MTG Salvation

Hey folks,

Was wondering if I can pick the brains of some of the people here. Working on slowly building up another commander deck and most of my good lands are placed in my competitive deck and I am trying to flesh out the other deck for back up. My question is for three colors, are the Khans CIPT lands that gain you one life better or worse than the temples from Theros? I do have the CIPT lands in the majority colors in my colors but I was three lands short and instead of basics I used a UB fetch, UB temple, and RB temple the only color was black. Should I just get more CIPT lands that produce life or should scrying get me farther?

thanks.

In a format where life totals are doubled, life gain matters half as much.

Unless you're running a deck with a lot of life gain synergy, I'd much rather have the card selection power of the temples.

If you're going to run a land that CiPT either way, scry 1 is massively better than gaining 1 life.

In Commander, Life is significantly less valuable than in Modern/Standard/Limited, which is what the Khans Duals were designed for. I'd go with the Scrylands.

Temples are leaps and bounds better. Snow cipt lands have a higher celiing than gain lands.

I like both but Scry land's are definitely better. I do like the gain life land's in my Oloro deck tho allowing me to trigger his ability with a land drop is nice lol

Quote from Weebo »

If you're going to run a land that CiPT either way, scry 1 is massively better than gaining 1 life.

Unless you've got Well of Lost Dreams and more mana than you could use in a turn, but otherwise the scry is just so much better.

Theros Temples for sure. Not close.

/barn everyone else. Given the choice between the two, Temples hands down.

Quote from World_Peace »

Temples are leaps and bounds better. Snow cipt lands have a higher celiing than gain lands.

Want to echo this. If for any reason you run snow lands, the 5 snow duals are worth running because of Scrying Sheets and Into the North.

Hey thanks everyone. Looks like I will be running the Scry lands. Abzan thanks you as the stax everyone on the table for their aggression.

Scry is better, but it costs 10 times as much. A set of 3 runs like 5 bucks instead of 50 cents. That's some big money.

Temples are one of the best land cycles in terms of performance for the price. Pain and Odyssey filters are the only better bargains I can come up with off the top of my head.

Life lands are never better, and don't merit running at all unless you're on a tight budget or running Drogskol Reaver or Karlov of the Ghost Council.

Quote from Elvish Sniper »

In a format where life totals are doubled, life gain matters half as much.

And half of practically zero is...practically zero? (Even before considering Voltron decks.)

OTOH, in a format with 100 cards, library manipulation matters 1.67 times as much. And in a format with only one of any (non-basic land) card, library manipulation matters four times as much. Suggesting it matters 6.67 times (4*10/6) as much.

I would run them in Oloro, but that's about it. Scrylands for me. (Especially since I ran New Benalia a lot in pre-Theros days. Even in Oloro, Kabira Crossroads is debatable.)

@darkeshrine: Or Oloro, Ageless Ascetic or Drogskol Reaver?

Unless there is a way to literally fully go off from the life gained from the lands, I would choose temples. "Paying" (C/D) for 1 life is not worth it in almost every situation. Temples are usually okay and almost always useful, and no more of a downside than any other CIPT land.