It amuses me somewhat that Phantasmal Terrain
hadn't been reprinted for several years, because
a lot of people didn't find much use for it, and
then this card appeared in M10. It can be a mana
fixer of last resort, or make sure your landwalk
creatures have something to do, but you'll often
have things you'd rather put in your deck.
Today's card of the day is Convincing Mirage a
slight upgrade of the old Phantasmal Terrain as
it only costs one Blue and a colorless instead
of two Blue. The main thing I want to point out
about the card is the fantastic artwork by Ryan
Pancoast as it really tells the story of the
effect unlike pretty much every similar card in
Magic's long history.
Aside from the image this is the type of card
one may use to allow creatures that require an
opponent having an Island in order to attack or
remove a key land or mana type from an
opponent's field.
For Constructed, Casual, and Multiplayer this is
a mediocre effect that really only helps
minimally useful cards. Casual may see the most
use out of it, but I don't feel this card does
enough to warrant a slot in anything outside of
a really specific theme deck.
With Limited this may be of some use against an
opponent in Sealed that is short on one of their
colors of mana or just to limit them somewhat.
It is less powerful in Booster as most decks
will be one or at most two colors. Unless your
pool is somehow a land destruction and control
theme I would pass this card in Booster and only
include it if you are stretching your Blue cards
tightly in Sealed.
