fetch lands over dual lands
Legacy forum
Posted on Aug. 17, 2013, 6:03 p.m. by PheonyxXx
I've been noticing alot in top legacy decklists and have been wondering something. I've only played standard and edh but have been looking into getting into competitive legacy and this is something I'd like to know.
Instead of playing say shock lands or just dual lands in general, I'm seeing alot of fetch lands. Why are fetch lands so popular for these decks instead of sticking to such as Hallowed Fountain in favor of Flooded Strand? Only thing I can think of is weeding out the lands in your deck to get more value in your draws. But I'm curious as to if that is the only reason or there is more I'm not seeing in these choices.
Teachingjohn says... #3
With fetch lands you can weed down your deck so you're not drawing lands when you eed a spell. It also allows you to shuffle your deck on command. Ex. Cast rainstorm, draw 3 put 2 useless cards back on top of library. Tap a fetch land, get whatever land you need and those 2 cards you didn't need get shuffle ack and hopefully something useful is on top for next turn.
August 17, 2013 6:11 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #4
They also let you pick which dual land it is.
For example, a Flooded Strand could get you a Hallowed Fountain , a Watery Grave , a Godless Shrine , a Temple Garden , a Breeding Pool , a Steam Vents , or a Sacred Foundry . Tons of versatility.
August 17, 2013 6:13 p.m.
Those are good ideas as to why. A deck that had me real curious was Storm. It had a top 2 finish and ran 15 total lands.
2 Island1 Swamp2 Gemstone Mine 2 Underground Sea 1 Volcanic Island
so 8 lands that can produce mana, and the rest were fetch lands. It absolutely blows my mind how a deck is capable of working like that.
I understand preference of Flooded Strand over Flood Plain but its still hard to wrap my mind around this
August 17, 2013 6:15 p.m.
Svedishgypsy says... #6
Storm specifically does that to thin their deck as much as possible, so they have a better chance of blowing up in your face.
August 17, 2013 6:16 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #7
Three reasons:
- Deck thinning. Fewer lands means better draws.
- Color fixing. Fetches allow you to grab the dual land you need at the time you need it.
- Increased access. Running 2x Overgrown Tomb , 2x Stomping Ground , 2x Blood Crypt , and 4x Verdant Catacombs is basically the same as running 6 of each shock with only 10 total cards.
August 17, 2013 6:19 p.m.
Svedishgypsy, well, its just not storm. I'm seeing it in almost every top legacy deck, reanimator, Rug Delver, Jund (granted that had a max of 14 mana producing lands). But almost every top teir legacy deck is doing it.
And another question I guess for everyone. If one can not afford say Flooded Strand , would Flood Plain be a decent sub until one can afford the pricey fetch lands?
August 17, 2013 6:21 p.m.
Svedishgypsy says... #10
Well, if you don't plan on going to tourneys or opens, and maybe just play with friends or at your LGS, you could use the slow fetches.
Also, like Epoch said, and I previously stated, it allows you to get whatever color mana you need. With Flooded Strand , you have access to any and every shock with blue or white in it.That's massive versatility. And all decks like the deck thinning.
August 17, 2013 6:26 p.m.
And don't forget the star of the RTR block, Deathrite Shaman .
August 17, 2013 6:27 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #13
@PheonyxXx: Flood Plain is not competitively playable. It's too slow.
August 17, 2013 6:40 p.m.
Another reason is Brainstorm . A lot of the legacy decks run it, and fetch lands are a cheap and readily available method of shuffling. Say for instance it's game 1, and you know your Swords to Plowshares is going to be useless against a combo deck. You can Brainstorm away the cards you don't need, then crack a fetch land to shuffle them off the top and increase your chance of drawing a more relevant spell.
August 17, 2013 6:52 p.m.
Fetch lands also allow a player to color fix without running into the format's most popular land Wasteland
August 17, 2013 7:07 p.m.
Cobthecobbler says... #16
Also guys, don't forget, in Legacy, they can fetch for ABUR Duals like Volcanic Island and Taiga .
They thin your deck, getting you better draws. They allow you to almost never have color problems, meaning you almost never have trouble casting cards. They allow you to shuffle, they count as lands, meaning landfall triggers; Crucible of Worlds and Deathrite Shaman synergize with fetchlands flawlessly, etc. nothing that hasn't already been said.
August 17, 2013 10:48 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #17
The "thinning" effect is mostly an illusion. The physical act of resolving the ability is only really useful alongside Brainstorm and similar effects, all because of the shuffle.
Besides that, lots of fetches increase the effective number of duals in your deck, and each fetch can pretend to be a copy of any one of those duals. In the Storm example given above, the 7 fetches are all ones that can grab Island s, so you effectively have 9 copies of Underground Sea and 8 copies of Volcanic Island available to you, which means you're definitely going to draw the land you need to combo and win.
August 19, 2013 11:19 a.m.
Well, what everyone said above is true. Also, not only that, but it is much better to just use Fetchlands than any other dual lands. Compare paying 1 life and thinning your deck, etc. to paying 2 life to have it enter untapped, taking 1 life each time and having no basic land types, coming into play tapped if it's the 4th land on the battlefield, etc. Even without all the other benefits, they would just be much better ANYWAYS. The only weakness is that they can be Stifle d and that is easily worked around.
Most people use it for the shuffle effect and as a way to get cards (or sometimes more specifically lands) in the graveyard. If a deck doesn't need it and is multicolored (such as RDW or Death and Taxes), they won't use fetchlands.
August 21, 2013 8:19 p.m.
"If a deck doesn't need it and is multicolored (such as RDW or Death and Taxes), they won't use fetchlands."
Meant to say Monocolored.
August 21, 2013 8:22 p.m.
This isn't the reason why they're ultimately in these decks, but it's something else to take into account: by using fetchlands, you simply don't need as many copies of the dual lands. A three-color deck that might want 12 dual lands can drop to something closer to 4 dual lands if you run a couple playsets of fetches. That can be a significant cost savings, even with the high price of Onslaught fetchlands.
Of course the reason why they're really run is because of the shuffle effect and because they essentially count as a land of any color you need in a 3- or 4-color deck, but those have already been covered.
Svedishgypsy says... #2
I'm no legacy expert, but there's a few reasons they're favored:
They allow you to search for shocks, so depending on your mana needs, you have far more flexibility.
They can account for multiple landfall triggers
Crucible of Worlds
Rings of Brighthearth allows you to get two lands
That's about all I can think of, hope that helps.
August 17, 2013 6:10 p.m.