Basic Landcycling, a New MTG Keyword Variant
February 10, 2009 | Posted by Dee
Basic Landcycling is one of the new Magic The Gathering keywords from the new set, Conflux. It’s a variant of the cycling keyword ability.
The cost for this activated ability is discarding the basic landcycling card and paying any other costs like mana. But the effect is different from cycling. Instead of drawing a card, you search your library for a basic land card. There are only five basic land cards: Mountain, Swamp, Plains, Island, and Forest. You can’t get a land like Breeding Pool. That card is a non-basic land even though it has basic land types.
Think of basic landcycling like each color getting a Birds of Paradise. Currently, all the basic landcycling cards in Conflux have a colored mana cost. Let’s look the red card, Fiery Fall, as an example.
Fiery Fall is a red instant that allows you to deal five damage for 5R. But you’ll often use it early in the game to fetch a basic land. For 1R, you can cycle it and get any basic land in your deck. The reason this card is like Birds of Paradise is because it allows you to fix any color mana. Now you can only fix one color since you can only fetch one basic land. But a basic land is harder to remove than a creature, so Fiery Fall has that advantage over Birds of Paradise.
Conflux Draft Strategy With Basic Landcycling Cards
In Conflux draft, basic landcycling cards are much stronger when they are in your main colors. So, if you want to play Fiery Fall, try to include at least 7 or more red mana sources in your deck. This allows you to use Fiery Fall’s cycling ability early in the game.
For example, let’s say your opening hand has a Plains, a Mountain, Fiery Fall, and Woolly Thoctar. You can go get a Forest by playing Fiery Fall on turn two. The Forest lets you play Woolly Thoctar on turn three. Not many draft decklists can beat a 5/4 fatty on turn three 
But if you have less than 7 red mana sources, it will be hard for you to play Fiery Fall on turn two.
-
Subscription Options
-
Popular MTG Cards on eBay
-
Categories
