Canopy Land Cycle #6- Top 12 MTG Cards of 2019

These cards did not appear on my top 12 list.

While I generally passed over these lands, I certainly don’t object to them appearing in this top 12 list. Taking cues from Future Sight‘s Horizon Canopy, these enemy-colored lands offer a powerful option for decks that don’t need their lands to be fetchable or have basic land types. You can get mana early or cash them in for cards later when you don’t need the mana, and that sort of smoothing out is massive for decks that need cards more than they need mana (think decks like Burn and Bogles). While there may be times that these lands are more a liability than a boon, particularly when your life dwindles, the advantage these offer you in deckbuilding has already made them staples of Modern (particularly Fiery Islet, which has arguably the best color combination of these five).

Constructed: 4.5
Casual: 3
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 3
Commander: 3.5

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

These cards were not on my Top 12 list.

I’m old school, and as such am still kind of unused to completing the enemy-colored side of a cycle before the ally-colored side (Future Sight‘s Horizon Canopy, in the case of these cards). Then again, we had all ten of the original dual lands together in Beta, so perhaps I’m being unreasonable.

The value in this type of dual land is pretty high: from powering through a late-game mana flood to a little extra assurance that you’ll have a land in your graveyard for Tarmogoyf or Terravore, they often make just a little extra difference that gets your deck over the top. I’ve seen them included in mono-colored decks, and even sometimes in two-colored decks that only had one of their colors, just because the ability to draw an extra card without devoting a spell to it is so strong. They’re arguably the second most powerful dual lands in Modern – as shocklands are always paired with fetchlands in competitive decks – which is kind of impressive for cards that essentially come from a black-bordered Un-set.

Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
EDH/Commander: 3/5

Phat
Pack
Magic
YouTube

Hello Everyone and welcome back to Pojo’s Card of the Day!

Today we’re looking at the top cards of 2019 and today we’re taking a peek my top pick for 2019. More so than all the Okos and Hogaaks and Force of Negations, these cards are my #1 of 2019, so let’s talk about why.

Lands are the backbone of almost any constructed format, Standard, Modern, Pioneer, Legacy, Vintage, the lands matter. There’s even a whole deck dedicated to the power of Lands in Legacy… called Lands! So why do these stand out more than others that came out in 2019 like Castle Vantress and Castle Lothcwain?

These lands add 2 colors, come into play untapped, similar to painlands, but where painlands can add a colorless to your pool painfree, these can cycle away for another card off the top of your library.

So how powerful is that ability? It’s freaking huge. These lands have made a contender for the 8x Fetchlands in Modern Aggro decks and are even stealing a few spots in Legacy decks. Being able to draw out of your mana-flood is incredibly important in any format but the fact that these also do some mana fixing puts them on the level of ‘Too Good for Standard’ by WotC. Which is BS, I’d love these in Standard!

The effect is incredibly simple and I think that’s what makes these cards so underrated when players see them for the first time. It’s the same way for Shocklands, but Horizon Canopy was sitting at almost 70$ because of the decks that ran it were dominating the format and I think those cracking lands, turning your land drops into more cards off the top, were far from insignificant to the gameplan.

Now one of the best thing about lands is that they rarely, almost never, go out of style and if you like being a deck builder like me, these are solid pickups for your collection because you’ll almost always need one or two of these when you check out builds online.

So let’s move on from Constructed where 60 cards is the norm and talk about Limited.

You take these in limited. Dual lands are so strong in booster draft and while you may not find yourself playing ‘U/R’ for Fiery Islet, there’s a chance you’ll be at least playing one of those colors so it turns your deck into 39 cards. Draft it. Pack 1. Pick 1. And it probably will also pay for the pack.

In Commander? Are you kidding me? How often are you flooding out in a Commander Deck with all the mana rocks floating around. These are perfect to shove in alongside your duals, shocks, fetches, etc. Sure they can’t be fetched but if you’re running painlands I’d cut them for these.

Constructed 5/5 – I’m telling you, in a year or two people are going to really understand the value of these cards and they’re going to be $40 after the print run stops.

Limited 5/5 – Pack 1. Pick 1. Fix your mana, draw your cards.

Commander 5/5 – In a format where the abilities of your lands are just as important as what color they tap for, drawing a card is pretty legit!

Cube 5/5 – These have been disgustingly abused in cube, mana fixing and cycling is great in a format with 40 cards, but here I have Crucible of Worlds and Fastbond too!

Phat Pack Magic is a channel dedicated to Magic: the Gathering and creating awesome coverage of local events for formats like Cube, rare pack drafts, and now FNM Pioneer videos!

Check it out at YouTube.com/PhatPackMagic