By Zherbus (Zherbus) on Tuesday, December 04, 2001 - 08:34 am:
Land Destruction Primer
Steve O’Connell, Dec 2001
A deck arch type since the beginning, land destruction has always been a deck players hate going up against. No matter if it was the original O’Brien deck pre or post vise restriction, or Erhnam R/G land kill, it’s always been something deck builders have kept in mind when making sideboard decisions. It was not always thought of as ‘disruption’ but it always has been.
Note that card advantage is considered the key to the game of magic. If one cannot cast his or her spells, they are useless, thereby giving you major card advantage (assuming you can cast yours). By destroying even just the first 1 or 2 lands in any given deck, you tend to disrupt its flow so much that it is nearly impossible to recover, assuming you can kill them as fast as intended.
In its earliest forms, land destruction has utilized tools such as the ever popular Black Vice, Nether Void, Dingus Egg and Various sub themes such as discard. The earliest O’Brien deck (see the Nether Void primer) combined the awesome stalling power of Nether Void and the punishing damage of black vise, while beating an opponent into the dirt with a stampede of Juzam's and pump knights.
While the O’Brien deck was certainly powerful and dominating, most frugal (read that as, “Owns no Juzam's, Moxen, Nether Voids, etc) players played a cheaper deck like speed Red/Green or Black/green splashing for ice storms and fast critters, mana birds, and spot enchantment/artifact removal.
Force of Will and Misdirection hadn’t been made yet, so a first turn sinkhole or strip mine could really mess a control player up. Imagine First turn - Swamp/Mox/Sinkhole. Second turn - Swamp/ritual/Juzam. Commence 4 turn clock, while keeping your opponent under 4 mana so a moat couldn’t stop the abuse.
With the coming of Ice age and the restriction of Black Vise, land kill became less prevalent as the popularity of Type II. That pretty much knocked sinkhole, ice storm, and some of the toys out of the scene.
With the explosion of Type II, necro decks, vise-age, Erhnam-geddon, and blue-white control ran around rampant. Like today, the type II players were adapting their decks to a T1 field.
“No hand, land, or Creatures”, STEVE O’CONNELL, 1996
Critters (6)
4 Order of the Ebon Hand
2 Knight of Stromgald
Discard (8)
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Hypnotic Specters
Utility/Drawing power (4)
2 Necropotence
1 Zuran Orb
1 Demonic Tutor
Direct Damage/Removal (6)
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Drain Life
Land Kill (14)
4 Sinkhole
4 Icequake
2 Stone Rain
4 Strip Mine
Mana (22)
4 Dark Ritual
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
4 Badlands
4 Sulphorus Springs
8 Swamp
SideBoard:
3 Gloom
2 Incinerate
2 Knight of Stromgald
1 Drain Life
4 Juggernauts
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Sengir Vampire
This deck worked real well in its time, with enough direct damage to hurt a necro player, enough disruption to throw a control player off balance, and enough punch to not care about Armageddon.
The reason I’m listing this deck is to show that the common idea of having enough land kill in your deck to take out every one of your opponent’s lands is a bad strategy.
Just disrupt them all to #### and the rest will fall into place.
Like the O’Brien Deck, I used hand kill as well to make up for the gap black vise left in land kill. It’s a notion that for the most part has stuck ever since.
Discard fit the deck’s theme perfectly as land destruction was meant for disruption. All you simply wanted to do is knock your opponent down long enough for your critters to knock him to zero life.
There were games, where you may have killed anywhere from zero to one lands the whole game, but a well placed Hymn to Tourach and a Hypnotic Specter ate away enough of your opponents hand, that he was down to top decking.
While this sort of deck had plenty of removal, if there was an enchantment that had to be dealt with, Nevinyrral's Disk was your only answer.
There was also another approach, beat their heads in, scorch and check pulses later. Red is the best color for this and is supplied with stone rain, and later on pillage. With green you had fast mana, such as Bird of Paradise, Tinder walls, and orcish lumberjacks. Not to mention a way to deal with pesky enchantments. “Erhnam n’ Burn um” was born, and in addition to its beat down variants it also had its land kill variants. This grew in popularity more as Alliances came out and pillage and hordes were available.
A typical version ran similar to this:
Erhnam n’Burn um LD (Type one remix)
Critters (19)
4 Erhnam Djinn
4 birds of paradise
4 Tinder Walls
4 Elvish Archers
3 Balduvian Hordes
Burn (9)
4 Lightning Bolts
2 Incinerates
1 Fireball
1 Stormbind
1 Black Vise
Land Kill (12)
4 Pillage
4 Stone Rain
4 Strip mines
Mana (20)
4 Taiga
4 Karpulsan Forest
6 Forest
2 Mountain
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
It’s Pretty straight forward. Scary to have a few giant critters charging at you when you’re stuck and one or two lands. That is unless you were a white player running swords and balance.
4 Color Burn’em LD, STEVE O’CONNELL, 1997
Creatures (12)
2 Erhnam Djinn
4 Kird Ape
3 Gorilla Shaman
3 Serendib Efreet
Burn (8)
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Stormbind
1 Fireball
Land Kill (6)
2 Stone Rain
4 Ice Storm
Utility (5)
1 Sylvan Library
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Regrowth
1 Black Vise
1 Vampiric Tutor
Mana (29)
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
4 Taiga
4 City of Brass
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
3 Volcanic Island
2 Badlands
This is a bit more modern of course, and when it was played it was more or less for fun. It is my opinion that the latter two deck are inferior to a black build, because their focus was so simple.
With the domination of Necropotence in all formats, sligh emerged. As the deck received better and more efficient cards, land destruction players played the deck less and less.
Land destruction was more or less used for additional disruption for decks who wanted to keep the lead they established in the early game.
I refer you to the Goblin burn and Sligh Primer for more, but for ease I’ll include a decklist. The idea was simple; kill lands, beat with weenies, burn creatures that slipped out of the land kill soft lock.
PONZA, MARO BLUME, 1999 GERMAN NATIONAL CHAMPION
Creatures (15)
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Fireslinger
2 Ticking Gnomes
4 Avalanche Riders
1 Balduvian Horde
Burn and Damage (12)
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Shock
2 Hammer of Bogardan
2 Earthquake
Land destruction (8)
4 Stone Rain
4 Pillage
Land (25)
4 Wasteland
1 Maze of Shadows
1 Shivan Gorge
19 Mountains
Sideboard
4 Jackal Pup
1 Balduvian Horde
1 Lightning Dragon
4 Shattering Pulse
1 Earthquake
2 Ticking Gnomes
2 Fire Diamond
Also in extended came a deck that did well against the combo and survival decks of its day. It had plenty of removal, artifact control, enchantment kill, and creature removal in addition to its land kill. For a more in depth look, check out Rakso’s stompy primer, its all there.
LEGION LAND LOSS, ALAN COMER, TOP 8 IN TWO PRO TOUR QUALIFIERS, LATE 1997
Disruption (21)
4 Thermokarst
4 Winter's Grasp
4 Creeping Mold
1 Kudzu
4 Icy Manipulator
4 Stunted Growth
Damage (7)
3 Erhnam Djinn
4 Triskelion
Mana (32)
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Wall of Roots
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Wasteland
13 Forest
Sideboard
1 Tranquility
2 Tranquil Domain
4 Uktabi Orangutan
2 Natures Wrath
1 Tsunami
3 Barbed Folliage
1 Storm Seeker
1 Serrated Biskellion
In current Type one, land kill has a major place in the format. Even control decks run any where from 3-5 strip mine/wastelands main deck to disrupt a color dependant opponent, kill a mishra, or get rid of a Library of Alexandria.
Two decks, that are commonly known, that perform well in Type one as Azhrei’s land grant sligh and Matt D’Avanzo’s control (as opposed to the other variant of void, aggro) Nether Void.
RUBEFACERE, DARREN DI BATTISTA AKA AZHREI, 2001
Creatures (15)
4 Goblin Cadets
4 Jackal Pup
4 Kird Ape
4 Gorilla Shaman
3 Dwarven Miner
Burn and Damage (10)
4 Incinerate
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Cursed Scroll
Utility (9)
4 Pillage
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Regrowth
Mana (22)
4 Land Grant
1 Mox Ruby
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
3 Mountain
1 Bayou
4 Badlands
4 Taiga
Sideboard
3 Hull Breach
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Null Rod
4 Red Elemental Blast
Azhrei’s deck touches lightly on the Ponza concept while keeping the fast pace and aggression of sligh alive. Notice the Gorilla Shamans are there to supplement the land kill buy eating Moxen, sol rings, and making opponents Zuran Orb useless. Rakso touches more on it in his Goblin Burn and Sligh Primer. Azhrei wrote a starcity article on this deck, you can find it @
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=1307. It’s a great deck that deals with most control pretty well. It’s #### fast, uses nice utility and card drawing, and has enough disruption to keep anyone off balance.
NULL AND VOID, MATT D'AVANZO December 2000
Mana denial and other disruption (19)
4 Sinkhole
3 Nether Void
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Powder Keg
Creatures (7)
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Phyrexian Negator
Others (4)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Necropotence
Mana (29)
4 Ritual
1 Jet
1 Lotus
14 Swamps
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
Matt’s is more of a control version as compared to the also commonly player aggro-void. Null and Void is better suited to deal with the highly concentrated control Type one field. It uses, to a good degree of success, the theory of simply disrupting your opponent long enough for the creatures to finishing working. Null and Void uses Phyrexian Negator’s to make the game last as short as possible. Again, I suggest reading Matt’s primer for more insight.
Conclusion:
Land kill in Type one is a force, no matter which variant you play. In type one, you need disruption for combo and control, and speed to kill them before they get going. Land kill does this, and is effective just as long as your not #### bent on killing every land in the deck, and use it as disruption to keep your opponent on the ground while you kill him.
Appendix A: Spells (where I’ll list stuff like the actual land kill spells, power keg, masticore, shamans, Miners, Blood moon, etc)
RED: (See the Goblin burn and Sligh Primer)
Stone Rain
2R
Sorcery
Destroy target land.
Pillage
1RR
Sorcery
Destroy target artifact or land. It can't be regenerated.
Raze
R
Sorcery
As an additional cost to play Raze, sacrifice a land.
Destroy target land.
Avalanche Riders
3R
Creature - Nomad
2/2
Haste #(This creature may attack and T the turn it comes under your control.)#
Echo #(At the beginning of your next upkeep after this permanent comes under your control, sacrifice it unless you pay its mana cost.)#
When Avalanche Riders comes into play, destroy target land.
Orcish Settlers
1R
Creature - Orc
1/1
XXR, T, Sacrifice Orcish Settlers: Destroy X target lands.
Dwarven Miner
1R
Creature - Dwarf
1/2
2R, T: Destroy target nonbasic land.
Gorilla Shaman
R
Creature - Ape
1/1
XX1: Destroy target noncreature artifact with converted mana cost X.
Blood Moon
2R
Enchantment
Nonbasic lands are mountains.
Lava Blister
1R
Sorcery
Destroy target nonbasic land unless its controller has Lava Blister deal 6 damage to him or her.
GREEN: (See the Stompy Primer)
Thermokarst
1GG
Sorcery
Destroy target land. If it's a snow-covered land, you gain 1 life.
GG1, for basic land kill. Standard I suppose. GG in the Casting cost pretty much dictates mono green, or a strong green devotion in your mana base.
Winter's Grasp
1GG
Sorcery
Destroy target land.
See Thermokarst.
Ice Storm
2G
Sorcery
Destroy target land.
G2, for a basic land kill. Because of the extra colorless, its $20 higher price tag over thermokarst and Grasp lets this spell be splashed.
Creeping Mold
2GG
Sorcery
Destroy target artifact, enchantment, or land.
Slow, but an otherwise okay utility card especially since green can puke out green
Desert Twister: Using this spell in anything other than some funky draft is like making love to a fat chick, dont get caught.
Floral Spuzzem
3G
Creature - Spuzzem
2/2
Whenever Floral Spuzzem attacks and isn't blocked, you may destroy target artifact defending player controls. If you do, Floral Spuzzem deals no combat damage this turn.
You probably think I’m joking, don’t you? Back in 1996, a friend of mine ran a Nether void deck with Ernham’s and Spuzzams for anti mox tech.
BLACK: (See Nether Void Primer)
Sinkhole
BB
Sorcery
Destroy target land.
Ever notice they all have that line through the mana symbol? Mono Black, or black anything desiring any sort
of disruption should use these.
Icequake
1BB
Sorcery
Destroy target land. If that land is a snow-covered land, Icequake deals 1 damage to the land's controller.
BB1, for basic land kill. Standard I suppose. BB in the Casting cost pretty much dictates mono black, or
a strong black devotion in your mana base.
Rain of Tears
1BB
Sorcery
Destroy target land.
Yet another 3cc Land kill spell, see Icequake.
Nether Void
3B
Enchant World
Whenever a player plays a spell, counter it unless its controller pays 3.
Choking Sands
1BB
Sorcery
Destroy target nonswamp land. If that land is a nonbasic land, Choking Sands deals 2 damage to the land's controller.
See Icequake. Minor bonus, cant kill swamps though. (Remember that rules out, underground sea's, badlands,
scrublands, etc.)
Befoul
2BB
Sorcery
Destroy target land or nonblack creature. It can't be regenerated.
SLOW, see Creeping Mold.
Discard, nowadays, nicely accents Land kill decks. Not only are land kill and discard both disruptive, but discard can also function as a land kill. An early Hymn to Tourach can strip a land from the hand, functioning like sinkholes 5-8.
Hypnotic Specter
1BB
Creature - Specter
2/2
Flying
Whenever Hypnotic Specter deals damage to an opponent, that player discards a card at random from his or her hand.
Duress
B
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. Choose a noncreature, nonland card from it. That player discards that card.
Hymn to Tourach
BB
Sorcery
Target player discards two cards at random from his or her hand.
Mind Twist
XB
Sorcery
Target player discards X cards at random from his or her hand.
FAST MANA:
Without mentioning Sol ring, Moxen, and Black lotus…
Elvish Spirit Guide
2G
Creature - Spirit
2/2
Remove Elvish Spirit Guide from the game: Add G to your mana pool. Play this ability only if Elvish Spirit Guide is in your hand.
Orcish Lumberjack
R
Creature - Orc
1/1
T, Sacrifice a forest: Add three mana in any combination of red and/or green mana to your mana pool.
Dark Ritual
B
Instant
Add BBB to your mana pool.
Tinder Wall
G
Creature - Wall
0/3
#(Walls can't attack.)#
Sacrifice Tinder Wall: Add RR to your mana pool.
R, Sacrifice Tinder Wall: Tinder Wall deals 2 damage to target creature it's blocking.
Fyndhorn Elves
G
Creature - Elf
1/1
T: Add G to your mana pool.
Llanowar Elves
G
Creature - Elf
1/1
T: Add G to your mana pool.
Birds of Paradise
G
Creature - Bird
0/1
Flying
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
MASS REMOVAL:
Nevinyrral's Disk
4
Artifact
Nevinyrral's Disk comes into play tapped.
1, T: Destroy all artifacts, creatures, and enchantments.
Powder Keg
2
Artifact
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a fuse counter on Powder Keg.
T, Sacrifice Powder Keg: Destroy each artifact and creature with converted mana cost equal to the number of fuse counters on Powder Keg.
Pernicious Deed
1BG
Enchantment
X, Sacrifice Pernicious Deed: Destroy each artifact, creature, and enchantment with converted mana cost X or less.
LANDS:
Strip Mine
Land
T: Add one colorless mana to your mana pool.
T, Sacrifice Strip Mine: Destroy target land.
Wasteland
Land
T: Add one colorless mana to your mana pool.
T, Sacrifice Wasteland: Destroy target nonbasic land.
Dust Bowl
Land
T: Add one colorless mana to your mana pool.
3, T, Sacrifice a land: Destroy target nonbasic land.
Rishadan Port
Land
T: Add one colorless mana to your mana pool.
1, T: Tap target land.
ARTIFACTS:
Black Vise
1
Artifact
As Black Vise comes into play, choose an opponent.
At the beginning of the chosen player's upkeep step, Black Vise deals X damage to that player, where X is the number of cards greater than four in his or her hand.
FAST CREATURES:
Masticore:
Phyrexian Negator:
Erhnam Djinn:
Juzam Djinn:
Phyrexian Scuta:
Balduvian Hordes:
Argothian Wurm:
Call of the Herd:
Pump Knights
Kird Ape:
Blastoderm:
Jackal Pup:
Goblin Cadets:
Cards LD hates:
Balance
Tithe
Misdirection
Land Tax
Birds of Paradise
Elves
Moxen
Deflection
Divert
Sacred Ground
Concecrate Land
