Splendid Reclamation is the kind of combo card
that gets your gears turning, trying to come up
with ways to break it. It’s not a great spell if
you’re trying to ramp into lands, since trying
to load up the graveyard with lands can be a bit
unreliable, and they all enter play tapped.
Where the card shines, though, is as a combo
card, one that can end the game quickly on cast.
The two major ways to break this card are with
potent individual triggers or with landfall.
Casting Splendid Reclamation with Valakut, the
Molten Pinnacle in play could bring back enough
lands to end the game then and there, and other
landfall effects (such as with Ob Nixilis, The
Fallen) can do the same. Think of this card as a
combo weapon, as a way to end games.
It's funny to think that despite its amazingly
elegant and powerful game text, this card would
never have been a sideboard option back in the
days of Magnivore. All too often, that deck's
opponents never got to four mana, even over the
space of twenty turns. But anywhere else - which
seems to be most places nowadays - it's a
devastating combo deck waiting to happen. It
gives you the chance to loop advantages of
various kinds when you play it alongside
Zendikar's lands with comes-into-play triggers
and Claws of Gix, and it ironically
strengthens certain land destruction decks by
returning cards like Ghost Quarter or
Encroaching Wastes. I expect to see a lot of
this card in many different formats.
