MTG Salvation

The moxen won't come off the banlist anytime soon. They're pretty much free ramp spells that produce colored mana, not to mention the price tag on it.
I don't think that Sol Ring should be banned simply because it's played in almost every optimized commander deck. Command tower is played in almost every commander deck and no one's complaining about it. Sol Ring is simply a good card in commander, and so is command tower. Should both be banned because both are good cards in Commander and because they are staples in almost every commander deck? I don't think so.

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I like the OP's name though
On topic: read the bones does fairly well for decks that want to draw specific cards, allowing you to dig up to 4 cards for 3 and 2 life.
But do you really need the accuracy in card draw? If not, cut it and run something that can draw 2 for cheaper(don't run Dark Confidant because your curve is way to high for it, probably for 2 more whispers). If yes, keep it.
It's a good card, but I'm not sure if it's better than night's whisper in your deck.

Quote from LouCypher »

I'm just imagining what Academy will do in my Niv-Mizzet deck. Which is, as you might've guessed, Izzet Artifice.

The mental results are not pretty. I don't need to playtest that. I have thought about unbanning it, and I actually proposed it a few dozen pages back. But no, the way EDH is played out, it's not a good idea to set it loose.
You shouldn't forget that it's incredibly easy especially in blue to actually get the Academy too. I have on various times done a Trinket Mage -> Expedition Map -> Academy Ruins chain. Then there's cards like Tolaria West, and various other tricks to snag that Map or the Academy itself. Just try and tell me, straight faced, that any blue Artifact based deck will NOT shove aside reason just to try and grab the Academy ASAP for insane mana bursts.

Same could be said for Gaea's cradle in green:there's no reason to not run it.
Honestly, unbanning academy might not be that bad.
@Vise: Probably because of money, but the card can still get pretty crazy in decks that want to draw a lot of cards fast, as this just speeds them up for free.

Warping the meta is when you mainboard hate, not sideboard it

It's not good in tokens, but it's solid in decks that have a bunch of small utility creatures.
Unlike Gigatomancer, Creeperhulk can actually swing and deal some damage. It also gives trample.
Khamal's ability is only good if you have a lot of creatures and if you have 2GGG to spare
Cratehoof is useless if you can't nuke someone.
He's a solid and possibly a more consistent than the options above.

Quote from Slarg232 »

Lots of good removal comes in the 1 mana flavor, namely Swords, Path, Lightning Bolt, and similar. Removal is actually surprisingly cheap, even in this format. You pay 12 mana for a Blightsteel Colossus, I pay 1 for a Swords/path, or 4 for Enter the Core.

That;s not the point.
The point is that just because it can be removed doesn't mean it's not broken.
Griselbrand can also die to removal, and he also doesn't win you the game on the spot. Same goes with limited resources. Yet they are banned.
You can also tap ring to get 2 mana and use that mana to cast something else.
It's just a crazy card, and it doesn't cost that much to do it, just one mana. The other 2 cost life(mana crypt and mana vault).

The "I can kill it, therefore it's not broken," is a silly argument. It essentially says, "oh look, mox jet isn't broken because I can kill it!" despite the fact that it's still a 1 for 1, and you probably used that mana anyways.
The fact that you have to kill it if it comes early if you don't want to get the game to snowball out of control is never good. T1 sol ring gives you 3 mana, but you can still cast a signet to get 4 mana. Next turn, cast something that costs 5 while. There are also good cards that cost 4(Jace, Elbeth, etc) while everyone else can only cast something that costs 2.
It's a card that sacrifices one card and gives you 2 mana, essentially making you profit one mana from that one play as well. Is rampant growth like that? No. You still slow yourself down for one turn to speed you up the next turn by one mana. Sol ring doesn't really do that. You cast it, you now have 2 mana open, and you can cast something for 2

There is Elsh norn, Grand Cenobite, who is a great finisher and destroy almost every toke-based deck.

Mindslaver is a perfectly legitament win condition. If TnN/any "I lock you down" card isn't a problem with your group, then Mindslaver shouldn't be.
The one problem I have with Mindslaver lock is that if you don't lose, you're mindslavered for the rest of the game, and at which point you kind of have one player playing for 2 people. But it's perfectly acceptable to use it to win.

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Thanks to Koto_Uchiha & Froze Over for the help!
Previous primer can be found here.


I: The Deck

1) Why should I play lands?

Lands is a control deck that focuses on well, lands. Over the years, Wizards of the Coast has decided to print many awesome land cards with abilities other than producing mana. Lands uses these cards as well as supportive enchantments and artifacts to create a very interesting deck unlike any other. However, due to the price tag and cards that do not cross over into other legacy decks, the deck is not common, but it is extremely fun to play.

2) How does the deck even work with all that land?

First of all, we try to outrace our opponents out of the starting gates with cards like Manabond, Exploration, and Mox Diamond. Once we establish an abundance of mana, we use cards like Rishadan Port, Wasteland and Ghost Quarter to deny our opponents mana. Then, using cards like Life from the Loam (Which we can tutor for via Intuition, Gamble, and to a lesser extent, Burning Wish) and Crucible of Worlds create an engine where we can drop multiple lands a turn and recur our Wastelands and Ghost Quarter.

3) What else does the deck run other than that?

We have had some nifty lands printed like Glacial Chasm, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and Maze of Ith, which help early creature threats which we try to establish a lock. We can also use the awesome Tolaria West to transmute out any land in our deck, and even get cards like Engineered Explosives and Zuran Orb. (Mox Diamond too, in a pinch!)

With the printing of Punishing Fire, the combo with Grove of the Burnwillows was established. Into the legacy scene comes Deathrite Shaman, and the Grove/Fire combo is necessary now to deal with such threats. The combo also comes in handy against other creature based decks, and can be used to handle pesky planeswalkers as well.

4) How does a deck like this win?

Honestly, the deck really doesn’t “win”. I’d go out to say games are won at least 50% of the time from the opponent scooping it up from the extreme mana denial or something like an Engineered Explosives lock with Academy Ruins. Aside from that, Lands has a few “manlands”, which are lands that turn into creatures by paying mana, such as Mishra’s Factory and Creeping Tar Pit. They can be tutored up once a game is locked up for the slow win.

The new legend rule released in 2013, gave us lands players a very deadly combo with Thespian’s Stage and Dark Depths. By copying the Dark Depths with stage, the following happens:

1) Thespian’s Stage targets Dark Depths with it’s clone ability.
2) Ability resolves, you now have two Dark Depths in play. Under the new legend rule, we must pick one to stay on the battlefield. We sacrifice the original Dark Depths and keep the Thespian’s Stage.
3) Thespian’s Stage becomes a copy of Dark Depths with 0 Ice counters on it, triggers, gets sacrificed and out comes the 20/20, flying, indestructible Marit Lage.

It's worth noting here that if your opponent lets your copy ability resolve, then tries to stifle the Thespian Stage's new Depths ability "When this card has 0 Ice counters, Put.." let them. They counter the ability, then the land sees that it once again has zero counters and just triggers again. Waste that stifle!

With this combo, lands now has a way to kill extremely fast, and should the token die, Life from the Loam can bring back both pieces of the combo to be done again. Decks in the past have also used cards like Worm Harvest and Mindslaver for the win, but this new combo is definitely the way to go.

II: Card Choices

Enchantments:

Exploration: This card really lets the deck go into overdrive. It’s pretty self explanatory. Playing multiple lands per turn = Winning. Always a 4 of.

Manabond: This aids exploration in dumping lands into play. It’s usually boarded out game 2 so you don’t get blown out by gravehate once you activate it. 1-2 of in Intuition-based lists. 3-4 of in the combo version.

Sylvan Library: Library is amazing as usual. Allows us to see three cards deep to plan strategies ahead, and if we’re already ahead, lets us pay life to quickly establish a lock or soft lock. Usually played in Enlightened Tutor versions, it’s never more than a 1 of.

Artifacts:

Mox Diamond: Any colored mana at the cost of what you say? Pitching a land? But we can’t possibly get land back! Ha! 4-of, possible 3-of.

Engineered Explosives: Creature/Enchantment/Planeswalker/Artifact killer that’s recurrable through Academy Ruins AND tutorable via Tolaria West. There’s usually at least two copies in the 75.

Ensnaring Bridge: Sometimes this just wins games against aggro. It’s slightly fallen out of favor with our new win-con being a 20/20, but 1-2 should try to find space in the 75. It has synergy with Manabond for quick hand dumping. One neat trick with this and Creeping Tar Pit is to dredge, get three lands back, swing with the pit and trigger Manabond/Exploration to prevent swingbacks.

Crucible of Worlds: Self explanatory. Recurring Wastelands, fetches, Ghost Quarters and pretty much everything else is great. Works well with Zuran Orb as a lifegain outlet, and can be a hard graveyard lock with
Bojuka Bog. It also helps in games 2 and 3 if Life from the Loam is to be surgical’ed.

Zuran Orb: Transmutable via Tolaria West, this saves us against quick aggro, and burn decks. This flat out beats Price of Progress with land recursion. It also protects manlands from removal effects. Almost always 1 in the maindeck.

Sensei’s Divining Top: More popular when Enlightened Tutor builds were big, top sometimes sees play over Sylvan Library. It has the added benefit of being able to save your Life from the Loam from a Surgical Extraction.

Oblivion Stone: The big boom. This and Academy Ruins can get pretty silly, and it punishes players that overextend. Sadly, it still gets hit by Abrupt Decay, so you can’t let it sit around and add fate counters like before. Still good though, especially in E-Tutor builds.

Instants/Sorceries:

Enlightened Tutor: Great card. Gets you an accelerant via Exploration/Manabond, removal via Engineered Explosives or Oblivion Stone, or furthers your lock with Crucible of Worlds or Ensnaring Bridge. Also fetches neat sideboard cards. It’s very situational depending on what you’re holding in your hand. 1-3 of in Enlightened Tutor builds.

Intuition: The possibilities with tutoring three cards are endless, there are so many piles you can make to frustrate your opponents. A resolved Intuition can easily let you pull ahead in the game. Piles will be discussed below. In Intuition builds, usually a 2-3 of. Entirely game state dependent on what you tutor for.

Basic Intuition piles usually go for Life from the Loam and two lands that either deny more mana (Ports, Wasteland), or finish combos (Dark Depths, Thespian Stage, Grove).

You can also get Academy Ruins, Life from the Loam, and any artifact in your deck (ie: Engineered Explosives, Crucible of Worlds, etc.

If you expect your opponent has a Vendilion Clique and he wants to tuck your loam on the bottom of your library, simply grab 2x Loam + 1 Land with your pile.

You can also in a pinch, tutor for 3x Exploration if you really need the acceleration.

Other fun piles include:
Life from the Loam, Punishing Fire, Grove of the Burnwillows
Life from the Loam, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Raven's Crime

Gamble: This card was played as a 4-of in the old style lands lists, but fell out of favor. With the new Dark Depths + Thespian’s Stage combo, they are seeing a resurgence in the combo lists as a 3-4 of. You can use this to tutor Life from the Loam, and even if they discard it, who cares? Nice 1 mana tutor.

Crop Rotation: Note that you have to sacrifice a land as an additional cost, meaning you lose if it’s countered, but a resolved Crop Rotation is amazing. You can rotate lands being targeted by opposing Wastelands, and it has the additional value of being instant speed so you can abuse lands like Bojuka Bog, Glacial Chasm or a Karakas facing down an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Again with the new Dark Depths+Thespian’s Stage combo, this card becomes BROKEN. If you have one of the two lands for the combo, simply EOT rotate into the other piece, make a 20/20, untap and swing in. Very deadly. 3-4 in combo lists, possibly in the maindecks or sideboards of [CARD]Intuition[CARD] lists.

Entomb: Another tutor, that can give you easy access to Life from the Loam, or if you already have it, another land that you need. Got Academy Ruins? Entomb an Engineered Explosives or Ensnaring Bridge. Generally fallen out of favor, but decent.

Punishing Fire: Combos with Grove of the Burnwillows for recurrable damage. With the uprise of Deathrite Shaman, this combo has become almost mandatory in current lands lists. In reality, this combo nukes almost all of legacy’s creatures, such as Stoneforge Mystic, Dark Confidant, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Delver of Secrets and more. The combo also has the added benefit of shooting down planeswalkers and can even become a very slow wincon.

Life from the Loam: If you’re even thinking of playing this deck, you should know what this card does. This card makes the deck work. It does exactly what we want to do. Recur lands, and give us a way to cycle through our deck faster than simply drawing a card each turn to find the lands we need.

Ravens Crime: Discard a land card to make your opponent discard a card. Loam and repeat and your opponent quickly has no hand. Works very well with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

Lands:

Academy Ruins: This land creates a soft lock with Engineered Explosives, and can bring back any artifacts that happen to hit the graveyard from dredging or destroy effects. With Academy Ruins in play, you can do silly things like slam Ensnaring Bridge over and over against aggro and even mill people out recurring Mox Diamond should the game progress that far.

Wasteland: Legacy is full of non-basic lands, from duals, legendaries and all of the inbetween. In some games, a single timely Wasteland can spell the end for some decks, but recurring these over and over can be game-winning. You can also use these to save your own manlands from exile effects like Swords to Plowshares, should you run them.

Ghost Quarter: Essentially Wasteland #5, it can also be used to strip the few basic lands in your opponents deck, then turn into strip mine. In a pinch, you can Ghost Quarter your own land to fetch your singleton basic Forest.

Rishadan Port: The second half of our mana denial plan, activating your Rishadan Ports on your opponent's upkeep keeps their mana in check and lets them only play instants during that time.

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale: This land wrecks aggro strategies, and also acts as mana denial. You can wait for it to trigger, have your opponent pay for whatever creatures they would like to keep, then follow up with Rishadan Ports tapping the rest of their lands down.

Maze of Ith: Another aggro denial land in our arsenal, this keeps us from dying to silly legacy beasts like Tarmogoyf. Maze of Ith really shines against decks that run very few creatures, like tempo. It can also save us from the dreaded turn 1 Goblin Lackey.

Glacial Chasm: Requires you to sacrifice a land when it comes into play, and has a fairly steep upkeep cost, but wins games. Combined with an Exploration effect, you can hardlock aggro decks out of the game. This land became better with the printing of Thespian’s Stage, as you can copy it in response to an opposing Wasteland to never drop the lock.

Bojuka Bog: Gravehate in the form of a land? Sold. Works well with Zuran Orb, as you can sacrifice it and recur it to reuse it.

Tranquil Thicket: Cycle lands can give us card advantage, but it also has the added effect of being able to dredge Life from the Loam at instant speed. This can be used to escape extraction effects, and can even be used during your main phase to get around cards like Vendilion Clique.

Karakas: There’s lot of legendary creatures running around the legacy format, from Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, Griselbrand, Gaddock Teeg and other randoms. Shines in matchups like Reanimator and Sneak and Show.

Mishra’s Factory: A great manland. Low activation cost, and can become a 3/3 blocker. Lists used to run 3-4, but with the new wincon, the land count dropped and these fell out of favor. Nowadays, it’s a 1 of, if at all. If you expect a lot of Geist of Saint Traft in your meta, this is not a bad call.

Creeping Tar Pit: Kicked Mishra’s Factory out of the best manland spot. Unblockable, Jace killing machine. Used to be the wincon before Thespian’s Stage/Dark Depths combo, may now be seen as a 1-of in decks.

Grove of the Burnwillows: Combos with Punishing Fire, produces green mana. Nuff said.

Tolaria West: The double blue transmute cost is a bit steep, but being a re-usable tutor via Life from the Loam is too good to pass up. It fetches any land in your deck, with the added bonus of being able to fetch Mox Diamond, Zuran Orb and Engineered Explosives. Also fetches Chalice of the Void.

Thespian’s Stage: Combos with Dark Depths as our new wincon. Also can double up as an extra Rishadan Port or something else silly. Don’t forget you can copy your opponents lands too! It can dodge Wastelands by copying a basic land.

Dark Depths: 20/20 Indestructible/Flying spaghetti monster? Sign me up.

Barbarian Ring, Cabal Pit: Usually not needed with Punishing Fire, it can be used to take out pesky hatebears and a slow wincon.

Nephalia Drownyard: A fairly new addition, some players are finding this useful against the blue decks that like to stack their draws with cantrips. It can also mill players out if need be.

Forest: Yes. A basic land. We play 1. Sometimes. Thanks Blood Moon.

Riftstone Portal: A neat land that can make our Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Dark Depths, Glacial Chasm and Maze of Iths produce mana. It also works through Blood Moon which is a bonus.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Same as above, this lets our non-mana producing lands get some love. Works well with Raven’s Crime.

Fetchlands: Any green fetchland will do. Since most land decks are 3+ colors, these help us smooth out our manabase and get the correct mana when needed. With Exploration + recursion, it also lets us obtain extra mana sources fairly quick. Note that running the same fetchland makes it an easy extraction target, so we run mostly 3 or 4 different green fetchlands.

Duals: Any dual with green will do. There’s really no limit to what you can play in a deck with so many colors. Each color gets you something for the deck.

Sideboard:

Dark Confidant: This guy is an amazing card, but works even better with the low mana curve of the deck. Post board, he gives us a way to get extra cards so we are not so reliant on the graveyard, and he also provides beats.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben: A hatebear that only adds to our mana denial plan, she shuts down combo and provides a clock.

Ethersworn Canonist: Another hatebear that hoses combo. Tutorable via Enlightened Tutor should you run it.

Geist of Saint Traft: Some choose to run geist in the sideboard as a quick clock, that is castable turn 2. As some players choose to leave removal in the maindeck for post-board bobs/ manlands, these will be sure to surprise them. Great against control decks like miracles too.

Chalice of the Void: Shuts down many legacy decks with low mana costs, especially combo decks, our worst matchups. Some games can be decided with a Turn 1 Chalice of the Void @1.

Trinisphere: Another card against combo, this card shines against the new Omni-Tell variants.

Sphere of Resistance: Similar to Thalia, Guardian of thraben plus it gets around creature kill spells and taxes everything, but it does not provide a body to attack with. Another way for us to tax.

Mindbreak Trap: Good against storm, but the artifact hate is generally better as you can recur them with academy ruins.

Cursed Totem: Shuts down certain decks like maverick, and shuts down Deathrite Shaman. Recurable via Academy Ruins.

Krosan Grip: Castable with our single forest, kills pesky cards such as Rest in Peace, Blood Moon, Counterbalance, Leyline of the Void and more.

Abrupt Decay: A bit harder to cast than Krosan Grip, but can hit creatures and walkers like Liliana of the Veil. A decent all around destroy spell.

Phyrexian Revoker, Pithing Needle: Generally used to stop planeswalkers, but can stop Deathrite Shaman cold as well.

Tormod’s Crypt: Transmutable via Tolaria West, reusable with Academy Ruins.

Last Rites: Pitch a bunch of lands to nuke your opponent's hand, then recur them. Seeing some play in the combo versions since they can Gamble for it.

Cards that have fallen out of favor:

Ancient Grudge: A solid card in the sideboard, because it fits in with the loam plan and can be cast from the graveyard of the one basic Forest in the deck. It is not played because people prefer Krosan Grip with Split Second.

Ray of Revelation: Gets rid of Blood Moon, can be cast even when dredged away, but has fallen out of favor and doesn't see play. See Ancient Grudge.

Cephalid Coliseum:Was used in blue builds as an optional win condition or fill the graveyard to add cards to the threshold count. Hasn't been used in ages from what I know, but should at least get an honorable mention here.

Nantuko Monastery: This one is a relic from the past, where the threshold was easier to get. A 4/4 vanilla creature with first strike? Nice, but Mishra’s Factory has proven to be better because it doesn’t rely on the graveyard.

Other manlands: There are numerous other manlands, that have and have not seen play in stages of very early development of this deck. Treetop Village would be an example.

Smokestack: Another old card that has fallen out of favor, Smokestack turns your recursion and extra land drops into a combo that eats away your opponents field.

Mindslaver: And oldie but goodie, this wincon has since fallen out of favor. Combos with Academy Ruins for a lock.

III: Decklists

There's a few versions of the deck running around. There is a newer combo version of lands and the more traditional Intuition based lands.

Intuition-Lands (20th Place @ SCG:Milwaukee, by Froze Over)


Sparki's Intuition-Lands list, 8th place SCG Oakland




Combo-Lands: (14th place @ SCG Legacy Open by Kurt Spiess)


IV: Matchup Analysis (Still filling in, if you have specific information, feel free to PM me!)

RUG: Favorable
Their entire deck is nonbasic lands, so you can easily tear apart their manabase. Watch for stifles on Engineered Explosives and Maze of Ith, but otherwise, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and land destruction is amazing here. Engineered Explosives lock flat out wins game 1, as they have nothing to stop it. Delvers can be shot with Punishing Fire, and they cannot kill Marit Lage tokens.
Expect: They will most likely bring in Surgical Extraction, Grafdigger’s Cage, and possibly Life from the Loam or Ancient Grudge.
Side in: Chalice of the Void will win you games, sometimes turn 1 if you can cast it @1. Aside from that, bobs force their bolts, and can block early Nimble Mongoose.
Side out: Manabonds, Intuition

Shardless BUG: Unfavorable
These guys have all the tools to stop what we like to do from Deathrite Shaman to Abrupt Decay. Punishing Fire, Maze of ith, and sometimes Tabernacle will help you a lot in this matchup. Your intuitions will likely not be resolved making it very hard to get any sort of combo that helps online unless you draw into it. An Engineered Explosives lock might seal the deal against them you found fast enough.
Expect: Now that they know you are playing lands they will be looking for that turn one Deathrite Shaman, attempt to have a Punishing Fire in the opening hand.
Side in: Dark Confidant, Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere, Cursed Totem, Abrupt Decay
Side out: Intuition, Crucible of Worlds, Manabond

Death and Taxes: Even/ Slightly Favorable
Our main plan is to tax and this deck will drop a turn 1 vial and use all their mana to tax you instead. Engineered Explosives, Tabernacle, and Punishing Fire are your best friends in this matchup. Expect them to side in Rest in Peace and watch out for Flickerwisp out of the vials to temporarily take out your mazes and chasms to get damage in.
Expect: Be ready for graveyard hate. Abrupt Decay will be able to kill almost everything they put on board.
Side in: Krosan Grip, Dark Confidant, Ensnaring Bridge, Abrupt Decay
Side out: Intuition Crucible of Worlds, Manabond, Bojuka Bog 1-2 Wasteland If additional space needed.

Maverick: Favorable
Punishing Fire destroys this matchup. Even an active Mother of Runes can simply be double punishing fired, and Engineered Explosives can destroy this deck. Watch out for versions splashing black for Deathrite Shaman and maindecked Scavenging Ooze. Maze of Ith is also very good here. You can punishing fire Knight of the Reliquary after a Bojuka Bog. Try to cut them off green during the length of the game.
Expect: Crypt, Relic, Extraction effects, Krosan Grip, Bojuka Bog
Side in: Krosan Grip, Abrupt Decay, Revoker, Ensnaring Bridge, Engineered Explosives
Side out: Intuition, Manabond

Elves: Favorable
This matchup is like any other combo deck... except we can Punishing Fire, Engineered Explosives, Tabernacle and Glacial Chasm the combo pieces. Tabernacle gets "shut down" by a Gaea's Cradle, so have a waste ready. A quick Natural Order on their side can end the game for you, so be careful. The most common elves deck don't run any wasteland, so you're free to do as you please, but they are running Deathrite Shaman as a mana dork.
Expect: Abrupt Decay, Viridian Shaman, Progenitus (possibly)
Side in: Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, Sphere of Resistance, Ethersworn Canonnist, Engineered Explosives, Phyrexian Revoker.
Side out: Maze of Ith (Leave 1-2 in), Intuition, Bojuka Bog, Karakas, Manabond. Boarding is a little difficult since you have so much you want to bring in, but they're a creature combo, so you still want to keep things like fires in.

ANT/TES: Even/Slightly unfavorable
Most people say that this matchup is very one sided, but when you look at it, most of their landbase is non-basic. They are able to do the turn 1 kills, but it’s not as likely as belcher and the like. Ports are also all stars in this, as many times, the single mana counts. Try to cut them off colors when they fetch basics and you should be fine. A quick marit lage can also take this match.
Expect: Surgicals or artifact gravehate like tormod’s crypt or relic. Our postboard game against them is amazing, probably favorable, if the turn 1 wins don’t show up.
Side in: Chalice/Trinisphere/Canonist/Thalia/Sphere of Resistance/Mindbreak Trap/ Revoker/ Dark Confidant
Side out: Intuition, manabond, maze of ith, glacial chasm, karakas, punishing fire. (Keep Tabernacle in, it’s safe against Empty the Warrens)

Belcher: Unfavorable
Turn 1 combo decks are the bane of lands. Game 1, we have very little to interact with them, they have a single land, so wastelands and ports are dead. An early glacial chasm or Marit Lage will be needed to take this game.
Sideboard: Some belcher variants don’t even sideboard, and the ones that do probably don’t have anything for you.
Side in: Chalice/Trinisphere/Canonist/Thalia/Sphere of Resistance/Mindbreak Trap/ Revoker/ Dark Confidant
Side out: manabond, maze of ith, glacial chasm, karakas, punishing fire, Tabernacle, Bojuka Bog. Keep Intuition in as they can’t interact with it, and you can intution for 3x hate if you run it.


High Tide: Beyond Unfavorable
This may be our worst matchup along with Omni-Tell. Mono blue, no disruption besides ports, they can High Tide in response to a port activation, and their Time Spirals do nothing whatsoever to help you. Artifact hate game two is easily dealt with an EOT Cunning Wish->Hurkyl’s Recall or Rebuild, then combo. Thalias are great in this matchup as it requires more spells to get rid of. There’s a story of a lands player who sat down across from a High Tide player. Lands knew what Tide was on, but not vice-versa. Tide kept their 7, lands scooped as not to give away information and sideboarded. Matchup got slightly easier with Marit Lage so we can race as their combo turn is turn 4, but still a terrible matchup.
Expect: They are using a wishboard almost without any graveyard hate. It contains their win-condition (Blue Suns Zenith) and many bounce/removal spells.
Side in: Chalice, Trinisphere, Canonist, Thalia, Sphere of Resistance, Mindbreak Trap, Revoker, Dark Confidant
Side out: Manabond, Maze of Ith, Glacial Chasm, Karakas, Punishing Fire, Tabernacle, Intuition.

Miracles: Even/Depends on the Version
Depending on the version, this can be either a great matchup or a terrible one. Terrible one meaning the combo version, maindeck Rest in Peace, and usually Blood Moon as well. Both versions tend to run moon, but usually 1, possibly 2 in the 75. They have an ample number of basics, but they need to hit 4 mana for jace. They also have very little pressure, which lets you expand your board state very well. Entreat can be stopped by placing an EE @ 0 for safety late game. Try to count how many basic land they have G1, it will help you a lot in future games if you plan to Ghost Quarter them. Cutting them off double white can win you the game.

Expect: Rest in Peace, Surgical Extraction, Blood Moon, Disenchant, Oblivion Ring
Side in: Thalia, Dark Confidant, Chalice of the Void
Side out: Intuition, Manabond (Note: Depending on the number of creatures/Entreat the angels, you may opt to board out Glacial chasm/Tabernacle and possibly a Maze of Ith. I like to bring in chalice as Chalice @ 1 stops Brainstorm/Sensei's Top/STP/Surgical/Spell Pierce etc.)

Blade Control:

Merfolk: Even
Merfolk is an interesting matchup. Ensnaring bridge game 1 instantly wins the game if you go hellbent. An Engineered Explosives lock will do the same. Remember that their lords give islandwalk, so Tropical Island can hurt if you're playing more manlands and need to block. Punishing fire does a lot of work here, as long as they have singleton lords, they are 2/2. Beware though, you can quickly get rushed down by angry 4/4 lords in a few turns if you aren't careful. As with any aggro deck, Maze of Ith and Tabernacle are good here. Your wastelands only hit mutavaults in this matchup, and ports can slow them down if they haven't resolved an Aether Vial.
Expect: Relic of Progenitus, Surgical Extraction, Echoing Truth. Game 2, you can win off Ensnaring Bridge again as they usually only board in 1-2 bounce spells, which you can simply replay.
Side In: Thalia, Dark Confidant, Ensnaring Bridge, Engineered Explosives
Side Out: Intuition, Manabond

Burn: Unfavorable
Price of Progress HURTS. Zuran orb ASAP, ports and wastes don’t do very much here, maze can save you damage against Goblin Guides, Hellspark Elementals or Keldon Mauraders. Your fastest way out of this matchup is making 20/20 tokens. Thespian stage + Glacial chasm can work too, but chasm alone doesn’t cut it.
Expect: Smash to Smithereens, Sufuric Vortex, Surgical Extraction
Side in: Chalice of the Void, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Ethersworn Canonist, Dark Confidant
Side out: Punishing Fire, Intuition, Manabond
Sideboard: Chalice 1 helps a lot, but chalice 2 shuts down price of progress, flame rift, keldon and the sideboarded smash to smithereens.
Jund:

Show and Tell variants: Unfavorable
Like other combo decks this is a bad matchup for us. Game one attempt to tax them and keep them off show and tell mana then be ready for whatever they throw into play this match can go several ways depending on which version they are playing. The decks are so volatile that you could be porting them off mana, then die to a sudden City of Traitors/ Ancient Tomb, Show and Tell -> Death. If the deck is running red, it is sneak and show. Ensnaring Bridge immediately wins. If monoblue, you will need ports and the Depths combo immediately. If you play Raven's Crime, that is your #1 go-to card in this matchup.

Sideboard: Sideboard depending on the version. Against Omni-Tell, you board out creature hate, ie: Tabernacle, Glacial Chasm, Punishing Fire (Keep maze for the hardcast Emrakul, they usually play 1-2) Putting in a Trinisphere into play off a Show and tell against Omni can win you the game. Against Sneak and Show, still take out the weaker hate like Punishing Fire, but keep in the Chasm, Maze, and Ensnaring Bridge.
Side in: Ensnaring Bridge, Krosan Grip, Trinisphere, Sphere of Resistance, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Side out: Punishing Fire, Zuran Orb, Engineered Explosives

Goblins: Favorable.
We definitely have the upper hand in this matchup. Maze of Ith, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Glacial Chasm and Punishing Fire are all-stars in this matchup. Be aware of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. She can slow us down quite a bit and paired with their Wasteland +Rishadan Port they can give us quite the headache. When we have recurring Glacial Chasm online, they can’t win, but be careful and don’t let them overextend, because they can pull a win from nowhere with a top decked Wasteland. Also be cautious about Krenko, Mob Boss and Goblin Warchief/Goblin Chieftain. They can flood the board with hasty Goblin tokens in no time. Engineered Explosives is situational in this matchup, it really depends on the board state. An early softlock with Academy Ruins[/CARDS] or if the board is full of tokens Engineered Explosives is really good, but because their curve relies on Goblin Lackey and Aether Vial, thus making it is so irregular; they have creatures with CMC 1, 2, 3, 4 and even 5.
Expect: If the opponent is playing the red-white build, expect Rest in Peace to come otherwise either Tormod’s Crypt or Relic of Progenitus. Or both.
Side in: Krosan Grip, Dark Confidant, Ensnaring Bridge, Abrupt Decay
Side out: Intuition, Crucible of Worlds, Manabond

Mono-Black Pox: Favorable.
Preboard this matchup should be easy to win. You should be able to bring everything back to the game, that gets destroyed. Deny them their mana, they only have one win condition. They have a slow game plan, similar to ours, but they can disrupt your mana. I even managed to cast Loam under a Nether Void. It crippled him more than it did to me. Be prepared for Game 1, cause takes a lot of time, we disrupting their mana, they keep disrupting our mana. They have easy ways to deal with Marit Lage, but if you keep recurring it, eventually they should be out of fodder.
Postboard this matchup gets a little trickier. More disruption and graveyard hate can give you a hard time. It can easily happen, that you go to time in game two.
Expect: Leyline of the Void, Pithing Needle, maybe Extirpate
Side in: Dark Confidant, Krosan Grip, maybe Chalice of the Void
Side out: Crucible of Worlds, Riftstone Portal, Intuition, Manabond

Useful Links:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28107-Deck-Lands - Lands Primer on the Source

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur-Oco1B0S0 - Sparki playing against Show and Tell, pretty funny game

http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/467891662 - Jump to 6:43(hours) to watch the Lands.dec

Alright, you guys dragged me in, one comment on the economy thing and then I'm out:

Find me another hobby where you can sell your stuff for even close to what you put into it.

The only one even close is music--when I got out of gigging, I was able to get 50-60% of the new price of most of my stuff on the secondary market. The difference though? I had to work for it! I was posting ads, taking professional pictures, dealing with moes coming to my house to try my amps and basses, etc. It was awful. And that was to make 50-60%.

I can make 50% off my MTG collection by taking it down to the most aggressive shop in town and haggling a little (and I can amp it up to probably 60% average simply by selling the high demand >$50 modern cards for 75% on FB).

There is just no hobby I have seen that compares. Go sell your golf clubs on Craigslist and let me know how that goes

What I see over and over again is people not being disciplined; oh, modern is too expensive, guess I'll buy some full retail packs at Walmart, guess I'll pick up off-color fetches and build half-assed budget decks. I know guys who have bought and rebought all kinds of garbage decks, been unsatisfied and sold them at 30% to the pawniest local stores, who bought 12 dollar temple gardens for their naya burn decks and then traded them back in for 6 bucks credit, blah blah, blah.

Magic is a remarkably affordable hobby if you have even a modicum of discipline. Set money aside, buy stuff when it's low, trade at equitable rates where possible, buy exactly what you need, and anyone with even a modest disposable income can play. There's a concept of delaying gratification that is very hard.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
And now for some banlist content:

Free stoneforge!

No, seriously, but I do think some kind of high profile unbanning of a fair-ish card is just what the doctor ordered to chill people out. There's a lot of sky-is-falling stuff; but damn if Sword of the Meek and AV didn't settle people pretty fast.

Island is always a safe choice.

Quote from investor3 »

Quote from midnight_baker »

The kind of person who looks at the top line of his card and reads those words?

Okay, I'll print you a playset of fetchlands with an image of an iPhone as the expansion symbol. I'll give all 20 cards to you for only $100.

Can I play at MTG events with them?

If so, print away!

Quote from TobyornotToby »

Now you're overreaching. Might as well make on-demand playsets. 4x Tarmogoyf for $4.

Yeah, that sounds about right, seeing as tarmogoyf should have never been a mythic in the first place.

Besides, printing those ridiculous staples at mythic did nothing to the prices for MM1, how could we expect anything less from this travesty?
What's that? Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, and Vendilion Clique became more expensive AFTER MM1!? Say it ain't so!
Why would all those silly little players complain? They can just use less expensive cards to make worse decks! Modern Juniors is all about making budget decks cheaper, not to lower the price of cards people ACTUALLY PLAY.

$800 for a playset of anything isn't going to help the game, unless we're talking pesos.

I canceled my pre-order and got singles and Dragons of Tarkir instead. The relative low average modern staple-ness of the commons and uncommons, combined with the ratio of modern playable rares to jank filler rares convinced me that it just isn't worth it, especially as the limited environment doesn't really look like anything special, certainly the guaranteed foil and level of limited design I'm seeing from the spoiler doesn't make these worth $10 a pack.

It's bad for other reasons as well, since a lot of cards that weren't in it have started going up just because of speculation of them not being reprinted soon. It's actually making it _harder_ to get into Modern overall, since most of the value in the set is focused on the mythics, they didn't get all the needed common and uncommon staples that had been going up, cards that are in it seem unlikely to go down much due to rarity, and cards that weren't in it seem like they are going up even if there isn't surges in demand, merely due to speculators reacting to them not being reprinted.

I think next time they need to do an unlimited print run, $5 packs (only +$1 for the guarenteed foil) and ensure they miss less staples, especially in the lower rarities, no skipping over key things like serum visions, path to exile, and inquisition of kozilek. They should also make sure that they don't put in any rares or mythics that haven't been seen in decks that got top 16 results in pro events or something, make sure all the rares are actually Modern playable, even if they might not be all pricey ones. Cheap ones is okay, ones not actually played in Modern is not at least IMO.

Quote from Tanro »

Quote from AvatarofBro »

I think they overanticipated how well this will sell. When it doesn't meet their expectations, they'll blame it on overprinting instead of a lack of quality, and underprint all future reprint products.

That is kind of how we feel.

We all excpected Modern Masters 2 : Bigger, Better, and Jammed full of value. What we got was modern Modern Masters 1/2 jammed full of bomb ass mythics and like 5 commons you wouldn't shut up about, but the rest is just for casuals.

Don't insult casual players like that. Even they can see the abysmal value in 34 under $1 rares (and 1 under $1 mythic).

And there in lies the general problem with it. It was built for drafters not modern players.

You know, having jank rares is one thing. Its to be expected, and some of them at least hold some appeal. Like Ant Queen hasn't been reprinted much and is a casual favorite, Endrek Sahr enjoys reasonable commander popularity, so that kind of stuff, I can live with.
What I am not okay with is stuff like Long-Forgotten Gohei. It's a poor anthem for a poor tribe. If it were to be included as draft support as an uncommon, that'd be fine. Sure, no worries about that. But having this unplayable piece of trash as a rare is just...ugh.
And then there's stuff like Wolfbriar Elemental. Normally I'd have given it a pass on the same condition as Ant Queen...but this guy has been reprinted TWICE already in the past 12 months. Making it feel like the most unneccesary inclusion ever. Yes, it's a limited bomb but come on Wizards, nobody needs more of those!

That's the real problem with this.