Farseek – Ravnica Remastered
Date Reviewed: January 19, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.63
Casual: 4.13
Limited: 3.75
Multiplayer: 3.75
Commander [EDH]: 4.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
In case you were wondering if Magic discourse was ever less hyperbolic, the short answer is no. The initial release of Farseek illustrates this: some people were quick to proclaim cards like Rampant Growth obsolete, despite the fact that sometimes you need a Forest and sometimes you need a basic land (cf. Blood Moon). But even a situationally-worse Rampant Growth is still powerful, as people quickly built decks around searching for non-green shocklands – and nowadays, you can even get snow lands and Pauper-legal lands with it. In decks that have the time and ramp targets to justify it, Farseek is an outstanding card, and a lot more dangerous than it looks.
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 4
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
Farseek is an elegant card that plays far better than it reads, and it reads pretty well. The card came out in the multicolor-focused Ravnica block, and this was meant to give decks a way to help correct their colors and get their pairings online. It’s a cheap spell (the jump from two mana to four is one of the more notable breakpoints), and it’s actually a card that’s defined just as much by what’s not on the card.
Farseek lets you find a Mountain, Island, Swamp, or Plains. It does not say “basic”. This was in a block that introduced new dual-typed lands for the first time since the original 10 dual lands, and I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that they played well with those, as well! If you have shock lands in your deck, this lets you both push your green further and fix any other color requirements in one card. At two mana, that’s an excellent rate of return.
Th land coming in tapped is a bit of a downside to a lot of decks in faster formats, who’d rather not take off a turn to keep ramping. There is an exception int he Scapeshift-centric combo decks, who care more about quantity than about other concerns, and so Farseek is a valued piece of those decks as a way to help set up for their big kill turn. But in decks that might need that bit of extra help getting their engines firing, Farseek is superb, with a lot of lands that it plays well with anymore. As long as you’re not mono-green, this’lll do the job.
Constructed: 3.75
Casual: 4.25
Limited: 4 (even without shock lands, most decks in Ravnica Limited formats tend to run more than one color)
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 4
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