#Nonbasic Land

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Verdant Catacombs by Anthony Avon

[mtg-card-of-the-day]

Today's Date is April 30th, 2024 and today's card is Inspiring Vantage, Miku edition!!

[This card will be available for preorder along with 5 more at secretlair.wizards.com on May 13th, 2024]

[ID This card depicts a slim and tall lady wearing a long flowy backless navy blue dress with a bow tying it shut located on her lower back below her thin waist. She's sitting on a thin crescent moon with her navy blue boot-clad legs dangling below. She has neon blue pigtails that flow so long to be even below her dress, tied with red ribbons. The moon she is sitting on hangs above a field a lavender flowers, with a beautiful starry night sky off in the distance. On either side of the night sky view is waves of grey clouds.

It's a Land and it's rules text reads "Inspiring Vantage enters the battlefield tapped unless you control two or fewer other lands.

Tap: Add 1 Red or 1 White."

It's flavor text reads "First Miku takes the stage, then she takes your breath away."

It's artist is Dani Pendergast and its print year is 2024. It's from the Secret Lair set based on Hatsune Miku that becomes available for preorder May 13th, 2024. End ID]

[flyermagic]

Cement Arknights!

I designed this before blummin' Planar Nexus got printed, but I won't let that take away from her unusual buildaroundability

Art source (her E2 splash art by 科学)

[generalb]

The Plan:

1. Have at LEAST 5 mana and a Mirrorpool.

2. Play Defense of the Heart.

3. Have Defense of the Heart Trigger, grab these bad boys:

4. Have this Serra’s Emissary enter choosing Instants.

5. Sacrifice mirrorpool to make a token copy of Serra’s Emissary.

6. Because of Ojer Taq, I get three Emissaries, and I get to pick three different card types. Obviously 2 of them will be creatures and Sorceries, but what will the third one be? Enchantments? Planeswalkers? Lands? I genuinely don’t know.

7. Win? Hopefully

The biggest thing though is that this has to be my last play, as I will no longer be able to affect any of my creatures. I have to have everything I need to win out. I mean, granted with the 4 Serra’s Emissary’s blocking literally everything known to man I could slowly but surely kill everyone. But who knows, I’ve played against guys who see a stalemate as a wincon so I need to be prepared for those type of people.

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than blood moon

damn FUCKING right I am! And so are you! And like 90% of people! Because HOT DAMN that is a LOW bar!

Okay so this is Blood Moon right?

To anyone reasonably familiar with how type-changing effects work, this just removes the land subtypes (if any) of all nonbasic lands and replaces them with the subtype Mountain. If you know how basic land types work, then you also know that this causes the lands to gain the ability to tap for red mana, and lose the mana-granting abilities that those lands got from their former subtypes (if any). Simple.

FUCK YOU! You stupid idiot why would you think the card that changes subtypes would just change subtypes!? This card ACTUALLY removes ALL the abilities of nonbasic lands, including abilities that have nothing to do with subtypes! What's that? That's not what the card says? Psh, come on, it's so obvious what the card text actually means.

It says "Nonbasic lands are Mountains", which OBVIOUSLY is supposed to be interpreted as "Nonbasic lands become copies of THE CARD Mountain", which means the only ability they have is tapping for red mana. What's that? That's not at all what this card does, and it doesn't even change the name of the affected lands or give the Basic supertype? Well, sure, that's not TECHNICALLY what it does, but obviously this effect is a type changing effect that's supposed to be interpreted as a transforming effect that doesn't work like EITHER of those and instead works like an ability changing effect. It's intuitive!

And any way of wording this card that makes the card actually say what it does is IMPOSSIBLE! It would be too LONG and COMPLICATED and WORDY! Just like the oracle text for Animate Dead! It's for the best that this text is kept because there's NO GOOD WAY TO WORD IT!

Okay, sarcasm mode over. Those bits about "it makes lands become the card mountain" and "a reword would be too complicated like Animate Dead" were actual genuine arguments I saw. So, here's how Blood Moon came to be this disaster of a card.

It was originally printed in "The Dark", a set released just one year into MTG's life. Naturally, rules didn't exist, so they could just print whatever they wanted on cards and hope that players understood what it meant. The first serious attempt at rules consistency wouldn't be for another few years. The actual text was even more different, saying that nonbasic lands became "basic mountains", which... idk what happened with that, I guess WoTC decided to not to allow effects to mess with the Basic supertype?

Anyway, at some point, they finally decided to make The Comprehensive Rules where they make everything make sense, but there was a catch: They wanted old cards to still work the same way with their original printed text, but Blood Moon's text clearly only affects subtypes, not abilities. So rather than changing Blood Moon's text to say what it does, they made this rule here:

305.7. If an effect sets a land’s subtype to one or more of the basic land types, the land no longer has its old land type. It loses all abilities generated from its rules text, its old land types, and any copiable effects affecting that land, and it gains the appropriate mana ability for each new basic land type. blah blah blah ...

This is not how any other type changing effects work, not even for other subtypes that grant abilities. Changing a card's subtype never affects its rules text, especially not abilities that have nothing to do with its subtype, and especially if it never had a subtype to begin with. This is a special exception made purely for basic land types, just so that Blood Moon and the few other cards like it don't have to be reworded. Imagine if they made a special exception in the comprehensive rules just so that they wouldn't have to change the text of Rock Hydra. There is ONE other exception to type changing effects in the rules, but it's the mildest thing since white bread:

205.1b blah blah blah ... Some effects state that an object becomes an “artifact creature”; these effects also allow the object to retain all of its prior card types and subtypes.

And while cards that make things become artifact creatures almost always play exactly as expected, Blood Moon's primary benefit is effectively secret rules text that isn't written on the card.

Also, since this IS technically just a type changing effect, shit gets wack with layers. Normally, type changing effects all apply before ability changing effects, which helps everything run smoothly; "creatures you control are Merfolk" plus "Merfolk you control have hexproof" works exactly the way you expect it to.

But then Blood Moon shows up and starts changing abilities in the type-changing layer! This is usually niche, but it can cause various rules headaches, so much so that the youtube channel JudgingFTW has an entire playlist of explaining Blood Moon rulings. I wrote up this post before watching the most recent video in that playlist, and I was overjoyed to find that judge Dave says this (2:08) about rule 305.7 (the rule that makes Blood Moon take away abilities).

In conclusion, fuck this card and its stupid 4 work text box. Cards should say what they fucking do on the text, you shouldn't have to know an obscure rule buried in a gigantic document just to understand how a card works.

[markrosewater]

Hi Mark! If white isn’t supposed to be able to have targeted land destruction, is White Orchid Phantom from MH3 a bend or break? It can remove problematic lands more efficiently than any recently printed red card I can think of. It does give the opponent a basic in return, but you’ve said in the past that Generous Gift shouldn’t be able to hit lands as a mono white card.

We are experimenting with white hitting nonbasic lands if it replaces them with a basic land of the choice of the destroyed land's controller.

[whatsthatmagiccard]

A poll went around asking people which M:tG rules text isn't real, but it included a card from a set that hasn't released yet. Here's my rectified version. Don't look it up beforehand. All real text is from paper tournament-legal cards. Reblog to spread outside the M:tG community.

[duskmourn-survival-guide]

Survival tip #165: Valgavoth is, in theory, composed of hundreds of nonbasic lands. All I'm saying, if we could get Price of Progress on the Special Guests list for Duskmourn 2...

[niuttuc]

My Favorite Cards of 2024: Bloomburrow

The year is pretty close to over, so let’s go back over the sets released this year (with new cards at least), and go through a few of my favorite cards from that release. I’ll group together stuff released together, in this case it’ll be the main Bloomburrow set, and the commander precons. Extra reprints as courageous critters or special guests might also get a mention. I’ll probably go through one set a day for the next week, though I might skip some days for personal reasons.

I'll start with a bunch of talents that I like, a stellar second outing of the Class type in this set, outshining even their first appearance in D&D. In constructed, limited and commander, they impress and have a range of different designs, and I like them very much.

Offspring was also a very neat ability, and it's always nice when we get something to extend new abilities in a more open fashion, to older cards and sets. Of course, Zinnia goes infinite with Palinchron, but so does a worn down half-tire. Maybe someday I'll even build a deck around Zinnia, but we'll see, I tend to come back to sets a year or two down the line.

I love creative clones, and Mockingbird delivers! And a one-mana clone that can scale definitely hits the mark, a clone you never overpay for is a really good concept, and this was a good way to execute on it without shirking color.

Staying with birds for a bit, Scrap Trawler is a fun design that unfortunately breaks in half with a look. Adding colored mana certainly helps Jackdaw Savior lot, and restricting to flying creatures also narrows down what can enable it significantly. The dream of combining this with a Broodmoth or Valkyrie's Call to create oodles of value out of dying creatures is also a neat addition.

A new Wood Elves always deserves a mention, and one that can grab nonbasics definitely solidifies its role. Clifftop Lookout will stick around in commander decks of mine for years to come, at least until they print much better cards. Plus, it has sneaky reach, gotta respect the sneaky reach that will save my life at some point.

Still on frogs, Dour Port-Mage is here to exemplify the "leave the battlefield without dying" ability that was granted to frogs and was an excellent way to make an ability that's both narrow and a bit open-ended. There is some play in how to achieve that, yet it's pretty unique, and happens to play well in the colors with bouncing, which ties it well with Frogs, but also blinking, exile removal, tucking, and more. Overall, it allowed them to mostly do regular creature things, having ETBs and all, yet still feel like they belonged to the Frogs' synergies.

Gift is a fun ability that works well in both 1v1 and takes a new political dimension in multiplayer (mostly commander). Cruelclaw's Heist is a nice version of the two mana hand attack spell with upside, allowing it to be hand attack that isn't dead when the opponent is empty-handed, lowering the downside of its gift, and gift becomes even more fun in multiplayer when you can gift a separate opponent you're targeting.

Sunspine Lynx is costed fairly, punishes greedy manabases, and looks incredible in foil. Price of Progress can be a bit too brutal, but stapling half of one on the back of a creature that has a solid rate makes for a fun card in commander and constructed both. I've domed a Domain player for 13 damage with this in Standard, and I can tell you that felt very good and would have earned this cat a spot on this list by itself.

I've already said a few times in the past week that I love to have options, and Fountainport as a pseudo-trading post on a land gives me just that. For sure, I love selling my Offsprings for knowledge, my life for fish or my mana for mana. A lot more tokens around these days for this to incidentally draw cards from, and generally a useful card to spawn surprise blockers.

Catch-up cards that are good enough to be played are generally pretty neat, and Beza being a mythic legend version of that effect delivers on it. Stabilizing with life and bodies against aggressive decks, but not a dead card in grindy games, Beza does stellar work and left me trying to see if a commander deck could be viable with more opponents to compare to to make it more likely to get the full suite of effects.

Between the snazzy art and the flashy effect, Cruelclaw makes the list alongside his heist. Look at this guy/weasel! He casts spells for free! My main nitpick about the card is that given his story and flavor, I expected him to be casting those spells for free from the opponents' library, not my own. But I can forgive that, it makes the card stronger, even if slightly less fun imo.

Scavenging Ooze is an excellent design, and Keen-Eyed Curator being a variation on it plays great as well. It was neat to get it right before a delirium set, and the slight differences don't detract from its power much. It was a bit hurt by actual Scavenging Ooze being in Foundations only a couple months later, but it still manages to split the deck time with Scooze in some archetypes in Standard, and that's exactly where it should be.

That Jeskai precon was good enough to get BOTH its commanders on my list. Temporary creatures to get their etbs or other effects early is my jam, as well as attacking for value, and Arthur does both in a nice package. We were missing on neat Jeskai commanders, but with its half dozen of Jeskai precons, the year definitely delivered!

Similar to Cruelclaw's Heist, Long River's Pull makes use of the Gift mechanic. This allows a rate well above what we see in standard, a clean Counterspell, while being an interesting political tool in Commander where actual Counterspell is legal. Giving cards to people can buy an ally very quickly in commander, or make sure a player missing land drops is in the game, and this actually makes me consider this card over the classic counterspell in more than one deck.

The Calamity Beasts have a good hit rate of unique and powerful designs. The Viper has spawned a few decks around it in standard and beyond, and that's impressive considering it's a punisher effect that warps your own deckbuilding to enable. As it turns out, a 6/6 that basically wins the game if you untap with it is pretty good if you can get it for two or three mana, even if it's not on turn 2 and it dies to removal.

Making bats relevant in standard and being a pseudo-sun titan for half the cost, Zoraline handily makes it into my list. When she's around and not asleep, she's a card with a very good rate by herself that does something I like. And then she also enables the main mechanic of bats in the set enough to be one of the best card in their deck too.

Prosperous Bandit is the kind of unusual ramp I like. Creating that many treasures whenever it deals damage on a three drop captures my attention. Getting through for damage on a 3 mana 2/2 sure ain't easy, but buffing it isn't that difficult and the payoff is definitely there.

Finally, the art corner, Bloomburrow had some incredible art that struck home for me. Which isn't to say other sets in the year didn't, but these marked me a bit more, particularly as a new setting for Magic that felt richer than the other stuff we got. With art and story, Bloomburrow felt both rich and yet a small part of something bigger that could easily be expanded later on. Plus, there is a bonus category that'll be in a reblog in a few minutes, I'm running out of image slots on tumblr.

[mtgtips]

Mtg Tip: You can make your own basic islands if you cry enough

Magic the Gathering tip: you don’t need that new merfolk to make all nonbasic lands islands with this one easy tip

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Murky Sewer by Martin de Diego

[magicwithclass]

I never realized that this card has a 5 color identity. It can only be played in commander decks that are five colors. All 5 mana symbols appear on the card but the triple blue in the casing cost made me the think this could be played in mono blue. Your islands would not be affected but your opponent would have to think very carefully about how to use their mana. The fact that this card only fits in 5 cor decks definitely limits its playability. Also, the fact that this doesn't have any effect on lands without basic land types. At least, it works on nonbasic lands like the trilands from New capenna. This seems like a stax card meant to disrupt your opponents mana but there are a bunch of problems. First, people do not like stax and people do not like you messing with their lands. This card is probably going to be frowned in edh and it seem too weak for cedh. Next, I do not like playing cards with triple specific mana costs in a 5 color deck. Triple blue is just not viable in a 5 color deck unless you are primarily blue and splashing the other colors. Furthermore, if your opponent is playing mono blue or heavy blue then this card doesn't do much. The cumulative upkeep is also such a tax on your own mana. 3 mana to keep this in play and it only increases from there? I should also note that naked singularity has a very similar effect for the same upkeep cost but has a generic casting cost at 5 mana. If you are playing one you might be playing the other. Reality twist is certainly a strange and fairly unique card but it does not see much play. The top commanders include all the 5 color commanders but most of those decks skip this. One combo would be to make your opponents lands all one land type to attempt to lock them out of the color mana they need to cast. Blood moon and those effects synergies well with this card as do lands like urborg tomb of yawgmoth. Who knows what the future has in store for this card. Any card that can lock you out of mana can be competitive but there are a lot of reasons why this will never see play in our reality.

[bittenrabbit]

what a gaaaame that was so fun

so many highlights!

i got my sol ring blown up turn 1

got my commander blown up twice

aster tried to kill her kellan by running it into a big creature, i ith'd it

we all got married and i promptly divorced wren (gandalf polyamory win? 😳🥺💙)

aster ulamog'd us and then exiled all creatures and destroyed every nonbasic land 💥

i threw a wurm at her (🐛💥💀) and then got into such a cool 1v1

after all that i got got by a strip mine from izzys opening hand aaaahhhh

so many ups and downssssss that was the most fun ive had playing commander in awhiiile

[farsight-the-char]

Probably the most Entertaining form of "nonbasic land hate".

I love it.

[dravidious]

I will hate how WotC designs rares until the day I die, but I just saw a Bloomburrow rare that I really like:

This card, TECHNICALLY, is a 4-drop 5/4 with no upsides. All three of its abilities are symmetrical, and in some games (especially in limited) none of the abilities will do anything. The abilities ARE effectively just upsides though, because obviously you're only going to be running this in an aggro or burn deck, but the first two abilities are situational counters to certain cards/strategies, so most of the time they'll be useless.

The third ability is, to be honest, really strong, but in a way that I REALLY like. It punishes players for playing nonbasic lands. I love this because it means that in limited, this really is just a 4-drop 5/4 vanilla. But I also love this because WotC is PUSHING IT with nonbasic lands, specifically rare lands. Players with big enough wallets can stuff their decks full of nonbasic lands and suffer almost no consequences, while budget players who use basics risk not having enough colored mana. That means this card is WEAKER AGAINST BUDGET DECKS! How awesome is that!? This thing is like an un-set card that punishes players for playing rares, except it's standard legal!

I love this, more rares like this please!

[markrosewater]

You said a while back that it’s hard to make nonbasic hate that punishes greedy decks without also punishing fairer ones.

Why? Blood moon or ruination seem like they are inherently fair. The degree they hurt people is directly proportional to how greedy their land base is. If ruination is too extreme for your taste, from the ashes is an even less punishing card, effectively just being a mass field of ruin. How are these cards too punishing to fair land bases?

I'm not sure everyone would agree that Blood Moon is "fair".