Welcome back readers todays card of the day
is one of the most powerful nonbasic land hate
cards. In legacy this card can single handily
warp formats and encouraged the fetching up of
basic lands and deck construction due to
vulnerability to this card, it truly defines
legacy and sees widespread play. In casual and
multiplayer there exists cheaper and more widely
available nonbasic hate if needed, the amount of
nonbasic lands fluctuates by playgroups
obviously and this cards effectiveness varies in
well. In regards to limited applications is an
obvious money draft card but pretty poor for
limited. Overall one of the most important cards
available in legacy.
Today's card of the day is Wasteland which is a
land that taps for one or if tapped and
sacrificed will destroy a target non-basic land.
This is a somewhat weakened form of Strip Mine
that is still extremely powerful and is a staple
in the Commander format. There is little
drawback to a one for one trade of this for an
opponent's most useful land, though it is
possible to run into a deck with only basic
lands it is not likely to happen often.
In a Limited format with this the effect is
less likely to be used, but is still valuable
and can leave an opponent without necessary mana
which is reason enough to always include it in
Sealed. For Booster it is a reasonable early
pick, likely first considering the monetary
value and versatility, that can fit into any
deck. Even though bomb creatures or removal are
more visible this can be very disruptive and it
would take an extreme dedication to winning
instead of card value to not draft this over any
rare.
In a sense, Wasteland is eminently "fair" -
it only does what it does under a very specific
set of circumstances. In practice, though, many
formats use so many nonbasic lands that
Wasteland is always "on", and the fact that it
exists means that keeping anything less than a
perfect hand can be a risk. That's true of
Legacy and Vintage and it's even true of
Commander: the only thing more popular than big
spells is multicolor decks, and those decks need
lots of nonbasic lands. (Though I'd try and
branch out with something monocolor, personally.
It also makes it easier to play cool stuff like
Nightmare!)
