Leyline of the Void – Core Set 2020 MTG Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

Leyline of the Void is in the class of card whose power was recognized immediately on release. Remember that its first printing dates all the way back to Guildpact, right in time to do battle with Ravnica: City of Guilds‘ dredge mechanic; some Vintage metagames to this day still revolve around duels between dredge and Leylines. It’s even strong enough to be a sideboard card in singleton formats – while you don’t get any benefit for casting it late, like with Rest in Peace, it’s still a good card at any point of a game against graveyard decks.

Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 2/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
EDH/Commander: 3/5

We’ve seen three tranches of Leylines in Magic‘s long history (Guildpact, Magic 2011, and Core Set 2020), and Leyline of the Void is the only one to be a member of all three tranches. It’s easily the strongest of the Guildpact Leylines, a powerful effect that strips the ability of opponents to use their graveyards by exiling what goes there. It also keeps your graveyard in one piece (unlike Rest in Peace), and it has the Leyline clause of coming in for free if it’s in your opening hand. While you’d want this online as soon as possible, being able to keep graveyards from being a safe zone means that you’re not too disheartened about this showing up later; that said, it doesn’t exile what is already in graveyards, so an opponent might have had enough time to set up in faster formats.

Leyline of the Void is a perennial sideboard staple, and it even has things to do in Standard, given the prevalence of Arclight Phoenix and the presence of mechanics like jump-start. Even if it’s not a 10/10 card in some games, there’s usually some reason to consider this for your sideboard, and it’s a good card in Commander for stopping degenerate strategies involving graveyards while still allowing your own degeneracy to take place.

Constructed: 4.25
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 1.5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander: 4.25