MTG Salvation

Are the lands like shambling vents and stirring wildwood good in edh, are they worth it?

Quote from ScubaDragon »

Are the lands like shambling vents and stirring wildwood good in edh, are they worth it?

On their own? Not really. Mutavault is probably the best manland for obvious reasons. None of the others are really impressive unless you have a particularly good reason for playing them.

I think they're decent. Wouldn't usually be my first dual land choice but they have reasonable upside, especially if you're playing a lot of equipment.

Of the duals imo best ones are the black ones. Ub is great for triggering swords. Gb is a rattlesnake blocker. Rb can one-shot people after board wipes or rattlesnake block w/ enough mana. Wb is just ok, but having a way to gain life that fixes mana is pretty solid, especially in wrath-happy wb.

I like Celestial Colonnade, Creeping Tar Pit, Raging Ravine, Treetop Village, and Faerie Conclave.

They have evasion and/or trample and can't get hit by sorcery speed removal like most board wipes and aren't generally high enough value to waste premium instant speed removal on. They act as decent threats if you don't mind being down a mana the turn you play them and find yourself willing and able to activate them.

I'd need a really good reason to play any of the other creature lands because the lack of evasion hurts.

Quote from arrogantAxolotl »

Quote from ScubaDragon »

Are the lands like shambling vents and stirring wildwood good in edh, are they worth it?

On their own? Not really. Mutavault is probably the best manland for obvious reasons. None of the others are really impressive unless you have a particularly good reason for playing them.

Creeping Tar Pit, Dryad Arbor, Mishra's Factory and Inkmoth Nexus are top five with Mutavault in my opinion. The rest can be good depending on the deck and the meta. If multiple people are playing wraths everygame or if someone is playing wrath.deck then they are invaluable likewise to indestructible effects. And they are good against aggro decks if you are playing wraths. Also good if people play lots of planeswalkers as the sorcery speed effect makes it unanswerable by said planeswalkers. Obviously they're good if you're playing lands.deck. That said, most come into play tapped and you risk your land to more types of removal when you activate it, so these factors should be considered as well. For instance they aren't as good if the meta is heavy in spot removal and/or fast combo decks.

Thanks for the help.

Inkmoth is miles better than mutavault. Under most circumstances (I.e. non-tribal deck not playing vs slivers) I'd say blinkmoth is too.

Yep, Inkmoth, Creeping Tar, Colonnade, and Conclave are solid. The rest not so much. But even the good ones are only situational, because it isn't an efficient use of your mana just to swing for a couple of damage. You're running them in control decks that constantly wipe the board and then swing with swords and stuff.

For the Zendikar Manlands, I usually find a place for them in 2-Color decks unless they just don’t make sense, even the RB one. The mono lands are situational at best. The G ones are pretty solid, but most are just lackluster imo.

Anything requiring heavy color fixing though usually don’t include them. The tempo loss is just too noticeable.

Well if you want to run Dovescape Humility and Night of Souls' Betrayal and you need a something to sneak through all those layers to deliver the killing blow, man-lands are your friends.


Also as others have said Inkmoth Nexus is IMO one of the best infect cards in Commander because it can come out of the blue pair with a Kessig Wolf Run fun times ahead

Quote from cryogen »

Yep, Inkmoth, Creeping Tar, Colonnade, and Conclave are solid. The rest not so much. But even the good ones are only situational, because it isn't an efficient use of your mana just to swing for a couple of damage. You're running them in control decks that constantly wipe the board and then swing with swords and stuff.

i think I'd consider colonnade among the worst of all of them. 5 mana activation is atrocious, it doesn't block particularly well and is hard to hold up, it's hard to equip while paying the high activation cost, it can't hit lethal damage like br or wr, and just generally has a low ceiling in its capacity imo since it does nothing super well.

Conclave seems much worse than blinkmoth. Extra cost of activation and etbt for 1 more power? Ew, no. And no fixing either.

Surprised people don't respect rb more. Sometimes it can do surprise lethal from like 15 in a long game.

Inkmoth is easy #1 though unless you care a lot about fixing.

Quote from DirkGently »

i think I'd consider colonnade among the worst of all of them. 5 mana activation is atrocious, it doesn't block particularly well and is hard to hold up, it's hard to equip while paying the high activation cost, it can't hit lethal damage like br or wr, and just generally has a low ceiling in its capacity imo since it does nothing super well.

Conclave seems much worse than blinkmoth. Extra cost of activation and etbt for 1 more power? Ew, no. And no fixing either.

Surprised people don't respect rb more. Sometimes it can do surprise lethal from like 15 in a long game.

Inkmoth is easy #1 though unless you care a lot about fixing.

I rate evasion high. But I agree that of the ones I listed Colonnade is lowest. But it's also in the right colors to most want creature lands.

I find a lot of Azorius decks I play against are lacking in a lot of concrete win conditions so they fall back on control the board while hitting you with a Colonnade

Quote from Taleran »

I find a lot of Azorius decks I play against are lacking in a lot of concrete win conditions so they fall back on control the board while hitting you with a Colonnade

in a multiplayer 40 life game? I think if that's your plan, you need a better plan. Not to mention paying that much restricts your ability to hold up answers.

I mean compare to ub. 2 mana cheaper (well, pseudo 1 mana cheaper) and strictly unblockable. Miles better imo. Man lands are mostly good for sword triggers anyway, I'd rather pay 3 than 5.

Think about it this way: for 5 mana arch of orazca lets you draw a whole card. I know what I'd rather be doing, especially in a control deck where I can eot it.

Well no one expects or should expect one creature to do all the damage in a Commander game.

Quote from Taleran »

Well no one expects or should expect one creature to do all the damage in a Commander game.

Yes, but that's not the point. The issue with Colonnade is that it costs at least five mana to produce 4 damage. That's just such a bad rate, you'll almost always have something better to do with your mana.

Evasion (or trample) is important for these. I will admit to having used Stirring Wildwood in decks that were really lacking for flying defenses. Beyond that, they're mostly useful to hit thresholds, e.g. putting that last counter on Beastmaster Ascension. Or if you're trying to play aggro or midrange as a backup strategy (i.e., in case your combo falls apart) and need an extra threat.

One added benefit to Inkmoth Nexus (and Blinkmoth Nexus and Mishra's Factory and the like) is, they don't enter tapped. Taplands...I play cycling lands and tri-lands, maybe a few spell lands like Bojuka Bog, but it takes a lot to get me to play other taplands. (Tapping as an option, sure. Checklands, sure. But unconditional taplands? Not so much.)

Beyond that, the only other creature land I would say is worth playing is actually a land creature, and that's mostly because it's a land and a creature in all zones.

Just because I'm enjoying this thread, here's how I'd rank the 2 color cycle:

• Creeping tar pit
  
• Hissing quagmire
  
• Lavaclaw reaches
  
• Needle spires
  
• Shambling vent
  
• Celestial colonnade
  
• Stirring wildwood
  
• Raging ravine
  
• Wandering fumarole
  
• Lumbering falls
  

Needle spires has a high ceiling with equipment, but is trash without buffs, so ymmv. Ravine is great in theory but if you're activating it repeatedly to "live the dream" you really need to find a better use for your mana, so imo it's weak. That goes for all of them really - lavaclaw is underrated imo because, although it's usually useless, when it's good it can be very good.

Thank you for reminding me I saw this take place in a very janky Jeskai cleric deck that managed to get

Wandering Fumarole, Arcane Adaptation, and Daru Spiritualist into play, for an incredibly janky way to make a very very big land.

I'm lost as to how that combo works. Fumerole ability doesn't target, if that's what you're thinking. Did he also have an en-kor creature?

There are combos with crackdown construct and possibly others though.

EDIT: ceaseless searblades is the other one I found, I think that might be it. Neither combo seems particularly viable in EDH to me, though, which is why I think it's pretty bad.

I remember someone there not the player saying that it worked and everyone kinda went with them, but oh well could have just been an honest mistake.

Did he have a tempest kor or something like it in play?

I play exactly one creature land in EDH: Needle Spires. I play it in Gisela since it fixes mana and can deal 8 damage with Gisela on the board. She also runs a bunch of equipment so even suiting it up for a turn to get a Sword trigger can be pretty good if there is nothing else on the board. Since it is a land, it has sometimes gotten through a board wipe when I need to deal the last couple points of damage.

Otherwise, I am with most of the other posters: creature lands in general are often not the greatest. On a budget, they can be decent but I don't think I would ever run one outside of a 1 or 2 color deck since 3+ color decks have better options.

Quote from WizardMN »

Otherwise, I am with most of the other posters: creature lands in general are often not the greatest. On a budget, they can be decent but I don't think I would ever run one outside of a 1 or 2 color deck since 3+ color decks have better options.

I think there are a decent number of reasons to run them.

-if you're a 2 color deck that wants a lot of fixing (i.e. lazav, dimir mastermind), after you've already included the better fixers.
-if you're running a decent number of equipment and/or light on creatures.
-if you're in a color combo with one of the better ones - rb, gb, and rb all justify themselves imo.
-if you're on a budget for fixing and want something decent, for the cheaper manlands (gw, rb, or any of the newer ones)
-if you have some other synergy with your particular manland, i.e. lifegain synergy with wb.

Quote from DirkGently »

here's how I'd rank the 2 color cycle:

• Creeping tar pit
  
• Hissing quagmire
  
• Lavaclaw reaches
  
• Needle spires
  
• Shambling vent
  
• Celestial colonnade
  
• Stirring wildwood
  
• Raging ravine
  
• Wandering fumarole
  
• Lumbering falls
  

I don't understand your reasoning for this order.

While Creeping Tar Pit is indisputably the best, Celestial Colonnade and Raging Ravine are significantly better than Hissing Quagmire, Lavaclaw Reaches, Needle Spires, Shambling Vent, and Stiring Wildwood. Repeatedly activating Raging Ravine isn't living the dream it's a thing to do when you don't have better options and it gets better every time. I also think users here are over rating the ability to hold a sword and not giving enough significance to the low opportunity cost of playing creature lands.