This land was a major player back when Ravnica
was in Standard, largely because it could blow
up opposing Karoo lands like Selesnya Sanctuary
and its ilk. Later it was put to work destroying
one's own Flagstones of Trokair, in order to go
fetch a Plains and another basic land. I feel
like this is exactly the kind of thing that
needs to stick around in case things like
Valakut Ramp get out of control. It can destroy
a bothersome old land, but it gives them a new
basic land in its place. With Ghost Quarter
present in the metagame, you have answers for
lands like Valakut, Emeria, or Inkmoth Nexus,
but you can't just spam land destruction and
keep your opponent off their mana. I only wish
Ghost Quarter had been around sooner-- we
could've used it a block or two ago.
We're rounding up this week's theme with a card
that hits said theme on every level: not only a
recent reprint, but a recent reprint themed
around the vengeful spirits of a dead town
stripping away the frail trappings of lords and
wizards from the long-suffering land. While I
have nothing against the Dissension version of
Ghost Quarter or its art, the Innistrad version
is a great look and concept for a card that does
great things: while it never works at
mana-screwing someone, it converts any creature
land, Moorland Haunt, or Maze of Ith effect into
something relatively harmless, or even
beneficial if you have a River Boa on the table.
Wasteland may get all the headlines, but Ghost
Quarter is very nearly as useful, and goes in
just about all the same decks.
Until next week, take the time to play with old
cards. They're the same cards they were when
they were part of Standard, and they're just as
fun as you remember. Maybe more so.
Today's card of the day is Ghost Quarter which
is a land that can tap for one or for a tap and
sacrifice can destroy a target land to have its
controller search their library for a basic land
and put it play. This is an easy choice
for an artifact heavy deck, but in other builds
it is likely reduced to the sideboard as a
response to decks where a non-basic land is key
to the design. Even removing dual-lands is
a minimal benefit as it is still replaced with a
basic and you lose card advantage plus tempo
from the sacrifice of a mana source. Even
with that drawback this is a solid card for what
it does and will definitely see competitive
play, even if it isn't always needed.
For Limited there are several effective lands in
the set and this providing mana if not needed
for removal makes it quite useful. A
multicolor deck may suffer a bit if this is
drawn early instead of a specific color of land
which makes it an additional mana source that
shouldn't be counted as a land during deck
design, barring a large number of cards with
colorless casting costs. Any Sealed deck
can and should run this and as removal it works
as an early pick if the pack doesn't have a more
aggressive choice.
Welcome
back to Pojo.com’s card of the day section. We
close out this week looking at Ghost Quarter
from Innistrad. Ghost Quarter is an uncommon
land. Ghost Quarter says tap, sacrifice Ghost
Quarter, destroy target land. It’s controller
searches his or her library for a basic land and
puts it into play, and then shuffles their
library.
Ghost Quarter is a fun card. It’s main use is
obviously to take out the threat that some
non-basic lands can present, however, many of
the main non-basic lands you would want to
target with this are no longer in standard, and
the play that they do see also have better
removal options.
The fun thing that you could do with this card
though instead of just focusing on removal of
your opponents lands could also be to gain some
improvised Landfall for yourself, targeting a
land you control, and thus getting another land
dropped into play. It certainly could go a long
way in either direction.
While Ghost Quarter has some uses, I think
that it is just not something that will see a
lot of casual play, but may have a greater
effect on the tournament scene where players
attempt to use more non-basic lands. Either way,
sideboard option at best, with significantly
limited uses.
