Just a straight up video about the lands I put in my commander decks to help me cast my spells. Patreon / edhdeckbuilding TCGPlayer Affiliate Link www.tcgplayer.com/?...
For 3+ colour decks "Path of Ancestry" is essential a better (or additional) land that enters tapped and fixes you for all colours. The scry is just bonus.
@@MisterWebb Okay. So what you're saying is that the Triomes are trash. Thanks for making abundantly clear that no one needs to listen to anything you have to say, ever.
In defense of bounce lands. 2 things First is that they help you hit land drops. You can tap a basic for mana and then return it to your hand for your bounce land and next turn you can play it and that does give you the same amount of mana as if you had played a tapped land and drawn a basic. Because a lot of people don't actually have enough lands and draw to find a land for turn every turn, this can help prevent you from stalling in the middle of the game. Second, using them to put something in the graveyard is actually a killer advantage in lots of graveyard strategies, the best example being the Mimeoplasm. Dumping a tyrranax Rex in the yard and then playing things to mill anything else in the grave is a potentially game winning play. All that is to say that not all decks want bounce lands but they have some use
Yeah, I've been developing a Graaz deck, and that just struck me as a third copy of Shimmer Myr (Urza's Battlethopter being the second copy...). Enabling the Traxos/Dragon Throne of Tarkir kit, especially when Graaz isn't out yet, is exceedingly helpful at deterring attacks.
Yep! There's definitely times when you see the potential for shenanigans by forcing a discard turn two, only to hit the recursion spell turn 3 or what-have-you. Also, I'm just a Bounce-Land Stan, especially in 2 colors, or 3-colors when you want to be hitting Landfall triggers.
for me personally I don't really use that many basics, as I have access to as many fetches and shocks that I need. I'd rather use that spot in the 99 to fetch a multicolored land.
Pain lands are my favorite dual cycle. They’re super cheap and also got full art prints that look gorgeous. Definitely run them in a two color deck. You almost never take damage from them.
The fetches can do a lot for certain decks that you might pass over. Fill your yard for things like delve and threshold, fix the top of your deck for things like Sensei’s top and citadel, trigger things like revolt, mayhem devil, Korvold. All this in addition to fixing your colors. Really depends on your strategy and what’s in your 99 I think. They’re also the cheapest they’ve ever been.
Everyone sleeps on deck thinning with fetch lands and land tax, even my mono color decks run a lot of fetch lands if itisnt mono white or green. I even have a mono black landfall deck that actually works just because of all the different types fetch lands.
not sure if i was too distracted, but land cycles I auto include in all my multicolor decks that didn't get mentioned here: Filter lands - mostly the Shadowmoor/Eventide ones, but I'd also include the eventual Odyssey one Pain lands - either the classic ones, or the so-called Horizon Lands (based off Horizon Canopy) Innistrad Slow lands - enter untapped if you control two or more lands (pretty easy to enter untapped) they all enter untapped, and the cost for that is negligible, and they're way better than Scry Lands or Fast lands... idk
Agreed. He completely missed all 3 of those land cycles which IMO are WAY better than stuff like the tapped lands he mentioned in his video for two-coloured decks! I use the Pain, Slow and Filter Lands all the time and they are great!
Just run the enchantment that gives your lands in hand cycling. I use to run them but at that point you're two turns behind. You played a tapped cycling land, and then bounced it back to play another tapped land.
@@bladetb3934 My cycling deck is actually esper with Queza Augur of Agonies as the commander, so the enchantment is in the wrong colour. By adding black I get access to a lot of really cool cards. But you make a valid point. That would be better if I could run it
I put fetches and duals in all my decks, proxies of course bcuz they're lands and shouldn't be expensive. I even put both fetches I could put in my mono colored decks. They're better than just for fixing. They shuffle, they filter out your deck. They're the best lands period
One extra utility bounce lands provide is that they can be neat in conjunction with the MDFC lands or channel lands. Maybe you played one early in the game as a land, so the bounce land can get it back into your hand so you can cast the front spell. I wouldn't specifically start running bounce lands just for that but it can be a neat interaction.
Your not wrong and people feeling bad about removing them, they stick around longer then some should be. Coffers needs to die when it's played... and that's coming form someone with 5+ mono black decks.
I Love bounce lands. Lets you keep 2 land hands more often, mana fixes, im graveyard decks setting up the discard on turn 2 is a bonus. Just so many things about it that i like
yea I agree over all the bounce lands are in decks they shouldnt be. BUT if you run MDFC or other synergys the bounce lands can actually flip some fun combos!
I bought the Prosh pre-con as my first ever commander deck. Over time I added different, more expensive cards that I either found in the collection i had bought, or pulled out of a booster every now and then. Cards like "Natural Order", "Worldy Tutor" and "Korvold the Fae cursed- King" that I normally wouldn't buy, but happened to run in to. But it wasn't until I found "Three visits", "Natures Lore" and "Sky shroud claim", that were actually quite expensive ramp cards at the time, in the collection I bought that made me think; "Now I actually need something to search for in my deck" that made me feel it was worth it just to get max.value out of those cards. So personally I always look at the non land cards in my deck and the appropriate ramp cards to decide if it is worth the investment. Because even though I love to play magic, 10 euro's or more for a single (land)card is not something to scuff at, especially If I don't have ways to search for it. But it does improve the playabillity and that makes it more fun to play the deck so it became worth it eventually.
I play fetch lands in mono color decks where I care about graveyard having certain cards in it or where I care about shuffling my library. They're so much more than just mana fixers!
For dual lands, I always include slow lands, pain lands, and bond lands. 3+ colors include the relevant tap land and cycling triome. Then I put in relevant utility lands, cycling lands, and basics.
On the 3-color lands, an incomplete cycle of the are the Lairs from Invasion block. They are 3-color lands that enter untapped so long as you pick up a non-Lair land. The land you pick up doesn't have to be untapped either. I don't feel bad playing this turn 2 or turn 10.
I feel like playing those early game is kind of an L bescause you are technically down a land compared to everyone else for the rest of the game. Unless you have additional land drops per turn or really care about landfall triggers each turn and like bouncing a land to hand. Otherwise I think the lairs are kind of a trap. But even those excuses aren't great and I think most people are better off not running them. Feel free to disagree tho.
I like bounce lands purely for the fact that you net one mana if you have something you can cast with the land you bounce back to hand. A handful of times I’ve started with two basics and a bounce land and a rock like Wayfarer’s Bauble or Sol Ring and it’s nice to drop one of those, bounce the land that cast it with the land, and net a mana next turn with a guaranteed land drop
I think there’s an important group of lands that you missed, Demo… the “all color” lands are some of my favorites when building two or more colors and you’re in budget. But even if you’re not in budget, and even if some have down sides like pinging you or something, they essentially color fix you all the time. It’s an easy way to not worry about which colors you have available because they tap for all colors. And they’re not just good in five color decks.
I like bounce lands in my reanimator deck cause it gives me a free turn 2 discard to help me get started filling my yard, especially if i have one of my dredge cards in hand. I also like them with the kamigaya channel lands since early on i can use the channel land as mana, then later on i can bounce it back to hand so i can use the channel ability
Exotic orchard is an absolute must.. heres why, one time someone made each player gain control of the player to the lefts creatures and that exotic orchard comes in clutch.
Hey, Demo! You forgot about the "Lair" lands from Planseshift as the other cycle of lands that tap for 3 colors. Highly underrated, IMHO. Come into play UNTAPPED, downside of having to return a non-Lair land is minimal because you can tap the land for mana before you bounce it. I run all 5 Lair lands in one of my 5-color EDH decks and work like a charm :)
The pain lands! So underrated always untaped always have the colors you need, sure you can take damage but its only a little in the opening turns youl ussualy use it for colorless once you are setup
I like bounce lands along with the channel lands. It's nice to play an early Boseiju for the mana then bounce it back later in the game for the channel ability. Doesn't happen often but it feels great when I can.
I actually like bouncelands quite a bit in 2 situations. 1: I play white catch up ramp, because it makes it so you have more mana with less lands in play 2: In decks with less carddraw it acts as if you had 2 lands essentially giving you more mana with less cards Also in landfall decks they can bounce themselves to enable more triggers
I generally run 1 or 2 colors but for peeps who run 3 colors I thought it would be worth mentioning that there is a triome/lair/bounce land. Idk if it covers all the combinations but I randomly ran across an esper one before called dromar’s cavern I think. Man the op is slacking…there are quite a few lands not mentioned. I run pain lands and in regards to check lands I only use the ones that say come into play tapped unless you control 2 other lands. Other than that I run reflecting pool and again if the OP is so fond of scry then why not run path of ancestry? It’s one of the few tapped lands I run. Lastly, I generally have the deck configured to take advantage of them but I run the 3 “lotus lands” as I calm them. Lotus vale, lotus field and an artifact that transforms into lost vale.
14:25 okay the bounce land turn 2 isn’t “mulligan your hand” or “don’t play bounce lands unless you have 1mv spells” bad as you seem to think. First off, let’s compare a 1 basic one bounce hand to a 2 basic one shock hand as an example. In both cases, on turn 3, you’d have access to 3 mana, 4 spells from your opening hand, and 3 drawn cards. The shock case gives you the chance to make a 2mv play on turn 2 but other than that they are almost identical situations. The discard might actually be a bit better as with fewer lands in hand you technically have some card selection if you choose to discard the draw to hand size instead of a card from your opener. And if you do draw a 1mv card, then you’ve gotten card advantage* before turn 3 which is pretty good.Filling up your graveyard can also be helpful for another minor boost. Because of this, having 1 basic 1 bounce is actually a slight bit better than 2 basic 1 shock except in the case where you have no 1mv spell and you do have a 2mv spell. It gets a bit more complicated than that depending on how many lands you run deciding the probably if you draw one in your first two draws, but for most players 1 basic 1 bounce is a keeper. Only in Demo’s style of deckbuilding with a low land count and far more 2mv than 1mv spells are bounce lands bad. *Technically card quality, not advantage, but since one of your card’s quality is so much better that it’s doing the job of two card normally, I feel fine simplifying this to card advantage.
I am very much a budget player, so my list of non-utility lands is typically: Pain Lands, Reveal Land if I'm in 2 colors, Tango Lands, Ravnica Bounce Lands, Tainted Land if I'm in 2 colors with Black, and then almost always Command Tower, Path of Ancestry, and Exotic Orchard. Beyond that, lots of basics, usually at least 3 of each type I can put in the deck, and balancing them based on the color ratios of the deck.
Filter lands, slow lands, and pain lands are some of the best cheap options you can get. Slow lands aren't the cheapest, but the others are cheap, mana fix, and have low downside. Also, Path of Ancestry is solid. It taps for all your colors and is likely to get you a few scries per game, making it essentially a better temple
I play a demolition field in every deck and it almost always get used on bounce lands. I also think the panorama lands are underrated. They come in untapped and produce colorless, and can be filtered out for a basic of choice to fix if you have spare mana.
I also have 1 mana base that I use for a modular 5-color deck I own. It bounces between Codie all Instant & Sorcery and Jodah Legends. I used to have a Tribal Tribal Ur-Dragon deck but people boycotted it.
The mana base consist of all 10 times, 5 fetchlands, 6-8 non basics that either tap for any color or are utility lands. And evenly divide my last 16 lands to basics. I'll add basics if I'm playing Codie because Ancient Ziggurat and Grey Havens does very little in his mana base.
Theres anothwr cycle for the shards. Its the lair cards that were all associated with the shard dragons (darigaaz, rith, treva etc) which were printed in apocalypse.
The main complaint against it is that it's useless in an opening hand, but the odds for that are LOW. Basically, it's a free Sol Ring for ZERO mana. Since Demo doesn't like Sol Ring, I thought he might say something about Temple of FG. . . .
For me I try to minimize the amount of lands that always come tap. Lately my land base have been more budget friendly since there are now more budget land like the slow land from the new innistrad set. The less color deck I tend to add more variety of land like check, battle land, show land the ones that require basic type since two color you're be running more basic. But three or more color I tend to put less land that care about basic type and more that comes in untap like the double face.
bounce lands are good if you are having a hard time hitting land drops in the middle of a game. they guarantee that you will hit a land drop in the next turn because you got a land back in your hand
My playgroup started using a new rule for land. During the draw phase, you can draw any basic of your choice from outside your deck instead of your normal draw. So the only lands we put in our deck are lands with special effects. Its been really fun and we never have non-games of mana screw, color screw, or flooding.
We did this for "Poker Commander." I create a pile of several hundred cards of all types and each person picks a commander from a pile of them. Everyone draws from the Poker Deck or from one of the five basic land decks, but has their own graveyard. It's great for the days when folks are too beat to put together a new deck. Sounds crazy, but it's pretty fun, since you have to work with the cards you draw.
I actually like bounce lands a lot. They secure another land drop, and since I am often playing reanimator discarding a card turn 2 is often what I want 👻 Further uses would be returning channel lands back to hand like boseiju to use or mdfcs or you just have land untapping stuff in your deck that later nets you 2 instead of 1 mana 😁 They are a good target for decimate though 🤣
I didn't see Ash Barrens which I really like. Yes it is colorless but if you play a 2 color deck you might not need the colored mana and if you do you can land cycle it for 1 colorless
I have to make a second comment here Demo, maybe you or someone else can answer this. For multicolored decks Is there some sort of calculation I can make on how many lands I need of a color in relation to it's devotion? I always use trial and error and eyeball it, but I never get it right the first few times so I always feel I'm missing some key information to elevate my deckbuilding skills. This also goes for when I play drafts with friends.
4:40 what do you mean thats it?! What about Lairs?! Its pretty insane how so many people ignore that old land cycle when its so powerful. 3 colors that doesnt enter the battlefield tapped at the cost of just bouncing a land back in your hand, a land that you could perfectly just tap for mana before bouncing it! That bounce can even come handy on some lands, like the nodal lands or the lands with counters. And no mention of the Krosan Verge? As for the dual color.... no pathways? REALLY NOW?!
I started playing the cycling lands much more. Nothing worse than getting land flooded late game. I also like the lands from the last two innestrad sets. They always come in untapped unless I play them turn one with no one drop in hand.
No filter lands? In a 2 color deck its basically just an untapped dual as long as you have one other land that taps for a color. They are less restrictive than a check land (which needs a basic land type), and worse case scenario it taps for a colorless to cast your rocks early game the same turn it comes down. I would even run them in some 3 color decks ( unless I missed something I feel like they deserved a mention )
I mostly play cEDH, so most of my decks are proxied... I own all duals, fetches, Cradles/Sanctum/Lake of the Dead, etc since I've been playing for many years...But, my point is that I dont think twice anymore about proxying cards, if that's what I need to have fun. So, unless I need to play with Gates or Filter Lands, I don't even bother and use the good stuff.
I always use Pain Lands Slow Lands Shock lands Check lands Crowd lands The pay 1 fetches in higher power decks Triomes in 3 color or more Fabled passage in 2 or more Prismatic vista in higher power mana confluence, city of brass in 3 color or more Command tower Exotic orchard Reflecting pool Forbidden orchard in 4 or 5 color. Cavern of souls and gemstone caverns and plaza of heroes in higher power Spite of industry and glimmervoid in heavy artifact decks Nykthos in mono color Secluded courtyard in tribal decks
Whatever i happen to pull and whatever costs less than 2 euros to buy for the color of the deck i need. Basics works fine too i don't play many colors.
Any mono deck, I’m running a lot of the cycling lands. I have so many basics that I can afford a couple extra tapped lands, for the chance of drawing late game
I'm surprised there's no mention of Slow Lands, Fast Lands and Pain Lands. All 3 can come in untapped, pain lands come in untapped all the time, and what's one life to get the color you need.
Demo says he runs a very low Land count. Usually around 33, with a few cycling lands to ditch if he draws them late game. He's the type of deck builder that stabilizes after 6 lands are on the field. After that, he only wants spells.
Can you talk about formulas for how many lands you need for a deck and how many of each color? I have heard Demo mention that 33 is all you ever need or something to that effect when most people's consensus is 36. If you have a cheap commander and a lower average mana cost ofc you can go lower. What I do for 2 color decks is separate nonlands into 3 piles: color 1, color 2, and multi/colorless. Then I put in utility and dual color lands (mainly from what I have on hand) then take the ratio of color 1 and 2 and apply that to the room I have left for basics. Obviously this is imprecise but it's fine for casual decks. For three + color decks this method gets more complicated and I really don't hear much about it discussed. It is taken for granted as common player knowledge and I dont think that's really the case.
I do not understand the reasoning behind not considering the exotic orchard especially 3 color, its dirt cheap almost rainbow land that comes into play untap, is it whiffing too much or something. Bounce land due tend to get cut because its too slow and clunky with other tapped land but in a powered down playgroup its not about ramping its about card advantage, its 3 mana for 2 cards with some fixing. Myraid landscape and Temple of the False God in always seem work perfectly for me. Temple, you would think is too clunky but it works well with ramp, you can still put it down preemptively, and feels like a free mana rock at that stage in the game, I always take it over a Thran dynamo. It just 4 lands + Temple its not hard.
Bouncelands aren’t ramp; they’re card advantage. 👍 And a T2 bounceland lets you stack your GY for reanimation. Niche but not irrelevant. Otherwise you’re right about the issues with that line of play. Honestly bouncelands are the best of the taplands in a 2c deck. Especially with Channel lands and MDFC lands.
I wouldn't say don't play bounces in green, consider a situation where one Plays boseju turn 1 and plays a dork. Later a bounce can target that boseju to the hand to use the channel ability
Your argument against fetching also has another flaw. If you’re in a deck where you consistently know the top card of your deck, it can shuffle you away from a known bad draw.
I'm sad that there was no mention of Murmuring Bosk. It's a great inclusion if your color identity includes Abzan. It has the Forest land type and it's fairly budget friendly.
Lands just get so expensive so my decks normally have some very mediocre lands. I will never have a true triome unless i happen to pull it. The only deck i have where i care about land types on my non-basics is kwain. High tide is in there and a bunch of plains ramp is in there, so i have 5 or so dual lands with the types
Gates, gain lands, evolving wilds, terramorphic expanse, command tower, basics, some utilities, and ruptured spyre. That's it. I am too poor for something more.
