Fetch lands mtg1/13/2024 Providing a 99-card deck with 28 lands, a starting hand of 7 cards will have in expectation ("on average") 1.98 lands and 5.02 non-lands. So Sam, if you take an average cEDH deck, 99 cards and 28 lands, does cracking a fetch on your first turn make much of a difference for your second one? In long, I turned to my friend Sam, a maths teacher and one half of the best drafting channel on Youtube, Draft Punks. It's irrelevant, and always a bad argument for the inclusion of fetchlands. ![]() Thinning isn't a reason for or against running fetchlands, but it's a persistent phenomena that deserves a mention. After all, if you can avoid the taxes and tribulations every other greedy mana base will fall prey to, why wouldn't you? What About Thinning? Mono-color decks are pretty much the only cEDH decks that can get away with a fetchless mana base, a strength that seems increasingly worth leaning into. Of course, there are also dedicated anti-land cards that will crop up from pod to pod, like Root Maze and Blood Moon, but those effects are on their way out of the cEDH meta to begin with. The growing prevalence of these cards means fetchlands now come with a real risk, one that wasn't there until recently. No, these cards won't always be in play, and an opening hand with a fetchland should be able to play it without fear of these cards landing on turn one, but I'd wager the likelihood one of your opponents has an anti-fetchland effect is greater than the chance you've seen the card you play that cares about fetches. In order of the danger they pose, Opposition Agent makes your opponent fetch instead, Aven Mindcensor makes fetching useless unless you get very lucky indeed, Archon of Emeria slows them down to a crawl, and Archivist of Oghma gives its owner a draw every time you crack one. Being an Island, it can be tutored by any of the four fetches available to blue, making it a powerful inclusion.Īs much as you might want to make fetch happen, there are now four Regina George cEDH staples that directly punish you for playing fetchlands, three of them printed in as many years. Mystic Sanctuary is similar to Counterbalance in the sense it's a rare card to see at a cEDH table, but any list running it will make great use of fetchlands. You'll never be sorry to exile them as you're unlikely to be doing anything else with them once they enter the bin, unlike valuable snstants and sorceries. As we'll see with Underworld Breach, fetchlands help raise the count of disposable resources in the graveyard. If you're not happy with the card you know to be on top, crack a fetch and get rid of the damn thing.ĭig Through Time is a delve spell, and delve spells need things to delve. Fetchlands are good with Counterbalance for the same reason they're good with Brainstorm. Hey, if it's good enough for Vintage and Legacy, it's good enough for cEDH!Ĭounterbalance isn't exactly a staple in cEDH, but it shows up frequently enough - especially in mono-blue decks - that it's worth noting. ![]() Brainstorm is more than playable in its own right, but following up with a fetchland will allow you to shuffle away whichever two cards you left on top of your library. This interaction is present in any format that has access to the cards. Brainstorm goes with fetchlands the way peanut butter goes with jam (or jelly, as the Americans call it). Barring white, every color has at least one reason, or one card, that benefits from this.īlue has the most reasons of any single color to care about fetchlands. Shuffling in and of itself is useless, but when paired with a card that cares about the top of your library, possibilities arise. The most common use for fetchlands in cEDH (in mono-color decks) is the ability to shuffle your library. While life loss and the chance to recur a land straight from the bin come up in other formats, neither ability is leveraged much in cEDH. It might seem silly decks that only care about one type of mana would want them in the first place, but read on. The primary reason fetchlands have seen mass play in every format they're legal in is how good they are at fixing mana, which isn't a concern for a mono-color deck. The rise of anti-tutor effects has given pause for thought on everyone's favourite broken land cycle, and while decks of two colors or more will remain just as reliant on fetchlands, mono-color decks have now reached a point where the risk outweighs the reward.īut before looking at why mono-color cEDH decks shouldn't be playing fetchlands, let's look at why they've played them historically. Polluted Delta by Vincent Proce and Regina George by Rachel McAdamsįor all their myriad benefits, fetchlands have never carried so much risk in cEDH as they do right now.
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