I love lands. Like in I really, really love lands. It always annoyed me that casual players don’t give lands the respect they deserve. The usual casual player plays too few of them and uses mostly basic lands with a few added duals, if he or she has them available.

I on the other hand always loved to play decks which consist of nearly fifty percent mana sources. My strange affinity to lands also caused me to collect even nearly useless utility lands like Tower of the Magistrate, Balduvian Trading Post, Rath’s Edge or Shivan Gorge in masses.

In order to get more mileage out of my beloved lands I began the search of the fabled "All-Land-Deck".

The first draft looked like this:

4 Mishra’s Factory

4 Treetop Village

4 Faerie Conclave

4 Stalking Stones

2 Nantuko Monastery

4 Maze of Ith

4 Quicksand

2 Shivan Gorge

1 Rath's Edge

1 Strip Mine

4 Wasteland

2 Dust Bowl

4 Krosan Verge

4 Windswept Heath

4 Flooded Strand

4 Tropical Island

4 Savannah

4 Tundra

After playing some games of Apprentice the assumption that this deck is awful was proven to be correct. Playing it is like playing with an one-sided Arcane Laboratory on the table. You will always have your hand full of unplayable. Something like Black Vise is an auto win for your opponent. ;-)

After this debacle I decided to rebuild the deck around the crap rares Manabond and Clear the Land. I also added four Roar of the Wurms and four Beast Attacks to have some harder to deal with victory conditions. Mulch should provide some card drawing and Multani a real nice finisher.

Back to Basics

Land(38):

11 Forest

4 Treetop Village

4 Mishra's Factory

4 Stalking Stones

4 Wasteland

2 Dust Bowl

1 Strip Mine

4 Quicksand

3 Petrified Field

1 Rath's Edge

Creatures(1):

1 Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer

Other Spells(21):

4 Manabond

1 Fastbond

4 Mulch

4 Clear the Land

4 Beast Attack

4 Roar of the Wurm

Overall I liked this version a lot better than the previous one. Manabond allowed for some pretty fast starts, but without it (or Fastbond) the decks was still much too slow.

Clear the Land proved to be unexciting, because my opponents got to use their new lands first. Giving them card advantage wasn’t a factor at all. Most of the time I got at least three lands and my opponent only one or two lands. Giving them mana acceleration was. Often they were able play out heir whole hand thanks to my selflessness. I considered adding Nevinyrral's Disk to punish this kind of behaviour, but replacing the Clear the Lands with Summer Blooms seem to be the better alternative.

Another problem was that the deck ran out of steam very fast. After dropping my whole hand to a first turn Manabond I was usually praying draw a Roar of the Wurm or a Beast Attack, but ended up drawing a useless land or Clear the Land / Manabond instead.

While looking through my collection for possible solutions I remembered the old Manabond — Oath of Scholars combo. Three copies of Oath of Scholars were added immediately. The addition of blue also made it possible to use Windfalls as another way to replenish my hand. Replacing Beast Attack with Deep Analysis was the next step. Unfortunately the splash made it necessary to cut some of the utility lands, but I think it was well worth the price.

Here’s my current version:

Back to Basics V2

Land(36):

12 Forest

7 Island

4 Yavimaya Coast

4 Treetop Village

4 Mishra's Factory

4 Wasteland

1 Strip Mine

Creatures(0):

Other Spells(24):

4 Manabond

1 Fastbond

4 Summer Bloom

4 Mulch

3 Deep Analysis

1 Windfall / Deep Analysis

3 Oath of Scholars

4 Roar of the Wurm

The recent additions definitely moved the deck into the combo direction, but I think it’s still fun to play and play against. Without an early Manabond, Fastbond or Summer Bloom the decks falls apart, but it’s now reasonably to expect drawing one of them in your opening hand. If this doesn’t happen there is always the option to take a mulligan.

The cards now have synergy with each other. Roar of the Wurm and Deep Analysis spells are very effective in combination with the discard of Manabond, Oath of Scholars and Windfall. Oath of Scholars will usually draw you a lot of cards because Manabond, Fastbond and Summer Bloom allow you to empty your hand so fast. Mulch will usually get you around two lands and will often put some flashback spells in the graveyard too.

CounterControll decks are probably the easiest match up as long as you are able to resolve an early Mana Bond / Fastbond / Summer Bloom. Even without acceleration Treetop Villages and Mishra’s Factory provided solid creatures that can’t be countered.

The match up against good fatty decks like Beast can be hard, because any creature bigger than 6/6 is a problem for the deck. Against decks like this you have to play as aggressive as possible.

Weenies decks shouldn’t be a problem because they usually can’t deal with the wurm tockens.

The Wastelands and the Strip Mine make match-ups against decks with a lot of none a lot basic easier.

Thanks for reading. Send flames and feedback to PascalSchumacher@gmx.net