Horizon Canopy – MTG Card of the Day

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

One of the things that makes Horizon Canopy so interesting is that it initially reads as either stronger or weaker than it actually is, depending on your personal inclinations and tendencies in Magic. As just a mana producer, it’s less versatile than the similar Ice Age and Apocalypse pain lands and less generally powerful than the Ravnica dual lands. If you want to draw cards, there are more purely powerful ways to do so even if you insist on using a land to do it. But it’s the ability to convert it into an extra card draw in the late game when you have enough lands, or in situations where you’re suitably pressed, that makes it worthwhile. Some decks that only played one of its colors have included it anyway, just to have that option. It’s also an easy and beneficial way to put a land into your graveyard when you have something like Terravore or Tarmogoyf.

Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
EDH/Commander: 4/5

Interesting fact: Horizon Canopy was pushing $90 before its reprinting in Iconic Masters. That’s what being a Future Sight rare with no reprinting and a lot of use in Modern decks will do to you.

As oft gets told, life is but a resource, and the only point of life that usually matters is your last one. While Horizon Canopy seems questionable, as a dual land that burns through your life and has no way to produce colorless mana (so, a bad Brushland), where it shines is that you can turn it into a card late-game when you don’t need the mana (but you do need cards). It’s that flexibility, and the fact that it comes into play untapped all the time, that makes Horizon Canopy a nice fit for aggressive builds and a solid inclusion in the toolbox of dual lands.

Constructed: 4.75
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 3.75
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander: 4