Card Spotlight.....

Myriad Landscape

It would be easy as my first Spotlight post to pick one of the rock-star utility land cards of EDH like Stip Mine or Maze of Ith.

However I thought I'd take the time to talk about a relatively new card to Commander but one I am growing to appreciate; Myriad Landscape.

So what makes me like this card so much? Let's have a look at what it does.

It enters the battlefield tapped, this would be a setback for other formats but it's not quite so detrimental in Commander. The game is usually played as a multiplayer game and you start with 40 points of life so it takes long for aggro decks to really attack your life total, just watch out for Commander damage.

 Once it untaps it then taps for 1 if you need it, this is important as we'll come to when we look at its other ability and its peers.

For 2 mana we can tap and sacrifice Myriad Landscape then search our library for 2 basic land cards that share a land type and put them onto the battlefield tapped. We then shuffle our library.

It's important to note that we have to tap Myriad Landscape so we can't use it's mana to pay for this ability.  However, if we can't or don't want to pay for this ability being able to tap for mana means we can just use this like any other utility land we may have in play.

One thing to keep in mind, in a normal game we can only play one land per turn, being able to sacrifice this land for two lands means we actually gain an advantage over just playing one land per turn.

This type of land, that you sacrifice for another type of land, is known as a fetch land. The two most common fetch lands that fetch any colour basic land are Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds.

These two cards are functional reprints of each other. You play the card, sacrifice it, search your library for a basic land card, place it onto the battlefield tapped then shuffle your library.

In this case you can always use one of these cards the turn you play it but you are exchanging a single card for a single card. The benefit is you remove a basic land from your library meaning there is more change of you drawing a card than a land. In EDH though this benefit is reduced when compared to a 40 or 60 card format. In addition to this you can fetch a land you may need to cast one or more spells in your hand.

The benefit of Myriad Landscape over both of these is that that it taps for mana and, more importantly, it fetches two lands, they have to be the same type which is a nuisance but you are still exchange one land for two.

In magic Green is the colour to play if you want to fetch lands it has plenty of options for you to choose from. Cards like Harrow and Cultivate.

Harrow has the downside of requiring you to sacrifice a land as part of it's casting cost but will fetch two basic lands of different types and the do not enter the battlefield tapped.

Cultivate doesn't require the sacrifice, again you can get to basic lands of different types but you put one into your hand and the other onto the battlefield tapped.

So both have their downsides. They may both have casting cost of 3 but that's comparable to Myriad Landscape as it has to tap as part of activating its ability.

Green also has creatures such as Yavimaya Elder who will fetch basic lands for you.

Note though that Yavimaya elder puts those two lands into your hand, which doesn't help any kind of advantage on the battlefield. He does, however, replace himself if you use his ability to send him to the graveyard.

While Green has a plethora of options, of which I have only mentioned three, if you're not playing Green then there are a number of artifacts you can consider instead of or as well as Myriad Landscape.

Armillary Sphere has the same activation cost but it puts the lands into your hand which is functionally inferior.  

Burnished Hart costs more to play and more to activate but it does let you fetch two different types of of basic land.

Surveyor's Scope is very situational, it could fetch you two or three lands and it let's you put them onto the battlefield un-tapped. However, you would have to be behind either deliberately or because of a poor starting hand for this to really shine.

I think in all three cases Myriad Landscape is the better card and given I used to play Armillary Sphere in my Commander decks replacing it with a land that is functionally better seems like a no-brainer.  

One last point I will make Myriad Landscape really shines in mono-coloured Commander decks as your choice of lands isn't so important as the fact that it just gets you two more of the lands you need to cast your spells.

If you're going to the pre-release of Dragons of Tarkir this week have fun. Next week I'm going to look at the set and see if any of the cards will take pride of place in any of my existing Commander decks.

Phil