Abzan without Temples
Standard forum
Posted on Sept. 3, 2015, 11:14 a.m. by HorridBEAST
Abzan decks rely heavily on dual lands for much needed color fixing. With Temple of Malady and Temple of Silence rotating out and the Battle for Zendikar dual lands being only in allied colors (at least at the moment), what will happen to the Abzan decks that have been dominating lately as well as other popular three color decks like Mardu and Jeskai?
Do you think there will be enemy color dual lands in Battle for Zendikar spoiled at a later date, can they survive using the life lands like Scoured Barrens, or will they just fall off the map entirely?
The_Dark_Adonis says... #3
Since you will still have Llanowar Wastes and Caves of Koilos as well as the new Canopy Vista Abzan and should be just fine, but you will probably need to run things to up your life. Siege Rhino and Harsh Sustenance come to mind there. As for using the lifelands it should be fine to run a few, but keep in mind that turns 2-4 are probably the worst times to play a slow land with later being better and turn 1 being fine in anything except aggro.
DruneGrey says... #2
I've seen most of my buddies try out both the life-lands and the pain-lands (at least more than they had before) to counteract the loss of the temples. Most of them seem to prefer the life-lands, as they were used to tap lands anyways. Probably non-trivial that they are 80% controlling Abzan builds though, so the life gain helps to protect a little bit against hyper aggro. All varieties of Abzan do still have access to Sandsteppe Citadel. I also think the loss of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth might be worse for them than the temples.
For tri-colored decks in general, I'm working on a Naya Company build for post rotation, and I will likely be using the tango-lands. As my deck is aggressive but not hyper-aggressive, I will also use some amount of the pain-lands as well as various fetches.
I believe that the enemy tango-lands would be likely for Oath, but we will at least keep the fetches until we have a full suite of dual lands, since Khans doesn't leave just yet.
September 3, 2015 11:47 a.m.