Land destruction
| Land destruction | |
|---|---|
| Mechanic | |
| Introduced | Alpha |
| Last used | Final Fantasy Commander |
| Scryfall Statistics | |
Land destruction can refer to either a card that destroys lands or a deck with the main goal of destroying its opponent's lands.
Description
Land destruction is primarily centered in red, with green and black getting tertiary.[1][2] White used to have Armageddon as a mass land destruction spell, but this ability has been moved to red in a rearrangement of the Color pie.
Land destruction can be a viable strategy and has supported, in its cheapest forms, many aggressive decks of the Sligh or Suicide Black variety. These decks would play cheap creatures in the early turns, followed by land destruction effects such as Pillage, Sinkhole, Strip Mine, and Wasteland to keep the opponent from generating enough mana to play answers to the early creatures. Rishadan Port was also commonly employed in its capacity to deny mana to the opponent, though it doesn't outright destroy the land.
However, R&D perceives land destruction as bad for the game as it promotes non-interactive gameplay and prevents the player on the other end from even participating in the game, due to the inability to produce enough mana to cast their spells. Thus, the cost of destroying lands has increased. Whereas Stone Rain was the common land destruction effect at three mana present in every Core Set up to 9th Edition, it has since been replaced by effects such as Demolish or Tectonic Rift in the four mana range.
On Reduce // Rubble, Stensia Inkeeper and Chandra's Revolution R&D experimented with land freezing (forcing a land to not untap), but it didn't stick either.[3]
R&D no longer wants to support land destruction effects that can be played in large quantities and render a player incapable of playing the game, but still wants to provide cards that enable players to destroy certain lands that can be threatening otherwise.[4] A prime example of this doctrine is Tectonic Edge, which was included in Worldwake to be a tournament viable answer to the manlands in the same set. Anti-nonbasic designs persist past this, in no small part due to the Urzatron engine being able to dominate the game with three lands.
The general policy has changed to land destruction effects letting the destroyed land's owner to search for a basic to put onto the battlefield, as with Field of Ruin and Boseiju, Who Endures. This removes the abilities of the nonbasic but generally lets the player keep the same number of mana sources. The fact that players with four or fewer basic lands may run out of basic lands is considered a benefit. There are many red spells and abilities to do this, and R&D is experimenting with white doing the same.[5]
Red is the one color that still regularly does land destruction. Black and green can do it but do it very infrequently. Land destruction in green used "destroy target noncreature permanent"[2] before being phased out altogether.
References
- ↑ Mark Rosewater (June 5, 2017). "Mechanical Color Pie 2017". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ a b Mark Rosewater (October 18, 2021). "Mechanical Color Pie 2021 Changes". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2021-10-18.
- ↑ Mark Rosewater (May 17, 2021). "Future Sight Design Handoff Document". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Randy Buehler (April 5, 2002). "Land Destruction Weak". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2020-11-11.
- ↑ Mark Rosewater (November 23, 2024). "Is White Orchid Phantom from MH3 a bend or break?". Blogatog. Tumblr.