Why Are Fetchlands So Good In Magic: The Gathering?

oh hello there up and coming magic player if you're watching this video it's because you've just asked a more experienced player some variation on the question why are fetchlands so good well don't worry you're not the first to ask this question and you won't be the last that's why i'm here you see your friend or fellow player or stranger on the internet asked me to sit down and make a video explaining just what's up with fetchlands because you're absolutely right it's not obvious what makes these humble land cards so powerful as to be worth insert price here each so wonder no longer as we dive deep into the hidden powers of fetchlands [Music] it's always a good idea to start by defining our terms when we say fetchlands we are specifically talking about the five rare lands originally printed in onslaught which fetch the allied colors and the additional five printed in zendikar that fetch the enemy colors all ten of these fetchlands have identical text except they substitute different basic land types each time for instance misty rainforest reads tap pay one life sacrifice misty rainforest search your library for a forest or island card put it onto the battlefield then shuffle arid mesa reads the same way but searches for a mountain or planes instead every possible combination is defined here these are all the fetchlands that can possibly exist the term fetchland of course can also refer to any other land that searches your library such as evolving wilds but the majority of time we're just talking about these ten however evolving wilds is a good example of a counterpoint to fetchlands that's because it's a frequently printed card which means newer players get to see it fairly often and its effect reads very similar to the fetch lands in fact when reading these two cards for the first time you might be forgiven for thinking that evolving wilds is better than the fetchlands after all it can fetch any basic land type not just the two listed what's more you don't even have to pay any life to use it however there are two key differences in the rules text of the fetchlands that make them such powerful staples the first is that evolving wilds causes the land to enter tapped that means that whatever you search for you won't be able to use on the same turn in the early stages of the game this can be a big deal more aggressive decks with a lower curve will struggle if they have to effectively skip a land drop but some decks might not care you can use it at the end of your opponent's turn and untap the land immediately if that suits your strategy but it's the other key difference that makes fetchlands so important and it's not even a word written on the card but rather a word missing from the rules that word is basic you'll note that evolving wilds asks you to search for any basic land in most circumstances you'll be fetching one of these five depending on what you need at that moment and if these were the only lands available to you then the difference between misty rainforest and evolving wilds would be much smaller but in the formats where fetchlands see the most play there are always more options meet steam vents this card is part of a cycle called shocklands first printed in ravnica block and consistently reprinted in each return to ravnica since as this card enters the battlefield you may pay to life if you don't it enters the battlefield tapped essentially it gives you the choice of whether you want it later or now but for a price it also taps for blue or red mana but the subtle value of this card is that it has basic land types written up there in the type line by way of another comparison let's look at prismari campus this card also taps for a blue or a red but doesn't have those types written at the top these lands are what make fetchlands so good you see misty rainforest doesn't want you to look for a card with the name forest or the name island instead it wants you to look for a card that has either of those types that includes basic lands yes but it also includes any land card that has any of the five basic land types misty rainforest can't fetch prismari campus but it can fetch steam vents and this really is the crux of the matter the secret power behind the fetchlands they aren't two color lands they can be any color you want this means that three four and five color decks become vastly more playable which in turn opens up new opportunities for deck building when combined with the shock lands missy rainforest can fetch every color of mana you might need steam vents has the island land type and it doesn't matter that it also happens to have the mountain land type so if you're playing a teamer deck that's red blue and green and you have a turn one red play like a monastery swift spear it doesn't matter that you have no mountains in your opening hand you can go and fetch one the shock lands aren't the only cards with basic land types in legacy and vintage they are often supplanted by the original dual lands such as bayou tundra and savannah but other lands such as the cycling lands from amonkhet don't see quite as much play due to their non-negotiable tap claws in the most powerful formats it tends to be even more important that you can play a card untapped early on another advantage of being able to fetch any color is that it reveals less information to your opponent even if you don't have a turn one play playing an arid mesa doesn't guarantee that you even have any red cards in the deck your opponent is none the wiser as to your game plan the benefits of fetchlands cannot be overstated in every format in which they appear they warp the mana bases dramatically so dramatically in fact that when wizards of the coast announced the new pioneer format in 2019 they made certain to immediately ban the fetchlands that ban was a hard learned lesson from the fetchland's previous stint in standard the allied fetches were printed in cons of tarkir to support the three-color mana bases that were common at the time however the following block brought the aforementioned cycling lands and while these weren't good enough for modern they turned out to be more than adequate for producing four and five color standard decks naturally when a deck isn't limited to two or three colors there's no reason not to play every good card in the format at the same time the decks of that era quickly devolved into five-color good stuff and few decks could challenge or counter them when the fetchlands finally rotated a year later everyone breathed a sigh of relief even now there is debate about whether the fetchlands are too dominant for formats like modern and while i don't see them getting banned anytime soon their sheer power and utility means that their high price tags represent the barrier for entry for older formats their power also has consequences inside wizards of the coast too now every new land cycle they create needs to be sorted into two categories either fetchable or not fetchable if they somehow managed to make fetchable lands that were better than the shocklands modern could be in for a real shake-up now while we've pretty comprehensively covered the main benefits of playing fetchlands there are a few fringe benefits worth explaining these are the kind of things that won't show up in every game but only serve to make the fetches more powerful the most commonly used secondary function for fetchlands is an on-demand shuffle effect because it doesn't cost you mana to use a fetchland some decks prefer to wait until they need to shuffle their library for other reasons the most common synergy here is with brainstorm which lets you draw three cards with the drawback that you have to put two cards on top of your library used on its own brainstorm is a handy piece of acceleration that gums up your next two draws however if you have an uncracked fetchland sitting on the field you can use it immediately after resolving brainstorm and the two cards you put back are shuffled away this is a vast improvement on the card's intended usage but is only really viable because fetchlands aren't spells after all there are no shortage of ways to shuffle your library but very few of them can be operated at instant speed costing zero mana and in any color deck that's what makes fetchlands the perfect candidate for this interaction an interaction that is present even in the all common popper format where brainstorm a common card is legal and though the 10 fetchlands of onslaught and zendikar are not cards like evolving wilds are allowing you a legacy-like play in this legacy light format another minor bonus to fetchlands is the self-mill aspect putting a card into the graveyard as early as turn one greatly affects the potency of cards like tarmogoyf at the end of your opponent's first turn if you can crack a fetchland get red mana and bolt the creature they played your tarmogoyf can come down as a 3-4 on turn 2. more straightforwardly putting a fetchland into the graveyard is great for delve cards dig through time and treasure crews both benefited hugely from having fetchlands in standard for exactly this reason and had to be banned from most other formats as a result as well additionally because playing a fetchland and finding another land to play counts as two separate cards landfall effects like omnath will trigger twice for the price of one land drop this quality of fetchlands is shared by evolving wilds but it is undoubtedly helpful to be able to tap the land you fetch immediately after getting the landfall effect it opens up a whole set of exciting possibilities there are plenty more niche bonuses and interactions to be gained from using fetchlands but none of these effects are unique there are already cards that award you extra land drops cards that mill you for value and cards that can perfectly fix your mana so why are fetchlands so special the power of fetchlands comes from the fact that they are lands in a highly tuned modern deck there is no room to put any spells in the deck that don't directly advance your game plan however filling your land slots with utility lands risks losing out on mana since many of them only tap for colorless fetchlands offer the best of both worlds crucial utility effects and near-perfect mana every time i hope very much this video has been of some help to you and if you were sent here by a friend after asking about fetchlands now you can go to them as a certified expert but now i want to know what did we miss are there any other niche uses of fetchlands you think newer players should know about let me know in the comments below and if you found this video helpful make sure to hit subscribe ring that bell and press the like button you'll be helping us out as you do [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Tolarian Community College

Views: 412,196

Keywords: magic the gathering, mtg, wizards of the coast, tolarian community college, fetchlands, new player, learn to play, how to play, nerd, geek

Id: hGyovXHqsrA

Length: 11min 41sec (701 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 21 2021