The big reason to avoid Ancient Tomb is that for its price tag, I could make two fun, totally functional decks with wildly different strategies to offer up a lot more variety. If you're shoving Ancient Tomb into a list outside of CEDH, you either let an arms race get out of control or you really love sitting across from a precon.
1.) unless cedh; shocks, fastlands, surveil lands, og duals are unnecessary. There exists tapped dual lands with types that are fetchable and basic lands come in untapped & also fetchable. Obviously fetchlands are great, but imo unless in landfall theme they are pointless. Ancient tomb to me is great for mono color decks is you have it. 2.) there always exists an option close to, if not exactly, what another card does that is a cheaper option. Out of 8 decks, 5 are sub $100 and work great. Its how you build, not what cards you play. Synergy over price tag. 3.) its more fun to play underrated, hidden gem, budget, jank cards then to see the same old “good stuff pile”. Not to mention, at what point are the decks building themselves; if everyone plays the same 40 staples in every deck of that type, then add 37-40 lands and now thats less than 20 cards you are actually filling in yourself. To me that would be extremely uninteresting and mind numbing.
The reason to play fetches in mono white is simple: white has access to a number of cards that can recur any permanent (brought back, sevinne's reclamation, etc.) and these become extremely powerful ramp spells if you can hit fetches with them. Going turn one fetch, turn two fetch, crack both for plains and then casting brought back gets you at least 4 mana on turn 3, and possible even 5 if you make your third land drop. That's a LOT of acceleration.
There can also be synergy with cards that check the top card of your library or let you rearrange the top cards of your library like sensei's divining top. Fetchlands are great for their ability to shuffle the top away.
Ancient Tomb is a lot better than you think. 2 colorless from one land, without having to meet any sort of certain criteria, is insanely good. Sure, you take 2 damage whenever you use it, but in Commander, that's just 1/20 of your life total; also, there are plenty of decks in Legacy that gladly use it, and Legacy is a 20-life format, so Tomb deals 1/10 of your starting life total to you every time in that format. Additionally, in Magic, the only life point that matters is the last one, so the life loss literally does not matter if you win the game. I would never play Ancient Tomb in a casual EDH deck, because in most cases, it's far too good for casual.
I would also argue that if you aren't ahead after tapping ancient tomb a bunch of times, then you weren't ever going to be ahead anyway. If you've taken 14 off of your ancient tomb and the game isn't panning out in your favor, then there isn't a good chance it would have gone in your favor anyway and then the blame isn't on ancient tomb but rather what you have drawn.
Ancient tomb is fantastic in my mono black deck. Tomb + urborg allows your tomb to be a swamp when you dont need the extra mana. Running aristocrats/reanimator means any life loss is easily offset by how far ahead tomb puts you (recurring gary, blood artist pings, etc).
But… everything that puts lands in play are good in landfall decks. Myriad Landscape essentially costs four mana to ramp ONE land. It comes in tapped (so unless it’s your first land of the game, coming in tapped is a significant downside); then you have to pay two mana AND tap/sacrifice itself. Yes, you get a few more triggers, but there are 400 better options. Explosive Vegetation and Skyshroud Claim cost four mana and ramp TWO (and with Claim, they come in untapped).
The second you said “Ancient Tomb” I was thinking “Whoa, whoa, whoa-let’s not say something you’re gonna regret!” I play it even in ONE 5-color deck, which is Ur-Dragon. When you have that many 5 and 6+ drops, it’s an all-star. And not to worry about color requirements, the rest of the mana base is very sensible and well-balanced.
I dunno. Colorless is easy to discount with the likes of Heartless Summoning and Incubator or Herald's Horn. Even with all the colorless infrastructure it can ramp out, Ancient Tomb is risky for making an Eminence commander an even bigger and softer target. Morophon? Absolutely. He doesn't care about color fixing and cares even less when he's out. I lose enough life with City of Brass and the like. An Ancient Tomb in Ur-Dragon could discount itself out of being relevant, and if you're casting Ur Dragon, Temple of the False God is painless and taps very early in five-color.
I’ve never understood the temple of the false god hate. If you’re giving up a land slot for it, yeah it’s a bad card. Otherwise, the times you play it and it does nothing is the same as just not having a land drop for the turn. It’s not a good ramp spell, but it’s not unplayable.
I've watched people have to play it for their land drop on 3 and then miss a land drop or 2 after farrrrr too many times. It's really, really, REALLY awful and probably one of the worst lands in the game.
@@alextelfer4215 again, people treat it as just another land and shouldn’t. Playing it on turn 3 means they kept a two land hand and might not of put enough lands in their deck. Not that it’s a bad card.
Let's say you kept a 3 lander, start game, first land you draw is TotFG. It's basically a tapped land if you draw a land next turn. If you miss a land drop once it's already really bad, and if you miss another land drop it's crippling. The argument of "just don't see it as a land slot is silly imo because you can only ever play it as a land for turn, taking the space of a land slot, and otherwise there are many better lands and/or ways to ramp in almost every color that will never be as crippling as TFG can be too often. TFG has to be your 6th. Also, if you have a very good/playable hand with 3 lands and TFG is one of them, it suddenly becomes an insta-mulligan, which is also super unnecessary with most any other land or ramp card.
@@justagoose7741 yes, missing land drops is bad. Let’s say you’re playing a deck with 39 lands and no TotFG rather than 39 lands+TotFG. Let’s say you keep a 3 lander and don’t draw lands. Explain to me how the situation you described is worse? It’s no more of a dead card than a spell you can’t cast. It doesn’t decrease your chances of drawing lands.
Actually really like that your channel is casual commander oriented. So much content creators surfing on tier lists and competitive staples. Also the advices are actually really good ! I will get temple of the false god out of my dino-ramp deck right now !
This video is the one I agree with you the most about. I was screwed by Temple of the False God one time and that was all it took for me to take it out of the deck. I have Ancient Tomb in one deck and that’s Licia, Sanguine Tribune. It also uses other pain lands and Tarnished Citadel. The reason for those lands is to deal damage to myself in order to gain that life back, making Licia cheaper to cast. As for fetch lands, I have been very vocal about how they are not necessarily for a long time. I have Mardu decks, meaning I don’t have green to help color fix. What lands I use are dictated by the deck needs. Some like Kelsien and Extus do use fetch lands because there’s cards in them that care about land types. Decks like Queen Marchesa and Licia do not, so I use lands that don’t care about land types, usually focused around bounce lands.
To me, Temple of the False Gods is for colorless decks and land-focused/landfall decks where you'll be dropping land on the field as a core focus of the deck anyway. ETA: Oh, and Ancient Tomb is good in decks where you specifically want to deal damage to yourself, which is EXTRAORDINARILY NICHE so yes, not as much as people play it. ETA AGAIN: Nykthos is fine in a two-color deck, I've never had trouble getting above four in a given color in those decks (Unless they're artifact decks or other decks with a hefty colorless component) It's also worth noting that Nykthos is always at least providing mana and doesn't enter tapped, so it's almost all upside in decks where it has any chance of going off. Totally agree that it has no business in a 3+ color deck
Ancient toimb is good in every single deck lol, temple is good in ZERO decks. Anytime i see it come down during an EDH game i know to target that player with Fact or Fiction because they will have no idea how to do it
I use myriad landscape in my green landfall. It counts as a land of course, then pops two more into play on turn 2, 3 land drops in 2 turns. Then it generates 2 mana from then on while a fetch counts as two land falls, but only generates 1 mana from then on. In a game of commander even not taking into account the extra landfall it greatly helps long game for only one card in the 99.
I’ve tried Ancient Tomb in a number of decks. My Dogmeat equipment deck seems to use it best. I don’t care about taking 6-12 damage when I’m swinging for 20+ to lethal with a huge hard to stop creature. One that can get Lifelink
Even in mono-green, myriad landscape is fine. You don't run it because you really need the ramp, you run it because you're monocolored, and a single untapped colorless land isn't much of a tradeoff. That doesn't even take into account how good it is if you have ANY sort of landfall or return lands from the graveyard effects, which most green decks do, even if they're not dedicated landfall or graveyard decks.
It still is a tad pricey though. Myriad comes in tapped. Costs three (itself included) and sacrifice for two of the same basic land of one type into play tapped. Obviously, that last bit can be overcome by sacrificing it on an opponent's end step but, outside of some sort of focused landfall/recursion deck this is probably a bridge too far for most other decks.
I feel like the only deck I would try to justify a ancient tomb in a casual deck would be like auntie blight lol since she wants self damage and plays a lot of artifacts 😅
The damage it makes you take is negligible, so think about it like this, if you're playing a 3 color or less deck, you get to play pretty much anything a turn sooner than you usually would have. I love getting a professional facebreaker out turn 2 rather than turn 3, or even being able to cast a signet turn one, or cast 2 signets on turn 2, it has so much potential as long as your mana base is spot on.
Only downside is the price of the card, otherwise it's great mana acceleration. Any deck with a costly commander or a high avg cmc will love it. Proxy away.
For fetchlands, even mono-colour decks can use them for various synergies (Such as Delirium, Revolt, Landfall, deck shuffling, recursion, etc.) or getting out specific non-basic lands (Such as Dryad Arbor or the Eldraine lands). As far as deck thinning goes, it makes sense if your deck is lower in the curve. Including them doesn't decrease your chances of initially drawing lands (As a deck with 5 fetch and 38 basics has the same draw rate as a deck with 43 basics), but does decrease the chance of drawing further lands once you get to your 4-5th land drop. While it's often not worth it for that alone, having even a few synergies makes their inclusion fairly easy (Not not absolutely necessary).
I came into this video expecting to disagree with a lot of it, but I gotta say I was surprised. With the exception of Ancient Tomb, I actually agree with pretty much all of your takes here. I’m actually quite glad you mentioned Temple of the False God, as that’s a land that I will adamantly swear is bad for almost any deck; it just isn’t worth the drawback. Ancient Tomb, on the other hand, I believe is absolutely worth it; the “turn one sol ring” effect is less of a downside than you make it out to be, and a land tapping for two that early is quite strong.
I think rakdos is a color difficult to permanently ramp in as red gives temporary mana and the better black Doubling options are on creatures. Having another ramp option on a land is nice. As for green decks yes they ramp well but some decks want a ramp package that is 15 or more ramp options. In those situations I slot myriad landscape in the Deck in addition to the 15 options. When you need lots of mana you don't care how you get it.
As a newcomer to the hobby who is absolutely overwhelmed and shocked at the amount of money id have to spend on a landbase alone, im not mad at you at all! I love this video... if i could just get the people i play with to stop running them against my out of the box commander precon, we might be getting somewhere..
More basics. I honestly just run more basics and less tapped land. Any utility lands need to aide in the game plan of the deck; I don't need Reliquery Tower for unlimited handsize if the deck doesn't draw cards that hard. I have a 5 color Codie deck that runs nothing but basic lands. Just figuring out your pip color spread and percentage can actually help balance the mana requirement.
I pretty much agree with everything. I would still run Myriad Landscape in landfall decks or even in mono green as well as non green 2 color decks because I do value that ramp from a land a lot. You do bring up a lot of good points I have thought of as well, and I think people overlook them. Like fetchlands for deck thinning doesn't translate that well from Modern/Pioneer to EDH outside of very specific strategies (like landfall, but it's not for the deck thinning at that point). I've also seen games where people basically kill themselves with Ancient Tomb and Mana Crypt 😂
Quick case for Temple of the False God. Mathematically, the numbers say this land is good in the vast majority of cases if you are ramping lands. Easiest way to "mitigate" the downside: give it the slot of an MDFC or other non-land card in your deck. I like to ramp lands a lot, in all colours (I use equipment if not in green), and I run this in every single deck. Just don't treat it as a land slot. Also Yavimiya/Urborg of course. Now that we have several ways to tutor any land (Urza's Cave is an auto include), you can mitigate this stuff.
Ancient Tomb can work in multicolored decks if the majority of what you play are just single colored pips and generic mixed in. Being able to cast multiple 3-4 drops when people are dropping 1 or 2 cost cards is extremely powerful. Also super strong with signets, since every signet you drop is colorless, and let's you play them on turn 1 vs turn 2. Nykthos arguably is better in casual formats if people don't run removal, since building your devotion is significantly easier if people are running unoptimized curves, lands, and removal, letting you build your plan with almost no hurdle of getting stopped. 2 colored decks may use colors dedicated for different things, like Simic, where blue may be used for counters and draw, whereas green is used for ramp and threat. You aren't buying 40 dollar lands if you have no idea when to use them otherwise.
Ancient Tomb is a fantastic fit in my Greven Deck, where I actually want to take damage and ramp out my expensive Commander early on. But it's a more competitive approach, so your cEDH caveat probably applies.
Nykthos can still be in dual and tri colored decks and give a positive value. If those decks favor one of it's comannder colors over the others, then it will not net you a negative. My Thalia and the Gitgrog monster deck (a deck that has a diverse build and can focus on any one of it's colors over the other two) focuses more on black than green or white. So when I count up my braids, sheoldred the apocalypse and junji, I'm getting a nice 4 extra mana off the shrine on turn 5. And that's not even including how far ahead I am with the mentioned ancient tomb. The problem with the casual scene is that it dupes people into seeing a ceiling with the game that just doesn't exist. There's a difference between being a good card in only one format and cards not being good because of a table community. A table community is not a format. All this talk of just one extra mana for all that work is the point of the game. You get rewarded for complex thinking and making the absolute most of your resources. The casual scene limits you. Don't let it. The game is more fun when you realize how much you can do in the deckbuilding and application phases. And that only comes when you let good cards like these into your pool to invest in.
Playing casually is fine as long as you're within a playgroup that thinks the same. The problem with the casual scene isn't that it limits you, it's that people will shove that Sheoldred, Mana Crypt, Smothering Tithe, or Rhystic Study into a deck because they pulled it from a pack or it was a present and they want to keep playing with the cool shiny toy. Artificially increasing the power of your decks creates an unbalanced play experience, especially when you can't consistently pull off that power. People won't remember you struggling to cast Thraximundar for the second time on turn 10 with no real board, they'll remember when you exploded into a start with Thrax, Grave Pact, Mana Crypt, Phyrexian Altar, and a Gravecrawler loop.
Just a quick case for Myriad Landscape in green - I'm playing a Lumra deck, and I run it a) because I will recur it with Lumra, but also, if you have Spelunking or Amulet of Vigor out, this bad boy enters untapped, and the 2 lands you get from it also enter untapped, which is a lot of landfall triggers for not very much cost.
*Laughs at your hubris in Zhulodok.* But, seriously, there are absolutely situations where this land is absolutely clutch, especially with a Forgotten Monument in play, and you can mitigate the issues it causes with something like Chromatic Lantern in play.
FALSE. Play it in mono or two color decks. Just play more lands so you can actually hit your land drops. Also just play it as an extra land like how you would play maze of Ith. Also it is better in green bc we can ramp out lands to reach the 5 land requirement faster and more consistently. I don’t understand how he can argue that he puts this only in non-green decks
A point on temple of the false god, the odds of it being in your first 5 lands is pretty slim to begin with. I think it's like 15% chance or something like that. Which means that 85% of the time it will be active right away. I mean I'd rather see a temple in my opening hand that like a blightsteel colossus that I wont be able to play for a while anyway. At least a temple you can get on the field early on and use it when it becomes available. Blihhtsteel (or any high cmc card) is going to just sit in your hand for quite some time.
Exactly if temple of the false god is ever dead for you then you kept a bad hand or you aren’t hitting your land drops consistently( put more lands or card draw)
The fact that you have to automatically mulligan if you see it in your hand even if you have 2 other lands, which otherwise would've been keepable, why would you want to increase your mulligan chance? You may as well not even play a land in that spot it should simply be replaced by a ramp spell like cultivate. Temple of the false god should not be considered a landdrop it should be considered ramp.
@@AkariToAO Why would you have to automatically Mulligan if you had temple in your opening hand any more than if you had blightsteel or some other high CMC card? As long as you have other lands in your hand temple being in your opening hand doesn't mean you have to Mulligan at all unless you're really bad at deck building and don't think you can draw land or 2 in the next 5 turns. Or are you one of those people that will repeatedly Mulligan until you have half an opening hand of lands every single time because you can't just build a deck good enough to draw them as you go
Your math does not work. It would only be active immediately 85% of the time that you can play a land, if you played all the lands in your deck every game (in which case it would be useless). You are looking to be able to win in casual by as early as turn 7-8, so it would be inactive more often than active.
@@Dragon_Fyre I'm not counting my turns to win, I'm counting the % of times the card works vs doesn't. I couldn't tell you how many turns games I'm in usually last but something tells me the average in the last 3 pods I've been in was more around 10/13 ish
I agree with everything except the myriad landscape. I run it in my naya token deck and it does wonderfully. Yes, I have green ramp cards and some white ramp, but the myriad landscape is a good way for me to get some extra lands for landfall triggers or just to get an extra land into play for my X spells. It is slightly inefficient, however we are playing casual commander and it takes up zero space in my deck unlike a rampant growth or cultivate. My deck is focused primarily on cards that create various tokens, so having to remove one of those to replace it with a specific ramp card makes my deck slightly less efficient, especially against boardwipes. Plus, it's nice to see a myriad landscape when my starting hand has a bunch of one type of land because I can get a different type and ensure I can play more cards from my hand with the two pips worth of mana of a different color I gain from it. The number of times I have drawn a starting hand with myriad landscape and lands that only tap for white or red is surprisingly high considering I have something like 11 basic forests and a number of other dual lands with green (18-20 green sources total). In multiple games, myriad landscape has been the only reason I could play my cultivate or my rampant growth because it got me the forests I needed to cast my green spells. If my naya deck were evenly distributed between the three colors, my opinion might be different. My deck is primarily green and white with a splash of red, so having the myriad landscape ensures that I can cover my primary two colors or potentially go get my third color if I am not drawing my traditional ramp pieces.
Probably going to edit this comment a few times: 1. I only run myriad landscape in my mono green titania deck. But that is a sacrifce lands decks so it can count as 3 land sacs for 1 land drop. Also myriad landscape ahouldn't be used in a colorless deck as wastes dont share a land type. 2. Again with the irony I only nykthos is a 5 color deck. The deck has only 2 color cards that cost hybrid mana and all my lands are the shadowmoor filter lands. Ive meantioned this deck before its a niv mizzet reborn deck that only has the lieges, auras and avatars from the shadowmoon block and the original hybrid mana guildmages. Ironic that the themed deck that even maintains themed lands would run nykthos I know but the devotion rules with hybird mana is just to fun to not play around.
Myriad Landscape: I definitely want to keep it around in my mono black deck especially since it does have some "Swamps matter" effects. I'm still debating on keeping it in my g/w cats deck since it has a heavy landfall subtheme, but I can still see the argument to cut it. Nykthos: I had this in my same mono black deck, but due to my strategy for that deck, stuff like even Cabal Stronghold or Crypt of Agadeem were outperforming it, so I traded it out.
I run all the Plains fetches in my Light Paws deck, but the curve is super low with the majority of cards being between 1- and 3-cost; it can win pretty easily with like 6 lands. But I also run Crucible of Worlds and Serra Paragon alongside Lotus Field/Vale to replay lands in the gy. It's a fun little land based combo strategy that enables me to run around only 32 lands.
I appreciate your analysis greatly but on all the argument about ancient tomb the problem about it is not damage, it's about the amount of build around not obvious about in the cedh decks. They have a lot of colorless cards that build on each other and the amount of early impactful plays early. On casual it's good if your commander has 2 colorless cost on it. But overall great episode. Keep this up.
I agree with all of theses takes and I'm all for challenging the land status quo. I'm surprised to hear that a lot of people think Ancient Tomb is an auto-include. I don't see it much, probably more because of it's price, but to me it belongs in the fast mana category. It puts you up 1 more mana than a normal land with no mana investment and can do that from turn 1. Of course lots of people play Sol Ring in casual decks, but if we make that same exception 8 more times all of a sudden everyone's winning turn 6 and complaining about the format getting faster at the same time.
I've come to realize that the fast mana rocks are win NOW cards because if you drop them before the turn you're going to pop off then they can and usually will easily get removed by like a turn 1 vandalblast or a meltdown where X is 0. I've also never understood people putting crypt, tomb, the other rocks in non cedh decks because the games go long enough to where theyll do so much damage to you that you're speeding up the turn clock for your opponents but in cedh it doesn't matter because they end so fast
The only thing i can say to the argument of adding cards like myriad landscape in a green deck is landfall triggers. Past that I completely agree with you there.
A lot of these I'd say are REALLY dependent on the deck. I do agree with the point of the video where they're in too many decks, but in the right decks these can be really good. The pain fast mana is mostly good in decks who run maybe 40% ramp and fast mana to outpace the table and win before anyone can stop you (say an eldrazi deck rushing to the 7 drop cascade commander). Nykthos is mostly good in mono colors with LOTS of pips (I run it in my Ayara deck for example since she alone makes it net even). From the context of the main point of the video of these being overplayed though, yes, totally agree that people just think "This land is a staple throw it in everything" need to maybe ease up and analyze if it's really a fit in their deck.
I think you were a little harsh on ancient tomb and nykthos. Ancient tomb can probably be good in decks that are trying to ramp faster without green, but that's probably the main circumstance I'd run that outside a deck with easy access to lifegain. I think as long as Nykthos isn't consistently hurting your curve it might be useful to keep it for the scenarios it's good for if you're using proxies. Otherwise I entirely agree and I'm glad someone said it lol.
Fetch lands are a good tool because life is a disposable resource. And also blue may fetch mystic sanctuary… cEDH has a really low mana curve, deck thinning may be quite important.
My colorless Kozilek, Butcher of Truth deck is NOT cEDH but high powered casual. In my deck Ancient Tomb is an absolute all star. To say otherwise is ignorance of what the deck does. Dropping Kori on average of turn 4-6 Tomb is a huge part of the magic. And no it is not cEDH, I am tired as hell of this cEDH and ALL CASUAL decks have to be mid powered. I would be an asshole if I played it vs medium powered decks. Takes about 10 seconds to ask if we are playing high power or not.
In cEDH, in Urza for example, fetches are worth playing because it thins your deck. Outside cEDH though, I do agree its basically pointless to run the fetches. Caveat being that some powerful lands (Mystic Sanctuary for example) do have basic subtypes and in those cases it's worth running them as basically a tutor. EDIT: In mono colors, I guess contextually that's obvious. Of course multi-color decks should run fetches if they have em
This is another one of those videos where most of the comments are going to be along the lines of: "but THAT card is really amazing in my ONE very specific deck, you're wrong!!" And completely miss the whole point of what Demo is saying 😂😂
One of the lands I've changed my mind on recently is reliquary tower. I used to think it was an auto include in every deck, but unless you are specifically trying to draw tons of cards, the amount of times you A: draw over your max hand size and B: also need every card in your hand to win the game should be zero. Almost always better to have the colored pip.
Myriad Landscape - I run it in a few two color decks, but not many. I also run a ton of basics. Temple of the False God - I never run this in any of my decks.
@@MrBurrito Idk, they look prettier than real cards most of the time, i'd consider that bling unless you want to spend your mortgage on a piece of cardboard and have your wife leave you lmao.
Great video as usual, But here is a hot take: Nyktos plays soooo well in some three colors decks .. Let me explain, First In a Rigo streetwise deck, the commander is bant, but also 3 white pips (2 of them are hybrid selesnya and hybrid azorius) I just need one more white pip to break it. same is true with jinnie fay and Toluz which are all 3 colors but also have 3 devotion of their main color! HoweverI agree that nyktos/ cabal/ and the new tribe land are WAY over played
I have Myriad Landscape in ONE deck - Rakdos Chaos. I have a few snow payoffs and sacrifice payoffs. Plus, the deck is bad, so losing isn’t something that bothers me. 😂 * Anyone saying it’s good in landfall decks, you do realize it essentially costs FOUR mana to ramp ONE land, right? Yes, it will get three triggers, but to do that, you have to play it AFTER your payoff card(s) AND spend a turn doing nothing. If you just want triggers, play Teramorphic Expanse or Evolving Wilds or the ones from New Capena. These get two triggers for ONE mana. And they fix just as well, considering Landscape can only grab one type.
I agree with you on Ancient Tomb, just not worth it. Nykthos in mono colored is the bomb. I‘ve personally never had Temple be a dead card. I don’t play it in 4or5 Color Decks. It’s not great in your opening 7 but you can always mulligan.
I like Temple of the False Gods in land ramp. I think it plays out statistically. Also like Myriad Landscape in general unless I need coloured pips from the go - it totally is fixing though. Just slow. I totally agree on fetch lands. Anyone using them for anything other than fixing is crazy except in corner cases where it shuffles up the top of your deck. I hadn't thought through just how bad the deck-thinning thing is. Each time you fetch you essentially lower you land count by one. I don't know if I'm just applying the deck thinning argument in reverse but if you use two fetches early, you've lowered your land count by two. They're fixing is phenomenal but it means if you want to consistently hit lands, you are decreasing the odds of you hitting subsequent lands which is bad. A few is acceptable but if each one means I'm essentially a land down, are... are fetches bad? Ancient Tomb is good but I also tend to agree that it's overrated. Relying on ramp that kills you is risky. It makes much sense when you're fixing and so having to use it less regularly. Which is why (proxies of) my City of Brass and Mana Confluence are in every deck I own that isn't mono-color. Never played with or against Nykthos but would agree and imagine it is fantastic in one or two colour decks but lackluster otherwise.
I play Myriad Landscape in Korvold... multi color and green.... but that's a special circumstance where I want to sac and I'm probably stacking the sac'ing to something like Orcish Lumberjack and the ilk. I do agree though, early game it's a feel bad.
I have never found a use for Tempe of the False God. In my experience it either shows up too early and sits on my field being unhelpful for several turns or so late in the game that the mana won't matter.
Temple and Tomb are fine if you have an ability that uses colourless. I have both in Grenzo, Dungeon Warden. I mulligan if I get them in my opening hand without a red and black source.
Honestly my probably ice cold take is if it enters tapped with no way to pay for it to enter untapped it better be pulling some serious weight. What’s the point being really picky with your curve then adding lands that actively turn your line into a zigzag
Only time I've ever put fetch lands into a mono color deck, was because I was running Admonition Angel in mono white. Having an on demand O-ring was nice to have.
A buddy had once turn 5 an Acient tomb, Nyhctos, Temple of the false god, maze of ith and a cabal coffers on the board. With his darksteel igot he could't cast his three color commander Khalia of the Vast. It was the only time i did not cast my From the Ash right away.
Temple OTFG has saved my butt too many times in my Isshin Samurai Tribal deck. I've had times when I had Temple with Boros Garrison or Rakdos Carnarium in my hand. I was able to use Temple to put the other lands on the field. But that worked......for ME.
I have a simic landfall/ self mill deck, and myriad landscape is unironically the best card in my mana base. Its ok as using it once… but it gets so much better when you use it every turn
You're missing the similarities between Myriad Landscape and Cultivate. Imagine yourself with a starting hand of either plus three lands. Myriad Landscape: T1: Play ML tapped, T2: Play a land and a 2CMC card. T3: Play a land, crack ML, you'll have four lands on the battlefield, one land in your hand and ML in the GY. Cultivate: T1: Play a land. T2: Play a land and a 2CMC card. T3: Play a land and cast Cultivate, you'll have four lands on the battlefield, one land in your hand and Cultivate in the GY. Obviously, Cultivate is the overall better card. But ML is pretty close to a nongreen version of it, especially when found in your starting hand.
@@craigstuckey319 Cultivate is by far the most played green card in the whole format, according to EDHREC. Maybe you're playing a higher power level than the average EDH player.
@@alexandergartner8877while Cultivate sees super heavy play this is a card that screams precon level card. It is just so bad compared to most other options.
Commander in a nutshell. Develop your board to the point of the ability to kill everyone. Usually that point comes from a single spell. Commander damage or possibly infect can be strategies as well.
I think that myriad landscape is better in mono-white than the other colors, mosty because of effects like Sun Titan and Sevine's reclamation that can put it back onto the battlefield from graveyard.
My two cents: -Myriad landscape is so bad I cant see a reason to put it in *any* deck, ever. If you count coming in tapped as a cost, then Myriad Landscape is functionally the same as a 4 mana cultivate, except both lands come in tapped instead of just the first one. Also Id bet that this one showing up so much is the EDHrec precons effect -Nykthos can still be pretty good in a lot of two color decks. In my experience, most of my two color decks tend to be lopsided 60-70% to one color over the other. -Fetch lands have other (admittedly niche) use cases. They help you double landfall triggers for decks that care about that. (I made a deck recently that is a mill deck built entirely around ruin crab and cloning the crab) Fetch lands are also great for helping you shuffle your deck when you are doing a lot of scrying ot topdeck manipulation. Any situation where a Sensei's Divining Top is useful will also benefit from a fetch land for when all the top carss you see are bad. The classic brainstorm fetch still has some uses in commander.
Question: Fetch lands in mono black, but I have a few cards that care about #of permanents or #of card types in graveyard, so a fetch land going into my grave is useful for that.
My biggest disagreement with these takes is the temple of the false god one. Much pf what you said is absolutely true, but i think theres a lot of scenarions in 2 and even 3 color decks where your mana curve is a little on the higher end, and an extra mana a turn can help. Of course it doesnt help in the scenario where youre in development and dont have enough lands yet. Once you get to your 5th land i think it can be fantastic in many casual decks with multiple generic mana costs
Tbf, I have heard more gripes from people to not put these lands in your deck than I have heard defenders of these cards. Most people are pretty obviously speaking to the merits of these cards within the context of the appropriate decks... Any assertive 2c deck wants Tomb, no questions asked.
Sitting here actually agreeing with your reasoning for all of these for once. However, not me seething at the end of the video for you forgetting the most overused and unnecessary land in all of commander: Reliquary Tower
If you are focusing one color in a two color deck nykthos can still be pretty good. Most of my two color decks that have white, end up 75-85% white, and the rest is card draw in another color.
The ancient tomb argument was bad lol. Getting big and bad things out early is much more important than the 10 damage you take until the late game. Especially if you have ANY kind of lifelink.
it's only one extra mana. that only speeds you up by one turn at best. and getting big things out early, as i said in the video, only makes you a target.
@@edhdeckbuildingbeing a target is only important if you lose. If the whole table targets you, but you are so fast that still you win, well- being a target didn’t matter at all. When you play at insane speed, opponents would feel forced to slow down and attempt to counter your win con… now you are going fast, they are going slow… ancient tomb it a very strong card. I play monoblue cEDH- it is even more important.
I try to not use Myriad Landscape unless I can get multiple uses out of it (such as in my Nissa, Resurgent Animist deck). I do not use Temple of the False God at all. I feel the card is a TRAP. I've never really seen the appeal with Ancient Tomb unless you have Commanders that benefit from you have a lower life total or having it lowered in any way (such as Darien, King of Kjeldor). I am a big fan of Cabal Coffers and Nykthos, however it doesn't end up in every deck. Devotion CAN play very well if you have a lot of pips and an Urborg fixes Cabal Coffers entirely (but that's just a second land to add in and BOTH of them are pretty expensive nowadays). And fetches. Ah yes, Fetches. In my pod we only use them in landfall decks but I know a lot of people filter with them - that's a bit more competitive than my table is comfortable with.
I don't remember the times Temple of the False God helped me get the advantage. But I DO remember how bad it feels each time it didn't. If you're missing land drops, getting to that 5-land count feels like an ETERNITY, and it adds insult to injury having to look at it just sitting there.. I just had to cut it from all my decks to save myself from the flashbacks of disappointment I got every time I drew it.
There is a bit of sunk cost fallacy into playing expensive cards in a deck, over the actual optimal pick. Ancient Tomb is good on paper, though, especially is the Commander has a lot of generic mana in it's cost. A situationnal land imo, it shouldn't be as ubiquitous as it is.
Spoiler: its fine in any permanentbased deck thats 2 or less colors and not artifact focused. Arguably even 3 color is fine if you are focused in 1 color.
Nykthos, you are exactly correct. Fetch lands you are exactly incorrect. :) The problem with your conclusion is the initial assumption that the reason for running Fetches is "deck thinning". That is not the case. The reason for running Fetches is to enable synergies. 1) They give you an additional landfall trigger per land. 2) The let you shuffle for decks that are leaning into scrying effects. 3) They give you lands in the graveyard for any deck that is reanimating things other than creatures or running ways to shuffle your graveyard (exactly the opposite of deck thinning, :) ). 4) They give you an ability to copy with effects like Rings Of Brightharth. 5) The newest synergy I literally just learned about is that fetches power up a Surveyor's Scope by activating it in response to the sac - you sac the fetch to for 1 basic, then the scope for more (depending on board state)... got to give props to the goldfish guys on that one, I had never tried surveyor's scope before they talked about it but now am convinced its great. I assume there are other synergies with Fetches I've never encountered, but I strongly suggest people incorporate them into every deck. They are arguably the most versatile cards in the entire format and that is really saying something. Myriad Landscape is too slow. If you are in low power, it is a great option. If not, it is a killer, even in mono color decks. There are other ways to ramp in every color now that don't suspend 2. Temple of the False Gods is fine. The only draw backs for it to work properly are you really need to 1) have a deck that has enough lands, 2) NOT be playing bounce-and sac-land synergies and 3) never keep it in an opening hand if at all possible. I've started playing more bounce lands because of MDFCs, so I've begun removing Temple from decks. Ancient Tomb depends entirely on the deck. Do you have life gain that mitigates the damage? Do most of your spells have a majority of colorless in their costs? Its a toughy. I think it is very true that people play it too much. If you ever watch the Command Zone people play, Jimmy Wong (sp?) is the perfect example of this. He kills himself with it all the time to great comedic effect. Sorry for the diatribe. :) I seem to do that a lot for your videos. Guess that means your content is engaging, so good for you!
I think he meant that if you are playing fetchlands just for deck thinning it is not worth it, not that it is never worth it. He also framed it from a financial perspective.
The synergy with fetches you missed, the most important one, is cheating. The more fetches you run, the easier it becomes to stack your deck. And the easier it was for pros to normalize constantly handing their libraries. The card sharks are obsessed with fetches because they magically let you win more, regardless of strategy. It's not the statistics. In 60-card, being at one less life is going to lose you more close games than having one less land in the deck is going to win you games. Because of this, they form the economic backbone of competitive play. Everyone is encouraged to have four of all of them, because it makes wicked bank and watching people pay to hit themselves in the balls is funny. They're also almost useless without their companion lands, which are also charged at 15-20 bucks a pop. Making people pay upwards of $400 just to have trilands that come in tapped anyway is hilariously suboptimal. Allegedly the whole point of fetches and shocks was fixing that came in untapped. Triomes defeat the whole point of that, and they're posited today as mutually indispensable. At the end of the day, chronic rare land fixation is only a bandaid for bad deck design, and a side effect of cultural hype that's ten years out of date.
@@shorewall Oh, I absolutely get that finance is a major consideration, but I would argue the first expensive cards you should add to your collection are the fetch lands. Assuming you pair them with any synergy, they make your deck better, even if the only synergy is color fixing (which he also framed his point around). I think one problem people have is they like to make permanent decks so having just one of each fetch (or whatever card) isn't enough for all the decks they make. With a few hundred bucks you can get a copy of every fetch, every shock, every triome, every surveil land. Having done that you don't need to spend another cent on your mana base if you don't want to and it will be top tier every time. As I mentioned before, I also am a proponent of bounce lands and MDFCs, but those don't fetch without Urza's Cave or Tolaria West; I also am a fan of filter lands so I'd suggest getting those too. After that you can easily run nothing but basics and always will be fine. As far as deck thinning goes, there are ways to do it, but one land at a time with fetches does not qualify :) Anyone making that argument for Fetches failed math.
edh/commander is mostly a kitchen table format anyway, proxie it up and test. learn the interactions and elevate your game. if the cards are good after testing and you want to compete in sanctioned buy them.
The big reason to avoid Ancient Tomb is that for its price tag, I could make two fun, totally functional decks with wildly different strategies to offer up a lot more variety. If you're shoving Ancient Tomb into a list outside of CEDH, you either let an arms race get out of control or you really love sitting across from a precon.
1.) unless cedh; shocks, fastlands, surveil lands, og duals are unnecessary. There exists tapped dual lands with types that are fetchable and basic lands come in untapped & also fetchable. Obviously fetchlands are great, but imo unless in landfall theme they are pointless. Ancient tomb to me is great for mono color decks is you have it.
2.) there always exists an option close to, if not exactly, what another card does that is a cheaper option. Out of 8 decks, 5 are sub $100 and work great.
Its how you build, not what cards you play. Synergy over price tag.
3.) its more fun to play underrated, hidden gem, budget, jank cards then to see the same old “good stuff pile”. Not to mention, at what point are the decks building themselves; if everyone plays the same 40 staples in every deck of that type, then add 37-40 lands and now thats less than 20 cards you are actually filling in yourself.
To me that would be extremely uninteresting and mind numbing.
The reason to play fetches in mono white is simple: white has access to a number of cards that can recur any permanent (brought back, sevinne's reclamation, etc.) and these become extremely powerful ramp spells if you can hit fetches with them. Going turn one fetch, turn two fetch, crack both for plains and then casting brought back gets you at least 4 mana on turn 3, and possible even 5 if you make your third land drop. That's a LOT of acceleration.
There can also be synergy with cards that check the top card of your library or let you rearrange the top cards of your library like sensei's divining top. Fetchlands are great for their ability to shuffle the top away.
That, some landfall cards and things like surveyors scope or a fetchable plains non basic
land tax trigger get 3 plains; draw for turn. activate scroll rack for 4, crack my arid mesa?
Ancient Tomb is a lot better than you think. 2 colorless from one land, without having to meet any sort of certain criteria, is insanely good. Sure, you take 2 damage whenever you use it, but in Commander, that's just 1/20 of your life total; also, there are plenty of decks in Legacy that gladly use it, and Legacy is a 20-life format, so Tomb deals 1/10 of your starting life total to you every time in that format. Additionally, in Magic, the only life point that matters is the last one, so the life loss literally does not matter if you win the game. I would never play Ancient Tomb in a casual EDH deck, because in most cases, it's far too good for casual.
Agree to all of the above, additionally its always expensive at ~100$
I would also argue that if you aren't ahead after tapping ancient tomb a bunch of times, then you weren't ever going to be ahead anyway. If you've taken 14 off of your ancient tomb and the game isn't panning out in your favor, then there isn't a good chance it would have gone in your favor anyway and then the blame isn't on ancient tomb but rather what you have drawn.
Aren't Legacy games over after turn 4 or 5 top ?
Commander (casual) can last forever, I think this is where it hurts the most.
it has the same rate as mana confluence
Lands are so much more important than I used to think
Ancient tomb is fantastic in my mono black deck. Tomb + urborg allows your tomb to be a swamp when you dont need the extra mana. Running aristocrats/reanimator means any life loss is easily offset by how far ahead tomb puts you (recurring gary, blood artist pings, etc).
1:19 and the rant begins...
Even if it's green, my landfall deck explodes with Myriad Landscape. Just sayin'... A Brushfire Elemental goes berserk when that card hits the table.
Sure it's good in specific decks and niche situations it's not an auto include staple for every deck that's the point!
@@xeper9458 was it autoinclude in green decks?..
Besides, author is saying you should not AT ALL play it in green, without any caviats
@@reedeek1473 no he's just saying that it's in all these precons that have green and it's so bad so it shouldn't be
@@reedeek1473yeah, hes getting really into absolutes. Kinda feels like hes digging for comments like this and its making his content feel shallow.
But… everything that puts lands in play are good in landfall decks. Myriad Landscape essentially costs four mana to ramp ONE land. It comes in tapped (so unless it’s your first land of the game, coming in tapped is a significant downside); then you have to pay two mana AND tap/sacrifice itself. Yes, you get a few more triggers, but there are 400 better options. Explosive Vegetation and Skyshroud Claim cost four mana and ramp TWO (and with Claim, they come in untapped).
The second you said “Ancient Tomb” I was thinking “Whoa, whoa, whoa-let’s not say something you’re gonna regret!”
I play it even in ONE 5-color deck, which is Ur-Dragon. When you have that many 5 and 6+ drops, it’s an all-star. And not to worry about color requirements, the rest of the mana base is very sensible and well-balanced.
I dunno. Colorless is easy to discount with the likes of Heartless Summoning and Incubator or Herald's Horn. Even with all the colorless infrastructure it can ramp out, Ancient Tomb is risky for making an Eminence commander an even bigger and softer target. Morophon? Absolutely. He doesn't care about color fixing and cares even less when he's out. I lose enough life with City of Brass and the like. An Ancient Tomb in Ur-Dragon could discount itself out of being relevant, and if you're casting Ur Dragon, Temple of the False God is painless and taps very early in five-color.
Completely agree with the Myriad Landscape pick. It's usually my first cut in precons and never a card I add into a list.
I’ve never understood the temple of the false god hate. If you’re giving up a land slot for it, yeah it’s a bad card. Otherwise, the times you play it and it does nothing is the same as just not having a land drop for the turn. It’s not a good ramp spell, but it’s not unplayable.
I've watched people have to play it for their land drop on 3 and then miss a land drop or 2 after farrrrr too many times. It's really, really, REALLY awful and probably one of the worst lands in the game.
@@alextelfer4215 again, people treat it as just another land and shouldn’t. Playing it on turn 3 means they kept a two land hand and might not of put enough lands in their deck. Not that it’s a bad card.
Let's say you kept a 3 lander, start game, first land you draw is TotFG. It's basically a tapped land if you draw a land next turn. If you miss a land drop once it's already really bad, and if you miss another land drop it's crippling.
The argument of "just don't see it as a land slot is silly imo because you can only ever play it as a land for turn, taking the space of a land slot, and otherwise there are many better lands and/or ways to ramp in almost every color that will never be as crippling as TFG can be too often. TFG has to be your 6th. Also, if you have a very good/playable hand with 3 lands and TFG is one of them, it suddenly becomes an insta-mulligan, which is also super unnecessary with most any other land or ramp card.
@@justagoose7741 yes, missing land drops is bad. Let’s say you’re playing a deck with 39 lands and no TotFG rather than 39 lands+TotFG. Let’s say you keep a 3 lander and don’t draw lands. Explain to me how the situation you described is worse? It’s no more of a dead card than a spell you can’t cast. It doesn’t decrease your chances of drawing lands.
Actually really like that your channel is casual commander oriented. So much content creators surfing on tier lists and competitive staples.
Also the advices are actually really good ! I will get temple of the false god out of my dino-ramp deck right now !
This video is the one I agree with you the most about. I was screwed by Temple of the False God one time and that was all it took for me to take it out of the deck.
I have Ancient Tomb in one deck and that’s Licia, Sanguine Tribune. It also uses other pain lands and Tarnished Citadel. The reason for those lands is to deal damage to myself in order to gain that life back, making Licia cheaper to cast.
As for fetch lands, I have been very vocal about how they are not necessarily for a long time. I have Mardu decks, meaning I don’t have green to help color fix. What lands I use are dictated by the deck needs. Some like Kelsien and Extus do use fetch lands because there’s cards in them that care about land types. Decks like Queen Marchesa and Licia do not, so I use lands that don’t care about land types, usually focused around bounce lands.
To me, Temple of the False Gods is for colorless decks and land-focused/landfall decks where you'll be dropping land on the field as a core focus of the deck anyway.
ETA: Oh, and Ancient Tomb is good in decks where you specifically want to deal damage to yourself, which is EXTRAORDINARILY NICHE so yes, not as much as people play it.
ETA AGAIN: Nykthos is fine in a two-color deck, I've never had trouble getting above four in a given color in those decks (Unless they're artifact decks or other decks with a hefty colorless component) It's also worth noting that Nykthos is always at least providing mana and doesn't enter tapped, so it's almost all upside in decks where it has any chance of going off. Totally agree that it has no business in a 3+ color deck
Ancient toimb is good in every single deck lol, temple is good in ZERO decks. Anytime i see it come down during an EDH game i know to target that player with Fact or Fiction because they will have no idea how to do it
I use myriad landscape in my green landfall. It counts as a land of course, then pops two more into play on turn 2, 3 land drops in 2 turns. Then it generates 2 mana from then on while a fetch counts as two land falls, but only generates 1 mana from then on. In a game of commander even not taking into account the extra landfall it greatly helps long game for only one card in the 99.
I’ve tried Ancient Tomb in a number of decks. My Dogmeat equipment deck seems to use it best. I don’t care about taking 6-12 damage when I’m swinging for 20+ to lethal with a huge hard to stop creature. One that can get Lifelink
life is 100% a resource. the only life point that matters is your last 1, every other point use to your advantage.
Even in mono-green, myriad landscape is fine. You don't run it because you really need the ramp, you run it because you're monocolored, and a single untapped colorless land isn't much of a tradeoff. That doesn't even take into account how good it is if you have ANY sort of landfall or return lands from the graveyard effects, which most green decks do, even if they're not dedicated landfall or graveyard decks.
It still is a tad pricey though. Myriad comes in tapped. Costs three (itself included) and sacrifice for two of the same basic land of one type into play tapped. Obviously, that last bit can be overcome by sacrificing it on an opponent's end step but, outside of some sort of focused landfall/recursion deck this is probably a bridge too far for most other decks.
Too slow. Costs me a land drop and 4 mana over 2 turns to ramp 1 land.
Negative. Shit card is shit. Absolutely unplayable card. Zero need to play it. There's a thousand better ramp options.
@craigstuckey319 "there's a thousand better ramp options" and how many of them are on lands?
I feel like the only deck I would try to justify a ancient tomb in a casual deck would be like auntie blight lol since she wants self damage and plays a lot of artifacts 😅
Also Darien
Ok so take out sol rings from all decks
The damage it makes you take is negligible, so think about it like this, if you're playing a 3 color or less deck, you get to play pretty much anything a turn sooner than you usually would have. I love getting a professional facebreaker out turn 2 rather than turn 3, or even being able to cast a signet turn one, or cast 2 signets on turn 2, it has so much potential as long as your mana base is spot on.
Only downside is the price of the card, otherwise it's great mana acceleration. Any deck with a costly commander or a high avg cmc will love it. Proxy away.
I think you can justify it in very high cost commanders like Demo's Iname as One deck
For fetchlands, even mono-colour decks can use them for various synergies (Such as Delirium, Revolt, Landfall, deck shuffling, recursion, etc.) or getting out specific non-basic lands (Such as Dryad Arbor or the Eldraine lands).
As far as deck thinning goes, it makes sense if your deck is lower in the curve. Including them doesn't decrease your chances of initially drawing lands (As a deck with 5 fetch and 38 basics has the same draw rate as a deck with 43 basics), but does decrease the chance of drawing further lands once you get to your 4-5th land drop. While it's often not worth it for that alone, having even a few synergies makes their inclusion fairly easy (Not not absolutely necessary).
I came into this video expecting to disagree with a lot of it, but I gotta say I was surprised. With the exception of Ancient Tomb, I actually agree with pretty much all of your takes here. I’m actually quite glad you mentioned Temple of the False God, as that’s a land that I will adamantly swear is bad for almost any deck; it just isn’t worth the drawback. Ancient Tomb, on the other hand, I believe is absolutely worth it; the “turn one sol ring” effect is less of a downside than you make it out to be, and a land tapping for two that early is quite strong.
I think rakdos is a color difficult to permanently ramp in as red gives temporary mana and the better black Doubling options are on creatures. Having another ramp option on a land is nice.
As for green decks yes they ramp well but some decks want a ramp package that is 15 or more ramp options. In those situations I slot myriad landscape in the Deck in addition to the 15 options. When you need lots of mana you don't care how you get it.
As a newcomer to the hobby who is absolutely overwhelmed and shocked at the amount of money id have to spend on a landbase alone, im not mad at you at all! I love this video... if i could just get the people i play with to stop running them against my out of the box commander precon, we might be getting somewhere..
More basics. I honestly just run more basics and less tapped land. Any utility lands need to aide in the game plan of the deck; I don't need Reliquery Tower for unlimited handsize if the deck doesn't draw cards that hard. I have a 5 color Codie deck that runs nothing but basic lands. Just figuring out your pip color spread and percentage can actually help balance the mana requirement.
I pretty much agree with everything. I would still run Myriad Landscape in landfall decks or even in mono green as well as non green 2 color decks because I do value that ramp from a land a lot.
You do bring up a lot of good points I have thought of as well, and I think people overlook them. Like fetchlands for deck thinning doesn't translate that well from Modern/Pioneer to EDH outside of very specific strategies (like landfall, but it's not for the deck thinning at that point). I've also seen games where people basically kill themselves with Ancient Tomb and Mana Crypt 😂
Ancient Tomb is a free Sol Ring. Sounds great to me. And 2 damage is nothing in commander
Quick case for Temple of the False God. Mathematically, the numbers say this land is good in the vast majority of cases if you are ramping lands. Easiest way to "mitigate" the downside: give it the slot of an MDFC or other non-land card in your deck. I like to ramp lands a lot, in all colours (I use equipment if not in green), and I run this in every single deck. Just don't treat it as a land slot. Also Yavimiya/Urborg of course. Now that we have several ways to tutor any land (Urza's Cave is an auto include), you can mitigate this stuff.
Ancient Tomb can work in multicolored decks if the majority of what you play are just single colored pips and generic mixed in. Being able to cast multiple 3-4 drops when people are dropping 1 or 2 cost cards is extremely powerful. Also super strong with signets, since every signet you drop is colorless, and let's you play them on turn 1 vs turn 2.
Nykthos arguably is better in casual formats if people don't run removal, since building your devotion is significantly easier if people are running unoptimized curves, lands, and removal, letting you build your plan with almost no hurdle of getting stopped. 2 colored decks may use colors dedicated for different things, like Simic, where blue may be used for counters and draw, whereas green is used for ramp and threat.
You aren't buying 40 dollar lands if you have no idea when to use them otherwise.
Ancient Tomb is a fantastic fit in my Greven Deck, where I actually want to take damage and ramp out my expensive Commander early on. But it's a more competitive approach, so your cEDH caveat probably applies.
Nykthos can still be in dual and tri colored decks and give a positive value. If those decks favor one of it's comannder colors over the others, then it will not net you a negative. My Thalia and the Gitgrog monster deck (a deck that has a diverse build and can focus on any one of it's colors over the other two) focuses more on black than green or white. So when I count up my braids, sheoldred the apocalypse and junji, I'm getting a nice 4 extra mana off the shrine on turn 5. And that's not even including how far ahead I am with the mentioned ancient tomb.
The problem with the casual scene is that it dupes people into seeing a ceiling with the game that just doesn't exist. There's a difference between being a good card in only one format and cards not being good because of a table community. A table community is not a format. All this talk of just one extra mana for all that work is the point of the game. You get rewarded for complex thinking and making the absolute most of your resources.
The casual scene limits you. Don't let it. The game is more fun when you realize how much you can do in the deckbuilding and application phases. And that only comes when you let good cards like these into your pool to invest in.
Playing casually is fine as long as you're within a playgroup that thinks the same. The problem with the casual scene isn't that it limits you, it's that people will shove that Sheoldred, Mana Crypt, Smothering Tithe, or Rhystic Study into a deck because they pulled it from a pack or it was a present and they want to keep playing with the cool shiny toy.
Artificially increasing the power of your decks creates an unbalanced play experience, especially when you can't consistently pull off that power. People won't remember you struggling to cast Thraximundar for the second time on turn 10 with no real board, they'll remember when you exploded into a start with Thrax, Grave Pact, Mana Crypt, Phyrexian Altar, and a Gravecrawler loop.
Just a quick case for Myriad Landscape in green - I'm playing a Lumra deck, and I run it a) because I will recur it with Lumra, but also, if you have Spelunking or Amulet of Vigor out, this bad boy enters untapped, and the 2 lands you get from it also enter untapped, which is a lot of landfall triggers for not very much cost.
The number of decks that should run temple of the false god is pretty close to zero.
I disagree - I would argue most green decks that ramp hard can play it easily with nearly no downside.
*Laughs at your hubris in Zhulodok.*
But, seriously, there are absolutely situations where this land is absolutely clutch, especially with a Forgotten Monument in play, and you can mitigate the issues it causes with something like Chromatic Lantern in play.
Not really…just hit your land drops and mull away a starting hand that has it
FALSE. Play it in mono or two color decks. Just play more lands so you can actually hit your land drops.
Also just play it as an extra land like how you would play maze of Ith.
Also it is better in green bc we can ramp out lands to reach the 5 land requirement faster and more consistently. I don’t understand how he can argue that he puts this only in non-green decks
@@gregboisvert7786yeah at that point I do slot it in as a ramp artifact in my head instead of thinking of it as a normal land.
A point on temple of the false god, the odds of it being in your first 5 lands is pretty slim to begin with. I think it's like 15% chance or something like that. Which means that 85% of the time it will be active right away.
I mean I'd rather see a temple in my opening hand that like a blightsteel colossus that I wont be able to play for a while anyway. At least a temple you can get on the field early on and use it when it becomes available. Blihhtsteel (or any high cmc card) is going to just sit in your hand for quite some time.
Exactly if temple of the false god is ever dead for you then you kept a bad hand or you aren’t hitting your land drops consistently( put more lands or card draw)
The fact that you have to automatically mulligan if you see it in your hand even if you have 2 other lands, which otherwise would've been keepable, why would you want to increase your mulligan chance? You may as well not even play a land in that spot it should simply be replaced by a ramp spell like cultivate. Temple of the false god should not be considered a landdrop it should be considered ramp.
@@AkariToAO Why would you have to automatically Mulligan if you had temple in your opening hand any more than if you had blightsteel or some other high CMC card? As long as you have other lands in your hand temple being in your opening hand doesn't mean you have to Mulligan at all unless you're really bad at deck building and don't think you can draw land or 2 in the next 5 turns. Or are you one of those people that will repeatedly Mulligan until you have half an opening hand of lands every single time because you can't just build a deck good enough to draw them as you go
Your math does not work. It would only be active immediately 85% of the time that you can play a land, if you played all the lands in your deck every game (in which case it would be useless).
You are looking to be able to win in casual by as early as turn 7-8, so it would be inactive more often than active.
@@Dragon_Fyre I'm not counting my turns to win, I'm counting the % of times the card works vs doesn't.
I couldn't tell you how many turns games I'm in usually last but something tells me the average in the last 3 pods I've been in was more around 10/13 ish
I agree with everything except the myriad landscape. I run it in my naya token deck and it does wonderfully. Yes, I have green ramp cards and some white ramp, but the myriad landscape is a good way for me to get some extra lands for landfall triggers or just to get an extra land into play for my X spells. It is slightly inefficient, however we are playing casual commander and it takes up zero space in my deck unlike a rampant growth or cultivate. My deck is focused primarily on cards that create various tokens, so having to remove one of those to replace it with a specific ramp card makes my deck slightly less efficient, especially against boardwipes.
Plus, it's nice to see a myriad landscape when my starting hand has a bunch of one type of land because I can get a different type and ensure I can play more cards from my hand with the two pips worth of mana of a different color I gain from it. The number of times I have drawn a starting hand with myriad landscape and lands that only tap for white or red is surprisingly high considering I have something like 11 basic forests and a number of other dual lands with green (18-20 green sources total). In multiple games, myriad landscape has been the only reason I could play my cultivate or my rampant growth because it got me the forests I needed to cast my green spells.
If my naya deck were evenly distributed between the three colors, my opinion might be different. My deck is primarily green and white with a splash of red, so having the myriad landscape ensures that I can cover my primary two colors or potentially go get my third color if I am not drawing my traditional ramp pieces.
Probably going to edit this comment a few times:
1. I only run myriad landscape in my mono green titania deck. But that is a sacrifce lands decks so it can count as 3 land sacs for 1 land drop. Also myriad landscape ahouldn't be used in a colorless deck as wastes dont share a land type.
2. Again with the irony I only nykthos is a 5 color deck. The deck has only 2 color cards that cost hybrid mana and all my lands are the shadowmoor filter lands. Ive meantioned this deck before its a niv mizzet reborn deck that only has the lieges, auras and avatars from the shadowmoon block and the original hybrid mana guildmages. Ironic that the themed deck that even maintains themed lands would run nykthos I know but the devotion rules with hybird mana is just to fun to not play around.
Myriad Landscape: I definitely want to keep it around in my mono black deck especially since it does have some "Swamps matter" effects. I'm still debating on keeping it in my g/w cats deck since it has a heavy landfall subtheme, but I can still see the argument to cut it.
Nykthos: I had this in my same mono black deck, but due to my strategy for that deck, stuff like even Cabal Stronghold or Crypt of Agadeem were outperforming it, so I traded it out.
I run all the Plains fetches in my Light Paws deck, but the curve is super low with the majority of cards being between 1- and 3-cost; it can win pretty easily with like 6 lands. But I also run Crucible of Worlds and Serra Paragon alongside Lotus Field/Vale to replay lands in the gy. It's a fun little land based combo strategy that enables me to run around only 32 lands.
I appreciate your analysis greatly but on all the argument about ancient tomb the problem about it is not damage, it's about the amount of build around not obvious about in the cedh decks. They have a lot of colorless cards that build on each other and the amount of early impactful plays early. On casual it's good if your commander has 2 colorless cost on it. But overall great episode. Keep this up.
Actually white is that only color that make the exception for fetchlands, skipping your land drops really help to enable your catch up ramp
I agree with all of theses takes and I'm all for challenging the land status quo.
I'm surprised to hear that a lot of people think Ancient Tomb is an auto-include. I don't see it much, probably more because of it's price, but to me it belongs in the fast mana category. It puts you up 1 more mana than a normal land with no mana investment and can do that from turn 1. Of course lots of people play Sol Ring in casual decks, but if we make that same exception 8 more times all of a sudden everyone's winning turn 6 and complaining about the format getting faster at the same time.
I've come to realize that the fast mana rocks are win NOW cards because if you drop them before the turn you're going to pop off then they can and usually will easily get removed by like a turn 1 vandalblast or a meltdown where X is 0. I've also never understood people putting crypt, tomb, the other rocks in non cedh decks because the games go long enough to where theyll do so much damage to you that you're speeding up the turn clock for your opponents but in cedh it doesn't matter because they end so fast
The only thing i can say to the argument of adding cards like myriad landscape in a green deck is landfall triggers. Past that I completely agree with you there.
A lot of these I'd say are REALLY dependent on the deck. I do agree with the point of the video where they're in too many decks, but in the right decks these can be really good. The pain fast mana is mostly good in decks who run maybe 40% ramp and fast mana to outpace the table and win before anyone can stop you (say an eldrazi deck rushing to the 7 drop cascade commander). Nykthos is mostly good in mono colors with LOTS of pips (I run it in my Ayara deck for example since she alone makes it net even). From the context of the main point of the video of these being overplayed though, yes, totally agree that people just think "This land is a staple throw it in everything" need to maybe ease up and analyze if it's really a fit in their deck.
I think you were a little harsh on ancient tomb and nykthos. Ancient tomb can probably be good in decks that are trying to ramp faster without green, but that's probably the main circumstance I'd run that outside a deck with easy access to lifegain. I think as long as Nykthos isn't consistently hurting your curve it might be useful to keep it for the scenarios it's good for if you're using proxies. Otherwise I entirely agree and I'm glad someone said it lol.
I use Myriad Landscape in decks with Field of the Dead. To grab both a regular basic and a snow covered since they share a type.
Fetch lands are a good tool because life is a disposable resource.
And also blue may fetch mystic sanctuary… cEDH has a really low mana curve, deck thinning may be quite important.
Low-key no misses on this video I agree completely
My colorless Kozilek, Butcher of Truth deck is NOT cEDH but high powered casual. In my deck Ancient Tomb is an absolute all star. To say otherwise is ignorance of what the deck does. Dropping Kori on average of turn 4-6 Tomb is a huge part of the magic. And no it is not cEDH, I am tired as hell of this cEDH and ALL CASUAL decks have to be mid powered. I would be an asshole if I played it vs medium powered decks. Takes about 10 seconds to ask if we are playing high power or not.
In cEDH, in Urza for example, fetches are worth playing because it thins your deck. Outside cEDH though, I do agree its basically pointless to run the fetches. Caveat being that some powerful lands (Mystic Sanctuary for example) do have basic subtypes and in those cases it's worth running them as basically a tutor.
EDIT: In mono colors, I guess contextually that's obvious. Of course multi-color decks should run fetches if they have em
This is another one of those videos where most of the comments are going to be along the lines of: "but THAT card is really amazing in my ONE very specific deck, you're wrong!!" And completely miss the whole point of what Demo is saying 😂😂
I'm also seeing a lot of "it's good in cEDH so it's good for everyone"
I'm building a 5c Devotion Omnath. Focusing on Devotion to Black, while hacking all effects to also devotion to black.
Please do not forget about landfall decks. Especially dredge landfall! You can keep fetching from the grave
One of the lands I've changed my mind on recently is reliquary tower. I used to think it was an auto include in every deck, but unless you are specifically trying to draw tons of cards, the amount of times you A: draw over your max hand size and B: also need every card in your hand to win the game should be zero. Almost always better to have the colored pip.
Until you vs that new Winter guy from duskmoor. Im higher on reliquary tower than ever right now!
Myriad Landscape - I run it in a few two color decks, but not many. I also run a ton of basics.
Temple of the False God - I never run this in any of my decks.
Expensive lands is the first thing I remove when making my decks budget friendly
You don't say
Same and after i remove the expensive lands then I move to artifacts and then enchantments....................
For casual it's also really easy to find nice proxy sets if you want to bling your deck for less than buying 1 real.
@@cameronlapp9306 Fake cards are not bling lol.
@@MrBurrito Idk, they look prettier than real cards most of the time, i'd consider that bling unless you want to spend your mortgage on a piece of cardboard and have your wife leave you lmao.
I'm not super big on Myriad Lamdscape, but I feel like you've passed over the benefit that it can trigger landfall abilities 3 times as a single land.
Great video as usual, But here is a hot take:
Nyktos plays soooo well in some three colors decks ..
Let me explain,
First In a Rigo streetwise deck, the commander is bant, but also 3 white pips (2 of them are hybrid selesnya and hybrid azorius)
I just need one more white pip to break it.
same is true with jinnie fay and Toluz which are all 3 colors but also have 3 devotion of their main color!
HoweverI agree that nyktos/ cabal/ and the new tribe land are WAY over played
I have Myriad Landscape in ONE deck - Rakdos Chaos. I have a few snow payoffs and sacrifice payoffs. Plus, the deck is bad, so losing isn’t something that bothers me. 😂
*
Anyone saying it’s good in landfall decks, you do realize it essentially costs FOUR mana to ramp ONE land, right? Yes, it will get three triggers, but to do that, you have to play it AFTER your payoff card(s) AND spend a turn doing nothing. If you just want triggers, play Teramorphic Expanse or Evolving Wilds or the ones from New Capena. These get two triggers for ONE mana. And they fix just as well, considering Landscape can only grab one type.
I love Myriad Landscape in my 5C Omnath Landfall deck, many times i've done 3 landfall triggers out of 1 single Myriad.
I agree with you on Ancient Tomb, just not worth it. Nykthos in mono colored is the bomb. I‘ve personally never had Temple be a dead card. I don’t play it in 4or5 Color Decks. It’s not great in your opening 7 but you can always mulligan.
I like Temple of the False Gods in land ramp. I think it plays out statistically. Also like Myriad Landscape in general unless I need coloured pips from the go - it totally is fixing though. Just slow.
I totally agree on fetch lands. Anyone using them for anything other than fixing is crazy except in corner cases where it shuffles up the top of your deck. I hadn't thought through just how bad the deck-thinning thing is. Each time you fetch you essentially lower you land count by one. I don't know if I'm just applying the deck thinning argument in reverse but if you use two fetches early, you've lowered your land count by two. They're fixing is phenomenal but it means if you want to consistently hit lands, you are decreasing the odds of you hitting subsequent lands which is bad. A few is acceptable but if each one means I'm essentially a land down, are... are fetches bad?
Ancient Tomb is good but I also tend to agree that it's overrated. Relying on ramp that kills you is risky. It makes much sense when you're fixing and so having to use it less regularly. Which is why (proxies of) my City of Brass and Mana Confluence are in every deck I own that isn't mono-color.
Never played with or against Nykthos but would agree and imagine it is fantastic in one or two colour decks but lackluster otherwise.
I mostly play fetch lands (outside of landfall decks) as a way of shuffling the library. Found myself wishing i could shuffle a lot more often.
I play Myriad Landscape in Korvold... multi color and green.... but that's a special circumstance where I want to sac and I'm probably stacking the sac'ing to something like Orcish Lumberjack and the ilk. I do agree though, early game it's a feel bad.
I have never found a use for Tempe of the False God. In my experience it either shows up too early and sits on my field being unhelpful for several turns or so late in the game that the mana won't matter.
Temple and Tomb are fine if you have an ability that uses colourless. I have both in Grenzo, Dungeon Warden. I mulligan if I get them in my opening hand without a red and black source.
Honestly my probably ice cold take is if it enters tapped with no way to pay for it to enter untapped it better be pulling some serious weight. What’s the point being really picky with your curve then adding lands that actively turn your line into a zigzag
Only time I've ever put fetch lands into a mono color deck, was because I was running Admonition Angel in mono white. Having an on demand O-ring was nice to have.
A buddy had once turn 5 an Acient tomb, Nyhctos, Temple of the false god, maze of ith and a cabal coffers on the board. With his darksteel igot he could't cast his three color commander Khalia of the Vast.
It was the only time i did not cast my From the Ash right away.
Hey my Darien, King of Kjeldor deck still needs an Ancient Tomb for that damage synergy! xD
Temple OTFG has saved my butt too many times in my Isshin Samurai Tribal deck. I've had times when I had Temple with Boros Garrison or Rakdos Carnarium in my hand. I was able to use Temple to put the other lands on the field. But that worked......for ME.
I have a simic landfall/ self mill deck, and myriad landscape is unironically the best card in my mana base. Its ok as using it once… but it gets so much better when you use it every turn
You're missing the similarities between Myriad Landscape and Cultivate.
Imagine yourself with a starting hand of either plus three lands.
Myriad Landscape: T1: Play ML tapped, T2: Play a land and a 2CMC card. T3: Play a land, crack ML, you'll have four lands on the battlefield, one land in your hand and ML in the GY.
Cultivate: T1: Play a land. T2: Play a land and a 2CMC card. T3: Play a land and cast Cultivate, you'll have four lands on the battlefield, one land in your hand and Cultivate in the GY.
Obviously, Cultivate is the overall better card. But ML is pretty close to a nongreen version of it, especially when found in your starting hand.
Cultivate is also unplayable. They're both terrible unplayable cards.
@@craigstuckey319 Cultivate is by far the most played green card in the whole format, according to EDHREC. Maybe you're playing a higher power level than the average EDH player.
@@alexandergartner8877while Cultivate sees super heavy play this is a card that screams precon level card. It is just so bad compared to most other options.
Commander in a nutshell. Develop your board to the point of the ability to kill everyone. Usually that point comes from a single spell. Commander damage or possibly infect can be strategies as well.
Great video demo! Thx a lot ❤
I think that myriad landscape is better in mono-white than the other colors, mosty because of effects like Sun Titan and Sevine's reclamation that can put it back onto the battlefield from graveyard.
Ancient Tomb won't matter after Chromatic Lantern comes into play.
Only reasons to play fetches in mono is landfall and graveyard filling (crucible, delirium)
My two cents:
-Myriad landscape is so bad I cant see a reason to put it in *any* deck, ever. If you count coming in tapped as a cost, then Myriad Landscape is functionally the same as a 4 mana cultivate, except both lands come in tapped instead of just the first one. Also Id bet that this one showing up so much is the EDHrec precons effect
-Nykthos can still be pretty good in a lot of two color decks. In my experience, most of my two color decks tend to be lopsided 60-70% to one color over the other.
-Fetch lands have other (admittedly niche) use cases. They help you double landfall triggers for decks that care about that. (I made a deck recently that is a mill deck built entirely around ruin crab and cloning the crab) Fetch lands are also great for helping you shuffle your deck when you are doing a lot of scrying ot topdeck manipulation. Any situation where a Sensei's Divining Top is useful will also benefit from a fetch land for when all the top carss you see are bad. The classic brainstorm fetch still has some uses in commander.
For nykthos look for decks that run a lot of enchantments or indestructible cards. Those are the battlefields that will pay it off
Ancient Tomb is a great include with Auntie Bylthe 😁
Hey Demo! I enjoyed the video, would love to see the opposite version of this video. Which do you think are cheap or underused!
Thanks again
maybe this one: th-cam.com/video/iGcN-v9ZwzM/w-d-xo.html
@@edhdeckbuilding Amazing. Thank you for a swift reply!
Question:
Fetch lands in mono black, but I have a few cards that care about #of permanents or #of card types in graveyard, so a fetch land going into my grave is useful for that.
My biggest disagreement with these takes is the temple of the false god one. Much pf what you said is absolutely true, but i think theres a lot of scenarions in 2 and even 3 color decks where your mana curve is a little on the higher end, and an extra mana a turn can help. Of course it doesnt help in the scenario where youre in development and dont have enough lands yet. Once you get to your 5th land i think it can be fantastic in many casual decks with multiple generic mana costs
Tbf, I have heard more gripes from people to not put these lands in your deck than I have heard defenders of these cards. Most people are pretty obviously speaking to the merits of these cards within the context of the appropriate decks...
Any assertive 2c deck wants Tomb, no questions asked.
Sitting here actually agreeing with your reasoning for all of these for once.
However, not me seething at the end of the video for you forgetting the most overused and unnecessary land in all of commander: Reliquary Tower
I thought “colourless mana” isn’t the same as “generic mana”, right? Ancient Tomb tapa for “generic mana”, but I could be mistaken of course…
If you are focusing one color in a two color deck nykthos can still be pretty good. Most of my two color decks that have white, end up 75-85% white, and the rest is card draw in another color.
Myriad landscape is great in Grixis decks with expensive commanders. It actually works as a color fixer if you intend to ramp with it every time
The ancient tomb argument was bad lol. Getting big and bad things out early is much more important than the 10 damage you take until the late game. Especially if you have ANY kind of lifelink.
it's only one extra mana. that only speeds you up by one turn at best. and getting big things out early, as i said in the video, only makes you a target.
@@edhdeckbuilding well yeah being a target isn’t bad though. Same thing as turn 1 sol ring.
@@ShyLoo1994 being a target isn't bad? okay i guess we'll just have to fundamentally disagree.
@@edhdeckbuilding I like arch enemy. Let’s me know what my deck needs for protection. Good way to test decks. My koma deck 1v3s quite often.
@@edhdeckbuildingbeing a target is only important if you lose. If the whole table targets you, but you are so fast that still you win, well- being a target didn’t matter at all. When you play at insane speed, opponents would feel forced to slow down and attempt to counter your win con… now you are going fast, they are going slow… ancient tomb it a very strong card. I play monoblue cEDH- it is even more important.
Myriad landscape in green is just for Landfall
I have Myriad Landscape in my mono white deck because I can get it very consistently with Weathered Wayfarer.
I play a mono-white enchantment/angels deck. Of course I run a Serra's Sanctum!
Utility Lands have to do double duty and need to work reliably
38 printings in 7 years = 5sets/year…. wait, what set are we on??
I try to not use Myriad Landscape unless I can get multiple uses out of it (such as in my Nissa, Resurgent Animist deck).
I do not use Temple of the False God at all. I feel the card is a TRAP.
I've never really seen the appeal with Ancient Tomb unless you have Commanders that benefit from you have a lower life total or having it lowered in any way (such as Darien, King of Kjeldor).
I am a big fan of Cabal Coffers and Nykthos, however it doesn't end up in every deck. Devotion CAN play very well if you have a lot of pips and an Urborg fixes Cabal Coffers entirely (but that's just a second land to add in and BOTH of them are pretty expensive nowadays).
And fetches. Ah yes, Fetches. In my pod we only use them in landfall decks but I know a lot of people filter with them - that's a bit more competitive than my table is comfortable with.
I don't remember the times Temple of the False God helped me get the advantage.
But I DO remember how bad it feels each time it didn't.
If you're missing land drops, getting to that 5-land count feels like an ETERNITY, and it adds insult to injury having to look at it just sitting there..
I just had to cut it from all my decks to save myself from the flashbacks of disappointment I got every time I drew it.
In my games of magic, if im missing land drops im losing the game. Too much free cards and mana being swung around
There is a bit of sunk cost fallacy into playing expensive cards in a deck, over the actual optimal pick. Ancient Tomb is good on paper, though, especially is the Commander has a lot of generic mana in it's cost. A situationnal land imo, it shouldn't be as ubiquitous as it is.
Gonna make a hybrid mana themed deck with nykthos to try and make it work
Spoiler: its fine in any permanentbased deck thats 2 or less colors and not artifact focused. Arguably even 3 color is fine if you are focused in 1 color.
Nykthos, you are exactly correct.
Fetch lands you are exactly incorrect. :) The problem with your conclusion is the initial assumption that the reason for running Fetches is "deck thinning". That is not the case. The reason for running Fetches is to enable synergies.
1) They give you an additional landfall trigger per land.
2) The let you shuffle for decks that are leaning into scrying effects.
3) They give you lands in the graveyard for any deck that is reanimating things other than creatures or running ways to shuffle your graveyard (exactly the opposite of deck thinning, :) ).
4) They give you an ability to copy with effects like Rings Of Brightharth.
5) The newest synergy I literally just learned about is that fetches power up a Surveyor's Scope by activating it in response to the sac - you sac the fetch to for 1 basic, then the scope for more (depending on board state)... got to give props to the goldfish guys on that one, I had never tried surveyor's scope before they talked about it but now am convinced its great.
I assume there are other synergies with Fetches I've never encountered, but I strongly suggest people incorporate them into every deck. They are arguably the most versatile cards in the entire format and that is really saying something.
Myriad Landscape is too slow. If you are in low power, it is a great option. If not, it is a killer, even in mono color decks. There are other ways to ramp in every color now that don't suspend 2.
Temple of the False Gods is fine. The only draw backs for it to work properly are you really need to 1) have a deck that has enough lands, 2) NOT be playing bounce-and sac-land synergies and 3) never keep it in an opening hand if at all possible. I've started playing more bounce lands because of MDFCs, so I've begun removing Temple from decks.
Ancient Tomb depends entirely on the deck. Do you have life gain that mitigates the damage? Do most of your spells have a majority of colorless in their costs? Its a toughy. I think it is very true that people play it too much. If you ever watch the Command Zone people play, Jimmy Wong (sp?) is the perfect example of this. He kills himself with it all the time to great comedic effect.
Sorry for the diatribe. :) I seem to do that a lot for your videos. Guess that means your content is engaging, so good for you!
I think he meant that if you are playing fetchlands just for deck thinning it is not worth it, not that it is never worth it. He also framed it from a financial perspective.
The synergy with fetches you missed, the most important one, is cheating.
The more fetches you run, the easier it becomes to stack your deck. And the easier it was for pros to normalize constantly handing their libraries. The card sharks are obsessed with fetches because they magically let you win more, regardless of strategy. It's not the statistics. In 60-card, being at one less life is going to lose you more close games than having one less land in the deck is going to win you games.
Because of this, they form the economic backbone of competitive play. Everyone is encouraged to have four of all of them, because it makes wicked bank and watching people pay to hit themselves in the balls is funny. They're also almost useless without their companion lands, which are also charged at 15-20 bucks a pop. Making people pay upwards of $400 just to have trilands that come in tapped anyway is hilariously suboptimal. Allegedly the whole point of fetches and shocks was fixing that came in untapped. Triomes defeat the whole point of that, and they're posited today as mutually indispensable.
At the end of the day, chronic rare land fixation is only a bandaid for bad deck design, and a side effect of cultural hype that's ten years out of date.
@@shorewall Oh, I absolutely get that finance is a major consideration, but I would argue the first expensive cards you should add to your collection are the fetch lands. Assuming you pair them with any synergy, they make your deck better, even if the only synergy is color fixing (which he also framed his point around).
I think one problem people have is they like to make permanent decks so having just one of each fetch (or whatever card) isn't enough for all the decks they make. With a few hundred bucks you can get a copy of every fetch, every shock, every triome, every surveil land. Having done that you don't need to spend another cent on your mana base if you don't want to and it will be top tier every time. As I mentioned before, I also am a proponent of bounce lands and MDFCs, but those don't fetch without Urza's Cave or Tolaria West; I also am a fan of filter lands so I'd suggest getting those too. After that you can easily run nothing but basics and always will be fine.
As far as deck thinning goes, there are ways to do it, but one land at a time with fetches does not qualify :) Anyone making that argument for Fetches failed math.
edh/commander is mostly a kitchen table format anyway, proxie it up and test. learn the interactions and elevate your game. if the cards are good after testing and you want to compete in sanctioned buy them.
I only run temple of the false god in one deck, agent frank horrigan. And that deck is 1/3 ramp