Land Lingo

Crop Rotation card art

I conclude 'land month' with a look at lingo—words players use to describe different types of lands. For most of this article, I will use white/green lands as examples.

Hang around experienced Magic players, and you will hear nicknames for certain types of things. Today our focus is lands. I am indebted to The Gamer's article for their list. They cover more than I do below; I focus on the most common terms.

Basic Lands

I covered these in my first lands post, so I won't re-visit them here. There are five basics (Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest) plus Wastes. 

Dual Lands

These lands are powerful (and expensive). They enter the battlefield untapped, are two basic land types, and can be tapped for one of two colors of mana. Consider the two cards below: Underground Sea (an Island Swamp) or Savannah (a Forest Plains, shown in modern print format but never available for competitive play in that format). Dual lands were produced only in the first four sets (Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Revised) and are very hard to get; they will cost you hundreds (or thousands) of dollars.

Tap Lands

Can't afford dual lands? Tap lands are for you. Same concept as dual lands, but they enter the battlefield tapped, delaying their use by one turn (a real disadvantage in competitve Magic). There are many variations on this concept, as you can see. Some (Elfhame Palace, Tranquil Expanse) are functional reprints of each other—identical in every way except name. Others (Radiant Grove, Arctic Treeline) add "Forest Plains" to their subtypes, enabling you to 'fetch' them with certain cards (see my first land post). Some are snow lands, artifact lands, or gates. Some allow you to tap them the first turn they are in play, but then they do not untap the next turn, delaying the 'penalty' by one turn. There are other variations, too, but the same principle: you are getting a land that can produce more than one type of mana, but at a 'price:' tapping.

Conditional Tap Lands

I made this term up; the article I mentioned above would call some of these "Battle," "Bond," or "Reveal" lands. Anyway . . . these lands are those that come into play tapped unless you meet conditions that enable them to come into play untapped. Consider Overgrown Farmland and Razorverge Thicket; these can be played untapped if you have two or more/fewer lands already in play.

Other conditions include number of opponents, number of basic lands you control, types of basic land you control, and types of basic lands you have in your hand.

Fetch Lands

These lands enable you to sacrifice them to find other land cards in your deck. Notice that some of them put the fetched land onto the battlefield tapped, and some do not. That can make a huge difference.

Pain & Shock Lands

Pain lands do damage to you whenever you tap them for colored mana. Shock lands, a type of 'conditional tap' land, do damage to you when you play them if you choose to play them untapped (otherwise, they come into play tapped). 

Bounce Lands

Lands that make you return another land you control to your hand to play them. They add two mana, though, and can be powerful in certain deck archetypes that benefit from lands hitting the battlefield (like landfall).

Deck Shaping Lands

I'm inventing (and combining) categories again; the article would call these "Cycle" and "Scry" lands. Some lands can be 'cycled' (discarded to draw a card). Some let you scry (look at the top card of your library and put it on the bottom if you wish). Whatever the case, these lands give you access to more desirable cards.

Gain Lands

These come into play tapped, but give you life.

Filter Lands

These let you add two mana (potentially of different colors) for the price of paying one. In the case of Wooded Bastion, you could pay (say) one white mana to add two green. And you could use a red mana and tap Sungrass Prairie to add one white and one green. Since these lands enable you to (effectively) change your mana's color, they are called filter lands.

Final Thoughts

Lands can be so expensive because they are the game's resources, and he who has the most powerful resources has an upper hand. Since many competitive Magic decks are (at least) two colors, getting lands that produce either color of mana is important. If you can afford those that do not tap the turn they come into play, even better. Due to their importance (and the sheer variety of cards in the game), nicknames for certain types of lands have arisen over the years.

Balanced

Crop Rotation card art

Back on the land focus for the month (I've already covered their inherent nature and basic vs non-basic), today I look at how to determine how many (and which kinds) of lands to put in your deck. I'll use 60-card decks for example purposes, but the ratios discussed here can hold true for decks of any size, from 40-card limited to 100-card commander.

There are only two things you need to determine how much of your deck should be land cards: the land/non-land balance and the types of land.

The Land/Non-Land Balance

The general rule of thumb: your deck should be 40% lands. For a 60-card deck, that means 24 cards should be land cards. However, this is only a recommendation; a typical range is more like 18-30, for reasons I discuss below. Other types of decks (those that feature gimmicky cards like treasure hunt) may have 80% or more lands, but I will omit niche strategies from the discussion.

The number of lands depends on your deck strategy and mana curve. 

• Aggressive decks typically have a lower mana curve (more low-cost spells) and fewer lands (18-22). The point with them is to hit hard and fast before your opponent can set up defenses; in that case, you need fewer lands (and want more spells) to increase the possibility of drawing playable cards early.
• Control and midrange decks tend to run more in the 22-26 land range, with a typical mana curve. 
• Stompy or landfall decks may hit 26-30 lands, as they have a higher mana curve (more high-cost spells) or require lands (in a landfall deck) to execute their strategy.

What's right for your deck? It depends. While impossible to be prescriptive for every scenario, if you have no idea what to do, I recommend you put 22 lands in an aggro deck, 24 in a control or midrange deck, and 26 in a stompy or landfall deck. If you're new to Magic or don't know how to classify the deck you have, run with 24 lands. 

The only way to verify the balance? Playtest your deck. A lot. Look for trends: do you have too many land cards in most games? Too few? Just right? This will tell you how you need to adjust the balance, if at all. The key here is trends: every deck has that game where you experience mana flood (too many lands) or mana screw (too few). But if you play 10 games and you have too few lands in 8 of them, you can bet that you need to re-balance your deck by adding a few land cards (or cards that let you fetch lands).

Of course, you can run fewer lands if you include spells that let you fetch lands (search for them in your deck).

Types of Land

In addition to land/non-land balance, multi-colored decks must consider the types of land to include. For mono-colored decks, this is easy. You can use just one type of basic land card and be done. For multi-colored decks, it gets trickier. We'll go with two colors (white/green) for example purposes.

Let's say you have a white/green deck, and decided on 24 lands. How many should produce white mana? Green? This comes down to your card selection on the non-land side. One easy way to do this is count the white mana symbols in all the non-land cards in your deck. Now count the green. Add those totals and figure out the percentage of white to green, then put in lands accordingly. If your 36 non-land cards have a total of 20 white mana symbols and 30 green, your land base should be 20/50=40% white and 30/50=60% green. Once that is determined, you have to figure out how to make that happen. There are a few options:

• The easiest (but not necessarily best) way: use only basic lands. Put 10 plains and 14 forests in your deck and call it a day. This is easy (and cheap) but inflexible—for example, if you have all white cards in your hand but only green lands, you are out of luck.
• You could use some dual-colored lands (those capable of producing white or green mana), like the two examples below. These give flexibility but often come into play tapped, slowing down your deck.
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• You could use fetch lands (lands that let you find the type you need), like Evolving Wilds (below). This is flexible but slow, too. Cards like this can be useful in 3- and 4-colored decks, giving you access to the type you need.
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You can use the above strategies in any combination, using a mixture of basic, dual, and fetch lands into your deck. Most competitive players do just that.

Choosing the right balance (and types) of lands is part art, part science. The basics above are a starting point, but the ultimate answer comes through playtesting.

When Worlds Collide

Tom Bombadil; never saw him in the LOTR movies!

I interrupt this month's "land" theme to reflect on the just-released Magic expansion, Tales of Middle Earth. This set brings the characters and events of the Lord of the Rings into the rules and mechanics of Magic: the Gathering. And when worlds collide, weird things are bound to happen.

The big challenge here is making this set feel authentically Lord of the Rings and authentically Magic: the Gathering. Magic's previous forays into licensed territory started with Dungeons & Dragons. That worked (I really enjoyed Adventures in the Forgotten Realms). They then released Warhammer commander decks, but I didn't collect those, so I cannot speak to them. For some reason, Lord of the Rings feels different. I think it's because this is the first widely-popular licensed property they are putting into Magic. D&D and Warhammer certainly have their niche audiences, but Lord of the Rings enjoys a popular appeal in the wider culture. It is important to get it right . . . but what does that look like? We'll look at three elements: characters, story, and the ring.

Characters

The Lord of the Rings characters are well-known and beloved by many. How do they 'map' to a Magic card? Each Magic color has strengths and an 'identity' associated with it, as I discuss here. Can characters from other 'worlds' map to this easily? Let's look at Gandalf the wizard as an example, who has several iterations in this set:

Since Gandalf is literally nicknamed 'the White' at one stage in the books, it makes sense to have his mono-white versions above. But then he has a mono-blue and a blue/red version, too. I could see those happening, though I'm surprised there isn't a white/blue version. I could make a case for green, too, based on his relationship with the creatures of Middle Earth. 

Other characters/creatures are similar. Some appear obvious (elves are green, dwarves are red), but even those can vary (several elves have blue in this set, due to their strengths in magic. I get it, but it seems a touch off). Goblins? Red, too. Makes sense, but does that mean they are allied with the dwarves? Of course not. 

At first glance, I don't think Wizards did a bad job there, but my point is that it is hard or impossible to map LOTR characters to Magic colors.

After color comes abilities. Same challenge here; how does one map LOTR characters to existing Magic keywords? Some will be intuitive; others impossible.

Story

They have been producing Lord of the Rings games for decades. A consistent challenge is capturing the 'feel' of the books, by which I mean the essence of the story.

While there are many battles in Lord of the Rings, the books are not focused on them. It is rather a hero's journey—a story about growth, friendship, and doing what must be done in the face of impossible odds. And a physical journey, too, visiting tons of locations. How do you capture that sort of thing in a game? It is difficult.

Previous games based on this franchise have varied in approach, but have some common elements.

Lord of the Rings TCG, Journey to Mordor, Journeys in Middle Earth, and Lord of the Rings: the Card Game all incorporate the idea of a journey into them by including different locations (or quests) as key game elements. That makes sense; locations in the books play a huge part in what's going on, and moving from one to the next brings a unique set of challenges for the fellowship. Magic doesn't have locations, per se, but lands that can highlight the locations. The lands in Tales of Middle Earth look great, but aren't locations to be visited, which detracts from the experience. Other locations (or parts of them) can show up as artifacts, like the Argonath:

Cool, but it doesn't capture the spirit of the story, in my opinion. 

As I reflect on this aspect, I think Magic should have incorporated a variant of Planechase elements into this release. Perhaps have a series of planes aligned to the books' progressions, with advancement triggered by conditions stated on them. That would have been cool.

The Ring

Finally, we'll look at the ring. Magic handles this in two ways. The first is with the ring itself:

As a mythic rare, this is a cool card, but not expected to feature in every deck. The loss of life for each burden does tie in nicely to the spirit of the novels. 

The second way is with the ring tempting you. Many cards say "the ring tempts you" as part of their effects. What does that mean? The rules inserts explain:

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. It is hard to discern, without playing, how it would feel in gameplay. It looks odd from the outside, but once this is released in Arena, I will play with it and update this post as necessary. 

Conclusion

Incorporating a popular universe into Magic is a tough task. At first glance, Wizards did a good job mapping LOTR characters into Magic's mechanics, but didn't capture the essence of the story as well as they could have. The verdict on the ring is still out. Though this set promises to sell well, and initial reviews indicates it plays well (as a Magic release), I don't know if they really captured the spirit of LOTR.

Landed

Rampant Growth card art

Today, I continue the 'land' theme of the month, referencing the comprehensive rules to do so.

Lands are unique in many ways. Today, we look at their inherent nature. We start with the concept of permanents.

• 110.4. There are six permanent types: artifact, battle, creature, enchantment, land, and planeswalker. Instant and sorcery cards can’t enter the battlefield and thus can’t be permanents. Some tribal cards can enter the battlefield and some can’t, depending on their other card types. See section 3, “Card Types.” 
• 110.4a The term “permanent card” is used to refer to a card that could be put onto the battlefield. Specifically, it means an artifact, battle, creature, enchantment, land, or planeswalker card.  
• 110.4b The term “permanent spell” is used to refer to a spell that will enter the battlefield as a permanent as part of its resolution. Specifically, it means an artifact, battle, creature, enchantment, or planeswalker spell.

Note that lands are the only permenant type that is not a permanent spell. Playing a land is a special action.

• 116.1. Special actions are actions a player may take when they have priority that don’t use the stack. These are not to be confused with turn-based actions and state-based actions, which the game generates automatically. (See rule 703, “Turn-Based Actions,” and rule 704, “State-Based Actions.”) 
• 116.2. There are ten special actions: 
• 116.2a Playing a land is a special action. To play a land, a player puts that land onto the battlefield from the zone it was in (usually that player’s hand). By default, a player can take this action only once during each of their turns. A player can take this action any time they have priority and the stack is empty during a main phase of their turn. See rule 305, “Lands.”

On to rule 305 we go. This section has 9 subpoints; I omit the five that I listed yesterday.

• 305. Lands 
• 305.1. A player who has priority may play a land card from their hand during a main phase of their turn when the stack is empty. Playing a land is a special action; it doesn’t use the stack (see rule 116). Rather, the player simply puts the land onto the battlefield. Since the land doesn’t go on the stack, it is never a spell, and players can’t respond to it with instants or activated abilities. 
• 305.2. A player can normally play one land during their turn; however, continuous effects may increase this number. 
• 305.3. A player can’t play a land, for any reason, if it isn’t their turn. Ignore any part of an effect that instructs a player to do so. 
• 305.4. Effects may also allow players to “put” lands onto the battlefield. This isn’t the same as “playing a land” and doesn’t count as a land played during the current turn. 
• 305.9. If an object is both a land and another card type, it can be played only as a land. It can’t be cast as a spell.

The first point: playing a land does not use the stack, so it cannot be countered. (Hooray!) Pretty much everything else in this game can be, so this is an important concept.

Rule 305.2 deals with continuous effects. One example is the Gitrog Monster:

"You may play an additional land on each of your turns" is a continuous effect, true for the duration of the game until/unless The Gitrog Monster leaves play. Per 305.1, playing that additional land is still a special action and cannot be countered.

Rule 305.4 deals with a similar concept as 305.2, only this time, it is not necessarily a continuous effect. In most cases, this is talking about instants and sorceries. One example is Rampant Growth:

Here, the Rampant Growth spell can be countered (by a typical counterspell effect or ability), but should the spell resolve, you can do as the card indicates, which enables you to play an additional land (but only one time).

Rule 305.9 deals with interesting cases like land creatures. Consider Dryad Arbor:

In this case, the text on the card spells out what to do. Playing this card counts are your one land for the turn, it cannot be countered, and so on.

Lands are pretty easy to grasp, but it is important to understand some of the nuances.