Polluted Delta – Onslaught
Date Reviewed: June 27, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 5.0
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 3.25
Multiplayer: 4.25
Commander [EDH]: 4.37
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
As James points out below, any of the fetchlands is analogous to any of the others in terms of general assessments. In a format with basic-typed nonbasic lands, a fetchland can represent any of the five colors, and sometimes even things beyond that when you factor in lands like Mystic Sanctuary. Of course, not everybody needs to get that fancy, and two-color decks get just as much benefit out of them in consistency; they’re also a proven boon for strategies like landfall, a lot of things that look at the graveyard, or even something as simple as activating things that look for sacrifices or things leaving play. While a lot of decks can get by without them in casual play, they’re the kind of card it’s great to have around, and that you’ll always be able to find a use for.
Constructed: 5
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 3
Multiplayer: 4.5
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
Consider this a review of both the 5 Onslaught/Khans of Tarkir ally-color fetch lands and the 5 Zendikar enemy-color fetch lands.
20 years since their introduction, the fetch lands have all been highly sought after in terms of competitive play, and it doesn’t take a lot to see why. The 10 of them are all lands that help improve the consistency of any deck they’re part of, and that’s thanks to them coming into play untapped and only caring about the land type they’re finding. This means they can find the dual lands with two basic types (most famously, the ABUR dual lands or the Ravnica shock lands) or the triomes of Ikoria and Streets of New Capenna, and the ability to turn into nearly any relevant land in your deck is massive. They’re tools that help your deck get to its plays more consistently and reliably (effectively, each one is another copy of the critical land in question), and being able to both do so immediately and bring in the land untapped (if it can do so) is what makes the fetches so inextricable in every format they’re part of.
They are not perfect tools, of course, and while they can help most decks, there are some lands they can’t find that you’d want to find…and their abilities are not mana abilities, leaving them vulnerable to the likes of Stifle and Pithing Needle. Still, their upshots outweigh their weaknesses, and the majority of constructed decks in formats where they’re legal have reason to consider them in pat of their calculus.
Constructed: 5
Casual: 4.5 (less of a need to be tightly-tuned, but these still help most decks out a lot)
Limited: 3.5 (rarely have tools to work well with in Limited, outside of Zendikar‘s land-heavy focus)
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4.25 (while they may not seem “ideal”, off-color fetches can be run as they functionally don’t have a color identity, so you’re realistically going to have a lot more options than may be apparent)
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