White Speculation Play

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

This is a bit of an odd discussion here in that its a little bit of a financial speculation talk but it pertains to the format we all love here so I figured I would share my thoughts with you and hopefully this isn't too far out of the realm of relevant commander talk.

In C21 we got Archaeomancer's Map and Scholarship Sponsor as new white cards that care about land counts. This isn't really new but for a long time I have felt like these white effects kind of needed a density of cards before they really became viable.

Here comes my speculation play. I think that Scorched Ruins and Lotus Vale are likely going to be among some of they key cards to make white's lesser land count really blow up huge. But here is the thing about them...... they are reserve listed rare lands (Reserve List)... Beyond these cards there are still some great support cards that do somewhat of similar things like say the Karoo lands, and Ravnica Bounce lands. Hell recently we even had a colorless version.

I think that its possible to get away with this archetype without Scorched Ruins and Lotus Vale but I am not convinced that they aren't going to be strong additions to this sort of archetype assuming it has reached the density we have been looking for. Removing two lands in one play is strong for an effect that cares about how many less lands you have and they are really good with Thespian Stage too. I did a little preliminary toying with the concept a while back but I think we just keep getting more and more tools to make this concept work and I see the limiting factor being a little bit on these two reserve list lands which while not cheap, still are not what they could be. I put in an additional order for more copies before making this post but I just figured I would share my thoughts with others on this site.

I am not trying to create a hike in price of these cards so much as give a small tip of the hat to my fellow nexus players. If you have the funds to spend $50-70 a card for these cards and this concept has merit to you, I think its probably time to follow up on these two lands while they are still somewhat affordable as far as rare lands in the reserve list go. In the past we really haven't had enough land count behind matters effects to get away with these cards. I think that if this concept is interesting to you though it might be time to slide in a little order. I really do hope that the price on these doesn't go crazy but I believe they have sort of doubled already in the last six months.

I have no idea on what the commander would be for this but it looks to be probably favored for a multicolored concept that is white in base likely not mixing into green or else why not use traditional ramp. So, I see some sort of multicolored not white deck here that likely is trying to ramp in a non traditional way. Let me know what you think about the future of these cards. I just have this feeling that we are getting to a point that these decks might be becoming viable and if they do, we might be bottlenecked on a few reserve listed lands. Please nobody go out and buyout these cards lol.
Last edited by ISBPathfinder 2 years ago, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Dragoon » 3 years ago

Don't forget Lotus Field as a more recent, non-reserved list option.

I also thought of using those lands to enable white ramp more easily but I think Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins still present some important risks. Being hit by a Ghost Quarter or a Strip Mine is going to hurt really bad.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago
Don't forget Lotus Field as a more recent, non-reserved list option.

I also thought of using those lands to enable white ramp more easily but I think Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins still present some important risks. Being hit by a Ghost Quarter or a Strip Mine is going to hurt really bad.
Yea, Lotus Field is a thing too but its also not really at risk of going up in price significantly being a relatively new card that can be reprinted. I was more making this thread to point out that 2/3 of this type of land are old reserve listed rare lands. These cards historically haven't had a lot of synergy but wizards continues to make new white cards that seem to have a lot of synergy with what they do so I felt like it was a situation that historically they were priced correctly but it is possible that as new effects in white give them synergy that their prices might jump and this concept comes together. The point of this thread was primarily for me to point at a few reserve list lands and say something along the lines of "there might be a big jump there in the future". I am only posting this trying to give others a heads up on this matter and due to how small nexus tends to be in the scope of the internet.

Strip Mines - you would be surprised but they aren't as good of a play as you would think on the other side of the board. Trading a land of your own for a land that produces three for an opponent in a 4 player game is something I would call only an on par trade. In a 4 player FFA format one of your own resources is on average worth three of an opponents. Its still a good play to kill things like Cradle / Coffers but that is more because those tend to produce more than +3 resources on average. Trading in an efficient Strip Mine for Lotus Vale is not what I would call a bad play but I also wouldn't call it a good one. The archetype I am talking about though also cares to play behind lands as there are a lot of white effects now that care about you having less lands and some that care by how many you are behind.
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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

Yeah, I'll definitely agree that that Scorched Ruins and Lotus Vale pair well with white's if-you-have-fewer-lands cards. Reserve list cards also pretty much always go up in price.

That said, I'm slightly dubious as to whether they'll actually see a lot of play - Lotus Field is a superior version of the effect (and significantly less vulnerable), and I'm not sure whether it is a good idea to be playing multiples. Similar to Temple of the False God, these lands are pretty bad in your opening hand and awkward if you draw more than one. I feel like I'd prefer to just have one to tutor up with Expedition Map.

...that said, could definitely be interesting if you build around them. Between land untap effects like Deserted Temple and Crucible of Worlds effects, these can represent an impressive amount of ramp if properly supported.

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Post by Dragoon » 3 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
Yea, Lotus Field is a thing too but its also not really at risk of going up in price significantly being a relatively new card that can be reprinted. I was more making this thread to point out that 2/3 of this type of land are old reserve listed rare lands. These cards historically haven't had a lot of synergy but wizards continues to make new white cards that seem to have a lot of synergy with what they do so I felt like it was a situation that historically they were priced correctly but it is possible that as new effects in white give them synergy that their prices might jump and this concept comes together. The point of this thread was primarily for me to point at a few reserve list lands and say something along the lines of "there might be a big jump there in the future". I am only posting this trying to give others a heads up on this matter and due to how small nexus tends to be in the scope of the internet.
I know, I just wanted to point other options since you mentioned the Karoo lands and the Bouncelands, but not this one. ;)
ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
Strip Mines - you would be surprised but they aren't as good of a play as you would think on the other side of the board. Trading a land of your own for a land that produces three for an opponent in a 4 player game is something I would call only an on par trade. In a 4 player FFA format one of your own resources is on average worth three of an opponents. Its still a good play to kill things like Cradle / Coffers but that is more because those tend to produce more than +3 resources on average. Trading in an efficient Strip Mine for Lotus Vale is not what I would call a bad play but I also wouldn't call it a good one. The archetype I am talking about though also cares to play behind lands as there are a lot of white effects now that care about you having less lands and some that care by how many you are behind.
I can see how that would not be the best play, but sometimes there is no Cradle or Coffers to target, and the next best thing are probably those.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago
I can see how that would not be the best play, but sometimes there is no Cradle or Coffers to target, and the next best thing are probably those.
Strip Mines still provide mana for you. I generally speaking don't use them up unless I have more lands than I need (lol when does that happen) or when someone is using a land to get crazy value. Because I have a strip mine doesn't mean I don't value having that land tapping for mana.

Especially in the early turns I think its less likely that anyone is going to do it. When someone uses a strip mine the player that used it and the target player are the two that feel its effect the most. The other two players get a big tempo gain from it as its sort of like having ramped but at no resource cost to themselves.
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

"At what price beauty?" - Lotus Vale.

I will say my experience with "more lands than you" type cards is that you always bottleneck out on them, so the stopping point is when you reach the same number of lands as other player(s).
Therefore if somebody does Strip Mine your Scorched Ruins in a deck that plays a lot of catch up with putting lands into play that you can claw that back fairly quickly. Sure it's not optimal but it is something you can recover from.

As lands that are combo pieces and reserved list, yes these will only ever go up in price and will only ever become increasingly useful for decks of all kinds. Get your copies today.

Aggressive Mining and Archaeomancer's Map for a Boros value engine.

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Post by Sinis » 3 years ago

I think Scholarship Sponsor is a trap. Equalizes everyone, and I think that's dangerous, given other people are going to get to leverage their lands first.

I also think the best uses won't be things like Lotus Vale. darrenhabib pointed out Aggressive Mining, but I think we're one or two more cards like that away from it being a real thing; currently, the ways of disposing of lands are things like Zuran Orb and there are relatively few advantage engines in the 'poor' colours. I am a firm believer that there are (more than) enough cards that let you 'catch up', but a little too few to put you 'behind'.
ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
I am not trying to create a hike in price of these cards so much as give a small tip of the hat to my fellow nexus players.
I think these cards spiked when Titania was spoiled in 2014. I bought mine just before that. Will they spike more? Ehhh. I think they would have with Keeper of the Accord. Really, it'll be when more 'land spenders' appear, like Aggressive Mining.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Scholarship Sponsor is going to be very, very good in 1 and 2 color decks that play a lot of control elements or landfall. you catch up to the leader post-sweeper and put everyone else in the position to be a menace.

It's definitely much narrower than I think people are thinking.

One of the main missing pieces is karoos; you can't really play enough karoos. A few more cycles of them would be quite nice for this sort of card.

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Post by Ruiner » 3 years ago

Slightly adjacent to this topic, and I haven't really done much searching yet, but there is combo potential for Scholarship Sponsor to put your deck ahead on land as well. Teferi's Protection seems to combo very nicely, and while that is a 7 mana combo, it could catapult you pretty far ahead. There might be other similar things that temporarily phase or blink your lands out.

Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins are already getting up there in price, I don't know if this particular card is going to bump them up so much as just general recent reserved list spiking is going to.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

@Sinis Its probably just a matter of hitting target saturation with playable effects. The fact that they haven't done a commander yet that really directly has a tie in with having less lands means that so far we have been waiting to have enough payoff that you can reliably find one or more of these effects in a reasonable amount of time. I am not saying that we are there yet but Archaeomancer's Map and Keeper of the Accord are both a very real big deal as far as payoffs go. I think some of the issue is just that we haven't seen enough cards on this quality level of payoff for it but obviously they see room for this design as we have been seeing this on and off for like seven years. Its just a matter of seeing enough of them that you can build a concept around it at which point its a question of who has locked in the reserve list cards for it and who hasn't.

Lots of the more modern era cards won't be that big of a problem but the reserve list stuff might be. Its worth considering this ahead of time in my mind just because the second we see a commander that has interaction with this it might be too late.
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Post by duducrash » 3 years ago

Strict Proctor interacts with ETB sac lands? If this is a territory you feel white might be pushing seems like a specially cool way to go

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Post by Crazy Monkey » 3 years ago

duducrash wrote:
3 years ago
Strict Proctor interacts with ETB sac lands? If this is a territory you feel white might be pushing seems like a specially cool way to go
I thought the same, but checking oracle text for Scorched Ruins and similar shows it's a replacement effect now.
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Post by Swift2210 » 3 years ago

These white ramp cards are too fair. Something like: enchantment, W, whenever you gain 1 life add W to your mana pool

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Post by Dragoon » 3 years ago

Crazy Monkey wrote:
3 years ago
duducrash wrote:
3 years ago
Strict Proctor interacts with ETB sac lands? If this is a territory you feel white might be pushing seems like a specially cool way to go
I thought the same, but checking oracle text for Scorched Ruins and similar shows it's a replacement effect now.
It works with Lotus Field and the Karoos / Bouncelands though!

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Post by Cyberium » 3 years ago

In a group game and in a format where green is popular, the chance of a white player having less lands is rather common, even without the need of Lotus Vale and its ilk to reduce land counts.

This reminded me that Zuran Orb was a popular artifact back when Armageddon were used a lot. If a white player is at even with other players, then saccing one land to fetch several (such as via Land Tax) seems to be reasonable mid-late game. Early game though, I'm leaning on WotC printing more Tithe like effect, cards that benefit you... but benefit you MORE if you're behind. For example, a 3cc that puts one plains into play but instead putting three of them into play when you're behind, that kind of thing.

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Post by Sinis » 3 years ago

Cyberium wrote:
3 years ago
This reminded me that Zuran Orb was a popular artifact back when Armageddon were used a lot.
I think Zuran Orb was used mostly to manipulate Balance|4ED.

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Post by Cyberium » 3 years ago

Sinis wrote:
3 years ago
Cyberium wrote:
3 years ago
This reminded me that Zuran Orb was a popular artifact back when Armageddon were used a lot.
I think Zuran Orb was used mostly to manipulate Balance|4ED.
Both cards were used in the same deck during old days. In either case, compensating some of MLD's aftermath in addition to locking down the game.

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Post by Sinis » 3 years ago

Cyberium wrote:
3 years ago
Sinis wrote:
3 years ago
Cyberium wrote:
3 years ago
This reminded me that Zuran Orb was a popular artifact back when Armageddon were used a lot.
I think Zuran Orb was used mostly to manipulate Balance|4ED.
Both cards were used in the same deck during old days. In either case, compensating some of MLD's aftermath in addition to locking down the game.
Oh, definitely, but I don't believe people would have run Zuran Orb without Balance. Even as a payout for Armageddon.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

Circling back to this thread, I know its been a while but Aerial Surveyor and Loyal Warhound are new cards for this concept. I am not saying that either of these cards are going to singlehandedly carry this concept into viability but for a while now I have been saying that consistency of reasonable payoffs or the existence of a good commander who cares about this might carry this over the finish line.

I don't know if these new additions carry this idea across into viability but I think I really like the direction that WoTc is clearly indicating they are going with this concept and I think seeing more of this concept only guarantees that it will at some point get to the tipping point if its not already there. I have been testing this stuff out in a few decks and have been very pleased with it so far. I don't think that these concepts have to be rooted in Scorched Ruins and Lotus Vale but I also don't see them creating these type of lands very often.

Just thought I would poke this thread again because well..... essentially everything I said previously all over again with a few new cards added to the mix. I feel so strongly about these cards (which again are reserve listed) that I have moved to the point where I own more than four copies of both Scorched Ruins and Lotus Vale. I am not trying to do any sort of pump and dump or anything but we are talking about rare reserve list cards here that actually have a fairly low cost due to historically not seeing much play.

Of the two new cards I remarked on I think that Aerial Surveyor is far more likely to do something for the less lands concept than the warhound just because a single ETB ramp can be simulated also by playing a mana stone. Surveyor giving sort of a land a turn is similar to Sword of the Animist but it also can be played out on its own before playing other threats so it makes a better play in my mind when your commander possibly costs 4+ mana or you don't run a lot of cheap creatures that you plan to play on turns 2 and 3 which tends to be where Sword of the Animist / Dowsing Dagger sort of shine. In some ways it plays a bit similarly to these two equipment but it also plays into a less lands concept that was lacking payoffs to justify its core concept. Aerial Surveyor also plays as a very good post sweeper turn as those sort of turns often involve casting commanders / rebuilding a board so it has a good self hiding function to allow it to perform the same turn rotation as the sweeper.
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I have two sets of these guys now and have found them to generally be very good. Scorched Ruins legit ramps one on its own so has been the best. I have gone *off* with Archaeomancer's Map a few times with Breena - ramped as much as 7 in one game off it.

I think every white player should own a set of these if they can.

Even Orzhov Basilica has been fantastic, tbh.

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Post by vandertroll » 2 years ago

Don't forget that Lotus Field enters tapped so for the sake of optimization you'll always pick Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins over it.
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Post by Dragoon » 2 years ago

vandertroll wrote:
2 years ago
Don't forget that Lotus Field enters tapped so for the sake of optimization you'll always pick Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins over it.
Lotus Field has hexproof though, which the other two lack. I'm always afraid of getting blown up by a Strip Mine or something with those lands.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

vandertroll wrote:
2 years ago
Don't forget that Lotus Field enters tapped so for the sake of optimization you'll always pick Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins over it.
There are a few redeeming qualities of Lotus Field though:
  • It has hexproof. That means that if your opponents are eyeing you with a strip mine effect you are protected from it. I still think that in a four player FFA, using a strip mine effect on these is only a so so move but some will jump to do it.
  • Its sacrifice uses the stack as an ETB which opens it up to stifle effects. This is somewhat narrow as stifle effects are often not heavily utilized and it is likely very deck and or meta dependent on what other use you have for such effects. Stifle effects can be crazy amazing but they can also be very underwhelming. When you stifle a craterhoof behemoth ETB it feels great but when facing down Purphoros, God of the Forge on the other hand it does almost nothing.
You are correct though that the ETB tapped nature of Lotus Field can cause a negative tempo the turn it is played. Its a bit of a trade off between safety and tempo though. I think in a lot of cases if you are utilizing these effects you likely want all three of them and if possible the ravnica bounce land cycle as well. Lots of these less land concepts can end up putting you back ahead on lands so its important to have a good density of cards to put you behind again so you can play off of the catchup effect.
Dragoon wrote:
2 years ago
Lotus Field has hexproof though, which the other two lack. I'm always afraid of getting blown up by a Strip Mine or something with those lands.
With less players left in the game its worth doing but if you do the math on resources its generally not worth doing it in a four player FFA. It does put the player you use it on behind a good bit but its also at the cost of a land and potentially some mana depending on which effect you use. So it does cost you a resource which in a meta where one of your land drops equates to three land drops from opponents on average I would generally only call it about a paridy trade. I don't think I would take the trade in most cases unless the person you use it on is somehow untapping or using it beyond the three-four mana they provide. Strip Mine lands still are lands that provide mana for you which I am not saying I am unwilling to give up but generally it has to be on something that I see as being worth more than 3 mana generation in a single land.

Thats the way I think about them at least. I generally wouldn't waste a strip mine on something unless it starts making more mana than these do. Things like Cabal Coffers / Cradle / Nykthos are things I am happier to use my Strip Mine on but the top end of production of those lands tends to be much higher.

If you have ever 1 v 1ed someone using ravnica bounce lands kind of shows how happy you are to use a Strip Mine on something like that but as soon as there are two other opponents it becomes a much less appealing trade as you put the other two opponents ahead of both of you. This is just the way I look at them. I don't think its worth the trade. Other people will sometimes jump at the opportunity just because they think they are getting something of superior value but when you break it down based on how much any of your own resources are worth in comparison to a resource of a single opponent it doesn't make as much sense. In 1v1 a card like Duress can be amazing but push that to multiplayer and you essentially won't see it outside of cEDH because you quickly find out its not worth doing and you will run out of steam using such tactics.
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Post by vandertroll » 2 years ago

I get the Strip Mine argument, but I think it makes more sense (or at least that's the way i play the card) to use its effect on big haymaker lands/plays (i.e Gaea's Cradle ) for maximum efficiency.

As for the Stifle effects, I don't know.. Again when playing a singleton format you want to be your plays as efficient as possible, so unless it's a win now situation (i.e Thassa's Oracle ) it will only mess up the tempo of a single player. Of course this can be good if you manage to throw off that player by enraging him with a stifled Lotus Vale ! I can definitely get behind this sort of plays :D

EDIT: I didn't read @ISBPathfinder 's post, he says it better than me :)
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