MTG Salvation

Are the cycle lands like Scattered Groves good in a 3 color deck or more. I am think about putting crucible in the same deck anyway. Also are the kaladash lands good the ones that enter tapped unless you control 2 or fewer lands, if so which is better? Thx to anyone who helps.

Cycling lands are good for Rings or decks that care about discard/cycling/land type matters/GY shenanigans with lands.

Fast lands are okay for aggro...but I’d exhaust all other options first.

I would not use either outside of those scenarios.

If you're running Crucible or Life from the Loam then cycling lands are good. I like the bicycles because you can fetch for them, and in slower games the ETBT isn't an issue. Personally I like them and hope they finish the cycle soon.

You can Tithe for the two white ones Draw 2 for 4W hell yeah.


I like them and tend to try and put one or two in a deck especially if I am running something like Life from the Loam

Quote from Taleran »

You can Tithe for the two white ones Draw 2 for 4W hell yeah.


I like them and tend to try and put one or two in a deck especially if I am running something like Life from the Loam

You're referring to Scattered Groves and Irrigated Farmlands, right? Because Drifting Meadow, Secluded Steppe, and Desert of the True aren't plains.

Anyway, a lot of it depends on your land recursion. (And this includes Sun Titan.) Cycling lands are obviously really good with Life from the Loam, not least for looping purposes.

The plains cyclers also work with Oreskos Explorer.

The Kaladesh lands are reasonable additions to a modestly priced list for colour fixing.

While I don't run cycle lands in every deck, in the right context they can be great. Instant speed draw for minimal cost that is potentially repeatable? Yes please.

I run cycling lands in two specific instances: in my Niv-Mizzet deck that runs tons of artifact mana and mana flooding is a real possibility, and the deck wants to generate tons of draws so getting them from a few land slots makes a difference; and I run them in my Bosh deck that also runs a ton of artifact mana and can be prone to flooding, the deck runs Rings of Brighthearth to combo with them, and being mono-red means that CA options are few and far between. In both cases, I run Crucible to backstop them and both decks seek to play a more control role so CITP tapped is less of an issue.

In a 3+ colour deck I think the cycles will be better than battle lands most of the time.

I prefer and use the battle lands because I have quite a few basics so they work for me. With 3+ colours however you quickly find that you don't have enough basics to make them reliably come in untapped. From there the choice of ETB tapped vs ETB tapped or cycle is a no brainer. If you only had room for either/or and don't have many basics play cycles. If you have quite a few basics your mileage will vary.

Fast lands I dislike in EDH. I've found that they often come out tapped and cant be searched for easily/at all. I would much rather have battle lands or cycles instead of these in just about every deck.

The dual cycle lands are very useful, especially with Wilderness Reclamation, Seedborn Muse, Awakening, etc. The other cycle lands also have their uses but work better with cards that return them to the hand or field.

I wouldn't run them in 3C and up, unless you got some specific interaction with them, but i like them a lot in my 2C decks.

Fetid Pools is in my Lazav, the Multifarious Deck, which doesn't mind discarding at all and does hit its land drops due to wheels anyway.
Irrigated Farmland is included in my Brago, King Eternal deck and works very well with Kor Cartographer and Sun Titan.
Scattered Grove sits in Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist, where it profits from land types and that's more or less it.
Sheltered Thicket is just another fetchable two-color land for Omnath, Locus of Rage, so i don't mind it being a single Landfall trigger only.
If i had a Rakdos Deck i'd play Canyon Slough too, but the commander options are dull aside from Grenzo, Dungeon Warden.

Anything with the land types attached to them are at least playable.

If anything it gave the Amonkhet block at least a few cards that were semi-decent.

I've always liked them but depends if you are playing more casual or competitive (with competitive being more strict on what you should/shouldn't play). Having a few or in a purpose built deck such as The Gitrog Monster for example. I wouldn't look to run too many but in a pinch they are essentially another free draw.

They can be pretty amazing. don't think of them as "early land drop, late cycling card", as they can have much more use beyond that. For example, an opponent bojuga bogs your GY, which has a dredge card in it (that you really want to keep). trigger on the stack, cycle your land, replace draw with the dredge. or in combination with top-of-library-tutors (enlightened tutor and friends), you can pseudo-demonic tutor. Worst use for it could be to continue the stack on the off-chance someone on the table had an answer but thought to make someone else answer the table-killing threat, so you just cycle the land to make the first guy burn his answer.

Throwing them down early as a citpt lands isn't the worst thing; EDH doesn't punish tempo loss in the same way other 1v1 formats do.

in the end, it kinda depends on how much utility cycling will have outside of just 'draw a card'. if you do astral slide, it's good. if you do weird card-draw interactions like abundance, dredge and the like, its good. If you don't have any of that AND you can't afford tempo loss too often (i.e. if your playgroup has mid-high power and/or low-curve decks), i'd stay away from them.

In two color decks, I would always play both
The Cycle lands are good with some aforementioned cards (life from the loam, Sun Titan). I also like playing them alongside Wood Elves.

Someone also mentioned Rings of Brighthearth but did not tag it.

The fast lands are not particularly strong in 3+ color decks.
If you do not have good synergy with the cycling lands I would be more tempted to play the 1-mana cycling lands in 3+color decks... like Barren Moor over Canyon Slough in a deck that doesn't care about the land types.

I'm just waiting for the cycle on those cycle duals (and tango lands, really) to be complete. Longing for the day when we can have twelve fetchable duals in a 3c deck!

I would like to see them complete too because I feel part of the reason I am lukewarm towards cycles and tangos is because having only allied versions of them triggers my OCD whenever I make a 3+ color deck. Which is almost all the decks I make. No, you can't tell me I can have Red-Green, Black-Green, and Green-Red shocks but only Black-Red and Green-Red not shocks in a Jund deck! That's messed up man D:

Quote from Igzex »

I would like to see them complete too because I feel part of the reason I am lukewarm towards cycles and tangos is because having only allied versions of them triggers my OCD whenever I make a 3+ color deck. Which is almost all the decks I make. No, you can't tell me I can have Red-Green, Black-Green, and Green-Red shocks but only Black-Red and Green-Red not shocks in a Jund deck! That's messed up man D:

So do you not play the battlebond lands for the same reason?

Quote from Dunharrow »

So do you not play the battlebond lands for the same reason?

I dislike incomplete cycles as well. I still use them, but j dont enjoy it. I haven't and won't put them into my cube until I have the complete cycle, however. And Battlebond lands are crap IMO.

Quote from cryogen »

I dislike incomplete cycles as well. I still use them, but j dont enjoy it. I haven't and won't put them into my cube until I have the complete cycle, however. And Battlebond lands are crap IMO.

I feel the same way on all three accounts. I do play Scattered Grove in GWB, but am looking for slots once the rest of the cycle is released.
Incomplete cycles have no place in cube for me.
Battlebond lands do not interest me, Basic Typed duals are vastly more versatile, especially in Green.

Quote from Dunharrow »

So do you not play the battlebond lands for the same reason?

No. I wouldn't touch them because they're garbage lands that I can come up with twelve cycles of lands that I'd easily slot first. These things are so low I'd even slot Temples over them.

They gave us enemy-color partners but friend-color lands in Battlebond. Sigh.

They have value in multiplayer, yes, but then you have "is not a basic land type", especially important in green, but when you consider the value of the fetchlands, yeah.

Yes

I play the Onslaught ones (Tranquil Thicket) in 1-2 colour decks. It's just kind of nice to cycle them if you don't need the land, especially if you get a glut in the early game. I find they become onerous once we're in 3-5 colour territory.