MTG Salvation

Hello, I want to revisit a thread I saw on here before. What are some of your favorite basic lands in the game?

I am a land whore. I recently sold out of all of my Guru lands, mostly because I got so much for them. I have some favorite lands, which are from Mirage and from Portal. I have played since 1994, but took a break from Nemesis to Mirrodin, so I don't know some of the sets in between too well. I also have probably forgotten many of the best looking lands in the game.

I was thinking Invasion. I see some cool ones from there. I do prefer Black border lands, as White border lands remind me of when I began Magic and how many millions of Revised basics were around at that time. I think the only White border basics I'd ever get were Portal 3 Kingdoms or to tilt opponents.

I do like the way the Apac and Euro lands looks, but I'm looking for something much cheaper that I would enjoy nearly as much. Thanks in advance! (Pics are obviously appreciated...)

I like the basic Forest that Rebecca Guay has drawn for commander. All forest in my RG Ponza are these.

This is a big matter of personal taste. And I don't just pick the single "best" art for any deck, but like to match the art to deck's theme a bit.

I prefer old borders, and in old borders some of my favorite lands are:

Mirage Island, Sunset: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3584

Mirage Swamp, Sun (goes together great with the above): http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3562

Mirage Swamp, Rays of Light: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3564

Nearly all the land art from Mirage is awesome, with the Forests as honorable mentions. Can't really pick a favorite Mirage Forest since they look pretty similar. I like to use the one with the river/waterfall in UG decks.

Portal Swamp, Tree trunks: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=4411 (Goes awesome in BG decks)

Ice Age Mountain, light blue: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=2763 (In my mono-red Burn deck, the light blue color of these mountains is a nice contrast with the color palette of the rest of the deck)

Odyssey Plains, Lightning: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=31630 (a famously popular and valuable land)

Onslaught Forest, John Avon: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Discussion.aspx?multiverseid=40106

John Avon is very popular, but I don't like some of his land arts because they feel too "artificial" and "clean," with lots of glowing lights and effects. As opposed to some of these arts above, which have a bit of grit and painterly-ness to make them more real.

I'm also a big fan of Unglued lands. The Unhinged and Unstable ones don't do it as much for me, they look too technological and don't fit the aesthetic of Magic. I have a Mono-Black "Corrupt Control" deck that wins with large Corrupts and Consume Spirit, and I'm slowly trying to make that all Unglued Swamps. It really has a lot of impact in the deck, since all the lands are basic swamps, and it plays very few non-land permanents, so you just have a huge stack of 9-12 of the Unglued Swamps in play.

I might as well share a question I was thinking of making: Why is the Zendikar "Bucket island" (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=195170) so popular? It's more expensive than others, and I see it in many pimped out decks. I always thought that art was wicked ugly, though.

I try and match them with the 'feel' of the deck.

For UR for example.

https://scryfall.com/card/bfz/267/mountain
https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=Island set:ust

My Knightfall deck however, goes back to the older style, all by Rob Alexander to go with the original Shock Land art.

Island: https://scryfall.com/card/pal03/2/island
Forest: https://scryfall.com/card/ody/348/forest
Plains (both in Foil, its a Panorama): https://scryfall.com/card/7ed/343/plains and https://scryfall.com/card/7ed/342/plains

I'm looking for the right Mountain and Forest for my Goblins deck right now. :]

@theFluff - I already have many of those Forests. I do enjoy Rebecca Guay art! She is one of my favorite artists. If I'm remembering quickly, I bought them when they FIRST came out in the Commander deck from CFB.

@Einhorn - Your recommendations seem to concur exactly with what I was thinking. I actually have all of those arts of basic lands. Buuuut...I only had 1 of the Onslaught Forest by John Avon and I actually couldn't remember what set it was from. I thought it was Invasion and I was trying to find it yesterday. Mine is pretty beat up as well. So, now that I know it's Onslaught, I will be getting many more of those Forests. I LOVE that one!

@idSurge - Yes, I do like them to have either the feel for the deck or something oddly funny or trollish, as long as it doesn't put me on tilt from the oddness of it. Those lands all look pretty sweet, but I definitely can't have lands from non matching sets in the same deck. I am way to OCD for that. It would put me on tilt much more than my opponent, lol.

*So as you can see, I am a land whore. I get tired of cool lands very quickly. Right now, I would say the ones that I get the least tired of are Mirage, Portal, and Snow-Covered Lands, but part of that for Snow lands is the old feeling that I could be "up to something" or else why would I be playing them. I know there's none of that nowadays though.

**Just bought some of the Foil Onslaught Forests for my foil Elves deck. Tired of using Unhinged Forests, mostly because they don't feel like they match and they are not foil in an otherwise fully foiled deck. I was also considering the Arena Ice Age 2001 Promos that look like Snow-Covered lands. A friend showed those to me and they looked beautiful as well for foil versions.

The Rob Alexander stuff to me, as I'm an older guy I suppose, has something very real about it, I'm actually going to get some prints probably as it just reminds me of the places I've grown up.

I dont mind the different set stuff, as long as the style remains the same.

I do love that Rob Alexander art. He makes a lot of great land art and I appreciate him as an artist. The Plains is not one I'm the hugest fan of. I actually like the "more popular one" from that same set (has been in other sets too) that looks like Grain fields. #344

I grew up in Northern Alberta, and the plains I posted are essentially what I saw driving around. :]

https://scryfall.com/card/ody/334/plains

Is also very nice, but since my Knightfall runs 2 plains...I went with that panorama.

I can understand that. Lands are going to have a personal feel, even if there's some that many different people identify with.

I do like that Plains as well. I think I used to run Mirage basics in my Knightfall until it was fully foiled; at which point I switched to Rebecca Guay foil basics. Didn't really like it the best in that deck, but didn't know what else to do. Now, Mirage basics and Arena 1996 basics, I do in fact love in Knightfall.

Digging through my pile for favorites, I'm realizing how basic my MtG art tastes are - apparently there's a reason people like Terese Nielsen and John Avon.

Time Spiral gets top overall set pick though for picking a mood and really hitting it

I personally prefer the aesthetics of Mirrodin/New Phyrexia-block basics. They're just really, really cool.

Time Spiral block was great. Shadowmoor has some decent basics, as does Alara block, Kamigawa block, and, more recently, I found myself a fan of the Kaladesh basics.

Oh, yeah. I guess some of the snow basics from Coldsnap were pretty.

But YMMV.

I can post specific favorites, if you'd like.

Edit: Guess there's no reason for me not to post them. I've gone through the effort of looking at every MtG land and posting the ones I like. Enjoy.

I've cut down on my magic collection a lot over the past year. So now I use the same basics from Portal for everything. I dig the old border

https://scryfall.com/card/por/198/plains
I really like the large tree in this one, the colors are bright and I love the clouds

https://scryfall.com/card/por/202/island
It's actually an island! Again I really like the clouds here.


https://scryfall.com/card/por/207/swamp
I enjoy the yellow a lot as well as the twisted shapes and the reflection in the bog.

https://scryfall.com/card/por/211/mountain
This whole cycle is comprable but this is the one I use. I love the red sky and dark craggy mountains. The pine Forest is also really nice.

https://scryfall.com/card/por/214/forest
Avon you've done it again. I love the vertical lines of the trees and the greenish haze classic to John. Calm and mysterious

I like time spiral for horror themed decks and zendikar full art for edh.

My favorite became the infamous "bucket" Island, the second I realized I'd be able to full-art foil my EDH deck for like... 2 dollars/land. Good times.

Since I can't include APAC, I'd say there's some good lands in Kamigawa block and Lorwyn block

Quote from FoodChainGoblins »

@theFluff - I already have many of those Forests. I do enjoy Rebecca Guay art! She is one of my favorite artists. If I'm remembering quickly, I bought them when they FIRST came out in the Commander deck from CFB.

I like the watercolor style she uses. It gives a calming feel whenever I play Ponza with all forests looking like that.
Well, it's subjective thing because I also know people who don't like that style of drawing.
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Sometimes I also use basic lands because many creatures and spells in the deck come from that expansion. For example, my casual modern Stompy deck only has kaladesh forests, because the deck has 4 narnam renegade, 4 greenwheel liberator, and 3 blossoming defence. Hard to explain, but I feel the creatures in the deck move better when they're at their home turf.

I have a whole lot of individual land faves, from all over the place, some of them white bordered.

But as for one ‘set’, those new Guild Kit basics look stunning. Some more than others, but wow.

Personally, I like the Lorwyn basics, then There's, then Kaladesh. I think the Guild Kit Lands are overall pretty sweet, but half the appeal is the special border. While some, such as the Izzet island, Boros Plains, and both Simic lands have fantastic art, I feel that the others would not be as special if not for the special borders.

And, of course, if it's been in an Un-set, it's basically amazing.

Doubt you are still reading this but I've been using these for my cube and I'm quite happy with them. 40x of each. 10x of the Wastes.

I started playing in 1998 and in my opionin the unstable basic lands are the coolest basic lands ever printed

Quote from FoodChainGoblins »

What are some of your favorite basic lands in the game?

I'm a huge fan of the full-art lands for the overall aesthetics, but my favorite Art cycle actually comes from Portal. The art here is kind of unique in that it each piece has a feature beyond the land itself. A farm house, a castle, a ship, an air balloon, ruins, tree houses, etc. I'm a big fan of cycles, and these are all stand-out unique lands that you can use in your deck to match.

The art was (finally) reused in Archenemy, so we can have them new bordered too!

I'm a big fan of panoramic lands, especially the diptychs in the Lorewyn block. I run the Plains and Forest diptych from Lorewyn in my Modern Bogles deck.