It’s fascinating hearing him pronounce some of the names very differently than I’m used to as a long time MtG player, I never would have thought of pronouncing Llanowar that way.
I honestly forgot about Library and expected Tabernacle to take the number one. And then seeing Library reminded me that Bazaar is entirely missing as well.
In the intro he explains that (for him I guess) utility lands are lands that do something besides creating mana. Meaning: 1) It needs to produce mana and 2) do something else. So both Tabernacle and Bazaar probably do not satisfy his requirements to be in this list?! And in a way, it cancels out Workshop/Cracle/Academy etc.
I agree, i think bazaar is the more powerful but less generically useful card. Library can make any deck better, but bazaar is the only reason hollowvine and dredge can exist in vintage.
Right. People are willing to mulligan all the way down to 1 if it means a Bazaar of Baghdad is in their opening hand in Vintage dredge. If that doesn't tell you how important and powerful the card is, nothing will.
Bazaar is just disgustingly good in the GY filling decks that Vintage has. Not only is it a quick way to draw and discard for those strategies to work, it’s also a land’s ability which is nearly impossible to stop from activating at least once. Strip Mine and Wasteland can pop it, but by then it’s already done damage and filled your gy.
Bazaar of baghdad is way more powerful than library of alexandria. If you mulligan library starts to be far worse because you can't draw with it without jumping through hoops. You mull to 1 and see bazaar you're still winning 90%+ of the time in vintage in game 1 unless they combo off and kill you or completely lock you out. I'd also say strip mine/wasteland are better than library. There is a nontrivial amount of games in vintage and legacy that are won on the back of a single waste/strip activation or 2. IDK how Logs knows about cephalid coliseum, but not bazaar. Cephalid coliseum is worse than a lot of cards on the list below it like cavern of souls is easily better because coliseum is good in just dredge, but not overwhelmingly good in dredge to the point that it isn't used in vintage dredge.
Bazaar of Baghdad is a good candidate for this list, ( Tap: Draw 2 cards then discard 3) although not as powerful in a vacuum as library of Alexandria, Bazaars combos and synergies to make use of the cards your discarding with graveyard effects, etc. can be a ton of value but like Urza’s saga you need build around it.
Script writer here! I didn't consider lands that didn't tap for mana "Utility lands". Utility lands are lands that you can tap for mana, but have another function outside of that. This is why Dark Depths wasn't included on the list, despite being a very powerful land
@@pumkinswift8263 i play alot of modern, legacy and vintage, and i think in the context of modern magic library is pretty terrible. I think urza's saga is much much stronger then library as a card. Historically yes libary insane. I think if it was unbanned in legacy it would simply see no play, where as saga is a powerful house in legacy, vintage and modern. Also library see's 0 play in vintage(i don't think it would even if it was at 4). So in the context of the formats where u can play saga and library saga is much much bette then library. I would also put saga over port i think u also need to build around port with vial or lands stategy and can't play it every deck like u can wasteland anyway.
the reason i think library is bad, is the oppunity cost of not using turn 1/2 mana to draw spells is really bad currently with extremely powerful proactive cards like dha, ragavan existing basically you generate card advantage by spending mana these days. Also library doesn't work if your made to force or deploy moxen or spells of your own. SO it's very hard in a game of vintage to mantain library due to the speed of the format(also i think this is true in legacy aswell you'd just get murdered by delver attempting to library). saga provides huge effcient win cons that are uncounterable sources of win cons which is huge in vintage and legacy. Often in doomsday vs tinker decks i'm sitting on 2-3 forces and they play a saga and it just auto wins the game where as library even if it drew 4 cards wouldn't of done anything as i would of just countered everything and had time to find my own combo, the speed at which saga kills the opponent, the fact it generates cards withou a cost and the clock it provides is just ultimately alot more useful then the possiblity of drawing cards which library does.
I've been out of magic for over 5 years, but library unbanned in legacy sounds like a recipe for disaster. It sounds like library mirror matches all over potentially especially in the context of legacy lands, which can easily fulfill the requirement of 7 cards in hand with loam. Only way it wouldn't be dominant in paper magic is because a playset will cost you several kidney's.
@@dstreetz91 actually library is one of those things that's mostly banned because of "power memory" and the fact that wizards pays little attention to legacy more than anything else. Legacy does not reward slow play, and wasteland is a format defining card. I think library maybe would be playable in Bant loam, but it's arguably not even really good there, as drawing cards isn't a problem the deck has, and playing a colorless land that doesn't effect the board in your opener is a real fast way. Now if you unbanned library when somethingike UW Miracles with Countertop existed it would have completely overrun the format but that kind of legacy deck just really doesn't exist anymore. Library just stays banned as sort of a "Hall of Fame" ban. Bazaar on the other hand is not really a utility land. If unbanned in legacy it would literally just cause the Vintage Dredge, Hogaak, and Squee decks to be ported overnight - the only card that couldn't be ported over is Mental Misstep. You could ban Golgari Grave-Troll with basically no impact on the Dredge deck. It wouldn't be unbeatable but would completely warp legacy the same way it does vintage, forcing people to sideboard 3-6 hate pieces (a single leyline is not good enough) and still sometimes lose because you didn't draw 3 hate pieces in perfect order
I love your videos! It is so refreshing to be able watch videos about MTG without having to hear several minutes of sellout advertisements and shameless self promotion of social media pages, begging for subscribers etc. I very much enjoy that you get straight to the topic and stay on it. Please stick around and keep doing what you do!
It's sadly become the way of things these days, though at least the sponsored content I watch is sponsored by companies whose products the channels (and I!) actually use. Which is usually Card Kingdom and Dragon Shield. Anyone shilling a mobile game is right out, though.
I’d personally swap the placement of Strip Mine and Library. They’re broken cards and deserve the top slots because they are lands that both tap for mana and have an ability that can randomly win a game by itself. Between the two, Strip Mine is more consistent and in older formats, being able to destroy broken lands like Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra’s Workshop, Tolarian Academy, and Urza’s Saga is often more important than incremental card advantage.
I play Strip Mine in edh but I refuse to use it on basic lands for that reason. I only really use it on utility lands, and then only really the "good" ones.
Super happy you are making magic videos. I don’t play YGO but I love watching your videos on cards for a reason I still can’t quite figure out, so great to see you making vids on a game I play. And I took one for the team by sharing the channel with my friends instead of keeping all the OP deck building knowledge for myself. I’d love to see some commander focused stuff every once in a while and mention of a cards potential in commander though, since even though it’s a casual format it is arguably the most widely play format of the game.
There is a reason you can find complete videos of "banned cards to fall asleep to" on this channel. Other than the (maybe a bit more than) occasional mispronounced card name, the narrator does a pretty fantastic job reading the scripts. Enough energy to not be boring, but not so much as to be obnoxious.
What really makes Urza's Saga strong is how you can just build that tutor on the 3rd chapter to be a toolbox for any situation. The Shadowspear gives a creature trample and lifelink, allowing you to gain life if you're behind, or push through damage if you're ahead and need to close out a game quick. There's multiple graveyard hate cards, some creature removal cards, creatures, card draw, and a bunch of other good utility cards. Additionally, since everything can be tutored from the saga, you can just include 1 of each and still have reliable access to them, which greatly reduces the opportunity cost of including situational effects. As for the Neon Dynasty channel cycle, a big part of what makes them powerful is just that you're effectively cutting the number of lands you run without actually cutting lands. Once you hit a certain number of lands in play, more lands are the last thing you want to see off the top of the deck. If you see one of these off the top, that's still action. On top of that, they don't have any real downside, like the Zendikar Rising double faced cards, where the land on the back entered tapped, or cost 3 life to enter untapped. There's also a few ways to get lands back from the graveyard, allowing you to repeatedly use their effects. The reduction in mana flood/screw at zero cost means that basically every deck is running at least one of these cards.
Not to mention that Saga can always just get you an artifact land and basically "replace" itself after saccing if you need the mana. Even just getting plain ol' Darksteel Citadel still nets you a free Construct, and costs no missed land drops.
@@soldancer Cannot get you an artifact land. It specifies an artifact with mana cost 0 or 1, not mana value 0 or 1. An artifact land has a mana value or 0, but a mana cost of null.
Thanks for the correction! I checked, and Urza's Saga is _literally_ the only card in Magic that stipulates searching for a specific mana cost rather than mana value, so that was an easy thing to overlook.
I would have liked to see lands like Cabal Coffers, Gaea's Cradle, Serra's Sanctum, and Tolarian Academy on this list. Lands that really just flood a player with a ton of mana for a single card are crazy. Also, really surprised that Vesuva wasn't mentioned... being able to copy ANY land in play is super useful.
Definitely - Top 10 Lands that Make more than 1 Mana: Cabal Coffers Tolarian Academy Gaea's Cradle Serra's Sanctum Cloudpost Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx Ancient Tomb Crypt of Agadeem Ravnica Bouncelands Lotus Vale/Scorched Ruins
Slight correction: You can counterspell an activated ability, but you need specific cards to do so. Cards like Disallow and Voidslime can still counter them, but there's less ways to counter them than there are ways to counter basically everything else.
I'd say for every 20 "counter target spell" cards there's 1 "counter target ability" which makes them almost impossible to counter. That and most abilities are instant-speed effects.
Nice to see Library and Strip Mine are as busted as I remember them being over a decade ago. Fetch lands are also insane, but I guess they don't do much for "utility" besides actually searching some of the utility lands.
I randomly clicked on this video and I got to #4 before he said "let's you go +1" and I was like wait a min...is this duel logs. Checks the channel name. Ah, it sure is.
While not as good, Ghost Quarter was also heavily ran during its time and some decks still run till today. Unlike Wasteland, Ghost Quarter is actually a -1 in card advantage bec you sac it to blow up an enemy non-basic, but you replace that land with a basic land of your opponent's choice. Still, it IS better to give your opponent a basic land over being able to use a more devastating Non-basic like the Tron Lands I would also say Creature Lands are also quite important: Lands like Treetop Village and Fairy Conclave are somethings the win conditions used by decks. They are immune to sorcery speed kill spells, and provides mana early in the game. Late game, they beat down your opponent. Barbarian Ring is also a good Threshold land in the same cycle as Cephalid Colosseum. Red aggro generally doesnt care how much damage they take as long as they do rapidly do damage: and a Barbarian Ring that turns in to a colorless Shock in late game can be a surprise kill spell that is relatively more difficult to counter compared to other burn spells. The other 3 are... ok... but nothing I would make space for I'm surprised Blast Zone didn't make the list. While it cannot destroy cards with mana value of 0 by itself (since it comes in to play with 1 charge counter), I though that its ability to clear permanents of a particular mana cost can pressure your opponent to hold back going wide. Also, I thought Ramunap Ruins would make it here: with the increased number of Desert type lands (And im assuming the original Desert also counts), it has been used as a means of ending matches
Karakas + Mangara of Corondor was also a thing/combo of sorts. Activate Mangara’s ability, while on stack, use Karakas to return to hand. A bit clunky but it’s repeatable Permanent removal.
Big fan of your Yugioh channel. Couple of critiques though. Not including Bazaar of Baghdad and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale is definitely an oversight. In the Karakas section, it is worth mentioning that Legacy will often use land-toolboxes fueled by Expedition Map, Crop Rotation, Elvish Reclaimer, and (historically) Knight of the Reliquary, meaning Karakas sees a healthy amount of 1-of play.
Know I'm just some random guy on youtube, but I am actually tell you why those cards are likely not on the list, and it's linked to something mentioned at the beginning: opportunity cost. See, both bazaar and tabernacle have one major downside: they don't tap for mana. As a result, they can't actively be used for casting spells. And given you have only one land drop a turn, making it an important resource, you have to actively choose between being able to play on curve, or gain the effect of these cards. And I know the decks that play them tend to not need the mana. But compared to the ubiquity of some of these, I can understand. (Although I would put them either in honorable mentions, or make a seperate list for lands that don't natively tap for mana. (Funny enough, technically counts newvimiya, and urborg tomb of yawgmoth, as they turn every land, including themselves, into the land type)
@@krvys7226 I disagree. Given the formats those two cards are legal in (Legacy, Vintage (C)EDH), running a single copy with ways to tutor for them means the opportunity cost is very low. Decks that run Bazaar tend to be graveyard-driven combo or value decks, meaning discarding for value and recurring later is very easy to do, meanwhile Tabernacle decks tend to have ample card filtering (Brainstorm, Jace, Ponder) or recursion (Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator, Life from the Loam) that sifting away the card when not needed is a simple matter. Decks where the lack of a mana ability matter (Pox comes to mind, sometimes Lands), that is mitigated Urborg or Yavimaya. You're correct in a vacuum, but in decks that want these cards, the cost is minimal.
@@fumbles01 oh, I agree the decks that want them want them. And those are very specialzed decks that tend to "break the rules" of deckbuilding. I think part of it is how each of us are analyzing the card. Thankfully, there is a classic example I can bring up that has been a point of discussion before. Let's say your building a deck that runs maze of Ith for whatever reason. Do you count it in the land slot, as it is technically a land, but does not do the normal function of a land, (generate mana to cast spells) or do you count it in the nonland slot, as the card functions similer to spell effects. And if your asking why I'm using maze as an example rather than the ones listed above, maze is more likely to be slotted into a non-speciallized deck, while fitting the other descriptors given. (doesn't generate mana, has a powerful spell like effect)
One I've always had great use of is 'Maze of Ith' . It doesn't produce mana, but you can tap it to untap target creature during combat and have it neither deal nor receive combat damage.
You can even untap your own attacking creature after it dealt combat damage. However if you gain an extra combat step it won't deal damage the 2nd time it attacks.
Overall a pretty good video, both list and most of the explanations, especially the economic term “opportunity cost”. The narrator FYI to everyone else does not play Magic at all…thus the weird mispronunciations; any player would get those fixed playing against other players and being corrected/hearing the others pronounce those cards. Also that’s why you get the jank combos like Karakas on your big Legend in a reanimator deck. Normally if a reanimated creature is killed, you want it to go to the graveyard. The exception is remove from game effects like Swords but the example given Emrakul is immune to instants.
It really is a matter of semantics, but I wouldn't consider Cavern of Souls a utility land. You'd play it to mana fix in any tribal deck that has multiple colored creatures, it just has the random upside of making them uncounterable. It's certainly a very, very strong card in the right deck, but it doesn't actually do anything outside of just fixing mana, so I don't think it qualifies as "utility". It's interesting to consider it versus Voldaren Estate, which has a 3rd, non-mana generating ability, but I don't think I'd consider that a utility land, either. Almost no deck includes it to just randomly generate blood tokens, it's used for the fixing primarily. I think a utility land needs to be a detriment to your mana base to be considered a utility land, as there's supposed to be some trade-off for having an ability in the land slot.
Yeah Cavern was a weird inclusion. I could see it being replaced by a few other lands. Bajuka Bog, Celestial Collonade, a Hideaway land like Shelldock or Spinerock, and Tolaria West in Amulet Titan decks all come to mind.
@@VVheeli I agree with all of those except Collonade, just because I think of lands in three categories: fixing, utility, and manlands. So Collonade for me would be in that third category, though I fully realize this is just my categorization and people probably think about it differently.
Cavern is amazing utility in creature decks that is even used in combo decks for how much utility it offers like legacy/vintage doomsday naming wizard for thassa's oracle is a thing they use. Uncounterable for free with the upside of free colorfixing is incredible utility.
Some of the Hideaway lands could’ve easily been at the 8-10 spot. Free casting for certain circumstances made them shape decks around them. Spinerock Knoll let you cast one card for free if you hit your opponent for 7 in a turn. Dragonstorm was a Storm card that cheated dragons out of your deck at 8 mana which was a lot for a storm card to aim for. So, a few people started running Spinerock Knoll burn decks with the Dragonstorm package so if you ever burned your opponent for 7 with 2-3 cards, and had the storm hidden away, it was like a turn 3-4 kill which in 2008 standard was blazing fast. And you’re still in a Burn deck with fast mana to hardcast your Dragonstorms, so missing with anything wasn’t an awful setback. And this deck was a massive part of the meta back then.
@@ivorymantis1026 If this is in reference to Boseiju, which is where activated effects being uncounterable was brought up, that's a Channel ability, which is actually played by discarding the card from the hand, so really only Stifle-type effects will stop it.
if you're going to include Library, I'm shocked you don't include Strip Mine or Bazar of Bagdad. Two very powerful utility lands. Another newer powerful utility land that is seeing a lot o play in many formats is Blast Zone.
one note to urzas saga: you can make the first token as soon as the second lore counter is put on it, then, in in the next mainphase the counter 3 is on the stack, you are allowed to make another token before sacrificing the saga and search up an artifact, leaving you with two Golems and a searched artifact. So in a vacuum you have two 3/3 and lets say a Jitte or another utility artifact. thats just nuts
I think to be included in the list, the decks would already have played the land anyway. Tabernacle and Bazaar are both very specific in their use, as neither of them taps for mana
tabernacle is strong in almost any legacy / vintage deck. even outside of niche use your opponent has to waste tabernacle instead of your ancient tomb or cloud post or tundra or whatever land you actually need
Bazaar and tabernacle should have been on this list for sure. Possibly dark depths/thespian stage as well. Phyrexian tower and mutavault are also considerations.
Hey MrLogs, how about a video explaining the different formats in magic? It would make all the others easy to comprenhend. I know there are quite a bit around youtube but they're not very werll explained, i feel you'd make a better work Anyways, love the content, keep it up!
I've seen it mentioned a few times, but Bazaar of Baghdad should have have been the featured card and Cephalid Coliseum should have been the runner-up. CC is a very sparsely played card, while Bazaar is the literal pillar of at least 15% of the vintage format. And if we're using that logic, then Libaray doesn't even make sense to be on the list. In current-day magic it's not even a good card in the one format its legal (it's also bad in cube). Vintage is a format defined by three broken lands (Bazaar, Tolarian Academy, and Mishra's Workshop) and none of them made the list.
Immediately after posting this I realized I misunderstood the prompt. The land needs to tap for mana AND have an activated ability. So that's why none of my suggestions made the list. I get it now.
Cavern of Souls works well in a lot of creature based combo decks too. Even if u only can get 1 feature past a counter that could be enough to win the game. Zirda + Mantle + Dork comes to mind. The dorks r so plentiful that they can get countered n u'll have a back up but also lots of them share a creature type so u can protect a few at a time by naming human or elf or druid. But the real niche for it is to protect Zirda fuz otherwise the deck does nothing but play 1 drop mana forks which means ur only alternative is flying overhead with a Birds of Paradise while getting buffed by the Exalted on 1 of the Hierarchs
Fun interaction with Karakas you dont really see anymore: if you have a Mangara of Corondor, you can tap him and respond to the activation with Karakas. The game will try to resolve as much of the ability as possible, meaning you get to exile a permanent and return Mangara to your hand. This lets you exile a permanent every other turn, which is pretty huge in slower matchups!
Would the artifact lands count? They don't actually do anything themselves, but they were broken as shit with Affinity and had to get banned from like everything immediately. Besides Bazaar that everyone mentioned, some others worth consideration are like Urborg, which is usually combined with Cabal Coffers in Commander for obscene mana production. Glimmerpost was also used in conjunction with the other locust lands to make tons of colorless (it's own effect is fairly meaningless though). The locutsts also got banned from a lot of stuff for their mana production. Academy ruins for recycling artifacts also. Mishra's factory, Mutavault and the Nexuses could all become creatures of different varieties also.
When I hear "utility land" I usually think of a land with an ability other than "add mana" or "search your deck for a different land", so I wouldn't include cavern and dryad as "utility lands" personally.
I generally have the same thought, but I think the arguments for their inclusion arec decent. Cavern is more about the bonus uncounterable clause than the mana production, and Arbor has so many unique synergies that I think it's a reasonable fit for this list.
Something to note at 5:31, both of those card displayed to deal with Emrakul can't target Emrakul due to the protection. Cards like Damnation can kill it due to the lack of targeting. The reason the land works so well is because it is colorless, not because it's an activated ability.
Demon Hunter and the like can deal with Emrakul because they create a triggered ETB ability, and Emrakul only has protection from colored spells. Since the cards have already entered the battlefield they are permanents instead of spells, so Emrakul's protection no longer helps her. From the Gatherer ruling collection on Emrakul: "“Colored spells” is not synonymous with “colored cards.” For example, even though creatures are spells when they're cast, they're not spells when they're on the battlefield and can block Emrakul; and triggered abilities of permanents entering the battlefield (such as that of Banishing Light) can target it."
@@dagonhydra I'll be damned. Yeah just looked a little more into the rules. I thought they were still considered spells but just permanent spells. Thanks for the knowledge check.
They are permanent spells while on the stack, however neither one targets anything while it's on the stack. The exile is a white triggered ability, not a white spell.
I think its very interesting the difference in card draw power between magic and hearthstone, especially given lands exist so drawing is more important in magic. But drawing 1 or 2 cards off library is gamewinning, while over in hearthstone, i just watched someone play one of several 2 mana draw 5s (radar detector, another is impending catastrophe, secret passage is a 1 mana draw 4 after the nerf...)
Okay I arrive a long time after the video, but just in case someone sees this, bouncing a Griselbrand with Karakas is pretty much useless because the controller can activate it in response. And most decks just use Griselbrand as a draw tool and win with a combo, so bouncing it is not so great.
i feel like the top 5 are just so hard to rank and order, cause like wasteland is such a powerful card in legacy and always will be . just imagine it in modern. also urzas saga has been only recently printed and around for less time but has had such a huge impact on every format its insane how good it is . i thought it be banned honestly.
i dont think saga is *that strong. like it's pretty good, but, requires a game go for at least 3 turns. people building saga decks in vintage are easy Ws because they're just too slow and that land drop could have been a strip mine or tabernacle or something to slow you down instead. it's obviously hell strong in modern and pretty strong in legacy, but, not as game breaking as people make out.
Bazaar of Baghdad isn’t been on the list, and that card is crazy strong, I would however place that second. Strip mine is the most universally over powered utility land. It can easily lock your opponent out of the game with several 2 card combos. It’s even restricted in vintage.
Bazaar of baghdad isn't restricted because it's a pillar of the format in vintage IIRC like mishra's workshop. If you were restricting based on powerlevel alone in vintage when it comes to B&R list bazaar is definitely included same with workshop. No card in the game can allow you to mulligan to 1 and win by itself except bazaar. Strip mine can't be played around is why it's restricted as well as 4 wasteland + 4 strip mine and up to 4 ghost quarter can be way too much for prison decks potentially in the context of cards like thorn of amethyst too where you just couldn't play a card for the entire game/pretty unhealthy for the format.
@@dstreetz91 I really think the question of powerlevel is fair, because strip mine can also single handedly win games. They both are powerful in conjunction with other cards, and you could argue a strip mine deck would be somewhat oppressive if it was a 4 of, or in other formats. Either way, strip mine not being on the list at all seemed like a miss
Strip Mine was sharing a spot with Wasteland. As for Tabernacle, the only places its legal mostly aren't very creature heavy, which really limits the utility of the card. Still extremely good, but maybe not enough to give it a top spot. Vesuva, while good, I think ranks lower than the rest of these lands. Bazaar though, that maybe should've gotten a spot. Also would've considered Maze of Ith and Field of the Dead. Though Maze is a little past its prime and Field is usually an all in strategy.
@@fwg1994 Vesuva in particular is a weird one. It's absolutely amazing in EDH. I feel that this list focused entirely on Modern & Legacy, and didn't take EDH into account. Or Vintage, for that matter, which may have been why Bazaar didn't make the cut.
I think one of the strongest is Split Screen, it has you deal your library into 4 piles and any time you would draw a card, mill, or search you choose one of them. Plus you can look at the top card of each any time. It's a 4 cost artifact
Agree with Library being an amazing card! Back in the 90s most people in my area (Fla) considered it power 9 over twister, because honestly, the only reason twister has its current price is because its EDH legal. At the same time it makes me sad people are aware of libraries power, I secretly wish it would be unbanned so I can play one of my favorite cards again... #sadpanda
Would love the story of power 9 some day. Like, why did WotC choose to print such powerful cards? By mistake? As an incentive to buy the boosters and products? For investment? Also the story behind the cards themselves, artists designers and so on as they're so iconic.
Back then the game designers didn't really think people would try to play competitively. They expected players to maybe have one or two moxen, not a fully optimized deck of 20 black lotuses and 20 plague rats. Those cards were designed to be better than the others but they didn't realize how much better they were. To be fair, MtG was one of if not the first card game of its kind. So all the knowledge of today (card advantage, tempo, etc.) just didn't exist.
dude theres a land that produces zombies for free and is easy to infinity combo, ive lost to it several times in commander but cant remember the name. this is def. better than all of these
"Llanowar" is pronounced similar to "Man-O-War" it's not quite the same but you'll almost certainly be saying this particular name so often that this will help
Some non blue counterspells include mana tithe(white) or red elemental blast(red). These are not as good as the mainstay blue counters as they are too narrow, risky(like tibalts trikery), or too inefficient late
I'll agree on all counts except that Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast both see play in non-blue decks in all formats they are legal in to stop free countermagic. (Granted these decks are generally aggressive solitaire types that just want to prevent you from interacting with them.) It may cost 1 mana but your opponent usually had to 2 for 1 themselves initially anyway so you come out way ahead. (In fact I once essentially emptied an opponent's hand in commander with an old boros deck that ran all the crap countermagic and cracked sunforger for a Pyroblast then slammed a Red Elemental Blast from my hand against a force of negation and a force of will, it felt sooo good.)
Not sure if others will agree but I feel like Maze's End should have been somewhere in this given how much utility it has for pulling Gates from your library if you're running any form of gate deck, ignoring the instant win condition because it's basically an added bonus that usually doesn't happen in practical circumstances. I'd also like to hear your take on what you'd consider the best cards that modify a land in some way or turn another card into a land. I built a green deck a while back that has all kinds of interactions with lands and +1/+1 counters that can end in a full set of angry unkillable forests and I want to see if I can do another one that can just do land interaction without the need for the counters,
In no particular order: Thieves Auction/Scrambleverse Sen Triplets Aetherflux Reservoir Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Grapeshot/Tendrils of Agony Burning Inquiry Blood Moon Doomsday
The card is from Future Sight. A set with about 30 unique keywords, most of them used on a single card. That kinda being the point of the set. Taking cards from the "future"
Yeah. Dredge is the most broken mechanic in all of magic. It literally doesn't matter what else is on the card, or what the card actually costs. All that matters is the dredge number.
Dredge and storm are pretty close in terms of overall powerlevel if you're talking mechanics. Storm enables the most turn 1 wins, dredge is just the hardest to interact with game 1 because you need cards like leyline of the void to combat it.
Library is funny because it sees basically zero play in vintage due to the speed of the format and the fact that it’s really hard to use going first, but it would absolutely be broken in any other format and might see play in vintage if it was unrestricted and you could see it consistently/build around it.
i don't think it would see play in legacy or vintage even if thye unbanned or unrestict it. It's too slow these days also i think saga is just much much stronger as a ultlity land. I think histroically library is kinda of one of those ultra busted "10th power" type of cards that have aged poorly and people heavily over rate.
Library as a one of is not that good usually. Library as a 4 of though you build around it like workshop/bazaar. Saga doesn't touch it, because saga can tutor a single 0 or 1 cost, but library can draw 0, 1, or any cost of card each turn to drown the opponent when you outresource them the entire game.
Is it possible to activate multiple Libraries of Alexandria if you have seven cards in habd, and then tap a LoA for a card, put it on the stack before you draw, then tap another LoA? I vaguely recall this beinag a thing.
Yes, you can. You are only required to have 7 cards in hand at the time you activate it (i.e. put the ability on the stack.) It doesn't matter how many cards you have in hand after that.
The top utility land in Magic didn't make this list? Damn, man. Snow-Covered Island. It's a basic land, so you can have as many of them as you want in your deck. That's phenomenal utility just there, but wait, it has a second ability. You see, you can tap it for blue mana. It enters the battlefield untapped, unlike many other utility lands. So just by running it, you get access to all these blue spells. And because it's Snow, it will fool your opponents into thinking you're running a Snow-matters deck, causing them to misplay and name things like Icefang Coatl. It's just not quite as fast as Sapphire Mox, which is a better utility land except that you can only run four of them and also they're banned in most formats.
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It’s fascinating hearing him pronounce some of the names very differently than I’m used to as a long time MtG player, I never would have thought of pronouncing Llanowar that way.
He's giving SaffronOlive a run for his money in terms of pronouncing
My favorite is still calling them Lawnmower Elves
@@TheLuckySpades Yeeeeeeessss, lawnmower elves. Only correct way to call it.
Funny how he pronounces things wrong
His "Zacama" felt so weird
I feel like tabernacle is sorely missed in this list. Great vid tho. Keep up the great work!
I honestly forgot about Library and expected Tabernacle to take the number one. And then seeing Library reminded me that Bazaar is entirely missing as well.
In the intro he explains that (for him I guess) utility lands are lands that do something besides creating mana. Meaning: 1) It needs to produce mana and 2) do something else. So both Tabernacle and Bazaar probably do not satisfy his requirements to be in this list?! And in a way, it cancels out Workshop/Cracle/Academy etc.
I think Bazaar of Baghdad is on the same tier of power as Library, but it is only useful in a certain type of deck.
I agree, i think bazaar is the more powerful but less generically useful card. Library can make any deck better, but bazaar is the only reason hollowvine and dredge can exist in vintage.
Right. People are willing to mulligan all the way down to 1 if it means a Bazaar of Baghdad is in their opening hand in Vintage dredge. If that doesn't tell you how important and powerful the card is, nothing will.
Bazaar is just disgustingly good in the GY filling decks that Vintage has. Not only is it a quick way to draw and discard for those strategies to work, it’s also a land’s ability which is nearly impossible to stop from activating at least once. Strip Mine and Wasteland can pop it, but by then it’s already done damage and filled your gy.
When you look up Bazaar of Baghdad, at the top of the page are 2 separate listings at $3,000. For used copies. Goddamn insane.
Bazaar of baghdad is way more powerful than library of alexandria. If you mulligan library starts to be far worse because you can't draw with it without jumping through hoops. You mull to 1 and see bazaar you're still winning 90%+ of the time in vintage in game 1 unless they combo off and kill you or completely lock you out. I'd also say strip mine/wasteland are better than library. There is a nontrivial amount of games in vintage and legacy that are won on the back of a single waste/strip activation or 2. IDK how Logs knows about cephalid coliseum, but not bazaar. Cephalid coliseum is worse than a lot of cards on the list below it like cavern of souls is easily better because coliseum is good in just dredge, but not overwhelmingly good in dredge to the point that it isn't used in vintage dredge.
Bazaar of Baghdad is a good candidate for this list, ( Tap: Draw 2 cards then discard 3) although not as powerful in a vacuum as library of Alexandria, Bazaars combos and synergies to make use of the cards your discarding with graveyard effects, etc. can be a ton of value but like Urza’s saga you need build around it.
Script writer here! I didn't consider lands that didn't tap for mana "Utility lands". Utility lands are lands that you can tap for mana, but have another function outside of that. This is why Dark Depths wasn't included on the list, despite being a very powerful land
@@pumkinswift8263 i play alot of modern, legacy and vintage, and i think in the context of modern magic library is pretty terrible. I think urza's saga is much much stronger then library as a card. Historically yes libary insane. I think if it was unbanned in legacy it would simply see no play, where as saga is a powerful house in legacy, vintage and modern. Also library see's 0 play in vintage(i don't think it would even if it was at 4). So in the context of the formats where u can play saga and library saga is much much bette then library. I would also put saga over port i think u also need to build around port with vial or lands stategy and can't play it every deck like u can wasteland anyway.
the reason i think library is bad, is the oppunity cost of not using turn 1/2 mana to draw spells is really bad currently with extremely powerful proactive cards like dha, ragavan existing basically you generate card advantage by spending mana these days. Also library doesn't work if your made to force or deploy moxen or spells of your own. SO it's very hard in a game of vintage to mantain library due to the speed of the format(also i think this is true in legacy aswell you'd just get murdered by delver attempting to library). saga provides huge effcient win cons that are uncounterable sources of win cons which is huge in vintage and legacy. Often in doomsday vs tinker decks i'm sitting on 2-3 forces and they play a saga and it just auto wins the game where as library even if it drew 4 cards wouldn't of done anything as i would of just countered everything and had time to find my own combo, the speed at which saga kills the opponent, the fact it generates cards withou a cost and the clock it provides is just ultimately alot more useful then the possiblity of drawing cards which library does.
I've been out of magic for over 5 years, but library unbanned in legacy sounds like a recipe for disaster. It sounds like library mirror matches all over potentially especially in the context of legacy lands, which can easily fulfill the requirement of 7 cards in hand with loam. Only way it wouldn't be dominant in paper magic is because a playset will cost you several kidney's.
@@dstreetz91 actually library is one of those things that's mostly banned because of "power memory" and the fact that wizards pays little attention to legacy more than anything else. Legacy does not reward slow play, and wasteland is a format defining card. I think library maybe would be playable in Bant loam, but it's arguably not even really good there, as drawing cards isn't a problem the deck has, and playing a colorless land that doesn't effect the board in your opener is a real fast way.
Now if you unbanned library when somethingike UW Miracles with Countertop existed it would have completely overrun the format but that kind of legacy deck just really doesn't exist anymore. Library just stays banned as sort of a "Hall of Fame" ban.
Bazaar on the other hand is not really a utility land. If unbanned in legacy it would literally just cause the Vintage Dredge, Hogaak, and Squee decks to be ported overnight - the only card that couldn't be ported over is Mental Misstep. You could ban Golgari Grave-Troll with basically no impact on the Dredge deck. It wouldn't be unbeatable but would completely warp legacy the same way it does vintage, forcing people to sideboard 3-6 hate pieces (a single leyline is not good enough) and still sometimes lose because you didn't draw 3 hate pieces in perfect order
Insanely helpful video, the addition of combos was icing on the cake! Would love to see more like this
As a colorless edh player, I love me my utility lands.
I love your videos! It is so refreshing to be able watch videos about MTG without having to hear several minutes of sellout advertisements and shameless self promotion of social media pages, begging for subscribers etc. I very much enjoy that you get straight to the topic and stay on it. Please stick around and keep doing what you do!
It's sadly become the way of things these days, though at least the sponsored content I watch is sponsored by companies whose products the channels (and I!) actually use. Which is usually Card Kingdom and Dragon Shield.
Anyone shilling a mobile game is right out, though.
Volrath Stronghold will always stay in my heart as the best. One of the first utility lands I first used when I was mtg noob.
Oh yeah, awesome addition! I will forever regret trading mine away in the dark days before EDH became a thing.
I’d personally swap the placement of Strip Mine and Library. They’re broken cards and deserve the top slots because they are lands that both tap for mana and have an ability that can randomly win a game by itself. Between the two, Strip Mine is more consistent and in older formats, being able to destroy broken lands like Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra’s Workshop, Tolarian Academy, and Urza’s Saga is often more important than incremental card advantage.
I play Strip Mine in edh but I refuse to use it on basic lands for that reason. I only really use it on utility lands, and then only really the "good" ones.
I love this series man you should post on your Twitter so people can see
I think an honorable mention should be given for inkmoth nexus. Its a card that just straight up wins the game on its own.
I just bought that card.
Super happy you are making magic videos. I don’t play YGO but I love watching your videos on cards for a reason I still can’t quite figure out, so great to see you making vids on a game I play. And I took one for the team by sharing the channel with my friends instead of keeping all the OP deck building knowledge for myself. I’d love to see some commander focused stuff every once in a while and mention of a cards potential in commander though, since even though it’s a casual format it is arguably the most widely play format of the game.
What's YGO?
Presumably Yu-Gi-Oh.
Or was that a troll question?
There is a reason you can find complete videos of "banned cards to fall asleep to" on this channel. Other than the (maybe a bit more than) occasional mispronounced card name, the narrator does a pretty fantastic job reading the scripts. Enough energy to not be boring, but not so much as to be obnoxious.
I don't play MtG and wow, I never knew Venezuela's capital could bounce a legendary creature in Magic.
Its not. Caracas karakas
@@aklepatzky SQL user detected
@@PunishedFelix person whose parents bought him books as kid detected*
What really makes Urza's Saga strong is how you can just build that tutor on the 3rd chapter to be a toolbox for any situation. The Shadowspear gives a creature trample and lifelink, allowing you to gain life if you're behind, or push through damage if you're ahead and need to close out a game quick. There's multiple graveyard hate cards, some creature removal cards, creatures, card draw, and a bunch of other good utility cards. Additionally, since everything can be tutored from the saga, you can just include 1 of each and still have reliable access to them, which greatly reduces the opportunity cost of including situational effects.
As for the Neon Dynasty channel cycle, a big part of what makes them powerful is just that you're effectively cutting the number of lands you run without actually cutting lands. Once you hit a certain number of lands in play, more lands are the last thing you want to see off the top of the deck. If you see one of these off the top, that's still action. On top of that, they don't have any real downside, like the Zendikar Rising double faced cards, where the land on the back entered tapped, or cost 3 life to enter untapped. There's also a few ways to get lands back from the graveyard, allowing you to repeatedly use their effects. The reduction in mana flood/screw at zero cost means that basically every deck is running at least one of these cards.
Not to mention that Saga can always just get you an artifact land and basically "replace" itself after saccing if you need the mana. Even just getting plain ol' Darksteel Citadel still nets you a free Construct, and costs no missed land drops.
@@soldancer Cannot get you an artifact land. It specifies an artifact with mana cost 0 or 1, not mana value 0 or 1. An artifact land has a mana value or 0, but a mana cost of null.
Thanks for the correction!
I checked, and Urza's Saga is _literally_ the only card in Magic that stipulates searching for a specific mana cost rather than mana value, so that was an easy thing to overlook.
I would have liked to see lands like Cabal Coffers, Gaea's Cradle, Serra's Sanctum, and Tolarian Academy on this list. Lands that really just flood a player with a ton of mana for a single card are crazy.
Also, really surprised that Vesuva wasn't mentioned... being able to copy ANY land in play is super useful.
Coffers, Cradle, Sanctum, and Academy are big mana lands, not utility lands.
I think he wasn't counting just mana turbo lands, otherwise there's like the Locusts and Urzatron also.
There should be a part 2, surely
Definitely - Top 10 Lands that Make more than 1 Mana:
Cabal Coffers
Tolarian Academy
Gaea's Cradle
Serra's Sanctum
Cloudpost
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Ancient Tomb
Crypt of Agadeem
Ravnica Bouncelands
Lotus Vale/Scorched Ruins
Slight correction: You can counterspell an activated ability, but you need specific cards to do so. Cards like Disallow and Voidslime can still counter them, but there's less ways to counter them than there are ways to counter basically everything else.
I'd say for every 20 "counter target spell" cards there's 1 "counter target ability" which makes them almost impossible to counter. That and most abilities are instant-speed effects.
@@williamdrum9899 There is less than that.
Nice to see Library and Strip Mine are as busted as I remember them being over a decade ago. Fetch lands are also insane, but I guess they don't do much for "utility" besides actually searching some of the utility lands.
they actually also thin your deck so that it´s more likely to draw some gas.
@@Valech0 And they put a card in your graveyard, and trigger landfall twice for a single land played from hand.
@@williamdrum9899 yes! That's a little less relevant for all decks but i totally agree
ill never understand why magus of the bazaar is in 0% of decks in edhrec when it has the same effect as library of alexandria
@@moedark4390 it costs 2 mana
You should call in Nizzahon Magic some day. He knows his MtG VERY well.
Nice seeing you doing top 10 lists for MtG.
I randomly clicked on this video and I got to #4 before he said "let's you go +1" and I was like wait a min...is this duel logs. Checks the channel name. Ah, it sure is.
You sneaky ass spider, you launched it without letting us know!
Seconded! I'm glad I'm in the top 500 subscribers lol
Always good to see you expanding hiru 😊
While not as good, Ghost Quarter was also heavily ran during its time and some decks still run till today. Unlike Wasteland, Ghost Quarter is actually a -1 in card advantage bec you sac it to blow up an enemy non-basic, but you replace that land with a basic land of your opponent's choice. Still, it IS better to give your opponent a basic land over being able to use a more devastating Non-basic like the Tron Lands
I would also say Creature Lands are also quite important: Lands like Treetop Village and Fairy Conclave are somethings the win conditions used by decks. They are immune to sorcery speed kill spells, and provides mana early in the game. Late game, they beat down your opponent.
Barbarian Ring is also a good Threshold land in the same cycle as Cephalid Colosseum. Red aggro generally doesnt care how much damage they take as long as they do rapidly do damage: and a Barbarian Ring that turns in to a colorless Shock in late game can be a surprise kill spell that is relatively more difficult to counter compared to other burn spells. The other 3 are... ok... but nothing I would make space for
I'm surprised Blast Zone didn't make the list. While it cannot destroy cards with mana value of 0 by itself (since it comes in to play with 1 charge counter), I though that its ability to clear permanents of a particular mana cost can pressure your opponent to hold back going wide.
Also, I thought Ramunap Ruins would make it here: with the increased number of Desert type lands (And im assuming the original Desert also counts), it has been used as a means of ending matches
Karakas + Mangara of Corondor was also a thing/combo of sorts.
Activate Mangara’s ability, while on stack, use Karakas to return to hand.
A bit clunky but it’s repeatable Permanent removal.
Big fan of your Yugioh channel. Couple of critiques though. Not including Bazaar of Baghdad and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale is definitely an oversight. In the Karakas section, it is worth mentioning that Legacy will often use land-toolboxes fueled by Expedition Map, Crop Rotation, Elvish Reclaimer, and (historically) Knight of the Reliquary, meaning Karakas sees a healthy amount of 1-of play.
Know I'm just some random guy on youtube, but I am actually tell you why those cards are likely not on the list, and it's linked to something mentioned at the beginning: opportunity cost.
See, both bazaar and tabernacle have one major downside: they don't tap for mana. As a result, they can't actively be used for casting spells. And given you have only one land drop a turn, making it an important resource, you have to actively choose between being able to play on curve, or gain the effect of these cards.
And I know the decks that play them tend to not need the mana. But compared to the ubiquity of some of these, I can understand. (Although I would put them either in honorable mentions, or make a seperate list for lands that don't natively tap for mana. (Funny enough, technically counts newvimiya, and urborg tomb of yawgmoth, as they turn every land, including themselves, into the land type)
@@krvys7226 I disagree. Given the formats those two cards are legal in (Legacy, Vintage (C)EDH), running a single copy with ways to tutor for them means the opportunity cost is very low. Decks that run Bazaar tend to be graveyard-driven combo or value decks, meaning discarding for value and recurring later is very easy to do, meanwhile Tabernacle decks tend to have ample card filtering (Brainstorm, Jace, Ponder) or recursion (Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator, Life from the Loam) that sifting away the card when not needed is a simple matter. Decks where the lack of a mana ability matter (Pox comes to mind, sometimes Lands), that is mitigated Urborg or Yavimaya. You're correct in a vacuum, but in decks that want these cards, the cost is minimal.
@@fumbles01 oh, I agree the decks that want them want them. And those are very specialzed decks that tend to "break the rules" of deckbuilding. I think part of it is how each of us are analyzing the card.
Thankfully, there is a classic example I can bring up that has been a point of discussion before.
Let's say your building a deck that runs maze of Ith for whatever reason. Do you count it in the land slot, as it is technically a land, but does not do the normal function of a land, (generate mana to cast spells) or do you count it in the nonland slot, as the card functions similer to spell effects.
And if your asking why I'm using maze as an example rather than the ones listed above, maze is more likely to be slotted into a non-speciallized deck, while fitting the other descriptors given. (doesn't generate mana, has a powerful spell like effect)
One I've always had great use of is 'Maze of Ith' . It doesn't produce mana, but you can tap it to untap target creature during combat and have it neither deal nor receive combat damage.
You can even untap your own attacking creature after it dealt combat damage. However if you gain an extra combat step it won't deal damage the 2nd time it attacks.
Wow no manland made it. Field of the dead with all its bannings could have earned a spot. And Tabernacle and Bazaar should definitly be on here.
Dryad arbor is a manland. For manlands like mishra's factory I don't think any of them are better than the cards on this list.
You're probably right, but I think a strong argument could be made for Inkmoth Nexus as the manland representative.
Overall a pretty good video, both list and most of the explanations, especially the economic term “opportunity cost”. The narrator FYI to everyone else does not play Magic at all…thus the weird mispronunciations; any player would get those fixed playing against other players and being corrected/hearing the others pronounce those cards. Also that’s why you get the jank combos like Karakas on your big Legend in a reanimator deck. Normally if a reanimated creature is killed, you want it to go to the graveyard. The exception is remove from game effects like Swords but the example given Emrakul is immune to instants.
THANK YOU FOR THIS CHANNEL
It really is a matter of semantics, but I wouldn't consider Cavern of Souls a utility land. You'd play it to mana fix in any tribal deck that has multiple colored creatures, it just has the random upside of making them uncounterable. It's certainly a very, very strong card in the right deck, but it doesn't actually do anything outside of just fixing mana, so I don't think it qualifies as "utility".
It's interesting to consider it versus Voldaren Estate, which has a 3rd, non-mana generating ability, but I don't think I'd consider that a utility land, either. Almost no deck includes it to just randomly generate blood tokens, it's used for the fixing primarily. I think a utility land needs to be a detriment to your mana base to be considered a utility land, as there's supposed to be some trade-off for having an ability in the land slot.
Yeah Cavern was a weird inclusion. I could see it being replaced by a few other lands. Bajuka Bog, Celestial Collonade, a Hideaway land like Shelldock or Spinerock, and Tolaria West in Amulet Titan decks all come to mind.
@@VVheeli I agree with all of those except Collonade, just because I think of lands in three categories: fixing, utility, and manlands. So Collonade for me would be in that third category, though I fully realize this is just my categorization and people probably think about it differently.
Cavern is amazing utility in creature decks that is even used in combo decks for how much utility it offers like legacy/vintage doomsday naming wizard for thassa's oracle is a thing they use. Uncounterable for free with the upside of free colorfixing is incredible utility.
Some of the Hideaway lands could’ve easily been at the 8-10 spot. Free casting for certain circumstances made them shape decks around them.
Spinerock Knoll let you cast one card for free if you hit your opponent for 7 in a turn. Dragonstorm was a Storm card that cheated dragons out of your deck at 8 mana which was a lot for a storm card to aim for.
So, a few people started running Spinerock Knoll burn decks with the Dragonstorm package so if you ever burned your opponent for 7 with 2-3 cards, and had the storm hidden away, it was like a turn 3-4 kill which in 2008 standard was blazing fast. And you’re still in a Burn deck with fast mana to hardcast your Dragonstorms, so missing with anything wasn’t an awful setback. And this deck was a massive part of the meta back then.
There are counter spells for activated abilities like disallow for example
Disallow, Stifle, Trickbind, the morph bird, tale's end. etc. I am sure there must be more but I cant remember
Instant speed removal works well too.
@@ivorymantis1026 even with instant speed land removal, you still get the effect on the stack though :/
@@ivorymantis1026 If this is in reference to Boseiju, which is where activated effects being uncounterable was brought up, that's a Channel ability, which is actually played by discarding the card from the hand, so really only Stifle-type effects will stop it.
if you're going to include Library, I'm shocked you don't include Strip Mine or Bazar of Bagdad. Two very powerful utility lands. Another newer powerful utility land that is seeing a lot o play in many formats is Blast Zone.
I wasn't a huge fan of blast zone, it costs a ton of mana to add counters. Though you're probably meant to proliferate it.
one note to urzas saga: you can make the first token as soon as the second lore counter is put on it, then, in in the next mainphase the counter 3 is on the stack, you are allowed to make another token before sacrificing the saga and search up an artifact, leaving you with two Golems and a searched artifact. So in a vacuum you have two 3/3 and lets say a Jitte or another utility artifact. thats just nuts
I would add Volrath's Stronghold(personal favorite), Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale, and Bazaar of Baghdad to this list
I think to be included in the list, the decks would already have played the land anyway.
Tabernacle and Bazaar are both very specific in their use, as neither of them taps for mana
tabernacle is strong in almost any legacy / vintage deck. even outside of niche use your opponent has to waste tabernacle instead of your ancient tomb or cloud post or tundra or whatever land you actually need
A funny thing about Karakas is that it's banned in Commander because it allows you to bypass the commander tax when it's about to get removed.
That and it's far too easy to bounce your opponents' commanders. Making it legal would probably require every deck to play Ghost Quarter
I miss the Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. Thx for this Video, k
I was surprised to not see Maze of Ith in this list. I always found it to be pretty powerful for a land that creates no mana at all.
Was sure to see either gaes craddle or serras sanctum on here with enchant evening
At our shop we have what we call "The Rule of Three" any infinite loop can only be used 3 times and then they have to be exiled.
Just another example of Magic riding skirt tails of Warhammer
No honorable mentions for ormandahl land?
It’s a elf deck win condition and it was a standard powerhouse
Now it sees only play in some edh decks
I think Dark Depths beats it out by a smidge
Very informative.
Would love to see “Top 10 Angels of All Time” :)
Bazaar and tabernacle should have been on this list for sure. Possibly dark depths/thespian stage as well. Phyrexian tower and mutavault are also considerations.
Hey MrLogs, how about a video explaining the different formats in magic? It would make all the others easy to comprenhend. I know there are quite a bit around youtube but they're not very werll explained, i feel you'd make a better work
Anyways, love the content, keep it up!
Dope man, do you play MTG? Thought you only did Yugioh?
He's getting a super experienced MTG judge (PumkinSwift - some fire content on that channel) to write these for him!
Not the only creature land now. Now we have creature land tokens.
I've seen it mentioned a few times, but Bazaar of Baghdad should have have been the featured card and Cephalid Coliseum should have been the runner-up. CC is a very sparsely played card, while Bazaar is the literal pillar of at least 15% of the vintage format. And if we're using that logic, then Libaray doesn't even make sense to be on the list. In current-day magic it's not even a good card in the one format its legal (it's also bad in cube). Vintage is a format defined by three broken lands (Bazaar, Tolarian Academy, and Mishra's Workshop) and none of them made the list.
Immediately after posting this I realized I misunderstood the prompt. The land needs to tap for mana AND have an activated ability. So that's why none of my suggestions made the list. I get it now.
Cavern of Souls works well in a lot of creature based combo decks too. Even if u only can get 1 feature past a counter that could be enough to win the game. Zirda + Mantle + Dork comes to mind. The dorks r so plentiful that they can get countered n u'll have a back up but also lots of them share a creature type so u can protect a few at a time by naming human or elf or druid. But the real niche for it is to protect Zirda fuz otherwise the deck does nothing but play 1 drop mana forks which means ur only alternative is flying overhead with a Birds of Paradise while getting buffed by the Exalted on 1 of the Hierarchs
Amazing!
I’m learning so much
Fun interaction with Karakas you dont really see anymore: if you have a Mangara of Corondor, you can tap him and respond to the activation with Karakas. The game will try to resolve as much of the ability as possible, meaning you get to exile a permanent and return Mangara to your hand. This lets you exile a permanent every other turn, which is pretty huge in slower matchups!
Would the artifact lands count? They don't actually do anything themselves, but they were broken as shit with Affinity and had to get banned from like everything immediately. Besides Bazaar that everyone mentioned, some others worth consideration are like Urborg, which is usually combined with Cabal Coffers in Commander for obscene mana production. Glimmerpost was also used in conjunction with the other locust lands to make tons of colorless (it's own effect is fairly meaningless though). The locutsts also got banned from a lot of stuff for their mana production. Academy ruins for recycling artifacts also. Mishra's factory, Mutavault and the Nexuses could all become creatures of different varieties also.
When I hear "utility land" I usually think of a land with an ability other than "add mana" or "search your deck for a different land", so I wouldn't include cavern and dryad as "utility lands" personally.
I generally have the same thought, but I think the arguments for their inclusion arec decent. Cavern is more about the bonus uncounterable clause than the mana production, and Arbor has so many unique synergies that I think it's a reasonable fit for this list.
Something to note at 5:31, both of those card displayed to deal with Emrakul can't target Emrakul due to the protection.
Cards like Damnation can kill it due to the lack of targeting. The reason the land works so well is because it is colorless, not because it's an activated ability.
Demon Hunter and the like can deal with Emrakul because they create a triggered ETB ability, and Emrakul only has protection from colored spells. Since the cards have already entered the battlefield they are permanents instead of spells, so Emrakul's protection no longer helps her. From the Gatherer ruling collection on Emrakul: "“Colored spells” is not synonymous with “colored cards.” For example, even though creatures are spells when they're cast, they're not spells when they're on the battlefield and can block Emrakul; and triggered abilities of permanents entering the battlefield (such as that of Banishing Light) can target it."
@@dagonhydra I'll be damned. Yeah just looked a little more into the rules. I thought they were still considered spells but just permanent spells. Thanks for the knowledge check.
They are permanent spells while on the stack, however neither one targets anything while it's on the stack. The exile is a white triggered ability, not a white spell.
Thawing Glacier was one of the first, true fetch lands. It gave Ley Druid another good target aside from Maze of Ith.
I think its very interesting the difference in card draw power between magic and hearthstone, especially given lands exist so drawing is more important in magic. But drawing 1 or 2 cards off library is gamewinning, while over in hearthstone, i just watched someone play one of several 2 mana draw 5s (radar detector, another is impending catastrophe, secret passage is a 1 mana draw 4 after the nerf...)
Karakas is also great for bouncing commanders and upping command tax on your opponents cheaply
Dude I love your videos keep it up
Counterspells exist for all colors. There’s more than meets the eye.
Technically yes but blue does them far better and far more often than anyone else.
Okay I arrive a long time after the video, but just in case someone sees this, bouncing a Griselbrand with Karakas is pretty much useless because the controller can activate it in response. And most decks just use Griselbrand as a draw tool and win with a combo, so bouncing it is not so great.
Yeah it's more so for Emrakul really. Griselbrand is played for his pay 7 life draw 7 cards ability.
Top 10 Chaos-Inducing Cards!
Surprised at no Bazaar of Baghdad.
i feel like the top 5 are just so hard to rank and order, cause like wasteland is such a powerful card in legacy and always will be . just imagine it in modern. also urzas saga has been only recently printed and around for less time but has had such a huge impact on every format its insane how good it is . i thought it be banned honestly.
i dont think saga is *that strong. like it's pretty good, but, requires a game go for at least 3 turns. people building saga decks in vintage are easy Ws because they're just too slow and that land drop could have been a strip mine or tabernacle or something to slow you down instead. it's obviously hell strong in modern and pretty strong in legacy, but, not as game breaking as people make out.
Bazaar of Baghdad isn’t been on the list, and that card is crazy strong, I would however place that second. Strip mine is the most universally over powered utility land. It can easily lock your opponent out of the game with several 2 card combos. It’s even restricted in vintage.
Bazaar of baghdad isn't restricted because it's a pillar of the format in vintage IIRC like mishra's workshop. If you were restricting based on powerlevel alone in vintage when it comes to B&R list bazaar is definitely included same with workshop. No card in the game can allow you to mulligan to 1 and win by itself except bazaar. Strip mine can't be played around is why it's restricted as well as 4 wasteland + 4 strip mine and up to 4 ghost quarter can be way too much for prison decks potentially in the context of cards like thorn of amethyst too where you just couldn't play a card for the entire game/pretty unhealthy for the format.
@@dstreetz91 I really think the question of powerlevel is fair, because strip mine can also single handedly win games. They both are powerful in conjunction with other cards, and you could argue a strip mine deck would be somewhat oppressive if it was a 4 of, or in other formats. Either way, strip mine not being on the list at all seemed like a miss
I was expecting maze of ith
Where's Bazaar of Baghdad, Strip Mine, Vesuva, and The Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale?
Strip Mine was sharing a spot with Wasteland. As for Tabernacle, the only places its legal mostly aren't very creature heavy, which really limits the utility of the card. Still extremely good, but maybe not enough to give it a top spot. Vesuva, while good, I think ranks lower than the rest of these lands. Bazaar though, that maybe should've gotten a spot.
Also would've considered Maze of Ith and Field of the Dead. Though Maze is a little past its prime and Field is usually an all in strategy.
@@fwg1994 Vesuva in particular is a weird one. It's absolutely amazing in EDH. I feel that this list focused entirely on Modern & Legacy, and didn't take EDH into account. Or Vintage, for that matter, which may have been why Bazaar didn't make the cut.
Maybe "Top 10 silver border cards" would be funny video?
I think one of the strongest is Split Screen, it has you deal your library into 4 piles and any time you would draw a card, mill, or search you choose one of them. Plus you can look at the top card of each any time. It's a 4 cost artifact
Agree with Library being an amazing card! Back in the 90s most people in my area (Fla) considered it power 9 over twister, because honestly, the only reason twister has its current price is because its EDH legal. At the same time it makes me sad people are aware of libraries power, I secretly wish it would be unbanned so I can play one of my favorite cards again... #sadpanda
Would love the story of power 9 some day. Like, why did WotC choose to print such powerful cards? By mistake? As an incentive to buy the boosters and products? For investment? Also the story behind the cards themselves, artists designers and so on as they're so iconic.
Back then the game designers didn't really think people would try to play competitively. They expected players to maybe have one or two moxen, not a fully optimized deck of 20 black lotuses and 20 plague rats. Those cards were designed to be better than the others but they didn't realize how much better they were. To be fair, MtG was one of if not the first card game of its kind. So all the knowledge of today (card advantage, tempo, etc.) just didn't exist.
I first pick library every time in my power cube
7:56 it needs to be three other Islands, not just lands, and that's a quite important difference.
dude theres a land that produces zombies for free and is easy to infinity combo, ive lost to it several times in commander but cant remember the name. this is def. better than all of these
that`s Field of the Dead and no it`s by far not better than the other lands on the list with the exception of Library
@@zirilan3398 just one bounce combo and you win the game, thats pretty strong for a land imo
@@sadcyclops8909 Valakut works in a similar fashion and walakut wins on the spot
@@zirilan3398 feels like the zombie land should be at least top 3 but nvm, we have different opinions as it seems
I have never heard anybody say Llanowar like that, hahaha. Le No War Elves. :D
"Llanowar" is pronounced similar to "Man-O-War" it's not quite the same but you'll almost certainly be saying this particular name so often that this will help
Scary that the narrator made it to adulthood and struggles with reading and comprehension.
@@chriswampler1 He's probably dyslexic, give him a break
I swear we're going to have a 'Videos since Dredge has been mentioned:' counter just constantly set to zero.
Some non blue counterspells include mana tithe(white) or red elemental blast(red). These are not as good as the mainstay blue counters as they are too narrow, risky(like tibalts trikery), or too inefficient late
I'll agree on all counts except that Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast both see play in non-blue decks in all formats they are legal in to stop free countermagic.
(Granted these decks are generally aggressive solitaire types that just want to prevent you from interacting with them.)
It may cost 1 mana but your opponent usually had to 2 for 1 themselves initially anyway so you come out way ahead.
(In fact I once essentially emptied an opponent's hand in commander with an old boros deck that ran all the crap countermagic and cracked sunforger for a Pyroblast then slammed a Red Elemental Blast from my hand against a force of negation and a force of will, it felt sooo good.)
Guttural Response comes to mind. Also Seedtime which is a green Time Walk if anyone cast a blue instant during your turn
Not sure if others will agree but I feel like Maze's End should have been somewhere in this given how much utility it has for pulling Gates from your library if you're running any form of gate deck, ignoring the instant win condition because it's basically an added bonus that usually doesn't happen in practical circumstances.
I'd also like to hear your take on what you'd consider the best cards that modify a land in some way or turn another card into a land. I built a green deck a while back that has all kinds of interactions with lands and +1/+1 counters that can end in a full set of angry unkillable forests and I want to see if I can do another one that can just do land interaction without the need for the counters,
Bazaar of Baghdad, and Dark Depths/Thespian Stage
Cephalid colosseum is getting into modern in MH3. How much do you think it's going to get played?
Cavern of souls should be #1 if you take into consideration every format. Specially highlander formats.
top ten cards that immediately make your opponent scoop (not let you continue the game and combo off)
In no particular order:
Thieves Auction/Scrambleverse
Sen Triplets
Aetherflux Reservoir
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Grapeshot/Tendrils of Agony
Burning Inquiry
Blood Moon
Doomsday
Nice informative video! I would have tried to fit Tolarian Academy/Gaea's Cradle on the list.
Man I remember playing Library with Necropotence. Over draw with necro then draw a card on top of it...
I remember Strip Mine.
Gaeas cradle 🎉🎉🎉
Tabernacle at pendrell Vale didn't make this list? That card is really strong to as its basically single handedly controls the board
Is Dryad Arbor really the only land creature? That seems crazy to have a whole mechanic like that on only one card
The card is from Future Sight. A set with about 30 unique keywords, most of them used on a single card. That kinda being the point of the set. Taking cards from the "future"
As an old-school Artifact player myself, ANY card that can turn into a Black Lotus is a bit beyond broken, even if it IS a build-around. 😱
On another note, at the end of number 2 I was thinking to myself "the hell's better than this, a land that says: Tap, draw a card?"
Welp.
I’ve only seen a few of these magic videos but I am quickly learning Dredge is fucked.
Yeah. Dredge is the most broken mechanic in all of magic. It literally doesn't matter what else is on the card, or what the card actually costs. All that matters is the dredge number.
Dredge and storm are pretty close in terms of overall powerlevel if you're talking mechanics. Storm enables the most turn 1 wins, dredge is just the hardest to interact with game 1 because you need cards like leyline of the void to combat it.
If there was a sorcery that said "You lose the game. Dredge 6" it would be in every dredge deck. That's how stupid dredge is.
You can use mana abilities and tap things on your opponent’s turn?
Library is funny because it sees basically zero play in vintage due to the speed of the format and the fact that it’s really hard to use going first, but it would absolutely be broken in any other format and might see play in vintage if it was unrestricted and you could see it consistently/build around it.
i don't think it would see play in legacy or vintage even if thye unbanned or unrestict it. It's too slow these days also i think saga is just much much stronger as a ultlity land. I think histroically library is kinda of one of those ultra busted "10th power" type of cards that have aged poorly and people heavily over rate.
Library as a one of is not that good usually. Library as a 4 of though you build around it like workshop/bazaar. Saga doesn't touch it, because saga can tutor a single 0 or 1 cost, but library can draw 0, 1, or any cost of card each turn to drown the opponent when you outresource them the entire game.
Surprised that Tolarian Academy was not on the list... or would that not be considered a "utility" land?
Library of Alexandria
Reminder: Library of Alexandria isn't just strong, it's widely considered the strongest card ever printed outside of the power nine
I think you mean it is the only land in the Power 10? Jk, lol maybe not quite but it is still up there
Is it possible to activate multiple Libraries of Alexandria if you have seven cards in habd, and then tap a LoA for a card, put it on the stack before you draw, then tap another LoA? I vaguely recall this beinag a thing.
Yes, you can. You are only required to have 7 cards in hand at the time you activate it (i.e. put the ability on the stack.) It doesn't matter how many cards you have in hand after that.
I feel like Urazs Saga should be higher on the list
Gaeas cradle, bazar of Baghdad, valakut molten pinnacle?
The top utility land in Magic didn't make this list? Damn, man.
Snow-Covered Island.
It's a basic land, so you can have as many of them as you want in your deck. That's phenomenal utility just there, but wait, it has a second ability.
You see, you can tap it for blue mana. It enters the battlefield untapped, unlike many other utility lands. So just by running it, you get access to all these blue spells.
And because it's Snow, it will fool your opponents into thinking you're running a Snow-matters deck, causing them to misplay and name things like Icefang Coatl.
It's just not quite as fast as Sapphire Mox, which is a better utility land except that you can only run four of them and also they're banned in most formats.
Rishadanfreude
one quastion where is phasbian stage which can be every utilaty land
Blast Zone
Inkmoth Nexus.