Taylor: 0:10

What's up, Wizards? It's time for Rule Zero, the show that helps you prepare for the best game of Commander. I'm Taylor.

Shawn: 0:15

And I'm Sean. It is our hope that through our combined 20 plus years experience of playing EDH and cultivating a great playgroup, tons of great decks, and also trying a lot of outside the box variants and homebrew rules that we can pass that golden knowledge on to you. Taylor, what is something in the world of Magic that has you excited this week?

Taylor: 0:33

I don't know if our listeners have seen Bounties yet, but they came in the pre cons from the Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander Decks, and they are, I think, They help to propel the game forward and they are a blast to try and win the bounties. If you don't know, they're kind of similar in structure to Monarch or the initiative. At the starting player's third turn, they flip over the first bounty and it has something that you can try and achieve. And it's naturally comes up throughout the course of the game. So, for instance, one of the bounties that is Goratosh and Silas at the beginning of your instep. If all opponents were dealt combat damage, this turn collect your reward. So each player has the opportunity to win one of these bounties and earn a reward. So if it goes on the first turn, if that first player who has the access to the bounty wins it, they just make a treasure token, a little bit of a reward for having won that bounty, but it scales up. So if it maxes out at level four, then whoever achieves the bounty gets to create two treasure tokens and draw a card. That's pretty good. One of the reasons that I love the initiative and I love Monarch is that it encourages game actions, most notably dealing damage. Too often games come to a standstill and the game doesn't move forward because people are afraid of the crack back. I've played a number of games with bounties and effects, and I think that It really moves the game forward and it's a lot of fun. It made me think about something that I've had bookmarked on my computer for a really long time, but I've never actually created my own version of, and it's called commander adventures. I know that commander can sometimes get a little repetitive and commander adventures, and I'll link their tapped out in our show notes. It does a really cool thing where it essentially turns your commander game into a board game. I'm going to work on building that out for us to play and I'll keep it in my bag when we do meet up. And I'd love for us as a play group, Sean, to get to play some commander adventures, or maybe I can build some custom bounties to add and create some variety.

Shawn: 2:42

Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to that. We've been playing EDH for so long that it's nice to introduce something a little different, whether it's, you know, Plane shift cards or whatever just something to spice things up and giving people goals that are also ways to end the game is Something I'm a big fan of I don't want goals that force people to turtle but goals that force people to hit great so this week's topic comes from the off discussed hot button issue of land destruction in particular, stemming from a recent discussion of the MTG goldfish crew that led to them house banning both field of the dead and glacial chasm on April 19th. If you don't know, Field of the Dead is a land. Enters the battlefield tapped, you tap it to add a colorless mana. Whenever Field of the Dead or another land enters the battlefield under your control, if you control seven or more lands with different names, create a 2 2 black zombie creature token. In a singleton format, Field of the Dead can be become sort of oppressive in that land destruction often frowned upon Can allow this land to sit out there for a long time and in ramp decks and those type of decks Well, you could be amassing an army of zombies for doing Nothing really besides doing what your deck already wants to do And so you're getting all this free value and sometimes, and I guess for the goldfish crew, it felt kind of oppressive. Similarly, glacial chasm is a land cumulative upkeep pay to life. When glacial chasm comes into play, sacrifice a land creatures you control can't attack, prevent all damage that would be dealt to you. So this is a land that often at instant speed with spells like crop rotation, which is just one green man, a sack of land, search your library for land, put it into play. You can glacial chasm slash fog, all combat damage that would be dealt. And in those decks, it's very common where you can glacial chasm loop. Like I don't pay the upkeep, it sacks itself, but I get it out of my graveyard because I have a lot of ways to do that. And so no damage can ever be dealt to you. And if people don't have a way to interact with that, it can be really tough. So I think the goldfish crew had their own rule zero conversation to discuss kind of, what do we do about this? They're coming up all the time. And if you watch their most recent videos, you can see these two lands played a lot. And so they're like, how do we make more entertaining videos? So that it's not like some person is getting fog effects for free all the time or armies of zombies for free. What do you think about these two?

Taylor: 5:21

Yeah, I ran a glacial chasm in one deck. It was my heartless hit at Sugu deck and I would try and double up on that heartless hit at Sugu effect and glacial chasm would let me live while I destroyed everyone else. It was very niche because as a mono red deck, I couldn't afford to play glacial chasm, at the wrong time. And so I wasn't really abusing it. So that's my first thought on glacial chasm. You have to really build around it to be able to abuse it, I think, but it's very powerful. And so even if you don't fully build around it, it can do some really powerful things. And at the late game, when people are trying to swing out for those alpha strikes, and you've just dropped that glacial chasm, it can be game warping. And then field of the dead, like you said, we don't necessarily interact with people's mana bases or lands in a way that I think we should, because You know, we want to encourage people to play the social contract. I think is inherent in EDH and we have developed the social contract where we say that lands are sacred field of the dead is the prime example of why lands should not be considered sacred. We were talking off camera before we started recording about my new Riku deck. That deck runs only a few basics. If I were to just toss in a Field of the Dead, by virtue of me playing that deck, Field of the Dead would become overwhelming. And it's not even a lands deck. Field of the Dead is too much for too little. And I think that it should be targeted immediately when it's seen.

Shawn: 6:55

Absolutely. And I think that for our own group, with our own rule zero discussions and kind of group chat discussions, I think we've fallen more on the idea of like, let's find some targeted land removal or some ways to interact with these land pieces rather than just banning them outright. And so let's talk about in this episode, land destruction, For beginners, for players who've been around the block like we have, where should you stand on it? What are the types of land destruction that are out there? Because I think overall it often gets a bad rep just being a blanket. No, we don't do that. And I think there's a lot of really interesting cards that might not even be destruction so much as more like tacks or like slowdown effects that can be really fascinating to play in a game of EDH and open up some really interesting paths that you might not have taken before. Listeners, tell us where you stand on the topic. But for me, when I first started playing type one, that's old revised standard back in the day of 95, whatever. I ran across a child. They were 10, 11. They had the most horrific deck I had ever seen. It had a full set of moccasin and a black lotus. It played on of Misra, which deals too Damage to you. Every time I think a land comes into play, it had sinkhole, wasteland, stone, rain strip mine. It was. A menace. I was not able to play the game of magic. That child, you may know as Joffrey Baratheon. He now runs a torture dungeon for high powered lawyers. Actually, I don't know if he'll, I don't know what this child has grown into, but I'm hoping that he's reformed his ways a little bit. The deck was pure misery, though. That was my introduction to land destruction, and it was not great. I feel that pain, like trauma, vividly. But, I've grown, I've healed, those wounds have calloused over a bit, and I do see the purpose of land destruction, but obviously there's also ways that it can go terribly wrong. So we're gonna open up this episode with something really funny, or maybe not, but we're gonna try it out. We're gonna play a little game, bring a little Jungian psychology into the podcast, and what is the light side of land destruction, and what is the shadow side? So off the cuff, we're going to pick five particular cards. When did they go right? When did they go wrong? Taylor Strip mine Hit me

Taylor: 9:18

I love Strip Mine. I think the light side of it is that. You're creating parody. So you're tossing a land to get rid of one other problematic land. It taps for colorless. So you're not. You know, really doing yourself a favor. You don't, you don't have a colored source or a source of color in your mana base by playing this. So the light side is that it's really efficient at what it does. It just destroys a target land. So you can get rid of that. Nick, those trying to Nick's or the cabal coffers or whatever else the shadow side of this are the menaces that play this alongside of crucible of world and can play it out of their graveyard. Over and over and over again. And it's probably in a deck that's based in green and they're able to play multiple lands a turn and strip mine many lands per turn. That's the worst side of it. I think.

Shawn: 10:05

I think so. The next one More mass land destruction. This is another type. So so far we've had targeted now we have mass Armageddon Is there even a light side to this card?

Taylor: 10:17

I think so. Um, we'll start with that one second, because it's way more situational. The shadow side is playing this in a mono white Avacyn, angel of hope, which gives all of your permanents and destructible. So you cast your commander, then you cast Armageddon and you have A board of everything left behind and. Nobody has any lands and they can't stop you from doing this. And so that's horrific and mono white is not known for finishing games quickly. And so that's the shadow side of it. The light side of it is I could totally see this being played in some sort of wacky combo deck. White is really good at returning to the battlefield. Everything that was put into the graveyard that turn. And so I would be okay with this in a deck that was specifically built to play Armageddon and then win the same turn. So if that's a possibility there, I'm all for it. Maybe there's a way to sack all of your lands to something like Zurn orb and gain a whole bunch of life, and then you can cast Armageddon and, and. Destroy all the other lands or something. I don't know. Maybe win with an Aetherflux reservoir from all that life you just gained from your Zirin Orb. I don't know. That doesn't even involve Armageddon. Maybe this card's just evil.

Shawn: 11:31

It's really hard. So thanks for trying on that one. It's really hard to find a place where Armageddon might be a light side card. However, I'm sure it's out there and I agree with the idea that if it's a piece of a combo that ends the game on that turn and you can tell me all about it in like a paragraph or so, go for it. I'm all for it. I had the ability to counter spell a Armageddon. It's, it's not. Third, non basic land hate, another type of land destruction. Ruination light side shadow side

Taylor: 12:07

So Ruination destroys all non basic lands. And I think that this is a lesson that is only learned the hard way. And I think this is the side of it. It teaches deck builders to be honest and play Basic lands. I think that oftentimes we can become greedy and not play enough basic lands and ruination says, Hey, make sure you're eating your veggies and play some basic lands. The shadow side of this is that it's oftentimes played in mono red decks, which just need a good grip of mountains to be effective. And so it can be, Really one sided and that's the shadow side.

Shawn: 12:45

Fair enough, and I think we saw the light side and shadow side almost it It's tough in an MTG goldfish game recently cram The Asian Avenger actually played a ruination to great effect and wound up taking out all kinds of non basic lands particularly from their other player Richard who is notorious for running literally no basics in some of his decks because he just loves that value. Well, sometimes got to teach a lesson, I guess. So similarly, here's not land destruction, but it is kind of teaching that lesson taxing effects on lands. Price of progress. What do you think about this one?

Taylor: 13:25

Uh, so in our show notes, you picked the wrong art. Sorry. You need to pick the Richard Keane Ferguson art. It's a beautiful card. I think he's an amazing artist, but price of progress is very funny to me because it's a two mana instant spell red and one price of progress deals damage to each player equal to twice the number of non basic lands that player controls and This is a card that can win the game at instant speed for two mana. And so I think it's kind of funny in that sense. So light side, it can oftentimes end the game and games need to end. We've talked about this before. Let's shuffle up and play a new one on the shadow side of this. I think again, it can be really one sided similar to ruination where mono red decks can survive off of just playing basic mountains. And so red deck wins. Isn't always effective in commander, but a card like price of progress can make that happen. So again, I think it'd be ultimately one sided and that's not always fun to play against.

Shawn: 14:26

Yeah, I think both of these cards and the next one that we'll talk about, If you're playing in a pod with like, pre cons. Those run a lot of bad non basic lands and punishing them just feels cruel I would say that's probably the real dark side of it. You're hurting a Pup, that's already hurt. You know, why are you doing that to somebody? Because you're a cruel red player I guess so this fifth one transforming lands is something that magic players sometimes do if they're tired of the shenanigans and This one is particularly divisive blood moon

Taylor: 15:02

I don't know which side of the camp I fall on, but I think blood moon is a great card. I think that it is, I think the perfect balance of all of these, in my opinion. So the light side is it teaches that same lesson that we saw with ruination player basics, because if you're also playing your basics, And you have eaten your veggies and you have some good interactions, you should be able to remove an enchantment. Now it might take a little while, but as a table, you should be able to collectively get rid of this if it's a true problem. So the light side, it teaches that lesson, but also it still lets all of your lands untapped and you still have access to some mana. So it might not be the perfect man that you'd envisioned, but if you have any two non basics and a green, Play a beast within you can hit this. That's going to be totally fine. So I think that that's the light side of it. It's pretty easy to interact with and it doesn't cut off your mana on the shadow side of it, similar to what we saw with the example you gave of Richard. A lot of. Commander players really spend a lot of time building up these mana bases that are complex and expensive and powerful, and it can completely shut off some decks that don't even have red in their color identity. And so now they can't cast any of their spells. So on the most extreme side, it can be. But I think in most games of commander, it just makes it a little bit more complicated.

Shawn: 16:27

Success I think we've demonstrated probably pretty well the light and dark side of but also that there are Five different kind of sub genres of land destruction and when you are just anti land destruction in general You might miss out on some of these sort of nuances to the discussion Some of these might be fine for your play group. Some might not, but I think it's important to have that discussion. Before we get into why we think LD matters, Taylor, what are your general thoughts here?

Taylor: 16:56

Yeah. So you hinted at something just now that I think is really the crux of this episode, I think, and our podcast as a whole, you should be having conversations with your play group often and. MTG goldfish and their commander clash crew have these conversations where they see how things can get out of hand and they have created house ban lists. And we'll be talking about ours in our next episode. And I think it's really important to create your own group ban list or at least have an understanding of what you're okay with and not okay with. And I think as a community of EDH players at large, we oftentimes think of land destruction as being problematic for two reasons. And I think it kind of all boils down to this. The first reason is it slows the game down. Oftentimes when people are playing some of these effects, they don't always follow up with a game winning play. And so it drags the game out and it becomes an even longer game. When you sit down for a standard game, you can oftentimes play at least three matches in less than an hour to play that many commander games oftentimes takes many more hours. And if you want to add onto that. It's even more problematic. And then the second thing that is that issue here, I think are these stacks or hate bear effects, and it can potentially lock out players from the game. And so if you don't have that conversation about what cards you're running in your deck and people know to hold up some interaction of some sort, it could effectively lock out some players and they don't get to play at all. This game is supposed to bring us together and it's designed to include not exclude.

Shawn: 18:32

Yeah. Couldn't have said it better. I think what we'd like to do with this episode is now talk to you about a lot of little hidden gems of cards that are pretty cool. Falling into one of those five categories because there are cards like Nick those shrine to Nick's a legendary land taps for one to add colorless or Pay to and tap choose a color add to your mana pool an amount of mana of that color equal to your Devotion, which is the amount of pips of a certain color on the battlefield There are a lot of decks that can easily make 10 15 20 mana with this one land You and then maybe untap it even, and especially in green, which is already doesn't have problems with making lots of mana where it can get extremely oppressive and out of hand. And in those moments, I think you need some answers. It's not responsible. Maybe. I mean, that's a harsh word, but if you find yourself in a situation where Nick does is going off and you don't have any land destruction in your deck, I think maybe that is partially your responsibility to shoulder as well.

Taylor: 19:37

Yeah. You hit the nail on the head with green, being able to abuse this green has a lot of untap effects in it along with blue. And so Simic is known for just being value dot deck. And so if you can untap and tap Nick those multiple times in a turn, but you're also not winning with it, what are you really doing? You know, and, and with green decks, oftentimes you can telegraph your plan and people know you're going to try and win with some combat damage, but what happens when. That first player takes a really long turn to play all of these spells and, and develop this crazy board state. And then the next player plays wrath of God. And now all those creatures that were going to win on the next turn, don't get to do that thing. This game is now going to go on for far too long, but if the Nick throws never hit the battlefield or you're able to destroy it. Well, we're going to play some good, honest magic here. And it becomes much more interactive of a game versus two players taking forever in the game.

Shawn: 20:39

A note to everyone who plays Nykthos in mono green. If you're not running Helix Pentacle, One mana green enchantment with shroud that you have to pay a hundred mana into to win the game I think you're doing it wrong And I think that should always be in a green deck that has Nick those in it full stop. No exceptions

Taylor: 20:59

This sounds like a hidden gem from one of our first episodes.

Shawn: 21:02

sure does so let's talk about a funny card that you've listed one of your favorites in green here

Taylor: 21:10

Yeah. So green is really good at ramping and this card helps you ramp to in a funny way. I think it's important to know on the color pie where land destruction falls, in red and green and black, it's much more targeted. So very specific dealings with lands type cards, such as Monvalley acid Moss. It's two and two green for a sorcery. It says destroy target land, search your library for a forest card and put that card into play tapped, then shuffle your library, red, green, and black have a lot of effects that get rid of a single land. White and blue deal with it on a much larger scale. White is oftentimes destroying all lands or creating some Effect that affects all glands. Blue keeps people honest in an interesting way. We're going to talk about a couple of blue spells that punish you for being too greedy. And there's a card that we'll talk about that I think does it perfectly and is where wizards needs to go in the design space to keep these crazy ramp decks In check if we're not going to promote mass land destruction.

Shawn: 22:16

Absolutely. I'm looking forward to that card in particular. I think we both agree that it's, I think one of my favorite designs of a magic card that's existed in the past 10 years. That's a strong phrase, but I get such satisfaction from it every time I play it, even if it doesn't do the thing that it's primarily designed for. So we'll talk about that soon. But as far as Monvuli Acid Moss, love this one for two reasons. One, it says destroy target land. I have been known every once in a while in a fit of cruel rage and my own problems to target a basic land if it knocks somebody off of their colors. And that's only in the most cutthroat of games. Mind you, I'm not going to try and do that against little Timmy on the side, but I like the option just in case. Also search your library for a forest becomes better every year that we have shocks, triumphs. Kind of cool deserts weird snow lands that have forest type on them it's it's pretty amazing to be able to fetch specifically a forest card because That's getting you ahead and your color fixing and all kinds of other things that a basic just doesn't typically do

Taylor: 23:25

You mentioned here in our notes, in our meta that we're playing in, we don't oftentimes have these egregious land packages that demand interaction on. A scale where every deck needs multiple, multiple ways of interacting with specific lands. But in your play group listener, you might have this, the most, I think notorious one in commander is our Borg and cabal coffers. This is your note. So I can definitely let you finish it because one of your favorite pet decks. Powerful land package, but that's also what the deck's trying to do. Tell us about your nine fingers cane deck.

Shawn: 24:00

So nine fingers keen is commander and salt I that wants to win with mazes in wants to win with gates That's what she fetches so in that deck I both run field of the dead Also mazes in because mazes in is literally the win condition of the deck. So I don't feel too bad about playing it but I totally get it also on the flip side if somebody destroys it because well It's going to win the game So I expect someone to interact and I do run some graveyard recursion and whatnot To get that card back because even the last time I played it It was ghost quartered and I had to win through that, you know, and I think That's okay. I don't know. People may have different opinions on it, but I think it's necessary to both play land destruction and also expect that if you're playing a deck that has one of these egregious sort of lands that you should kind of anticipate that it's going to come out and get people to come after it.

Taylor: 24:56

I think that teaches a pretty valuable lesson as well. When we are building our decks, you need some sort of graveyard recursion. And to be able to play into that, I think is important.

Shawn: 25:05

Another question that comes up often in the rule zero conversation about land destruction is when is mass land destruction. Okay. Cause that's the real feel bad one. I think the answer given by proponents of mass land destruction is a little too foggy for my liking. Typically it's something like when I'm about to win the game, but I don't know what that means. And I think we hinted at this a little bit earlier, like with Avison, And that makes everything indestructible and then you armageddon whites not the fastest color killing people So does that mean that you're going to win now or like seven turns down the road when your collection of birds pecks us to death? Because that's not really a game that I want to sit through so much I feel some sort of responsibility as a player whose lands have been destroyed to imagine a world where maybe I draw a land and a swords to plowshare, and then we can kind of claw our way back as a unified whole rather than, Oh, I'm just going to scoop. And I know it's totally fine to just scoop in that moment, but I like to have sort of a definitive deterministic win, not something that's a little more. Left up to the table to decide should I keep playing in this game? Is there a point because Sometimes there might be who knows

Taylor: 26:19

I think mass land destruction is definitely in the gray. It's so hard to determine what that wind looks like, because like you just said, in those mono white decks. Maybe that player's definition of winning the game is salting everyone else out of the game. And if you're not having that honest conversation with everyone involved at the table, how do you know what winning looks like? We've talked about it before. You should have multiple ways that your deck can win. And so be sure that you know how to explain it. You have to be able to justify these questionable cards that you're playing. If you're playing Armageddon, be able to justify it. And I think that's the big point here, right? Too often. I've seen people justify mass land destruction in saying that it keeps green decks honest. No, it doesn't. It damages every other player because green decks are going to rebuild the fastest off of a mass land destruction spell. So be able to justify it. And it can't just be a gray foggy answer. Like you said, so I think that we've got some really interesting things to look at, before we go into what a normal commander game might want to include. And you've got a note here about competitive EDH to talk to us about how. Mass land destruction or land destruction in general plays out in CEDH.

Shawn: 27:37

Well, the long and short of it is, is that I've played very little of CDH, but we have a friend in our pod who definitely plays their Eureka deck. And I think in their deck, they only run 28 lands to begin with. Jude can correct us if I'm incorrect there. But the thing with CDH, and I would love to hear from listeners who play, is, is mass land destruction even a viable strategy? Because there are so many quick mana rocks and or strategies that are dependent on dockside extortionist treasure triggers That it seems to me like this is the type of deck like Joffrey Baratheon's deck from earlier in this podcast Where it has so many mana rocks, it doesn't need lands anymore. It's okay blowing them all up. It has enough rocks to survive so Any CDH listeners out there? Let us know is it a problem at all in your format? Or is it just in the casual circles where land destruction is kind of like the taboo boogeyman? So now what we would like to do is Instead of poo pooing land destruction and all these boogeyman type cards. I Think these are cards that from sort of acceptable all the way up to genius level. Like we love this design. It should be played more in EDH and we're going to share like quite a few, some of which are pretty ancient and old, which maybe some of you listeners have never even heard of this card existing. So Taylor, take us off. What is one of the cards that we wanted to highlight for people that might be an option?

Taylor: 29:05

The first thing that we have on the list here is back to basics. It's tuna blue for an enchantment, and it says, non-basic lands don't unap during their controllers, untapped steps. Blue is notorious for the stasis style effects and back to basics. Absolutely punishes players that are running non basics as their main source of manna. It's a really hard lesson to learn because I think this is even more cruel than blood moon, but I think you have to play against those ones to know how this actually works. It can be really tough to come back from, especially if they're playing effects like winter or, or stasis or whatever the case might be. What do you think about back to basics?

Shawn: 29:46

Well, this was just our little dog treat, put out on the porch for the, the stacks player and all of us. I personally would not run back to basics, but I could see a world depending on if the group is okay with it, where we're like, okay, we're going to try and be a little more stacks here, a little more okay with this like hard lock sort of combo interaction. And in those games, I think this is a totally fine card that would Honestly eliminate all those weird loops of like cabal coffers, nycthos, etc Let's talk about this next card. This is the one we hinted at earlier. I think we're both on board. Taylor, talk about Confounding Conundrum.

Taylor: 30:28

This is out of Zendikar reborn rebirth rising. This is from the most recent Zendikar set and it's great because it replaces itself when confounding conundrum enters the battlefield, draw a card. Great. But it has a second ability that is really painful to deal with. Whenever a land enters the battlefield under an opponent's control, if that player had another land into the battlefield under their control, this turn, they return a land they control to its owner's hand. This, Is where magic design needs to go to keep green decks honest. Other decks are oftentimes ramping with artifact ramp, but green decks are able to ramp with spells like rampant growth cultivates exploration. They all say, put an extra land into play and this keeps them honest. So if we're going up against Jude's Azusa deck and Jude is able to play five lands turn. No, he's not. He might get the man off of it. A couple of the triggers, but he's still only getting ahead by one manna, permanently. What do you think about confounding conundrum?

Shawn: 31:34

I love it. To me it answers the problem, it replaces itself, and it's It can even open up some really interesting or bizarre lines of play from you or opponents I guess mostly from your opponents because it targets opponents But like what if they wanted to pull a sort of besieged you land back to their hand? Well now they can do some tricky shenanigans where they get to return it to their hand So it's not all feel bads, but it even hits like fetch lands and things, which is great because it prevents them from going off with that fetch land on the turn. They put it into play. They have to wait till somebody else's turn or get another land bounce back to their hand in response to that trigger. I think this is one of the best designed cards of the past, like five, 10 years in terms of like the topic of today's podcast, which is land destruction. We don't necessarily feel good doing that, but land restriction. Yeah, I'm here for it.

Taylor: 32:33

And that's what I think some of these next cards are all about in my mind is they're not necessarily land destruction they are, but the concept here, the spirit of these next few cards are just about keeping decks alive. Honest. In our last chaos draft, I think you won off of the back of an acidic slime, or at least you got to play it to great effect. But this type of card is I think where we ought to lean either beginning players or entrenched players because it's super flexible. Sean, why don't you read us a six line?

Shawn: 33:04

Yeah. I'm a little sad that this isn't in more pre cons these days because I think it's such a flexible card to green and three for a ooze creature, a two, two and has death touch. And when acidic slim enters the battlefield, destroy target artifact, enchantment, It's not non basic land and the way I won in that chaos draft Was I noticed that my opponent had stretched their mana base to try and include one singular white mana to run? Very specific sort of kill spells I think in their deck or maybe it was a swamp But either way they had one land of one type and then five or six of the other type and I was able to acidic Slime that particular one land they were depending on And they just didn't have a replacement so it's stranded a card or two in their hand that I think allowed me to win So every once in a while you gotta hit a basic. It's just Don't feel bad about it This next one's pretty cool though. I love this. I used to run this in my shatter game brothers deck This is army ants tell us about army ants Taylor

Taylor: 34:05

So this is an oldie, but a goodie. I think I love this old style of art and I wish we would revisit it more often. That's one of the reasons Richard Kane Ferguson is one of my favorite artists because it reminds me of good fantasy art. Army ants is one, a black and a red for a one, one, summon insect. I'm sure that this has been eroded at some point, but it's never been reprinted. Tap sacrifice a land, destroy target land. So this is repeatable, but you have to pay the price and this is difficult to do unless you're ramping yourself. You're only getting rid of the problematic lands that other people have, and that can be difficult. And maybe you can politic and say, Hey, y'all give me a couple of turns. Don't attack me. And I'll take care of this for you. And maybe that gets you so that you're not necessarily on the back end of the beat stick from everyone else, but you're helping to keep the table in check

Shawn: 34:58

Yeah, absolutely army and super fun. I have a couple copies if anybody in the play group wants them because I am that old the next one is dust bowl. This is a land taps for one colorless mana to your mana pool It recently had a reprint and outlaws of thunder junction on the wanted poster sort of Because it does commit a crime quote unquote by paying three tapping sacrifice one of your lands to destroy target non basic land It's good, repeatable. I think that the cost is fair paying three and sacrificing the land and tapping this. That's so technically costs four plus the land that you sack, which I guess could be one of the ones you paid with it for, but it's a hefty toll to pay just to either get a land in your graveyard, which you might want to do or also to destroy somebody else's big, bad, scary monster.

Taylor: 35:48

You're not necessarily going haywire with this card either. You know, I mentioned the loop you could do with a strip mine and a crucible of worlds because there's a cost associated with a dust bowl. It is much less likely to. Go crazy and start to wipe everyone else's land package. So I think that this is just helping you to keep other decks honest. And that leads me to this last include here that I've got. And I think it's probably my favorite land that does this type of effect because you're not being cruel. You're just keeping people honest. It's tectonic edge. It's a land that taps for a colorless mana. And it says one. Tap it, sacrifice tectonic edge, destroy target non basic land, activate this ability only if an opponent controls four or more lands. I like this because you're not eliminating a player, you're just getting rid of that one non basic that's maybe putting in too much work. What do you think about it, Sean?

Shawn: 36:46

It used to be in all of my decks, so maybe I should reconsider putting it in a couple more. I do think it's fair. and we have been power crept a little bit over this at this point, but you know, there's room for some oldies, but goodies and I have a bunch of shiny promo copies of it. So maybe I should go ahead and pull those out. The next one I want to highlight is two very old cards, one from the dark, one from homelands. And these hit on a different wavelength of land. They're not land destruction so much as they're maybe paying people back for playing too many lands. The first one is Cleansing, a sorcery from the dark for white, white, white. It says all land is destroyed. Players may prevent cleansing from destroying specific lands by paying one life for each land they wish to protect. Effects that prevent or redirect damage may not be used to counter this loss of life. Now that is the old wording. I'm sure the errata text is a little bit different, but the gist of it is that if you've ramped out and you have like 10, 15 lands and everyone else has six, well, guess what? Now you get to pay 10 or 15 life if you want to keep all of that bounty. It's a fair divvying up of damage to everyone just based on how far ahead they are in the game. And so it speeds things up and it may cause them to sacrifice a couple lands here and there Particularly in the end times or the end of the game not the end times Sorry, I got into the dark mode. But when somebody only has like 10 life Well, this is no longer really a choice so much as it is like I have to actually sacrifice half my lands or i'm just dead

Taylor: 38:29

Cleansing, I think is exactly what I would say is appropriate mass land destruction because it offers the players a choice versus an Armageddon, which there is no choice. this reminds me of one of my favorite cards. It's it's. Similar, but for artifacts it's fade away and it gives people a choice. What do you want to protect? What do you want to get rid of? And in this case, yeah, it only really seems to hurt the people that are, or the players that are so far ahead. I like this a lot and the darkest, such a wicked, cool set. I love it.

Shawn: 38:59

Fantastic. So the next one is from a less wicked, cool set, but it had a couple of gems here and there. Homeland's primal order for two and two green and enchantment. During each player's upkeep, primal order deals one damage to that player for each non basic land he or she controls. It's like a product price of progress that just sticks around. And, I think it's fair. What do you think?

Taylor: 39:27

Yeah, I love this. I would be much more inclined to play this, regularly. Over something like back to basics, because this punishes them in a way that's going to move the game forward. And it doesn't just completely lock them out of the game. So I think in these type of, taxing effects, I would be much more likely to play primal order as my number one pick. Then I'd play blood moon and then I would play it back to basics. But this one, again, it says I think a pretty good job of moving the game forward where other land taxing destruction effects stall this out.

Shawn: 40:00

My only problem with it is that it's in green which often is the deck that does just fine with having a lot of basics Which I guess is why they built it that way but in today's world I kind of wish it was in a different color to try and I don't know maybe penalize The green player a little more just not give them the option to also deal damage for non basics I wish that was something that went in the color pie was like Other colors only maybe

Taylor: 40:26

Yeah. With the way that magic design has changed, which color of the pie do you think this would best fit into?

Shawn: 40:32

I want to say either black or red I could almost see black punishing for greed In other players not just itself, which is something it often does of like I can draw cards and pay life to do that Or maybe in that regard because white is the color of law. I mean we're getting in the weeds here Like maybe that is a deal too. It's like a land tax literally You And like you're now it's time to pay the tax man, um with blood. I don't know

Taylor: 41:00

I think black is a really good call because it does say on primal order. At the beginning of each player's upkeep, I could totally see it being in a white. If they were to adjust it and say at the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, because white is not known for ramping out. So I think those are good calls there. Red and black, if it stays with each, maybe leaning more towards black and then white, if it's going to be the asymmetrical version, which is just on each opponent's upkeep.

Shawn: 41:27

So this last one that we're going to talk about Which i've had a lot of success with recently since they reprinted it on the wilds of eldraine enchantment bonus sheet Since it's come to brawl. I've been able to play it a lot more And oldie but goodie spreading seas one and a blue enchantment aura enchant land You When it enters the battlefield, draw a card and chanted land is an is land, AKA I land. So I think this is a great card because it replaces itself. Always love that. It doesn't cost you a lot to, to play it in the first place. Get an extra card if you need it in a pinch. You can turn a rando land into an Island or you can turn that Nick those into an Island. And I think that's peachy keen.

Taylor: 42:09

I love this card. I play it in my hack ball, Murfolk deck. So many of my Murfolk have Island walk. And so it's really nice to be able to hit a land that I can do what you just said, cause some problems, but also to make sure I get some Island walk in. And that is pertinent. So many of my Murfolk are tiny little fishy boys and they need to connect without fear of retribution, AKA blocking. And so this is a great one. It replaces itself. There are a couple of other really cool options. I think people know at this point how much I love cycling. And another really good effect like this is in the card lingering Mirage. It's one in a blue for an enchant land. Enchanted land is an Island, but it has cycling too. And so you can toss it. If you don't actually end up needing this, you can toss it, draw a different card. I think spreading seas is really good because it always draws you a card and it does this effect, but. Just another option that's in the similar vein.

Shawn: 43:01

fruitly. So, now we're going to talk about a couple non Bowser traps to be wary of when you're trying to figure out what kind of card is out there that I can use to maybe slow down the green player. One card that definitely doesn't do that is Storm Cauldron. For five mana, an artifact, each player may play an additional land on his or her turn. Symmetrical! Wow, we're all ramping! And then, it says whenever a land is tapped for mana, return it to its owner's hand. As we talked about earlier, not only with mass land destruction does green tend to fly ahead, but with these type of Storm Cauldron y type effects, and there's only a few in Magic, All told the green player is going to be able to play way more additional lands than you are because they have cards like Azusa That's say yeah lay down three lands instead of One or two and so, you know tapping Basically, they just come out ahead So this is not a good option Taylor tell us about some other options that you feel are not that great

Taylor: 43:59

Yeah. So I think that for a long time, it became pretty ubiquitous to play a card like field of ruin, because it can replace the land it destroys, but with the way that it's worded field of ruin says tap at a colorless or pay to. Tap it, sacrifice Field of Ruin, destroy target non basic land and opponent controls. Each player searches their library for a basic land card, puts it onto the battlefield, then shuffles. This was designed for Standard, it was designed for 1v1 formats, and it replaced the two lands that left the battlefield, your Field of Ruin and the opponent's land that you destroyed. In commander, you are putting two other players ahead of you because it gives them the extra land. If you are playing field of ruin, I have zero hesitation in saying you should absolutely take it out and replace it with demolition field. This is a newer card that came out, I believe in brother's war and it's a land. It says the same thing. Almost. It says tap and add colorless. Or paid to tap sacrifice, demolition field, destroy target, non basic land and opponent controls that lands controller may search their library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle. You may search your library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle. My point in calling out these two cards. Read your cards, because you might try and play one of these effects and not realize how it may asymmetrically work out. You might hurt only yourself, but not other people the way you might intend.

Shawn: 45:35

which kind of goes back to the topic from last podcast. The particular copy of field of ruin you picked here was actually in a commander pre con. So you're like telling new players that they should be playing this card, which is inherently bad for them. No, don't do it. Feel the ruin right out. I don't see a place for it in any EDH deck to be honest. There's maybe very few, maybe like a Zozu the Punisher, which punishes people for getting lands into play, but outside of that very niche case, always run a demolition field instead.

Taylor: 46:07

What are some of your kind of takeaway numbers here? You've got a number line that I think is important for people to hear. What'd you think?

Shawn: 46:15

So I think that it's important to run three land destruction abilities in your deck, and that can be varied. That can be something like a generous gift, which is an instant speed two and a white, Spell that allows you to destroy a permanent and replace it with like an elephant. I think a three, three elephant, that does just fine in a pinch. It doesn't have to be one of these sort of field of ruin or demolition field strip mine type cards, but I think you should have three because the chances that you draw one of them, I think increases to like in most games you'll see one of the three if we just play out seven, eight, nine turns. My final thoughts would be. That you have to have a conversation with your playgroup on their thoughts of all of these types of land destruction, not just the idea of land destruction in general. My understanding of the EDH world at large is that many players are okay with targeted removal, but they might not be okay with mass, or they might want to even have a discussion about banning like particular lands like the MTG Goldfish crew did. Anything is fine. It just really depends on what you and your play group talks about. That's the important piece. So Taylor, what are your final thoughts on Land Destruction?

Taylor: 47:29

I think it's important to have. Just like we need to have ways to counter spells that might be a problem or remove problematic permanence, we have to have ways to get rid of these lands that can launch other players ahead. And so I think when you mentioned including three ways to deal with lands and being able to target them, I think that you have a really good note here mentioning the idea of generous gift. We mentioned acidic slime earlier. Another great example might be assassin's trophy or besieged you who endures. There are many ways to include this that doesn't really take away from a card slot in your deck. And I think that's what we have to keep in mind is make sure that you're playing interaction that's somewhat flexible and can be used in multiple scenarios because it's really hard to dedicate such a valuable spot in your deck to a card that only has one effect. I think that when we're eating our veggies, I mentioned this before in our deck building template episode, you got to make sure you run some graveyard hate in all of your decks. You got to run some ways to get rid of lands in your deck. That's just a part of eating the veggies. And like I said, you can find creative ways to include it. That doesn't take up one of those valuable spots.

Shawn: 48:40

So in closing, I hope that we've introduced some of the listeners, or maybe all of the listeners hadn't seen some of the cards that we've told you about. But I think that a lot of the ones we mentioned in the second half of the episode are totally fine to play in an EDH game. Just talk about them to your play group first. And finally, a message to wizards. If you're listening, I would love to see more cards like crumble to dust, three mana, red, sorcery, devoid, exile, target, non basic land. And it also has some extra text that's more for constructed play of searching people's decks for that particular card and exiling every copy of it. It never took off in standard, but I think that's because it needs to be improved a little bit, perhaps with a instant speed or split second, whatever really, really tells the player who's hitting Nykthos not having it here today, bud so hopefully this podcast spurred your curiosity about your own decks. I would say, take a look at them, see if you have those three, pieces of land removal, and if not, try to find some curious or interesting options that might wow and amaze your, your friends. Next time we're going to talk about our own particular groups, band list, and how do we build rule seven decks? Rule seven, being a thing of like, A seven is almost this meme y sort of funny thing. Your deck's a seven. Yeah, sure. Whatever. We tried to find a ban list that would actually make it so that the best possible deck you could build would be a seven power level. And I think we've had some success. We'd love to share with you what those successes and difficulties have been.

Taylor: 50:22

If you enjoyed this episode and discussion about land destruction, be sure to follow us on Twitter or X that's at rule zero podcast. That's the number zero or email us at rule zero podcast at gmail. com. And let us know your thoughts. If you'd like for us to highlight one of your decks in the future, be sure to reach out to us. We'd love to, if you regularly listen to us on YouTube, check out our podcast, which comes out a day before anywhere you can get your podcasts and don't forget.

Shawn: 50:50

In magic, there's no problem that a rule zero conversation cannot solve.