Magic: The Gathering
The Lands of Zendikar Rising
Preview season for Magic: The Gathering’s latest expansion Zendikar Rising is in full swing, and the new Land cards we’ve seen so far are incredible.
On the plane of Zendikar, the terrain itself can be more dangerous and unpredictable than the beasts that call it home. This was reflected in past Zendikar sets through powerful and innovative mechanics and abilities of the Land cards. From Fetchlands to “Man-Lands” and even Lands that have ‘Enters the Battlefield’ abilities.
In our return to this beloved plane in Zendikar Rising, it appears that the innovation and power level is ascending to a whole new level.
Modal DFCs
We’ve seen double-faced cards (DFCs) more than a couple times now and Magic players haves always loved them. In the past, they’ve always had a front side and a back side. You play the card on its front side, and then something in-game will cause it to Transform to its back side.
But in Zendikar Rising, we’re getting a new twist on DFCs, Modal DFCs, which work a bit differently. With these new cards (all of which are Lands on at least one side), you get to make the choice of which side you’d like to play from your hand. Take Akoum Warrior // Akoum Teeth for example:
You get to choose whether you’d like to play this card as a Land or a Creature. Once on the battlefield, it will never flip sides. In this case, we get a Land when we need it earlier in the game, or once we’ve gotten all the Lands we need, we can drop this card as a creature to add to our board presence. This is an incredibly powerful ability for two reasons.
First, you get to smooth out your draws and won’t be Land screwed or flooded quite as often. Akoum Warrior isn’t the greatest creature at 4/5 for 6 mana. Even with trample, this would be nowhere near a playable card in any competitive Standard deck. But I expect many decks to run 4 of this card simply because of the flexibility. All decks have Lands, and therefore have the possibility of drawing Lands when they don’t want them. The benefit of a Modal DFC like this one is that your late-game Land draw has a second mode that reads “0 mana: Draw a card, which is exactly a 4/5 trample for 6 mana”.
Second of all, Modal DFCs will fundamentally change how decks are built. When all of your Lands can also be spells, the calculations for how many Lands you will need changes.
Here’s another example that appears to be one of the most powerful Modal DFCs in the set:
Unlike Akoum Teeth above, Emeria, Shattered Skyclave is a Land that can enter play untapped for the low price of 3 life. That life loss can matter in many games, but the difference between having a tapped land or an untapped land on a crucial turn can be a major determining factor in casting spells that will help you win the game. In a vacuum it’s a strictly worse Shockland which makes you pay 1 extra life, can only produce one color of mana, and doesn’t have Basic Land types. However, Emeria, Shattered Skyclave is not in a vacuum.
The other side of this meager land is Emeria’s Call, a 7 mana White Sorcery that creates two 4/4 Angel Warrior tokens with flying and gives your other non-Angel creatures indestructible for a turn. Now, Emeria’s Call in a vacuum is actually a card that is pretty powerful on its own, although not efficient enough for Standard. Two 4/4 fliers for 7 is decent rate. Making your team indestructible can help you close out the game with a big attack, knowing that your creatures are safe from damage. The reason a card like this might not usually see much play is that if it’s in your hand during the first 6 turns of the game, it’s basically a dead draw. You can’t use it until you get that 7th mana and at that point, you’d probably want to play something with a higher likelihood of winning the game. But in this case, we have the option to cash in our late game bomb for a Land. And not only that, but if we really need the Land side to be untapped, we can pay the 3 life. Now that is flexible.
The fact that both of these cards are stapled to each other removes all shortcomings they would have on their own. You can include more copies of this 7-drop in your deck than you normally would because when it would otherwise be stuck in your hand, you can just play it as a Land.
I assume this is 1 of 5 mythic Modal DFCs that will be in each color, and I expect the other 4 to function at a similar power level. These cards remind me a lot of the ability Cycling. Cycling lets you discard an expensive card to draw a new card early in the game, or cash in a Land for a new card when you don’t need it late in the game. With Modal DFCs, the card you’re “Cycling” for is just pre-determined and almost definitely more relevant to your current game state.
Pathway Lands
Our new dual lands, the Pathway Lands, are designed around the Modal DFC mechanic. They are very simple, but very powerful.
On one side, you have a Land that enters the battlefield untapped. On the other side, another Land of a different color, which also enters the battlefield untapped. Take your pick and play whichever color you need.
There are two drawbacks to this new Land cycle.
- They don’t have basic land types. This will matter in Standard for Castles or other Lands that rely on specific Land types already being on the battlefield. In older formats these are not possible targets for Fetchlands.
- Once they are on the battlefield, you can’t switch which color they produce. For example, you won’t be able to play a White Pathway Land on turn 1, and follow that up with a turn 2 creature that costs two Black mana, like Tymaret, Chosen from Death, as you would have been able to with 2 Godless Shrines. Note: Godless Shrine and other Shocklands will no longer be legal in Standard when Zendikar Rising releases.
I don’t believe these drawbacks are very meaningful. In most cases, you’ll be able to plan out your Land drops based on your game plan in a way that will allow you to play most of your spells on time, and deck construction can be optimized to reduce the awkwardness of this. Also, I expect many decks to be running 12–16 Pathway Lands, as they greatly increase the efficiency of playing multiple colors.
This is a bizarre Land cycle in that we have 6 different cards that are not spread evenly among the color pie. Red has the most Pathway Lands. I can foresee Red-based decks that run 4 copies of Needleverge Pathway // Pillarverge Pathway, 4 copies of Riverglide Pathway // Lavaglide Pathway, and 4 copies of Cragcrown Pathway // Timbercrown Pathway with no problems at all. All 12 of these Lands supply Red mana at no real cost. And they have the potential of allowing a very consistent Blue, White, and Green splash.
Speaking of which, there’s a certain Elemental who’s made his return in all those colors. I think I just found the first deck I’m going to be building!
Here are some images of the other Modal DFCs we’ve seen so far. I will update this story and add new cards as they are revealed:
Expeditions
Finally, there are some special Lands coming in this set, which many collectors are excited to get their hands on. These new Expeditions are not Standard legal, but can be opened as non-foil box toppers in booster boxes (Draft, Set & Collector), and as foils inside Collector Boosters. These cards are gorgeous! I’ve added images for all 30 cards below for you to check out:
The Pathway Less Traveled
My mind is racing with all the new deck building possibilities that these Modal DFC cards bring. I can’t wait to see more of the set and get brewing.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and any cool interactions or deck concepts you might have in mind. Leave a comment below so we can exchange ideas!
Thanks for checking out this article. If you’d like to see more from me in the future, please consider giving me a follow. I’ll be publishing more stories throughout preview season and beyond, so stay tuned!
