In Magic: The Gathering (MTG), players use decks of cards to battle each other, representing spells, creatures, artifacts, enchantments, or land. Each card in the deck represents a spell, creature, artifact, enchantment, or land that the player can use to gain an advantage over their opponent. The game is played in turns, with each turn consisting of lands being played onto the field and other cards being cast as spells.
Lands are the primary way players generate mana to cast spells, representing locations planeswalkers have bonded with from across the multiverse. They are played on the player’s main phase when the stack is empty, and only once per turn. Lands do not pay for spells directly, but they tap to produce mana, which is used to pay for them.
In MTG, each player starts with a deck of at least 60 cards, which can include various card types such as creatures, spells, artifacts, and lands. Lands are not considered a spell due to special rules, such as Rule 305.1, which allows a player with priority to play a land card from their hand.
Spells are usually cast from the player’s hand, but in special cases, they can be cast from other areas of the battlefield like the library or graveyard. Lands are the only type of card that is not considered a spell, as everything cast is a spell. Lands move directly from other zones to the battlefield without using the stack, making them essential for generating mana.
In summary, lands are not spells in MTG, but they are essential for generating mana and serving as the base for magic. Players can put any number of lands into play per turn if instructed by an effect, and they have no mana cost.
📹 Top 10 Worst Lands in MTG
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 …
Do adventures count as spells?
The Adventure spell subtype, which can be found on Creature, Enchantment, and Artifact cards, enables the card to be sent “on an Adventure” by casting the Adventure part. Once resolved, the card is placed in the exile zone, which can be highlighted using an Adventure token.
Are creatures spells MTG?
The deployment of non-land cards from one’s hand entails the casting of said cards as spells. These spells may encompass creatures, artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, instants, and sorceries.
What counts as magic?
Magic, also known as magick, is the application of beliefs, rituals, or actions to manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces. It is a category of beliefs and practices that are sometimes considered separate from religion and science. Throughout history, magic has been associated with ideas of the Other, foreignness, primitivism, and cultural difference in Western culture. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Western intellectuals perceived the practice of magic as a sign of a primitive mentality and often attributed it to marginalized groups of people.
Despite its varied meanings, magic remains a powerful marker of cultural difference and a non-modern phenomenon. It is a non-modern phenomenon that has been influenced by various beliefs and practices, often resulting in varying interpretations and interpretations.
Do lands have a color in magic?
Lands are colorless cards with no casting cost or color indicator, but their color identity rule restricts their use in decks. For instance, Hallowed Fountain has a blue and white color identity due to its Plains and Island land types, and can only be used in decks with white or blue commanders. However, Command Tower and fetch lands, which have no mana symbols, can be used anywhere, as they have no color or color identity. These lands are essential for decks that require specific types of lands and cannot be used in decks without a color identity.
Do lands have a color magic?
In the context of the Magic game, land cards are distinguished by their colorlessness, which is a consequence of their lack of mana cost or color indicator. This quality ensures that they will never share a color with any other card. The game employs a five-color system, comprising white, blue, black, red, and green. When prompted to select a color, players are required to choose one of the five available options, as “multicolored” is not a valid color designation. Land cards are devoid of color and thus incapable of sharing a color with any other entity.
Can you play two lands in Magic?
An additional land may be played on each turn by searching the library for up to two basic land cards, revealing them, and then shuffling them. A player may play up to two additional lands during this turn, provided that the entwine cost is paid. The Landfall ability permits the player to draw a card each time a land that they control enters the game.
Are lands colorless in magic?
Colorless objects in Magic: The Gathering are objects or spells without colored mana symbols in their mana costs. Lands are always colorless by default, except for the color-indicated Dryad Arbor. Colorless objects can be artifacts, Eldrazi creatures, planeswalkers, or Sorceries. Eldrazi creatures are colorless to mark them as alien, while Karn and Ugin are colorless planeswalkers. In Strixhaven: School of Mages, several colorless Sorceries were printed as first-year introduction spells. Colorless objects access most things but at inefficient mana costs, such as the destruction of permanents. Colorless is not a color and is not represented in the color wheel.
What are the land types in magic?
205. 3i Lands have distinct subtypes called land types, including Cave, Desert, Forest, Gate, Island, Lair, Locus, Mine, Mountain, Plains, Power-Plant, Sphere, Swamp, Tower, and Urza’s. Forest, Island, Mountain, Plains, and Swamp are the basic land types, with the most common being the five colored basic lands. Each lands has a supertype “basic”, a subtype matching its name, and a single activated ability to generate one colored mana. These basic land types and their mana are listed in rule 305. 6.
Are lands considered spells in magic?
Lands are non-spelling locations under the player’s control, with most having mana abilities. Most decks require a high number of mana-producing lands, typically between 33-50 of the total deck, to function effectively. Taking mana from lands represents the strands of magic, as described in “The Player’s Guide” by Wizards of the Coast. The most commonly printed Magic cards are the five basic lands, one for each color, each intrinsically producing one mana of a specific color.
Playing lands is a special action that does not use the stack and does not require passing priority for it to resolve. When a player wants to play a land, they simply put it into play. Mana abilities of lands do not use the stack and cannot be responded to. Although many lands generate specific colors of mana, lands are colorless on their own. Brady Dommermuth explained the flavor behind playing lands in a Magic duel.
Are lands cast in Magic The Gathering?
Play is a keyword action that involves putting a land onto the battlefield from the hand, while casting is the equivalent for spells. “Playing a card” is used when the card type is unknown, describing playing a land or casting a spell as appropriate for the card type. The relationship between playing and casting is one-sided, with “playing a card” including casting a spell but never including playing a land. “Play” was initially used as a synonym for casting in some cards, but was only haphazardly used in early times.
It temporarily replaced “casting” in the Sixth Edition rules changes. The high usage of “play” sometimes caused confusion with the concept of objects being “in play”, the term used for the battlefield at the time. “Cast” was brought back in Magic 2010, but “play” continued to be used for lands and as a catch-all term.
How do lands work in magic?
Lands are the base for magic, as they produce the magic energy of mana at no cost other than tapping. They are primarily used for mana, but often have other abilities. The rulebook does not determine whether one may play land for an opponent for abilities like landwalk. Lands are not on the “stack” and do not have a Mana Cost. They can be considered currency, but players get their currency back to spend during the untap phase of their turn.
Before 2010, there was a rule that every time mana dissipates from your mana pool at the end of a step or phase, you lose one life per mana that dissipated. However, this rule has been updated by Wizards of the Coast and no longer applies.
The symbolism of lands is that planeswalkers form a bond with the lands they visit, and to cast spells, they must draw from that bond. Each type of mana is symbolized by its own color and symbol, with the specific colors provided in the Learn to Play Magic video series.
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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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
“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 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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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)
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
I wouldn’t call City of Shadows bad. It doesn’t go in most decks to be sure, but the ones it DOES go in it’s a complete banger. City of Shadows is absolutely nutty in a Proliferate deck. Just sac a token, something you can get back from exile (Squee, Mistmoon Griffon, etc) or some small creature you won’t miss, then proliferate.^^
I would have removed City of Shadows for Rhystic Cave then moved it further down the list because as you said City of Shadows has some niche uses and I’d argue that, at least in commander, they can be very strong niche uses. Rhystic Cave, while can color fix, does it in a way that your opponent(s) can just flat out tell you no to you producing the mana and to make matters even worse is that it’s not a mana ability so there are some niche cases where it might not be able to make the mana in time (even tho “activate as an instant” makes it difficult).
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.
Band is Extremely good if you can use it to band with tokens. The main issue with banding legends lands is that they only work with other legos. Meanwhile Just rawdogging band allows you to use tokens as damage fodder for your bigger creatures with trample. Making it so they can absorb damage that might potentially kill your more unique creatures. Your opponents usually choose strong > weak creatures first when being blocked or attacks, So being able to have them damage 3 creatures in an order of your choosing lets you block a 3/3 with a 0/4, and 3 1/1’s means your 1/1’s wont take any of the damage and kill the 3/3. Totally recommend in a token deck.
I’ve been putting rainbow vale in all my 3+ color decks. Not only does it get mana fixing, but it helps me single out a opponent. I make everyone play a game of hot potato. Basically I pass it to the guy going right after me and he has to pass it to the next guy and so on until it gets back to me. If someone doesn’t give it back they break the social contract I set up as I play the card, leaving them the new target of the table. Its pretty fun and political. It may not be a CEDH card, but for casual its worth playing just for this strat.
I got a big stinker as well, Rath’s Edge, Legendary land (why it’s legendary, i have no clue) -tap for 1 colorless mana, okay, nothing bad here, but a base color would be better, however -tap 4 mana, tap Rath’s Edge, sac 1 land, to deal 1 damage to target creature or player. Why, just why, why on earth would i ever use that second ability, if it was a regular tap ability without any additional cost it would have been so nice. But now?, why not just use a basic land, at least it has a color and i’ll never use that second ability unless i’m already winning.
i thought i remembered a card i read in inquest gamer; a land called “scrapheap” that did something like “tap pay 4 life discard a card: deals 1 damage to target creature or player” and in their cardlist they always typo’d it “crapheap” so i google’d “mtg scrapheap” and find a card from the right era for inquest gamer when i had a subscription but it’s a completely different card? what did i remember then?
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
Undiscovered Paradise is a great card in legacy dredge. They don’t need a ton of mana, and it plays Bloodghast. It’s a great way to bring back Bloodghast after it’s been milled into the graveyard. Having a land that can bring back Bloodghast and trigger Prized Amalgam is too good and actually has good synergy with the deck sometimes you just need 1-2 lands in play to execute the game plan
I think back when Sorrow’s Path was released removing a blocking creature didn’t eliminate the block. You could declare a block with a creature, sac it and the block would remain to prevent damage to a player. Undiscovered Paradise came out in a time where there were few all color lands. Shoot, city of brass did damage to you whether tapped for mana or just tapped. I still used it. For me Undiscovered Paradise’s use is having a nigh indestructible land that can provide for color diversity in a deck. I usually find I have too much land in some of my builds. I play one deck with only 14 lands. Having to return it to hand usually didn’t affect my probabilities. Now with landfall, tossing this out with ruin crabs and play additional land effects can be a powerful and cheap loop. Undiscovered paradise doesn’t deserve the low rating here.
The thing about some of these lands is you should be thinking about Commander as well. Rainbow Vale is one of the single best lands in the format for group hug decks to run, since you can be political with it and help someone with resources or just pass it around the table. I run City of Shadows in Food Chain decks as well if I don’t have Food Chain. I can just get those creatures back anyway when I get the food chain and combo off. I also run Forsaken City in those decks so I can leave my food chain cards in exile for the combo to protect them from getting wheeled or discarded.
As someone who played in the stasis days…. Forsaken city and undiscovered Paradise have their nices. City of shodows could also be fun in a red/black steal oppoments creature decks. Not really strong, but the Land is unique enough. There also are black creatures you might even want to sac. Vale might find a nice in commander, and sorrows path works well with modern Dinosaurs enrage mechanic. Can be wrong but cant you get the benefit of other abilities with Banding? Didnt play that mechanic yet. But i thought the whole Point of Banding is for example vanilla with banding bands with an unblockabe one. Now both are unblockable. I might be wrong with that, but if that is not the case, we should errata it xd.
Undiscovered paradise being in top10 worst lands is biggest joke i have seen in a while 😀 ever heard of stasis? Forsaken city has also seen lots of legacy play in dredge. To be honest i was totally expecting to see Bazaar of baghdad as number 1 after seeing these runner ups. But like seriously there is major overlooks in the list 😀 I think undiscovered parasdise or forsaken city has seen much more play than sapseep forest or madblind mountain 😀
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.
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.
damn i need the “Rainbow Vale” for my commander “help everyone” deck. (basically, everybody draws a card, everybody searches lands, and so on) also, can you please “think” just a little more casual? not every game ends after 4 turns,. not everybody can “just use” shocklands, since money is a thing. srsly some “pro decks” could cost more than my whole card collection… or at least one of their cards could pay a whole deck of mine…. Maybe as a side note, you can sometimes mention casual/commander in a sense of: “normally this card would be to slow, but in slower formats like commander, if you have the time, its probably one of the best cards/this niche effect could win the game” something like this.
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.
Only part you missed about banding is in defense only 1 needs to have banding to completely mess up combat if they attack. In the example you gave a 2/2 was attacking into a 1/1 and a 3/3. But let’s say the creature was a 3/3. You could still block with the 3/3 and the 1/1. Forcing the 1/1 to take all the damage. It’s also good if say they attack with a 6/4. You can do the same block and still only lose the 1/1. On defense banding is awesome.
This article is a great example of a card that looks bad on the surface but can actually be super powerful in the right deck like forsaken city and undiscovered paradise. Reminds me when I first started playing and thought phyrexian negator was complete shit which in today’s metagame it is but back in the day a 5/5 trample that can come down t1 via dark ritual was unbeatable even with the massive downside.
I agree that the Band-Lands are terrible, but Banding itself is heavily underrated. Yes, the niche defensive situation you mention is very niche. But far more often you would want to block with something valuable without trading it for the attacking creature. Throw a 1/1 with Banding into the block, and your important creature now survives. Also, it hard-counters Trample. A lot of people forget that an attacking creature with Trample may assign excess damage to the defending player, not must. A blocker with Banding allows you to make them not do that.
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.
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.
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.
Do you know how to play “Band” Band is OVERPOWER, not weak. the strength of Band is YOU CHOOSE WHEN TO BAND. So if the opponent got an huge 13/13 and I have a 1/1, a 2/2, a 3/3, a 4/4 and a 5/5 If I attack without band, the 13/13 will block my 5/5 and 10 damage will go through, then will block the 4/4 letting 6 damage to go through, then block the 3/3 letting 3 damage to go trought then bloquing the 2/2 letting 1 damage go throught and die… took 4 turn to die. Now if I band all my army I have a band of 15/15 (kind of) if he let it pass he dies in 2 turn If he block, I assign the 13 damage to my 1/1 in my band, and kill his 13/13. Then 2 turns later I’ll have dealt 28 damage killing him in 2 turn. What Band is so WEAK, reduce my kill turn count by half. And guess what, if banding wouldn’t favor me (the opponent got an army of 15 1/1 for example) then maybe I shouldn’t band, so he do not block my band with a single 1/1. and instead I let my flyer and trampler kill him. But yes Band is complicated and require some tought and strategy to use properly… in a game of strategy…
I feel like the Ice Age depletion lands are probably like… one Commander who has a solemnity-style effect printed on the body away from suddenly seeing play. City of Shadows I don’t think belongs on this list when garbage like Rhystic Cave, Wintermoon Mesa, and some REALLY Trashy Filter Lands dodged this list.
You seem to not know how to play Undiscovered Paradise. You always play it LAST, play all other lands before it, and now the drawback only matters if your next card drawn is a land. Exploration and similar effects negate the drawback of Undiscovered Paradise completely. Other bouncelands, that can also be abused for high counts of landfall triggers, enter the battlefield tapped. Stasis, Winter Orb, Armageddon and other cards also make it pretty good.
Rainbow Veil is bad in competitive 1v1 but in free for all EDH it is super fun. My lil bro has a Zedru Group Hug deck n the Rainbow is a fun political card in a deck that gains benefit for it being under someone else’s control. Also ur #1 is actually half decent in a Dinosaur deck since it would easily trigger ur Enragrd abilities if u use something like Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to allow Sorrow’s Path to tap for mana instead of just for its ability
Life gain is useless unless you play my 380 card deck that can easily give me several hundred life and can also deal with just about anything you can throw at it. Poison counters? I got 5 copies of Leeches. Protection? I have a 6 color deck(if you include devoid/colorless) I have cards with every kind of walk, every planeswalker, and 2 Black lotus’. Then comes Serra Avatar.
Not wanting to be rude with this comment, but just want to offer some criticism because of how much I’m liking the content – you should really have an editor look over the on screen text for these articles, as I keep catching a lot of typos. Additionally, could be worth having another Magic player go over some of the content. City of Shadows is usually a very good card, Undiscovered Paradise has a ton of situational use and it’s hard to call it bad, and Banding is a super powerful ability. Seems worthwhile to get some more eyes on the content to keep quality up.
banding actually is better than you know. it completely negates trample damage, for instance, even if you don’t have enough toughness to soak all the damage. it’s ok if you don’t really know how banding works, but there are corner cases for a bunch of these lands. paradise for landfall, forsaken city combos everybody to a standstill in stasis builds, and if glacial chasm didn’t exist, hall of mist is an ez include for muldrotha. sometimes cumulative upkeep can be good thing, bro. the reason banding is bad is that paying 5 for a 2/3 is bad, not because banding is without use. subtle difference.
I realize this article is two years old, but I have to defend Cathedral of Serra (and the other Banding lands from legends). I’m an old MtG player, and I disagree the Banding lands from Legends belong on this list. Sure, they were sort of bad back then, but these day they are redeemed, especially in casual commander. I use Cathedral of Serra myself to this day. What redeems it you ask? – Creatures with attack triggers. We often want to trigger these as often as possible, yet if we attack with them odds are they will be blocked and destroyed. Sure, there are many artifacts and spells or other creatures that can help them survive or become unblockable, but these can often be targeted and destroyed themselves and are susceptible to board wipes. – Using Cathedral of Serra as an example it is a land, and many decks don’t run land destruction, so unlike all the other cards this one stays in play. That means you can band your creatures with attack triggers to creatures with indestructible, creatures that can regenerate, or even creatures you blink out or return to your hand when they receive damage and would be destroyed. Only one of them needs to be of the correct color. As long as both creatures are legendary you can keep attacking to get those attack triggers to your heart’s content. (Or until your opponent removes the creature with a board wipe or a spell). – As mentioned the land remains, and running some form of graveyard recursion isn’t that difficult. – That the two attacking creatures get blocked by a single creature doesn’t matter all that much either, as it is the attack trigger you want.
I use Halls of Mist in my mono blue Meloku EDH deck and every time I place it on the board my friends groan since it means I can control how much combat happens. Cumulative upkeep doesn’t really mean much when I can just bounce it back using Meloku at the last end step before my turn and end up with a 1/1 flier as well.
What a joke. Banding on defense is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!! It is the ONLY thing that stops trample. Say I have Benalish Hero, a 1/1 with banding. You attack me with a any creature with trample; for the sake of argument let’s say it is 100/100 creature. I block with the Benalish Hero. What normally would happen, if the creature did not have banding is I would take 99 points of damage. What happens when I block your 100/100 creature with my 1/1 Banding creature is I assign all damage to my hero and take no damage. Banding is actually a powerful ability.
LAVA TUBES is part the THEME of Ice Age, were the world is struggling. Same with Cumulative Upkeep. Not realizing that, is why you or your writers suck at enjoying the Story of Magic, assuming that every card is about winning. So get better at WHY a card exists, rather than just being butthurt about a card. Banding is great with Stuffy Doll.
City of shadows isn’t that bad. Hello. Tokens. Here are 5 easy repeatable token generators in each color: White: Literally anything. 6/10 white cards make tokens. And being you can activate City of Shadows at instant speed, you can even use the tokens from Myriad. Blue: Efficient Construction if you’re playing Artifacts; Etherium Spinner if you’re playing a lot of 4+ CMC spells; Faerie Formation otherwise. All of these are either on-cast (first 2) or a repeatable activated ability. Red: Anax, Hardened in the Forge if you can kill/sac your creatures easily (you’re in red, you should be able to!); Literally 90% of Goblin cards otherwise! Black: Zombies. Green: Scute Swarm.
Not saying that banding is good, but: Banding blockers with low-to-mid power death touch attackers is a niche case in which you can put forward a blocker to absorb the death touch while dealing enough damage to the attacker to kill it when one blocker can’t do both. Yes, very niche. But Banding came about in versions of MtG wherein you could not */sarcasm have a 1/1 flying vigilance haste creature that gives tribal bonuses when it leaves the battlefield for 1 mana */ end sarcasm. There were not dozens of keyword abilities. There was flying, haste, and other very basic stuff. Defender was not even a keyword ability. They were creatures called walls. Crapping on old MtG rules is utterly missing the point that the game has evolved (over-evolved) from those old sets. Why not have the next article crap on cards that relied on mana burn as being bad? Well, yeah, they are bad now since mana burn has been removed from the game (probably the worst change to MtG ever). The same could be said of Black Lotus if WotC made a rule change that zero mana cost cards could not be played until turn 7. Suddenly your lovely $10k card would be worth shit. That is a thing WotC can do. So be wary about trashing old cards just because they do not mesh with the current meta. Next thing you know WotC will bring out a 90’s throw-back F*R*I*E*N*D*S themed set with a Central Perk land card that can tap for WUBRG in silver.
Meteor Crater. “T: Choose a color of any permanent you control. Add one mana of that color.” This is NOT a land you want to see early. The problem is, you’re probably playing it with very few cards with more than two pips of one color; in fact, you’re probably playing it only with pips of one color. But if you are playing a high-devotion deck, then you’d be better off just playing a basic land. Rhystic Cave “T: Add one mana of any color unless your opponent pays 1.” Just what does this card do? It’s either a cheaper Rishadan Port (with the downside that an opponent can choose the land to tap) or it taps for any color, and you don’t get to pick the mode. To top it all off, I’m not even sure it works in the rules.
Crazy that City of Shadows is bad (???) and also the most expensive card from The Dark. Undiscovered Paradise and Teferi’s Isle are also pretty playable and imo Rainbow Vale is a great magic card that has great potential with like Land Tax and is a card that could be broken depending on what gets printed. IMHO.
City of Shadows doesn’t seem great, but also doesn’t seem like top 10 worst material. There are definitely decks that can take advantage of it, but they would be janky 😛 Forsaken city is normally bad, but 1 deck exists that makes it hilariously good: Stasis. If you don’t know, now you know. Rainbow vale is in a similar vein to forsaken city: Other than being great in landfall, it’s also good in stasis (though it doesn’t immediately combo like Forsaken city, but instead simply allows you to get ahead) Rainbow vale is cool. It’s not great, but think grouphug and Zedruu decks. It has its place in magic, and that place isn’t on the bottom 10.
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.
My Playgroup sometimes plays a 5 player variant called ‘Secret teammates.’ 2 up opponents, 2 down, each secretly allied with its paired face up, 1 renegade trying to be the last standing, though everyone is technicallyan opponent. In this circumstance, Rainbow Vale becomes a boon card for the player you believe to be your teammate. Only circumstance I’d use any of these lands in a deck.
The more I watch of this, the worse your assumptions are about these lands. As of the time of this comment, City of Shadows is priced at over $100. It is a great non-counterable sacrifice outlet to get rid of your opponents creatures that you steal for a turn. Claim the Firstborn and Act of Treason are some examples that make this card shine. Other comments are talking about Undiscovered Paradise, so I won’t belabor that point, but I will add that there was a time that mana fixing was considered too powerful, so there was some over-correcting that lead to some of these cards being a bit worse than they should have been. Oasis isn’t a great land, but I don’t know if I would put it in a top 10 worst list. Its ability is unique, and difficult to stop, so it does it’s job very effectively (more effectively than if the ability were on an artifact). Additionally, pairing it up with Horobi, Death’s Wail provides a near uncounterable ability to kill off creatures.
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.
Sup Hirumadex, you don’t play magic for a long time, right? Undiscovered Paradise is actually very useful outside Landfall decks, because you more often than not will not have a land drop for the turn, so the fact that it goes back to the owner’s hand in the next untap phase is irrelevant. Either you play it again to use your land slot of the turn, or you play some other land and play UP later. This card is much better than the City of Brass and others because you don’t have a cost to activate, but is cheaper bcause it is widely unknown. Rainbow Vale is also a very good land for group hug decks, like Phelddagrif or Zedruu the Greathearted, for example.
Oasis was much more significant in the mid 90s when most of the awesome ability creatures were 1/1. Royals assassin, sorceress queens, etc. Now you get double the P/T for 1 mana. You have to compare the abilities to what was prevalent at the time. Banding was no different. Banding could be awesome. Band up with a regenerating creature, and you could assign ALL the damage to that creature. Banding gave you the advantage in math side of the game especially when blocking. It made your opponent second guess blocks, and allow you to have 1 creature take the brunt of the blow. It wasn’t amazing mind you, but it gave you an advantage in most cases. Like everything else, it was better with the right synergy.
Like half of these are wrong. UP is better than bounce lands in landfall, bounce lands will leave you one mana down from UP since they enter tap where UP enters untapped and sticks around for the turn. City of Shadows is great in a deck that steals opponent creatures, exile them permanently when you are done with them. Banding is better than you say here, and Sorrows Path forcing your opponent to block differently than they otherwise would because of the option to switch blocking creatures is FAR from a liability, and using it becomes an upside in dinosaur decks, and things like Swans, spitemare, boros reckoner, etc that give you a benefit from them taking damage. Halls of mist can have a home in places where Eon Hub belongs, other decks that want to (ab)use upkeep, cumulative upkeep and echo cost cards.
Sorrow’s Path is definitely one of if not the worst lands in the game, but I’d reserve the spot for “worst card in the game” for Snowfall. It’s just… egregiously bad. Though it doesn’t directly hurt you, it’s like 8 lines of rules text that does absolutely nothing, and it’s needlessly difficult to keep on the board.
Every time I watch one of these i end up thinking something pretty similar, in the vein of… Yeah, that card would be pretty bad, if you used it as described, not, well, the better way to use it. Like the exile one. Yeah, exiling a creature you own and paid mana for is normally bad. Fortunately, it only specifies control. I kinda want one now, to exile opponent creatures i borrow. Feels like being shown a 7/1 with haste and trample and being told it was bad because of how fragile a blocker it is
I really don’t understand why people are defending Undiscovered Paradise; the card is really bad. Yes, undeniably it did see play back in the day, but the things it saw play for have vastly superior options now. It literally doesn’t even work with Stasis (you don’t have an untap step at all when you use Stasis), and if you need to fill your hand, why not run more cantrips instead of going negative on mana every turn? It just doesn’t make sense to play after the 90s.
Your explanation of banding was slightly wrong. You don’t decide entirely how combat damage is dealt between your banded creatures rather than your opponent. So in your example if you had the 2/2 attacking, and blocked with two 1/1 creatures in a band, the 2/2 could die, and you could assign 2 damage to one of your 1/1 creatures, letting the other live. The idea was to let small creatures work together to take on bigger threats with minimal losses.
You definitely undersell banding here. Although I think those lands definitely deserve a spot on this list, you give a really poor example for where banding can be used. If you had 2 2/2 creatures as a band blocking another 2/2, you could assign 1 damage to each of your creatures and have them both survive. Very niche use, especially when banding basically doesn’t exist anymore in the game, but still a potentially powerful ability if they did reintroduce and make new cards for it
I’m not saying Oasis is a good card but to say “In any other situation, it does NOTHING” is not true youtu.be/5yG1SoLETR4?t=465, 1 deathtouch damage (any other 1 damage effect that has an additional effect associated with it), wither/infect (or if the creature itself removes +1/+1 or adds -1/-1 counters from/to itself when it takes damage), phyrexian obliterator (you can use Oasis on opponent’s creatures, so this can include any creature that does something that you don’t want to happen for each damage it takes), enrage creatures are often dealt one damage to trigger the effect, there are illusion creatures that are sacrificed when they are targeted
I think this list looks at things with a current (and to a lesser extent EDH, in which large amounts of mana become critical to the late game) mindset. Undiscovered Paradise was pretty good for a long stretch of time, to the point where it was deemed too good to reprint. City of Brass, which is now seen as light years better to the point of probably being too good (I know it’s the tap trigger that keeps it out of Standard because that causes rules issues but Mana Confluence is not going to be back in Standard again either), was the 5c land of choice for that time. But City of Brass had real downside in pre-2005 Magic because games were long and drawn out and that damage really added up. It was far more common in olden Magic not to tap out every turn because your threats were rarely mana sinks; you’d run out of cards before you ran out of mana while the opposite is true in today’s Magic because so many creatures have activated effects you want to use while they are out there (rather than playing from hand) and so many things have “draw a card” stapled onto them.
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 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.
Banding is actually pretty good, it was the cost of the creatures which made it undesirable to play. It wasn’t which creature was damaged first, it was how damaged was assigned how damage was assigned, and you could attack or block with 4 1/1’s (so long as at least 3 had banding) and take out a 4/4 and assign all of the damage onto a single 1/1 creature. Sure the block was made but but you just neutralised a large creature for a Benalish Hero or Mesa Pegasus
Banding doesn’t work exactly that way; it allows any number of creatures with banding and up to one without to attack or block as a group. If only one of your legendary creatures had banding (regular), and no others had any form of banding, then you wouldn’t be able to band them all together, however (bands with (attribute)) means that any number of creatures with that attribute can band together so long as at least one creature with (bands with (attribute)) is also in the band. It’s such a convoluted mechanic and I’m being very pedantic but I guess thats the long of it.
You did fail to mention that Lantern-lit graveyard is a fixed version of the depletion lands from Ice age (you used lava tubes as example). It can tap for colorless for free, or is slow if you want a color. Now, the fact that depletion lands get a counter can be abused if you are going to play with counters… City of Shadows is not actually that bad. It is a way to remove stolen creatures that you do not need, especially when talking about temporary steal effects that are repeatable; like Preacher. Undiscovered Paradise is great in Landfall, and can work better with multiple land drops. There are better cards to replace it for the any color part. It is also good in Zedruu decks. It has a delayed trigger to return to hand during untap step. The delayed Trigger is what makes it not bonkers in landfall. Forsaken City is mostly a good card for Stasis…and maybe a few corner cases. Rainbow Vale is a political tool in EDH, but it isn’t the worst thing. See Zedruu. And you only give it to someone at end of turn. So you can tap it for mana and then do something with it before it leaves play. Sorrow’s Path is an ok card to donate in Zedruu decks, but it has a high cost to put into the deck. Now, it is fair enough to say that a card being good in conjunction with other cards is an unfair stipulation and when considering them in a vacuum, you have to do that. So, while I generally agree with the list, there is one glaring omission. Rhystic Cave. I mean, why would you do that to yourself.
So, some nice uses for banding. You cited Unholy Citadel, but ignored Adventurer’s Guildhouse; the Green one. What happens when you give Banding to say, Nylea, God of the Hunt? On the attack, the abillity of your opponent to block all your creatures with 1 blocker is irrelevant because Nylea gives all your creatures Trample. In addition, you can put all the damage on Nylea because she has Indestructible. Basically you dominate every time you attack; you can trample over anything that blocks you and nothing that blocks you can kill your stuff. Second, you left out a VERY important detail about defensive bands: They can turn off Trample. When your opponent attacks with a Blightsteel Colossus, you can block with a Benalish Hero banded with a 0/1 Plant token. Little known fact: Trample is OPTIONAL. So since you decide how the damage is dealt, you put all the damage on the Plant token, BUT you decide NOT to use Trample so all 11 damage goes on the Plant token. Niche? Maybe. But very effective. 🙂
life gain useless… beh. words of worship. well of lost dreams. website. you win. without any ramp can come out turn 3. infinite life, draw your whole deck, infinite mana. if website wasn’t restricted… hard to tutor for in white splashing green deck. only remnant of my decade long magic career is my 2v2 teams lifegain combo deck. only 4 proxies left to replace from the old deck list… unfortunately it’s savannah it also had Zoran orb, fastbond, crucible of worlds. infinite life and colored mana for 4 and a green that comes out turn one of its in hand. sterling Grove for fastbond and white tutor for any. happens to work well with well of lost dreams. balance everyone down to 0 lands and creatures. I lost to control decks a bunch. counter/kill fastbond or website and I’m fighting uphill ageless entity…. bet you never saw someone play life burst unironically.
on the “Bands with …” (or just “banding” rule). You are misrepresenting the effectiveness of the ability. When Banding was first introduced, it wasn’t a “you choose which creature takes the damage FIRST” it was a “you choose HOW TO DISTRIBUTE the damage amongst the banded creatures.” (i.e. you choose where each INDIVIDUAL point of damage goes, NOT which creature takes the brunt of the attack first. This misconception comes primarily from the fact that most creatures with banding were only 1 or 2 toughness…). This means, if you have a 3/3 and a 2/2 creature banded together and block (or are blocked) by a creature with 3 power… such as your example of a 3/3…. the enemy’s 3 damage can be divided 2 points to your 3/3, and 1 point to your 2/2 so both survive, while they deal their full 5 damage to defeat the 3/3… or even a 3/5. This means that for any banded group to lose a member, the opposing power needs to equal one less (per creature banded beyond the 1st) than the TOTAL toughness of the group to kill even ONE creature. Decks that used banding often combined this effect with “protection from …” or very high toughness / toughness boost effects, sending damage to where it would deal no harm, while being much more likely to defeat the opposing creature. Used correctly this was a VERY powerful feature, not a weak one. the primary confusion about the “banding” rule was it’s interactions with other abilities (i.e. first strike and trample), though, clearly, the banding effect and it’s defensive capabilities were clearly not well understood as you demonstrate via your incorrect explanation.
If Dredge was never a thing, I could imagine Bazaar of Baghdat being in this list as well. Proof that almost any land can be useful in the right decks/mechanics (I can name at least 1 type of deck from various formats where Forsaken City (Stasis), Undiscovered Paradise (Bloodghast/Landfall EDH), Rainbow Vale (Zedruu EDH) and Sorrow’s Path (Gishath EDH) are really good)
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
What’s interesting is that if Sorrow’s Path were played alongside urborg or yavimaya, it could be tapped for a black or green to deal two damage to you and your creatures without the blockers requirements. I could see this as being useful in a dinosaur tribal deck with the enraged mechanic. Still, not a great land card. Haha
defintely get rid of “Undiscovered paradise” that actually does see play in vintage formats and like you said lands matter decks can definitely use it for land fall (its the same reason ghost town is used despite being colorless mana) but theres other important factor not taken into factor the most obvious is you didn’t take “Exploration” type of effects into factor “playing more than 1 land per turn” second this actually dodges “Winter Orb”/”Back to basics” effects because you bounce it and it doesn’t say come into play tapped.
i’ve gone against a banding deck where part of the band was a creature that gains counters whenever it took damage. by making a massive band it forced everyone to block or take ten plus damage each turn, but blocking would actually make the band stronger and would kill your creature. You could try and kill members of the bands, but the player had cards that let him assign banding to other creatures so his band could recover any losses easily. build your deck around it right and it essentially means you can cobble together a swarm deck that can absorb any damage you try to deal or gain massively from any blocking. I didn’t even see his most powerful plays in his banding deck because we ganged up on him, making an essentially 3 v 1 and eliminated many of his other strong banding cards before he could combo them properly. He still ending up wiping everyone out by making a massive band that defended against coalhauler swine and dealing enough damage to wipe everyone else accept himself out. there is a versatility to banding that you can abuse the SHIT out of if you build your deck just right these days. it’s just hard to naturally come across the banding cards and next to no one is actually building a deck around banding
Without going in to anything else City of Shadow should NOT be on the list. Look it sees a lot of play in Commander in decks that take opponents creatures frequently because it’s a way to remove them from the game without letting them trigger graveyard effects. Yeah I know doesn’t seem like it would be good until you play it in Commander and then it becomes 1 of those cards that starts doing a lot.