When does a land stop being a land?

[fire5167]

I have always been a big MDFC fan. They go into basically every deck, they are tap lands early game that have the benefit of being other cards late game. This amazing versatility makes them incredibly powerful and explains why cards like Shatterskull Smashing, Sea Gate Restoration, and Malakir Rebirth see play in many eternal formats.

If I wanted to play a 36 land commander deck, I could reasonably get away with 32 “actual” lands and 4 MDFCs. I have recently come to the conclusion that Lórien Revealed is basically just an MDFC. You pay one and get an island; it is a pseudo tap-land. Isn’t it just as reasonable to play 32 lands, Lórien Revealed, Troll of Khazad-dûm, Oliphaunt, and Generous Ent and put these cyclers in the land section of your deck?

How far do you think this argument extends? Would you consider Angel of the Ruins to be an MDFC? Is it safe to cut a land for a white plume Adventurer? What about sylvan scrying? Is ponder a MDFC? Ponder will find a land 84% of the time in a 36-land deck. Is it just greedy/poor deckbuilding?

I’m curious to know your thoughts.

[Cosmic_Insight]

I'd say all of that depends on the deck and the curve, but my Daryl, Hunter of Walkers gets away with 34 lands and 2 MDFCs and my Superfriends deck has 36, 1 of which is Maze of Ith in both decks. However, I try and make sure that most of my ramp consists of 1-2 drops to that I'm usually hitting bigger spells by turn 4/5 and getting my commander down early. It really boils down to personal preference, play style, and deck. If your goal is to cast bigger spells quicker, you need to hit your land drops AND ramp at the same time.

[EMaxxi]

I have always been a big MDFC fan. They go into basically every deck, they are tap lands early game that have the benefit of being other cards late game. This amazing versatility makes them incredibly powerful and explains why cards like Shatterskull Smashing, Sea Gate Restoration, and Malakir Rebirth see play in many eternal formats.

If I wanted to play a 36 land commander deck, I could reasonably get away with 32 “actual” lands and 4 MDFCs. I have recently come to the conclusion that Lórien Revealed is basically just an MDFC. You pay one and get an island; it is a pseudo tap-land. Isn’t it just as reasonable to play 32 lands, Lórien Revealed, Troll of Khazad-dûm, Oliphaunt, and Generous Ent and put these cyclers in the land section of your deck?

How far do you think this argument extends? Would you consider Angel of the Ruins to be an MDFC? Is it safe to cut a land for a white plume Adventurer? What about sylvan scrying? Is ponder a MDFC? Ponder will find a land 84% of the time in a 36-land deck. Is it just greedy/poor deckbuilding?

I’m curious to know your thoughts.

The LotR landcyclers are very close to being actual dfc lands, as are the many Lay of the Land variants.
The 1 mana cost is key: You can keep a 1-lander with Oliphaunt and Lorien Revealed, but you can't keep a 1-lander with Elvish Aberration and White Plume Adventurer.
Cantrips like Ponder and its kin are harder to evaluate. You say it will find a land card 84% of the time if you run 36 actual lands. If your "land" is a rampant growth or Generous Ent, you need to pump more mana into it, which can slow you down a lot.

[fire5167]

The LotR landcyclers are very close to being actual dfc lands, as are the many Lay of the Land variants.
The 1 mana cost is key: You can keep a 1-lander with Oliphaunt and Lorien Revealed, but you can't keep a 1-lander with Elvish Aberration and White Plume Adventurer.

I think two mana to get a land is reasonable, if the upside is high enough. If you get at least two normal lands in your opening 7, any 2mana cycler after that is essentially just a land, albiet a slow one. I dont think “If you can keep a one-lander with it, then it’s a land” is an amazing argument because you can just mulligan. If you draw the 2mana cycler any time after the opener, finding the mana to pay the cycle is a non-issue.

Maybe white plume adventurer is not a land on its own, but maybe if played in conjunction with seasoned dungeoneer and caves of chaos adventurer you could justify cutting a land?

[anjinsan]

Obviously, if you take this to the extreme, these don’t work - you can’t pay one mana to cycle one of these if you only have cards like this.

Otherwise… yeah, you can pretty much count these as (bad/slow) lands. I’m personally a big fan of cards like Abundance and Dig Up which are similar (in the right decks, Thirsting Roots, Bushwhack, etc). Then of course we have the inverse: cycling lands (lands that can turn into nonlands).

If you have a lot of cantrips you can also cut your land count down. However, bear in mind that you’re kind of getting diminishing returns; if I’m always using my cantrips to dig for lands, why didn’t I just put some extra basics in and save the mana? And I really don’t want to cantrip into more cantrips.

What about Weathered Wayfarer? You almost don’t ever need to draw lands if you have him in your starting hand.