you jam some of them (like Reliquary Tower) into any deck, or not play them at all, or only in specific strategies?
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Myriad Landscape i put into most mono coloured decks, esp Black with Coffers, Red and White.
Arcane Lighthouse seems meta dependant. If you see alot of hexproof voltron like Uril or Sigarda, then by all means. But you better be playing non basic land search like Sylvan Scrying or Expedition Map or else you wont be able to rely on it when you need to. And it will be a dead card 90% of the time.
Same goes with homeward path, I just rather use sacrifice outlets.
Reliquary Tower is an overrated EDH card. People get greedy and want to hang onto all their cards, but they never go above 4 or 5 in hand. Additionally, sometimes it's just as powerful to discard, and Reliquary takes that option away from you. I run both it and Library of Leng in my Niv deck, but again...it's not out of the question for me to have 14 or so cards in hand for a game with that.
Myriad Landscape - well, how often do you need to color fix? And for two basics? I'd say Myriad is best run in mono-color decks(or Gx decks that love to ramp), so if your deck is neither, that's another contender for pitching.
Homeward Path and Temple of the False God are the most useful of your utility lands. Path is useful for the odd theft/bribery tech you may run into, or for politics if you were NOT the one targeted for theft. Temple is slow, but good more often than not...the only real time you don't want it is in your opening hand with one other land.
End analysis: Reliquary, Arcane/Detection, Myriad, Path/Temple from most pitchable to least.
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May help dealing with Narset, Enlightened, Sigarda, Host of Herons, Uril, the Miststalker and worse commanders with hexproof/shroud on them. Unless your Meta has a lot of them - or you're running Horobi, Death's Wail and others that might profit from it - i wouldn't run this.
3/10
Detection Tower
See above. Doesn't help with Shroud - Lightning Greaves anyone? - and hexproof on players took a big hit with the rules change concerning redirecting damage to planeswalkers.
2/10
Homeward Path
Meta and Commander call. It can certainly help against theft heavy Metas or if your deck topples over with its commander missing for good and missing colors to protect it otherwise, like my Zada, Hedron Grinder deck. Outside of these conditions i think it's pretty useless.
5/10 in above cases
2/10 anywhere else
Myriad Landscape
Great in Landfall and mono-colored decks, especially the ones outside of G. 2C and up it is kinda slow and a sub-par option both for ramping and color fixing. Wouldn't run it there.
6/10 in Landfall decks
5/10 in mono decks
2/10 anywhere else
Reliquary Tower
Heavily overplayed card, if you ask me. It requires a lot of card draw to make this work and even then, what the heck are you doing, if the top 7 cards of your bunch aren't (good) enough!? Say you drew to 15 cards, how much better will your next turn be with those 15 cards compared to the turn with the top 7 cards? Usually marginally better.
Would run it in The Locust God, Edric, Spymaster of Trest, Zada, Hedron Grinder and similiar splashy draw engines. Would play a basic land over it anywhere else.
3/10 if your deck can hit 8+ cards in hand continuously
1/10 anywhere else
Temple of the False God
Sits in an akward spot. It gets less worse if your deck puts a lot of lands in play, so um Gx decks, yet if a deck can do that, why would i run a shaky land instead of more ramp? In addition to that you don't want to have this in your opening hand and it gets considerably weaker if your deck has complex mana requirements. With my curves dropping over the years i pulled this from every single deck.
Only exception, where it can be okay-ish are decks that can untap it over and over again.
1/10
__________________________________________________
Scavenger Grounds
Unless you're running your own graveyard shenanigans this is strictly amazing. While Bojuka Bog doesn't require mana, this can be played anywhere, enters untapped and doesn't come with timing restrictions. 4C and up there are very few colorless lands i'd consider running and this is very close to the top of the list.
8/10 unless you need your graveyard a lot
tl;dr Run this over any of the above.
On average, how many colorless utility lands do you guys run in your decks with three or more colors? How many in decks with two colors or less? Are there any utility lands that you almost always automatically include irrespective of the particular deck's strategy? Any other utility lands not mentioned so far that you often see but think are overrated?
Tamanoa - Welcome to the Jungle
Lists can be found here.
I've grown to hate Temple of the False God. That card has a really bad habit of trolling me.
I appreciate that Scavenger Grounds exists because Bojuka Bog almost always trolls me.
In a multi-colored deck, I usually just run Homeward Path and maybe Reliquary Tower. I kinda want to count Cavern of Souls as a colorless utility land though it does technically produce a colored mana for exactly one reason...
Reliquary is deck dependent. Don't run it "just in case" you get over 7 in hand, run it when you expect to get over 7 in hand and you need them to stay there. Prevents you from discarding down to 7, which can occasionally be a drawback instead of a feature, but usually if I want to discard cards I have a discard outlet (and wouldn't be running tower anyway). This only really matters when you want to discard because of something your opponent is doing that plays off your hand size and isn't Nekusar (cause Nekusar will screw you either way).
Everything else is almost entirely meta dependent. Homeward Path however, can support shenanigans if you are exchanging your creatures for other permanents.
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Detection Tower - Only good in a deck that will be targetting a lot. It only lets you target them, not other players.
Arcane Lighthouse - A little better than Detection Tower because you can sometimes use it politically - i.e. "Does anyone have spot removal for that if I remove hexproof/shroud?" Getting one player to remove another player's threat is great.
Reliquary Tower - Only good in decks where you draw a ton of cards.
Temple of the False God - Don't run it in anything; I think this land is a stinker. I've seen way too many people stuck at four land but only three mana because this is out and dead.
Myriad Landscape - Enters tapped, costs mana, not very good. I'd rather run Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, Ash Barrens, etc over this. Or just a ramp spell.
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ManabaseCrafter
Detection Tower: Can be useful if your win con needs to target your opponents. Tendrils of Agony, for example.
Arcane Lighthouse: Only good if you need this to answer a deck in your meta.
Reliquary Tower: Only play it when 1. You don't have graveyard interaction, and 2. When you draw a lot of cards in your deck. Sometimes, discarding to hand size is a great way to enable a reanimation spell, and I think this land is overplayed because of that.
Temple of the False God: Starting to cut in most of my decks. I think Ravnica bounce lands are usually better. If your general costs 6 mana, it becomes more interesting.
Myriad Landscape: I play it in my mono colour decks and in my less optimized two colour decks. Green decks prefer Blighted Woodland.
Which brings me to something else - Blighted Fen should be in every black deck.
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I loved Myriad Landscape when it came out, but later I took it out of a lot of decks because man, is it freaking slow. Most of the time a ramp spell is better, though I have found it to be pretty good (like everything else that interacts with lands) in Windgrace (thanks to Amulet of Vigor) or in U or UX decks that play a fair amount of untapping tech. Mono-colored non-green decks, it can be okay, albeit still really freaking slow. Always good with landfall, though.
I play Homeward Path mostly in voltron decks or other commander-dependent decks. It's rarely belongs anywhere else.
I never run Detection Tower, because Lightning Greaves and other older cards with shroud are a thing, but Arcane Lighthouse is a great card in decks that target things often, including decks with lots of spot removal and the sort of theft decks that make people wish they were running Homeward Path. Anywhere else, it should probably be something else, like maybe Scavenger Grounds.
Temple of the False God so often leads to awkward early game situations that I avoid it unless I am running decks that need to get to 6+ mana quickly, including ones with pricey commanders. Riku, Ruric Thar, Mayael, it's possibly worth it with those sorts of commanders, even on top of G ramp spells.
Scavenger Grounds is very underplayed. Unless you are yourself running a deck that utilizes the graveyard a lot (as is the case with lots of B and BX decks), it is almost always a solid choice. Most EDH decks run too little grave hate, in my opinion. Nothing shuts down my Windgrace deck faster than lots of grave hate.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Just like a board wipe in a creature-heavy deck, except you can still put it to use (other than cycling) when you're not gaining more benefit than your opponents.
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My three 3C decks run 3 colorless utility lands, my two 2C decks 4, my only 5c deck only 1 and my two mono-colored decks 3... I don't remember consciously setting the limit, so I think it's pure coincidence that they ended with the same numbers per combination.
There are no colorless utility lands I consider "auto-include" and I think the only utility land I might consider closest to "auto-include" is Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in all my non-5C B decks (I don't have a mono-B deck, it would be excluded as well if I had one) and that's because of a combination of mana fixing, Cabal Coffers (it's not the main driver for me, I don't really need all that mana, but it's a great incentive on top of the fixing) and other minor utilities such as enabling Swampwalk.
Truth be told I don't really value colorless utility lands as much, because I personally believe I can find most of these "utilities" in the form of other cards that are flexible enough to serve as utility or to further my gameplan when necessary. It's when I exhaust these flexible options then I start to turn to the utility lands to patch up what I deemed other cards to either not be sufficient or too rigid to be in the deck. Then again, I fundamentally think of my EDH decks more of a vanity project and therefore prioritize being able to display what the deck can do, so it skews my perception since utility lands are almost as boring as mana rocks to some degree. Therefore I generally prioritize smooth mana flow and fixing on my lands first.
Reliquary tower: I have it in my Oloro deck because there is no single game I dont end with 20+ more cards in hand, and this land is just onef my many "do not have hand size" effects.
If your deck is built for good draw draw, then it is a must, if not, well, not
Homeward path: I play it in my Edgar Markov deck and in Kaalia of the vast: both decks needs this card because Insurrection is a thing and every single kaalia creature is a target for stealing so, it is a must.
EDH: RWB Edgar Markov The current updated decklist is here
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Detection Tower: Also a meta call. I wouldn't waste my time if my opponent was playing tokens, but obviously for, e.g. Voltron, something where particular creatures matter, it's useful. If you're playing burn as a win condition (e.g., Comet Storm), it might be useful. (Then again, this depends on how many players run Ivory Mask variants.)
Arcane Lighthouse: Same, but losing "players lose hexproof", gaining "creatures gain shroud" and political applications. This is important, though, because many times mass hexproof cards are just a very expensive Sylvan Safekeeper, so it can be useful in a more competitive meta. Or against decks where lands dying is useful.
Reliquary Tower: Include if you regularly have 8 or more cards in hand. (Or if you're doing something like Maro tribal or something.)
Do note, however, that if your deck has very few MM and MMM mana costs, and is three colors or less, these are still viable as a "why not?" inclusion. However...
Temple of the False God IT'S A TRAP!!! But seriously, it is. You only get that CC if you already have four other lands. So, you can go from four to six. Which is fine, it's not like four mana is the standard for green to pay for "search for two lands", and most other colors would likely rely on artifacts to get to four, making going from 4+X to 6+X (where X is the amount of mana you have from nonland sources) even more winmoar. Honestly, it's probably second only to Meteor Crater in terms of "post-Masques lands that effectively do nothing".
Myriad Landscape Basically, this is another one where your colors matter. I would never run this in a deck that ran four or five colors. I might in a deck that runs three colors, provided it's heavy on the basics (which can be a meta call itself, Blood Moon and Back to Basics cast a dark shadow over many a meta). I always will in two or three colors, though. Especially if one of those colors is green or white. In other cases, Ash Barrens is better.
Also, I wouldn't consider Temple of the False God or Myriad Landscape utility lands. Temple attempts to be mana accel but ultimately feels winmoar. Landscape is a fetch land that simply fetches two lands instead of one.
On phasing:
Myriad Landscape - Insanely good in most mono-colored lists with a commander of CMC 4+; even with as slow as it is I'd consider it a near must-run. Gets much worse if your commander is low cost or has multiple symbols in it. Gets much worse in a two-color deck, and is likely unplayable in a 3+ color one. For instance, it was in my wife's Sygg, River Guide deck for a while since the deck is so mana hungry but wants to not dedicate a ton of slots to mana rock ramp, but it got cut for making too many awkward draws. Gets much much better if "landfall" is a thing for your commander (Gitrog, Angry Omnath, Titania). Slightly worse in Green or Black decks not utilizing those strategies, as it steps on the toes of green ramp and Cabal Coffers.
Reliquary Tower - Certainly not in every deck. Also seems pretty overrated. I need to be hitting handsize fairly often to include it. I run it in Multani, Maro-Sorcerer and my wife runs it in Zedruu the Greathearted as both decks often overdraw (and both decks have reason to want to keep more than 7 in hand if they can since Zedruu runs Venser's Journal and Psychosis Crawler). I'm also toying with it in The Gitrog Monster (but I'm also toying with going up to 45 lands) and Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow (hit handsize a lot but I hate lands that can't tap for colored mana in my aggro decks). I ran it in Mairsil, the Pretender due to my abundance of draw and propensity to hold lots of situational answers and combo pieces, but I think that was a mistake.
I actually never run the other lands you mention, so that should show you how little I think of them. To be fair, I don't think I own a copy of Homeward Path? I'd say Scavenger Grounds is absolutely better than the other three lands unless your meta is insanely high on Hexproof Voltron Commanders (and you lack other answers) and/or Stealing Effects as even out-of-the-box casual Commander decks are likely to abuse their graveyards.
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Actually, I'm changing my opinion on Temple. Meteor Crater is better. It has a much lower hurdle to clear. All you need is one colored permanent to get at least one mana out of it. And you're certain to have one colored permanent long before you have four other lands.
On phasing:
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Detection Tower
Arcane Lighthouse
These cards are very meta-dependant. If you need those effects to counter your local group, play them and tutor effects to find them (Expedition Map)
Reliquary Tower
Good in very specific decks, garbage everywhere else. The vast majority of decks playing this card would be noticeably improved by replacing it with a basic land.
Temple of the False God
Acceptable as a budget alternative to Ancient Tomb in ramp-heavy decks. Otherwise unusable.
Myriad Landscape
Useful ramp option in non-green mono color decks. A little slow; may not be usable in stronger metas.
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