Top 10 Worst Lands in MTG
Вставка
- Опубліковано 10 лип 2024
- Just about every deck in Magic has to run a lands in order to cast their spells. Some lands are really good, and some… not so much. So today, we’re going to go over the worst lands in the entire game.
Script and Editing by Pumkinswift
├ The List
Intro: (0:00)
10:Lava Tubes: (0:13)
9: Teferi’s Isle: (1:16)
8: City of Shadows: (2:37)
7: Undiscovered Paradise: (3:46)
6: Forsaken City: (4:58)
5: Rainbow Vale: (5:50)
4: Oasis: (6:50)
3: Halls of Mist: (8:06)
2: Unholy Citadel: (9:22)
1: Sorrow’s Path: (10:58)
#mtg #tcg #magicthegathering
Undiscovered Paradise is really good in landfall decks for two reasons. First, you can get extra triggers of landfall without worrying about making sure you get a new land in your hand each turn. Second some of those decks run cards that allow to play extra lands each turn and so you could also still get other lands out. At least it comes into play untapped.
Also, not that you can do it in commander, but it does go infinite with fastbond
@@christianhamm3563 what do you mean? it bounces back during your untap phase and you can't play lands during that phase. Also it only bounces once per turn.
This guy is clueless.... Undiscovered paradise is not one of the worst lands in magic.
I was going to say that.
Also Ghost town
Bit obvious since you mentioned it in the video, but Top 10 Lands That Don’t Give Mana would be interesting. As a casual Magic player that essentially played Duels off the Planeswalkers and that’s it, advanced Magic fascinated me.
A lot of the ones in the top 10 utility lands would fill that one, since a lot of them don't make mana.
Maze of ith
Maze of Ith, Dark Depths, Evolving Wilds and its clones, Glacial Chasm, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Eye of Ugin, Bazaar of Baghdad, fetch lands, Diamond Valley
@@gregoryfolsom7882 Also stuff like Vesuva since that's part of why Dark Depths is useful.
Urborg would 100% be on that list also, its just too useful not to take at least a runner-up position
Undiscovered Paradise doesn't belong on this list, it saw play in Vintage Dredge for a while because it could both cast Nature's Claim and trigger Bloodghast each turn. Doesn't see play anymore but it did for quite a while.
It also pays the upkeep on stasis very well.
forsaken city is also used in stasis decks to unsure you can pay for stasis.
Additionally, when it came out, in those olden days, it was heavily HEAVILY coveted. There were very few lands that could produce all colors up to that point and as soon as one of these was opened we would all swarm to see if they were willing to trade for it.
@@Kreas_me_wmo_lipos "mono" green aggro, wasn't scared to lose 1 land, to memory lapse your wrath of god, then kill you.
I currently run Undiscovered Paradise in my landfall commander deck. It helps guarantee that I always have a land to trigger landfall and it's downside is mitigated since I can play multiple lands per turn.
I have City of Shadows in my thief themed commander deck because it is one of the few exile outlets in the game. That's what makes City of Shadows so special and powerful in the right situation. Steal an opponent's creature, and then exile it for value, and it won't go into their graveyard where it could possibly come back if they have a graveyard strategy.
That land seems so sick! I thought it would say ‘remove those counters’ when you tapped for x but no it just keeps stacking up into a bigger and bigger land.
I’m using the storage lands in a proliferate deck and gave it a good thinking but ultimately I don’t have any creatures to sac. Stealing the enemies creatures just to Altar them (but a permanent charge counter) sounds like a great time. Or maybe some silly Hidden Strings + ‘tap to create a token’ permanent to charge it up multiple times a turn. If only it was modern legal I want to brew so bad but no way I could convince my friends to go legacy with me ha. Glad you found a home for it in commander
City of Shadows is also in a weird place because the original card text was a sacrifice effect, while this was haphazardly removed in the rewrite. There are a number of janky synergies if that errata is undone (or ignored), like Savra for Commander. It's also not a legendary, on account of being from The Dark, three sets before Legendary was introduced. A Legacy or Vintage swap-and-sacrifice deck featuring Grave Pact, Mortician Beetles, Phyrexian Towers, and City of Shadows would be interesting.
Sorrow's Path is interesting because while it's overall an objectively terrible card, it does have a home in Gishath, Sun's Avatar EDH decks.
The blocker swapping is relevant as you want Gishath to be blocked by as small a creature as possible and the 2 damage to you creatures is actually an upside since it triggers the enrage keyword. Also, weirdly enough, the dinosaur tokens created by some of dinosaurs are 3/3s so actually survive a Sorrow's Path activation.
while this sounds ok, I don't think it's worth it at all. You essentially would need to play against Noobs who don't know what they are doing to make use of the block-swap effect and there are waaaay better better ways to damage your creatures while also killing your opponents small dudes
@@philippschmidt9499 but it does have a use
the fact that it as a use is pretty fun even if realy nich and not realy good even there
@@philippschmidt9499 - "You essentially would need to play against Noobs who don't know what they are doing to make use of the block-swap effect"
Yes and no - for someone to actually set up a block that you could meaningfully swap for an advantage, yes, but by having it on the field and representing the ability to use it, you're still (potentially) preventing more skilled players from making the blocks they'd _want_ to make, because making them would result in a swap. Sometimes representing the threat is all you need to make an ability useful, not even activating it.
@@KingBobXVI "Even the threat of power has power."
-Jeska, warrior adept
Small note on two of the cards here.
Forsaken City sees play in stasis combo. The fact that you draw a card each turn and it can untap through stasis means you can always pay stasis' upkeep cost is significant, thought it's by no means a top tier deck.
Undiscovered paradise is more useful though it only really sees play in low-cost decks featuring bloodghast. The reason why it's better than ravnica bouncelands in these scenarios is that you still get 1 mana each turn you play it, where you get none from the tapped bouncelands
into play Tapped lands become dual lands wth multiple Amulet of vigor you get one man for each vigor in play first turn played
@@0011peace Yes, but dredge decks are never playing amulet of vigor because they don't use much mana at all to the point that a card that costs 3 or more is unplayable, a card that costs 2 is usually going to be a sideboard option at best like ancient grudge, which costs 1 to flashback anyhow, and 1 mana is what most of their cards cost or zero.
@@dstreetz91
There are other places to use amulet. And, good casual decks have higher mana averages than tourney decks
Undiscovered Paradise also saw play to maintain Stasis.
undiscovered paradise was a mainstay in vintage dredge for quite a while to proc bloodghasts and be able to cast any hate card you needed to play. also, in that same vein, bazaar of bagdaad is the best land that doesn't produce mana, and it is not close.
This video brought to you by: a magical world where dredge doesn't exist.
Sounds like a great world
Yeah when he said tabernacle and dark depths I'm thinking bazaar of baghdad, the most powerful card you can have on a mulligan to one that still enables you to win on turn 2 or turn 3. Paradise has seen play in multiple formats. City of shadows is irrelevant in legacy/vintage, but it's still worth over $100 because reserved list and commander decks love the card potentially. Would have thought that he'd know about bazaar when he mentioned tabernacle, a card that was worth only a handful of dollars up until the early 2000's when people kind of caught on, but legacy lands wasn't made for a while. Dark depths only became good when hexmage was printed, then later on thespian's stage.
@@dstreetz91 the damning part is he literally put bazaar on screen next to glacial chasm ffs
@@dstreetz91true, even Maze of Ith is probably better than Dark Depths. Anyways, this guy doesn’t even remotely seem to understand what he is talking about.
The "bands with other" ability used to be even worse than normal banding. Creatures with "bands with other" could only band with other creatures that had the same "bands with other" category. For example, if I had unholy citadel and three legendary creatures in play (two black and one non-black), only my two black legends could band together, while the other legend could not join because it didn't have the "bands with other legends" ability.
A band on offense could have one member without banding, on defense only one had to have it
@@gregoryfolsom7882 For normal banding yes. For "bands with others" no, until they changed it. There's a reason it was considered the worst ability ever made.
@@gregoryfolsom7882 - Banding and "bands with other" are annoyingly completely different abilities that don't really interact with each other. It's where most of the perceived "complexity" of the banding mechanics comes from.
Thankfully though, it was basically never used. Aside from the cycle of 5 legends lands mentioned in the video, the only other non-silver border card that references it is Master of the Hunt, which doesn't even _have_ bands with other, but makes wolf tokens that band with other wolves.
@@KingBobXVI Master of the Hunt has to be one of the worst creatures ever made.
@@yoman8027 - not really, it's just slightly overcosted. The "make a wolf" ability doesn't require it to tap, so it's actually decent as a mana sink if you need one.
forshaken city and underdiscovered paradise have alot of top 8's across multiple formats, and even sometimes see play today. They're very niche lands with often very bad effects and 99% of decks would not play them. However they are by no means the top 10 worse lands in the game and have historically been nichely playable and have top cut's assoicated with them.
Was just gonna go there. Undiscovered Paradise probably still makes the list due to the very specific needs of its decks, but probably should have been higher up the charts (maybe 9th or 10th).
Dredge very much so likes Undiscovered Paradise’s ability to come down, then, in:re to a 4-pack of Bloodghast triggers, tap it for G to Nature’s Claim a Grafdigger’s Cage.
“Can you say blowout? Because that’s what that kind of play leads to.”
Yeah, undiscovered paradise is played by combo decks that don't expect there to be another turn after it comes down - that or they are using it alongside landfall.
@@Shattered_Universe Stasis is a card also
@@SuperAhii Right, forgot how stupidly those two come together to lock down a game. I was mainly posting about Dredge, since it's one of the Four Pillars of Vintage, and therefore a tier-1 deck, but that's applicable. Might be enough to take it off the list entirely, then.
Yeh this guy has no clue
Undiscovered Paradise is a very good land. As long as retesting to your hand is upside its very good. Legacy and Vintage dredge decks use it to too 8 competing decks to this day for both perfect mana and to trigger landfall for bloodhast every turn. Any card used for competitive success can’t be considered bad.
Also to add, undiscovered paradise is used in legacy mono blue mill to consistently trigger your crabs.
Wouldn’t this just be a list of the fetch lands?
Trading a land drop for a lotus petal is perfectly fine. UP was in championship decks in its day.
Yeah, when paradise showed up I thought isn't that still used in dredge because they operate on 1 mana just fine usually, it colorfixes, and bloodghast. It isn't a bad land compared to some like the filter trilands from homelands I thought would be up there because they tap for a colorless, or they filter 1 mana into 2 colors, and 2 mana for the third. They are pretty awful.
@@dstreetz91 legacy’s oboro.
Undiscovered paradise Is a good card. By itself it's decent and it has lots of sinergies in legacy and vintage. It is also one of premodern's best lands.
He clearly doesnt know the great synnergy with political trickery either.
He has no clue at all, no reason to follow this channel and be fed with low quality information.
Undiscovered Paradise saw competitive play as did forsaken city. Banding was dropped because it was complicated not because it was weak. It was one of the strongest sealed/draft abilities of the day.
I find it funny that few people have ever found the broken way to use Rainbow Vale. Vedalken Plotter plus Rainbow Vale and the thievery of your opponent’s lands begins. It works. I haven’t found any better way to use the Vale. It is a great combo that essentially makes your lands my lands. With a God draw you can begin the shenanigans on turn 2.
It doesn’t work.
“If control of Rainbow Vale has somehow changed before the “at end of turn” ability resolves, the player who activated the mana ability (not the current controller of Rainbow Vale) chooses one of their opponents to gain control of it.”
Given that most of us know DuelSpider isn't a MtG main, I'd recommend the writer for these dial back on the "I" statements. It doesn't need to be authoritative, but can be easily somewhere in between that and a personal take.
Banding does something a lot better it first appears. When you block or get blocked the banding player chooses where the damage goes not other player and you can spread it out however you want(do damage spread in a way no creatures die or put all the damage onto one creature negating trample damage). Banding is great on damage redirection creatures(like Stuffy Doll) or creatures with attack triggers you want to protect. Nobody would block a Stuffy Doll but a pack of creatures with a Stuffy Doll in there can be a threat. The only reason why Banding is considered bad is because it confuses people.
also all banding cards are older now, meaning they tend to be slightly more expensive mana wise than newer cards (imagine something like questing beast being printed in early magic)
In regards to Teferi's Isle, I'd like to add that the "concept" was you would have ~3 in your deck so that you consistently had 2 "in play," causing you to essentially always have a Teferi's Isle available by alternating their phases. Still terrible in practice, but I've always found the Phasing mechanic wildly entertaining and am glad that there was SOME thought process behind this otherwise terribly slow land
uhh still strictly and significantly worse than just running islands.
I watched your yugioh videos for so long (no idea how to properly play at the competitive, just found it interesting to see what the game and meta was like) and am so happy to see you’re doing magic videos now!
Still love bringing out Oasis in my Horobi deck. It is great to see the look on people's faces.
Sweet "combo" ;)
"Banding is complicated and weak"
Complicated, yes
Weak, heck no
Controlling all combat damage assignments is pretty strong, more than what you give credit here
For example, you can pile up a bunch of 1/1s to block a 5/5, and since you assign combat damage, you can make a single 1/1 of your choice soak up the entire 5 damage
This way you only lose a single 1/1 while they lose their 5/5
there is not a single card with banding that ever saw relevant tournament play *because* it has banding. Thats like, the definition of weak bro xD
@@ich3730 banding was literally too powerfull for the draft format. White usta be the king of draft decks which also isnt the definition of weak. Assigning combat dmg how you want is pretty decent its jus confusing cus no where on a banding card does it explain how bands work.
It also effectively turns off trample because assigning excess damage to the defending player or planeswalker is optional (it's usually assumed that the attacking player wants to assign the excess damage that way, but the attacker can choose not to do that). Therefore if the defending player blocks a trampling creature with a creature that has banding, they can choose to assign all damage to the blocker.
@@ich3730 it didn't see tournament play because any creature with it was over costed and not competitive.
Having a Benalish Hero and anything with protection from a color was just terrible to play against
@@ich3730 - moreso that by the time tournaments really came around, banding was already on its way out as a mechanic. They made it bad by only putting it on super expensive weak creatures in the latter sets where it was used.
WotC didn't discontinue banding because it was weak. It's actually incredibly strong. It's just that nobody, not even the highest level players, actually knew how it worked.
People mentioned the cardinal role of Forsaken City to make Stasis work and how great Paradise plays with Bloodghast specifically. The sweetest thing Paradise did in Vintage until very recently is that you even had a free throw away card for Bazaar of Baghdad after the singular land granted you multiple creatures
I actually run halls of mist as a sub for glacial chasm in my groups less competitive matches.
Cumulative upkeep adds a counter to track costs, so a nesting ground can essentially maintain it forever (EDH omnath landfall, so plenty of search to grab it if I want it/ways to bounce it from the field)
Halls of mist turns a 3clock commander into a 5clock, but still leaves me as a viable target for attacking, where as a glacial chasm removes me from being a combat target entirely (thus a little less fun in casuals)
Okay list video! Thanks for uploading!
Seen Sorrow's Path used effectively in a deck full of enrage dinos and Stuffy Dolls. Wouldn't call it top tier or anything, but it worked, and Sorrow's Path was actually an asset.
In defense of Teferi's Isle, it's something okay when you sequence it properly with Armageddon or some such. It also has decent synergy with Worldfire.
City of Shadows also has pretty good utility, for example, I steal opponent's creatures and eat them with City of Shadows or Food Chain. CoS is better in some cases, since it's harder to remove and you get use out of it even if you don't have any creatures in hand for Food Chain mana.
Some of these cards are actually pretty good cards, but you have to think outside the box, not just simple mana production.
There is no way Teferi's Isle would be in the top 10 worst when it still works with Amulet Titan.
Also I'd be really surprised if Lava Tubes fits in the top 10 when there are a bunch of non-mana producing lands with terrible effects.
Undiscovered paradise is actually just... a really good card in niche decks. Guaranteed landfall trigger every turn and it's still a 5-colour land. And not just weak decks, the card makes multiple top 8s every year in Legacy which is one of the most high-powered MTG formats that exist. It was even used in vintage decks which is THE highest power magic format until the decks which used it rotated out of the meta in 2019 with new cards printed. The card is pretty much the perfect example of a seemingly horrible downside actually being an extremely good upside. Like the aggro example of a deck has every land drop let you get (any number of) Bloodghast -> Prized Amalgam -> Gravecrawler from your graveyard every single turn if your opponent manages to kill them.
No one plays that in titan though
For banding, your explanation isn't quite right - you don't choose the damage order (the owner of the damaging creatures still does, technically), you just _ignore_ the damage order and apply damage however you want.
For a better example, say you have two 2/2 Grizzly Bears with banding, and your opponent has one 2/2. If they attack, you can block with your band of 2/2s and split the damage assignment between them, dealing 1 to each so neither dies. It also means they're unlikely to block your band, since it would turn their 2/2 into a chump block. If they had a 6/4, you can choose to assign all 6 damage to one creature, meaning you lose one 2/2, and they lose their 6/4.
This also affects the assignment of trample damage (also, with regular banding, you _can_ form a band of one...). So if they have, for example, a 10/10 with trample and you have a 1/1 with banding, you can block with the 1/1 and choose to have all the damage get assigned to the 1/1 to prevent the trample damage affecting your life total.
Also, any "is blocking/blocked by" effects can be triggered by a creature blocking/blocked in a band even if they don't get damage assigned to them. The only real payoff I've found for this though is Bushi Tenderfoot, a 1/1 who flips into a 3/4 with double strike and bushido 2 when it kills something in combat.
After reading this I have a mono black deck where Unholy Citadel might be pretty useful
Yeah banding is broken in the context of combat honestly. Deciding how all the damage is divided is pretty insane, so they stopped it. Most people don't understand banding though since it's so old and they haven't looked at the comprehensive rules on banding.
Notably, "bands with other [quality]" is slightly different, in that it requires a second creature to be considered a band. And since it doesn't allow creatures that don't have that quality into the band, it can be much more difficult to make a band. That makes the banding lands still very awkward to use at best, requiring a high density of legendary creatures and a willingness to run a card that does nothing in a lot of cases.
Errand of Duty is a fantastic card though, as you can make a perfect blocker at almost any time.
"The only real payoff I've found for this though is Bushi Tenderfoot"
Which isn't even actually an is blocking / blocked effect, it's a damage/destruction effect.
A really good payoff for banding is banding something with which makes every creature block it and something that destroys all creatures who block it... e.g. Elvish Bard and Sylvan Basilisk
Undiscovered paradise is actually quite good, it has three world champion deck printings: Brian Seldon 1998, Jakub Slemr 1997, and Janosch Kuehn 1997. It also top 8'd dozens of legacy and vintage tournaments between 2011 and 2018. It even got top 8 at a CEDH (one of the highest power formats in magic) tournament 3 months ago.
Banding also tends to be more powerful than most people realize. Largely because it's so complicated that no one really knows what it does. Though the banding lands are complete garbage and deserve their place on this list.
Sorrow's Path is quite likely the worst land in all of magic; but it at least has the squid of sorrows combo which is hilarious.
Adventurers' Guildhouse is surprisingly great in Legend tribal in green : there's Reki & Kolvori, and you can also use trample enablers to mitigate Band disadvantage, Nylea & Rhonas are great because they are also indestructibles legendaries, making your band of heroes truly awesome.
I just built a Commander deck around Banding/Flanking/Trample with this cycle as a central component.
Did you know that according to Rule 510.1c "An amount of damage that’s greater than a creature’s lethal damage may be assigned to it."
Toski alone makes a band invincible, that is if there are any blockers left after they are all forced to block the band due to the Lure, which triggers each Flanking in the band.
@@JTByrd386 which commander do you use?
@@tommasobonvecchio Sidar Kondo & Sakashima
ya i have a selesnya legendary tribal deck with that and the white version of that card
Undiscovered Paradise was once an expensive card. You could use it to defeat/or in combination with Winter Orb. I suppose Armageddon decks played it, sometimes, too.
7:17
I assure you, Dark Depths is not as strong as Tabernacle or Bazaar.
The token has way too many weaknesses associated with it to really sit with the big bois.
and that's why half my local legacy meta is various lands decks with depths combo in them.
@@arachnophilia427 you know, bazaar is banned in legacy, depths is very strong but bazaar is outright broken
Depths is really powerful. Yes, it isn't as strong as bazaar, one of the best lands and cards in the game in general. Like if you ranked top 10 most powerful magic cards, bazaar is worth including in such a list. Tabernacle can't be super broken purely because you can only have one in play/can't stack the effect on top of each other barring mirror gallery shenanigans and some decks don't play creatures or may have just one creature out/easy to pay usually. Bazaar though is just an absurd engine card that if left unchecked wins the game by itself.
@@arachnophilia427 there's another MTG lister (nizzahon) who goes over the competitive numbers for various card types (top 8s score better than top 16s, etc etc) - if you actually check by the numbers, Dark Depths beats a lot of lands...
But even among non-mana producing lands, it's still easily outpaced by Tabernacle, Maze of Ith, Eye of Ugin, and basically *all* the fetch lands. (And Bazaar only failed to make the list because it's banned from Legacy)
Looking to other lands, we can easily find stuff like Strip Mine, Inkmoth Nexus, Gaea's Cradle, Valakut, Bojuka Bog, Urborg (Tomb of Yawgmoth), and Tolarian Academy all easily outpace it in pro-tour tier tops.
Dark Depths wouldn't even make a "top 10 strongest lands" list. Heck, Tabernacle probably wouldn't even make it, but it has a better shot than Dark Depths does.
Forsaken City is extremely powerful in conjunction with Stasis, especially in EDH with Brago, as it allows you to keep the enchantment around and keep playing while other players remain handicapped.
If Teferi's Isle came in untapped I feel like it'd actually be playable. An extra mana every other turn evens out, and spiking it on turn one or turn two would give you enough tempo advantage to make it worth it.
Etb tapped lands are not awful, they've been powercrept out sure, but when they are your only option for fixing they do the job. The consistency they provide is worth taking out a few basics.
Also banding was actually quite a powerful ability at the time, it let you attack into clogged boards with your fragile creatures easily, as you could assign all blocking damage to your 1/1 with banding. You are correct though that the ability confused a lot of people, not having any reminder text did not help things.
There was a point where SOME of these lands actually was used in some decks... albeit rare or bec of the time period. For example, the Depletion Lands were used by some poor players (i.e myself) for mana fixing since I can't afford dual lands or Pain lands (which also appeared in the same set). At that time, the choices are VERY small esp in Standard (standard then didn't have access to Dual Lands, so it's only City of Brass, the Pain Lands or Depletion Lands)
City of Shadows can be used by decks that can take advantage of banishing creatures. I also know there is a way for it to provide infinite mana but I don't know for sure how it works. Forsaken City was during a time where City of Brass was nowhere in Standard so it was a poor man's version. I saw someone use Undiscovered Paradise in some Cadaverous Bloom Decks bec it bounces itself, becoming more ammo for Cadaverous Bloom card.
Are these all efficient? Hell no! But at least these lands can say: Hey, we had our time in the sun!
The rest of the cards, I NEVER saw in ANY competitive deck... AT ALL... but some are fun to use like Sorrow's Path to give to your opponent, Rainbow Vale actually works with Land Tax or equivalent since it gives your opponent +1 land and im sure there are cards out there that punishes your opponent for taking your cards. The rest... well... they're... amazing coasters...
forsaken city is really good in Stasis decks, but that's about it 😂
Have you considered the Mercadian Masques depletion lands?
They're a bit slow as they come in tapped but as long as you have some repeatable source of proliferate they'll always tap for 2. Evolution Sage is a pretty decent option as it proliferates every time you play a land.
@@philippschmidt9499 yup... but hey, at least Forsaken City can say: I have one deck where I can shine... what about you? >:)
@@zackkelley2940 When I was actively playing, Proliferate wasn't a thing yet. Still, proliferate + masques lands seems like a good idea... they'd be like Ancient Tomb and Forsaken City minus the downsides as long as you can keep reloading their counters.
As soon as you started talking about City of Shadows, I thought "Man, Atraxa commander decks would Love this card."
I was pretty surprised to see Forsaken City, but the reasoning makes sense.
It was an undiscovered piece of tech in my vintage Stasis Lock deck since it enables infinite stalling to find combo pieces without relying on bounce effects or land draws.
Forsaken City has a niche use with Stasis in that it's a land that untaps itself outside the untap step.
Actually, banding is pretty useful in certain situations. Having an attacking creature band with a goblin means that if the pair get blocked, you can assign all the damage to the goblin. Of course, requiring a legendary to take the hit is a lot more restrictive.
The goblin's name is Squee, and every band of legends wants him.
Don't you have to assign the damage that surpasses the resistance of the first creature to other creatures?
I thought it was like that.
@@thomasfplm Nope. All to Squee. If they have trample, you can even say, "No, none of it to me, all to Squee."
@@thomasfplmyou thought wrong.
Teferi’s Isle isn’t as bad as a lot of the slower lands. This is coming from a commander player, but that innate protection is surprisingly valuable, and gives some niche synergies (like staying ahead after some mass land destruction). The issue is that a large chunk of players don’t understand how phasing works and either make the card broken or unprotected.
Thanks for introducing me to rainbow Vale my group hug deck needed a 12th way of giving my opponents mana, sometimes green mana isn't as useful to them as it is to me, but this is perfect for Glunch the bestower.
Keep in mind that this guy is new to MTG
City of shadows isn’t as bad as some may think.
I had a deck built around generating goblin tokens.
Using impact tremors, goblin slide, and a few other cards I was able to generate constant ping damage.
This would be effective In a deck like that.
Undiscovered paradise is actually decent in the Premodern lands it uses a card that gives you a draw whenever you Play a land and also plays exploration and Winter orb. Undiscovered paradise is good in that Decke because always having untapped lands in hand gets you around your own winter orb and also gives you an incredible amount of draw, its a niche effect but can be good
I didn't play when it was a thing, but when I feel like banding is better than given credit for here. There are plenty of uneven stat lines where you could have say a 1/5 tank for several 1/1 tokens. This would allow attacking into bigger blockers without risking resources. Yes, you can be blocked by less bodies, but then your opponent should be forced into a bad trade leaving you better off long term.
When I looked up banding whatever I was reading said Wizards acknowledged it was a strong mechanic, or at least beneficial but it was overly complicated to use. That makes sense to me. Blocking math with big boards can already get messy. Adding in banding considerations on both sides of the board on top of that doesn't sound fun. On op of that I could see it making learning the game even more intimidating.
All that said the lands have a ridiculously limited version of the ability and do seem very, very bad.
Banding is much better than even that, but only when you block, attacking in a band makes no sense. When you block with banding creatures YOU as the blocker assign combat dmg. Normally the attacker picks how he wants his dmg spread out but say i attack with 5/5 into a 4/4 and 3/3. You can block with both your dudes and assign 3 dmg and 2 dmg making both your guys live combat. It interacts with first strike in a weird way so banding is basicly a white mechanic. Banding was extremely good in draft were white weenie decks could take over games and kinda ruled the early formats.
@@connoringram4948 Are you sure about that for blocking? It's my understanding that you just pick the order damage is assigned, not that you can just split it up as you like. It could still be used to advantage; blocking a 5/5 with your own 5/5 banded to a 1/1 lets you assign damage to the little one first leaving you a 5/1.
I already explained the potential for banded attacking. You didn't really dismantle that just sort of tossed it aside. The gist is that if you attack in a band you can create worse trade decisions for your opponent. If you have two 1/3's and a 1/1 vs a 2/2 you can attack with the 1/3+1/1 to make the opponent choose to chump and lose their board, or take 2 and not have an open retaliation.
This can all get very complicated as both players add more banding creatures to their boards, hence it being dropped.
@@jessesutton7985 If you block a 5/5 with a 5/5 and a 1/1 and either of them has banding, you can assign all 5 damage to the 1/1, leaving your 5/5 unscathed.
You are correct about the advantage of attacking with a band. It can be used to either force a chump block in a situation where the blocker wouldn't normally be a chump, or discourage blocking altogether.
@@Frank_D I`m all but certain your first point is incorrect. The way damage works against multiple blockers is they all sit on a stack, normally arranged by the attacker. Damage from the attacker is then done to each blocker, removing life and damage from the stack until either no more damage or blockers exist. If what you said is correct banding does way more than just swap who`s picking the order of the stack.
Maybe it`s just been too long and too many other TCG`s since Magic, but I`m pretty sure that`s how combat damage works. Or maybe it even changed again, I still remember combat damage being a thing that went on the stack and could be responded to, which was slightly nutty.
All this said, real easy to understand how this mechanic was axes for simplicity sake.
@@jessesutton7985 The stack isn't really relevant in this example. When you attack, under normal circumstances you choose how your creature deals damage to the defending creatures. In the example above you can choose to deal all 5 damage to the 5/5, all 5 damage to the 1/1, 1 damage to the 1/1 and 4 to the 5/5, 4 damage to the 1/1 and 1 damage to the 5/5, 2 damage to the 1/1 and 3 damage to the 5/5, or 3 damage to the 1/1 and 2 damage to the 5/5. However, if one of the defending creatures has banding, the defending player is the one who can make that choice, and they have any of the options above.
It gets really bonkers with trample damage. The rules for trample require all blockers to absorb lethal damage before any damage is spilled over (ie: a 3/3 trampler blocked by a 1/1 must assign at least 1 damage to the blocker before you can assign the other 2 damage to the defending player/planeswalker, and even if that 1 damage is prevented, they're still clear to assign the 2 damage elsewhere), but the wacky part is that assigning the excess damage is optional, so you can decide for one reason or another to not assign excess damage and just have all three damage assigned to the 1/1. Because of that, a 1/1 with banding can block a 3/3 trampler and the defending player can choose to assign the full three damage to the 1/1.
Teferi's isle is awesome when you are using armageddon or other cards that kill all the lands, and that is the reason it is designed the way it is. See also ghost town and undiscovered paradise.
City of shadows is a great sacrifice enabler. There is a reason the card is over $60. It was regularly combined with ley druid and candelabra of tawnos back in the day.
Undiscovered paradise is amazing in stasis decks and land tax decks. It is also great for landfall decks. Forsaken city is also used in winter orb/static orb/stasis decks.
Rainbow vale was specifically designed to worl with land tax from legends, so that you can activate your land tax the next turn. This deck was the WINNER of the oldschool 93/94 championship a few years back.
Bazaar of baghdad is significantly stronger than dark depths. It is, unequivically, more powerful than tabernacle.
Sorrows path was used to grow your own fungosaur or kill your own rukh eggs, but otherwise you were accurate on that one.
You had the depletion cycle and banding cycle right, along with the homelands lands, which seemed to get a pass.
How long have you been playing? You clearly lack a significant amount of fundemental knowledge to be making lists like this.
City of Shadows is $60 because it is on the reserved list, not because it is fantastic. If it was good, it would actually have a much higher price tag due to limited supply compared to the demand. If you want a sacrifice enabler land, you are better off with something like High Market.
Edit: City of Shadows doesn't actually enable sacrifice stuff at all, as the errata just says to exile a creature you control. Completely missed that due to the old wording. That just makes it even worse.
I also wouldn't consider play rates or uses from long dead metas to matter that much. For example, One With Nothing is a terrible card, but managed to see play when a highly popular deck punished you for having a lot of cards in hand and forced you to draw a lot as well, meaning that terrible card actually saved you more often than hurt you. It doesn't mean it is good, just that it had a place to shine.
Bazaar of Baghdad is indeed better than Dark Depths, but it's easy to make that mistake as one has a deck named after it, while the other is the engine pushing out much stronger things.
@@connorhamilton5707 in some instances, that makes city of shadows better.
Either way, unique card, powerful ability and reserved list. It is justifiably $60 based on age and rarity.
There are less than 100k copies made, and 20 million magic players. That means even if all those copies survived until today, only 1 out of 200 players can own a single copy, let alone a playset.
My 9 copies being off the market doesn't help ya'll either.
@@steffensgary It's a weak card, with the price only driven by scarcity, not by demand.
As an exile outlet, it is easily beat by Food Chain, which is cheaper to buy, goes infinite with creature cards that can be cast from exile (the same reason you may consider this land), and can be activated multiple times in a turn without extra effort.
As a land, it takes too much effort to start generating mana, leaving it as a dead card in a lot of cases. In just about every instance you are better off running Mage-Ring Network if you want a colorless storage land.
Edit: removed the first paragraph, as it wasn't relevant enough and came off as very rude.
@@connorhamilton5707 I have owned my copies since 2015 and my cost of acquisition on them is sub-$20 for the lot. Since I sold the 10th one for $40 a year ago, I am technically in the black on the lot and have zero reason to move them.
I use them in 3 commander decks.
@@steffensgary How much you spent on your copies and whether or not you are in the black for the purchase has nothing to do with anything I said.
And congrats on using three of them? That doesn't change the fact that they are very weak lands that require a ton of work to be passable as a ramp source.
Undiscovered Paradise actually looks really strong for Landfall decks. You simply play all your other lands first (so they stay on the field), then play the Paradise when you don't have another land drop to make. It returns to your hand next turn, then you can repeat the process until you draw a land which can replace it. In that concept, it actually looks very strong.
Works well in Aesi, where the extra land drops per turn gets around its limitation.
I run Undiscovered Paradise and Ghost Town for that very reason in my landfall deck. They guarantee that you always have a land even when you're drawing poorly.
paradise and vale also work really well with Land Tax.
the rainbow vale is actually really strong in commander with zedruu the greathearted
Undiscovered Paradise would be good in a deck that cares about Landfall triggers. Think about Tireless tracker for example. While there are other ways to make lots of land drops, like with Wren and Six, fetch lands, courser of kruphix etc., this doesn't need any extra cards, just the land itself, and can be done again and again every turn. It can be worth it later in the game. It really sucks in the early game though, because it slows you down so much.
Undiscovered Paradise was actually in several serious competitive decks back in the day. Firstly, there weren't a lot of lands that tapped for any color of mana. And secondly, Winter Orb was a huge card and the drawback of Undiscovered Paradise actually helps you significantly if there is a Winter Orb in play. The card is horrible by today's standards though of course.
"Oh, look, a duel logs clone about magic!"
* hear duel logs voice *
"... what? "
Old mtg lands arts are liminal af. Love them.
I liked using undiscovered paradise and ghost town to help get my hand back up to 7 cards to activate the Library of Alexandria. I also had very few options for enemy color lands back then. Because decks rarely play land every turn for the whole game, you can eventually drop it a second or third time and be back to where you would have been. I also liked that it helped me fight against mono blue back to basics decks. Between one regular item and 1 UP, I could counter spell battle with them better than only revised dual lands and city if brass. I currently only own 1 so I recently made a few printouts that I plan to add to a few commander decks.
City of Shadows: builds up charges too slow
Atraxa and a Myr token creature: let's get to work.
Saw mists and thought of when and how to use it...
Found it to be a nice stalling card if you are missing out on a turn or two...
You get to block out the next attacks of the opponent for cost of your land-slot that turn, which may give you the time to win the game.
And that's what I think is it's sole purpose.
Play it, stall that turn, don't pay upkeep, win that following turn...msybe
This video feels like sitting on Gatherer a couple of years ago and sitting and trying to find the best cards for a casual vintagedeck ;)
"But for some reason, there's more text on the card."
That's some quality deadpan sass.
I love to play city of shadows in my steal-commander. Just exile the creatures you take from your opponents make this card so broken.
Hiru's soon gonna have a channel for literally every game in existence.
Rainbow Vale got a nice art though. I would totally play that in commander.
Yeah it's fine in commander honestly, obviously in legacy/vintage it's just bad though unless donating becomes meta there. Good with donate themed decks in commander.
Halls of Mist is big in Super Friends if you don’t want to splurge on a Tabernacle.
I didn't know you also had a mtg channel! Cool!
This is great. I always loved the weird sh!ttt @ss lands and try to use them. I remeber getting glacier and halls in a starter together and using them back in the day.
Okay but can we at least appreciate the fact that even though these cards are definitely bad, they all have awesome art?
Undiscovered Paradise is actually not bad at all. Just don’t put 4 of it in your deck.
A funny (bad) way to turn Depletion Lands into dual lands exists: to give your opponent Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider. As long as your opponent controls it, you put half as many counters rounded down on your permanents, so when you tap Lava Tubes for mana you put 0 Depletion counters on it and so it will untap at your next untap step x)
Forsaken City is played mainly in Stasis as lands don't untap anyway, the ability to exile a card to untap this when lands don't untap anyway is a huge benefit.
The banding legendary lands can be great if you understand banding and have enough legendary creatures to make use of it
Like is you are in a band with a 1/1 and a 5/1 and the opponent attacks with 30/5 trample you can have to token take all the damage and you take no trample damage
Halls of Mist can be good in some decks though. For example, I have it in my Chisei, Heart of Oceans commander deck. He takes a counter off of something every upkeep and attacking isn’t what he usually wants to do to win the game. So he takes the counter off of Halls of Mist after you pay it every turn, leaving it where you only ever have to pay one mana into it and it slows down your opponents enough to allow you to increase your chances of winning. Also on the plus side, if you do get a board presence out, you can simply choose to let it go to your graveyard in order to start swinging.
An example of where this is amazing is with Dark Depths. Slow down your opponents while you pour your resources into Dark Depths, then when it finally goes off let Halls of Mist die and finish off your opponents.
I have found amazing use with the Fallen Empires storage lands, they can be paired with Evolution Sage in a Tatyova deck to proliferate those counters for maximum mana!
They arent bad in atraxa prison either
I just discovers this channel and I'm over the moon
Oh my lands, you did it! You made an MTG Channel! Thanks! Auto-subbed!
City of shadows is actually pretty good. You can exile tokens to it. You could exile creatures you stole. You can proliferate the counters and they stay there. Real good colorless lnd, and I don’t think it’s as hard a hit as you mention
I love that even with that much explanation of banding (with other), it wasn't technically quite right. Such a sillä ability :-P
Bruh. I love that this became its own channel
10: i'd rather my land exerts instead of coming into play tapped. at least i can generate colored mana the turn i play Lava Tubes.
9: Isle is absolute jank, but your storage land counterexample is worse. you have to tap TWO lands to add ONE storage counter, can only place one per turn, and then you have to pay an extra mana to extract the storage. Teferi's Isle will get you more mana faster without tapping down your other lands.
7: Undiscovered Paradise DOES NOT BELONG ON THIS LIST as it's much better than any other card here. if you have a land drop available in hand already for *every* turn, you've built your deck wrong. you wouldn't use this logic to try to argue for City of Traitors being here between the cities on 8 and 6, and that halts all land drops until you want to send it to the graveyard, rather than just bouncing to hand when you use it. also, have you ever heard of Land Tax?? never mind landfall which you mention, but then you claim lands that enter tapped and require other lands for bouncing are somehow better. i better not see Rainbow Vale here, too. i'm going to, aren't i?
5: THERE IT IS! this card works even better with Land Tax. it makes it unstoppable. Undiscovered Paradise and Rainbow Vale are regularly sold $5 and $10 cards and they're bought by players, not collectors.
4: you showed bazaar alongside glacial chasm, then give dark depths as your first example of a good manaless land. bazaar not only doesn't produce mana, using it shrinks your hand size, and it's still considered the second best behind tabby. Yes, Oasis is trash and would be better if it could produce mana, maybe actually see play for some combat tricks. preventing damage, BTW, is not worse and more situational than gaining life, especially since we're talking about a card that prevents damage to *creatures.* there's very little use for gaining life that isn't lost, and healing yourself never protects your board.
the cities are prefectly fine picks at 8 and 6. the top 3 are accurate; they're well established in their roles from every conversation on bad lands ever. Sorrow's Path is a completely useless meme.
I have an act of treason theme deck that I was very interesting in putting city of shadows in, however- the card is a whopping $175, heck no am I going to spend that money on such a bad card
well, its not a bad card, especially in the deck your playing. just proxy up a copy and enjoy the value!
I thought I knew some trash ass lands, but wow, these were something
for your Duel Logs channel i'd love to see you do top ten lists on Worst Continuous Spells and Worst Continuous Traps
Halls of mist is a great combo card, use it with Angels Trumpet and Chisei, Heart of Oceans. I use these in my merfolk deck with Judge of Currents and Stonybrook Schoolmaster. Also throw in some Propaganda and or a Ghostly Prison
Banding lets you decide how combat damage is distributed, not just the order that damage is dealt to the creatures in the band, so you're not giving it enough credit. They could've made the ability at least okay if they tried, but they just gave up on it instead.
I've got a deck that uses a BUNCH of Landfall abilities, and Undisocered Paradise is silly fun in that deck. That and the ability to re-=play stuff like Gemstone Mine from the graveyard constantly. You can do some nutty stuff with Landfall with those two.
solemnity basically makes deplete lands into duals, and city of shadows can be good in proliferate decks (especially in commander where you can only run 1 of each charge counter land, and where you might not be able to run certain or any colours), undiscovered paradise is p good in landfall as it consistantly bounces itself back repeatedly and is 5 colour. combine this with multi land drop enchants and effects like burgeoning and it becomes one of the best landfall lands. Rainbow vale could be used in a 'donate' deck that uses that one card that cares about how many cards you own are controlled by your opponent. it costs a land drop but technically is a 0 cost permenant so it balances out for that deck. oasis could slot in (maybe) into an urborg deck but theres probably better 'has effect' cards that would be better in its slot. sorrows path i guess could be used in a 'dies' deck where death triggers matter, or a deck where you want to damage your own creatures for a bonus, like the one dinosaur whose name escapes me.
anyway this is goose, trying to make bad cards less bad. tx for reading
my man Hiru plays mtg? hell yeah!
Rainbow Vale actually has some usage in Commander decks based around "Group Hug", where the main strategy is to help out the other players. Especially in Zedruu, the Greathearted, who will draw you a card for every card owned by you on your opponents' side of the field. Rainbow Vale is really easy to donate away in that deck because all you have to do is tap it. Other than that, yes, I agree, its not a land to throw in just any deck.
Sorrow's Path is a hilariously abysmal card. Those were the days TCGs in general, not just Magic, were in their infancy. These were the days where there couldn't exist a 2 mana 2/2 with Flying without it having a downside on par with having to run while carrying 2 50 pound weights with your teeth.
I actually play Rainbow Vale in my Zedruu EDH deck.
It gives itself away for free, which is an upside in the deck and I usually get it back as well, because my opponents don't want me to draw cards off Zedruus trigger.
Granted it's only really "playable" at casual tables and even then it's not the best card in the deck, but it does work funnily enough.
City of Shadows: genuinely great in Atraxa EDH lists
Undiscovered Paradise: was used in legacy dredge lists for a while because it allowed consistent Bloodghast recursion
The dude behind this channel has no clue at all. No reason to take his lists seriously in any way.
Swapping effect on sorrow´s path could be useful, it can save your bigger threats that opponent cannot block them effectively. Problem is that this upside is totaly negated by dealing 2 damage to your creatures, so this block switch is almost impossible to done. This effect would be ok on tapland with add [C] and no 2nd part.
Just make it an upside, run it in Gishath with lots of Dinos with Enrage mechanic and 3 or more toughness.
Sorrows path actually does combo functunally with wrathful red dragon, brash taunter and stuffy doll. Mostly just wrathful red though. As getting out a large amount of dragons with ancient gold dragon or elminster will be a strange but hilarious way to close out a game. Not really worth running as you need way too much mana to get there. But for the bold memer who wants to run it in addition to blasphemous act and it's ilk can get some hilarious situations out of it.
I can see sorrows path be used in a few decks because of its passive damage. Like for example you could run enrage cards or cards that have abilities activate when damaged. You could also use it in decks that thrive when tiny creatures die like with deaths presence.
_City of Shadows_
*Laughs in Token decks*
Solemnity says hello to every land that struggles with counters. Especially cumulative upkeep ones
I recently built a deck using banding to get multiple block triggers simultaneously. Specifically, I used it in a flanking deck, giving the poor creature blocking -1/-1 for every creature in the band. Still not great, but certainly fun
The artwork on these crappy lands is so much better than the good lands. Also, Forsaken City combos with Stasis
Just thought of a use case for Halls of Mist.^^ It's a semi useful effect... that gives you counters to feed into Power Conduit.^^
Fun fact about Forsaken City: its a core piece of a very strong (but not meta) legacy deck called Stasis. Basic, the Stasis enchantment makes all players skip their untap steps, but it has an upkeep cost. Forsaken City triggers at the upkeep, so you untap it, pay the cost for the enchantment and lock the game for your opponent
The funniest part of the depletion lands is they were in the same set as the pain lands and they decided the depletion lands should be on the reserve list.
Undiscovered Paradise is useful for decks with donate and exchange effects - tap it to "exchange control" of two permanents like say, with Political Trickery or The Trickster-God's Heist, and you get what you "traded" back at the end step, denying the opponent anything of value. For the landfall use case, I'd still consider it more useful than the Karoo lands because at the very least it comes into play untapped so you can use it immediately.
Forsaken City does actually have a powerful use case since it combos with stasis
I do love the art on the lava tubes cycle though
The banding lands are really neat in a legends matter deck. I treat them as a 0 cost enchantment.