A little bit of land destruction

[Slyvester12]

I'm with Soren on this one. Losing a land is the same as paying any resource cost. Force of Will needs something to exile. Phyrexian mana costs life. Strip Mine sacs itself. Sure, de-ramping yourself isn't great, but how often is ONE colorless mana the difference between winning and losing for you?

I would rather spend a slot on a land that comes in untapped and makes mana rather than a one-for-one card that costs two mana or more. Specifically in the case of wanting to target problematic lands; as I mentioned before, I usually just run all-purpose removal. I do have Strip Mine in a couple of my decks to target my other decks' Gaea's Cradle or Cabal Coffers, though.

I think having Strip Mine be either a land or a cheap land removal ability is better. It can't be countered (without Stifle effects), saves a slot, and is basically a targeted land removal MDFC that doesn't make you pick. I would much rather have it than an otherwise dead card like Cleansing Wildfire. If no one has an important land, what's the best case scenario? Slightly fix yourself and replace the card? Slightly harm an opponent's fixing and replace the card? I wouldn't spend two mana on either of those a lot of the time.

[Morganator 2.0]

It might even be a Faceless Haven Platinum Angel! These are the sorts of things the OP is talking about.

I wasn't really referring to Faceless Haven and Platinum Angel when I made this post. Faceless Haven isn't worth removing, even when it becomes a creature, and Platinum Angel isn't even a land.

[anjinsan]

I would rather spend a slot on a land that comes in untapped and makes mana rather than a one-for-one card that costs two mana or more.

It really depends on how valuable that "slot" is to you (thinning your deck doesn't usually hurt, after all), how big a cost two mana is to you (though Strip Mine's cost is much bigger), and how often you see lands you want to destroy. If nobody ever plays anything except basics, something like Cleansing Wildfire is kind of dead, whereas Strip Mine still functions as a land... though even then, the "dead" card cycles away for 2 mana, and Strip Mine is still only tapping for colourless.
(And you can also use Wildfire to fix your own mana, remove a bounce land, etc; I'm probably only popping a Strip Mine on something I really care about, since the drawback is so much higher)

If you see a lot of dangerous lands, run all of them!

I wasn't really referring to Faceless Haven and Platinum Angel when I made this post. Faceless Haven isn't worth removing, even when it becomes a creature, and Platinum Angel isn't even a land.

No, I mean a Faceless Haven (or Mutavault or whatever) that is a Platinum Angel (thanks to the Book of Exalted Deeds)! Pretty niche, for sure, but definitely worth removing. 

[Soren841]

Strip Mine's cost is very low, and having a colorless land is almost meaningless with a proper manabase. Significantly lower downside than an entire card slot.

[dissul]

hey morganator,

we also have that situation in our playgroup right now. one person has a deck, with a few land destruction cards (also 1-2 cards that destroy all lands). he is not trying to lock the game completely though, but his deck is around rebuilding his manabase and bordstate faster than the rest on the table. so he is able to finish the game at some point. and not locking it just for wasting time. 
most in our play group are absolutely fine with that. only one person is really salty about it. but when you look closer, it will be mostly the same persons, that find everything unfair, as long as they don't play it themselves

much more controversial was another deck in our group.
one person had a "hokori dust drinker" mass stax deck. he locked the whole table from turn 3. i guess from the edhrec list of most salty cards, it contained at least 30 cards .
even if we did let him play the deck, in the end he decided to rebuild it, because he always had to play 1v3 with it.

so.... that's some social corrective here. if you are an asshole on the table, the others will crush you

[anjinsan]

Strip Mine's cost is very low, and having a colorless land is almost meaningless with a proper manabase. Significantly lower downside than an entire card slot.

This is a wrong-way-around argument. Having a colourless land contributes to a poor manabase; what you're saying is that it's a cost you can afford if the rest of the manabase is good, but it is stopping you from taking some other colourless land.

The cost of actually using a Strip Mine is a card and 1 mana for every turn from then onwards, compared with the 2 mana of something like Cleansing Wildfire. I'm not sure that you can say the former is very low but the latter high.

[Bonethousand]

I can absolutely see both sides of the discussion here with land based land destruction and cantrip based land d. In my playgroup, our meta is not heavy with powerful lands, but it is pretty mana efficient, meaning that each turn we rarely have untapped lands unless we're specifically holding up interaction (especially in the late game where the powerful lands tilt the most games). For this reason, it's both a hinderance to fall behind 2 opponents by using a Strip Mine, and it's a pain to hold up 2 mana for Cleansing Wildfire just because you anticipate you might need it. Honestly, I think I'd prefer to have land d on a colorless land in my monocolor decks, and the cantrips in my 3cmc or higher decks because of the land fixing utility. Honestly, I barely run any of this effect to begin with; it's just something I never think to tech for when I'm excited for shiny new cards, so I don't really have a tested opinion.

[Valmias]

I do agree that every deck should have some kind of solution for the threats it is likely to encounter, and that includes problem lands. Honestly, I'm glad both options exist (land or cantrip)! Especially with an interaction like land destruction, I think it's great that we can tailor our level of response from the recoverable options like Lithoform Blight and Spreading Seas, through the fairer trades like Strip Mine and Cleansing Wildfire, up to the nuclear options like Armageddon. As the OP suggested, land destruction can be a touchy subject, so having the range gives us the option to slip some into our own metas without going all out.

For me, the idea of the "best" targeted land destruction has to account for the synergies of the deck. I just picked up a Lithoform Blight for my Pharika enchantress deck, but I like the versatility of Cleansing Wildfire for my 4-colour Omnath landfall. If the deck doesn't suggest any obvious synergies I'll slot in a Wasteland or Ghost Quarter, or even an Encroaching Wastes just to have the option in there, but I usually feel like the lands are the less flavourful options. I really could be convinced otherwise, but I don't think there is any way to say which is the best use of the slot without evaluating the other payoffs the deck has built in. Some decks can afford a colourless land, and others already filled those slots with their strategy; some actively favour the use of certain card types, and some are especially resilient to certain kinds of setbacks.

Was there a consensus, though, that the "destroy target permanent" cards like Beast Within are the actual way to go in terms of power and versatility? Because it seems like they are never dead and have none of the drawbacks of the others. Is sounds like the debate between lands and cantrips is really about whether or not they turn out to be a dead card. Wasteland has a low risk of inclusion if it's dead, but a fairly steep payment price to use (losing a land kinda sucks even if it's a smart trade). On the other hand, Cleansing Wildfire in your hand feels bad if there's nothing good to hit, but can replace itself while turning that Gaea's Cradle in to a forest.




For the record, my preferred land destruction is Rain of Thorns, and I can confirm that is probably not what you should run lol

[anjinsan]

None of those options are really "dead" cards if you don't have good lands to hit - Strip Mine and its copycats are still lands that tap for mana, and the cantrips cantrip. Each has a cost if you draw it when you don't really want it, but none of those costs are a card. That's why people don't really like to run stuff that can, say, only remove enchantments, however good it is (that can be a dead card quite often).

Stuff like Beast Within you probably aren't taking with the aim of destroying lands (indeed, if you were, you'd probably go for the dedicated options that are just better for that purpose). It's just nice to have another card that can deal with one, in a pinch.

[Soren841]

The cantrips do cost a card. A card in the deck. And mana.

[Aetherium Slinky]

The cantrips do cost a card. A card in the deck. And mana.

The card slot consideration is real. This is why I actually prefer tempo loss over card slots. I'm more willing to play Strip Mine than I am to include a dedicated land destruction spell.

[Valmias]

None of those options are really "dead" cards if you don't have good lands to hit - Strip Mine and its copycats are still lands that tap for mana, and the cantrips cantrip. Each has a cost if you draw it when you don't really want it, but none of those costs are a card. That's why people don't really like to run stuff that can, say, only remove enchantments, however good it is (that can be a dead card quite often).

Stuff like Beast Within you probably aren't taking with the aim of destroying lands (indeed, if you were, you'd probably go for the dedicated options that are just better for that purpose). It's just nice to have another card that can deal with one, in a pinch.

That's a good point about none of those cards being technically "dead" in the same sense that Carpet of Flowers is dead without a blue player. But to the extent that there is not a target for the purpose of their inclusion, they can feel like duds. Getting a Wasteland in my opening hand can feel awkward, and paying 2 to cantrip to the same number of cards isn't parity, it's paying 2 for nothing.

I also agree that I've never reached for a Generous Gift to put in my deck thinking that I was filling a land destruction slot, but that doesn't mean it isn't. If I'm putting in a Spreading Seas specifically with the idea that it will be my solution to Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx then maybe Beast Within should be considered for the land destruction slot. Compared to say, Cleansing Wildfire, the trade-off seems reasonable to me if there was going to be a slot dedicated to it anyway. That being said, my gut tells me that the makeup of the rest of the deck (and each builder's personal tolerance for risk) is going to do more to make that choice than an evaluation of the cards in a vacuum. That's why I'm glad we have the variety!

(I also want to add that I personally prefer the non-land options because I just find them more fun I think Cleansing Wildfire is such an elegant card!)

[anjinsan]

The cantrips do cost a card. A card in the deck. And mana.

A card in the deck is not the same cost as a card in hand. The former has its own pros and cons but it's not card disadvantage. And yes, they cost mana, we know that.

[Soren841]

A card in the deck is worse.. and Strip Mine doesn't really cost mana.

[anjinsan]

A card in the deck is worse.. and Strip Mine doesn't really cost mana.

I kinda feel like you're just being obtuse now for the fun of it.  "They" refers to obviously to the non-land-based options.

I'm not sure how you quantify the cost of "a card in the deck". This potentially has a big impact if you're running a lot of tutors (or, perhaps, very large amounts of card selection). Otherwise, it's only a problem if you draw it, in which case it's exactly as bad as how dead that card is in hand.

Usually, the opposite is true; having fewer cards in your deck is better. It's not worth paying 2 mana for, but in and of itself the effect has its up-sides.

Anyway, this is turning into a bit of a rabbit-hole. The point is that targeted land destruction like this is absolutely fine and in fact should probably be encouraged; all of these cards should probably see more play (honestly I'm amazed at how many people don't even run Strip Mine, which feels like a classic), and possibly even in playgroups where your Coffers and Cradles and Tabernacles don't, because there are enough lands with powerful or useful effects that having no way to deal with them at all is not nice.