I have a bizarre affinity (not the ability word) for nonbasic lands. The idea that a land could do something other than just tap for mana was always interesting to me. Maze of Ith was the first land that really made me sit up and take notice of the value of lands.

Since then, I’ve always been interested in any land that taps for mana and does something else. It is almost impossible to stop a land from being played, and many playgroups have nothing more than very limited land destruction, so these lands (and what they do) will probably stay in play. I thought I would mention ten of my favorites from way back that you may not know in the hopes of sparking your interest or giving you another chance to pimp out your deck.

Hammerheim

This is one of a series of legendary lands in Legends that can be tapped for a particular type of mana like any other basic land but that also has another ability. Back in “the day,” playing these lands was a little dangerous since someone else could play his first, but now, it is essentially another Mountain with a bonus ability.

I know that taking away some type of landwalk ability from a creature for a turn is not really all that impressive. You are only ever going to want to use this on your opponents’ creatures, so if you play this land, you are counting on your opponents to run some sort of landwalking ability. In this day of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth being prevalent in many casual groups, there is usually someone running a bunch of swampwalking creatures. When that happens, this card can really come in handy!

And even if it doesn’t happen, there is minimal downside to running HammerTime in place of a basic Mountain.

Urborg

Karakas

Just a note: The Oracle text explains that this land only bounces creatures, but the card text simply says target legend. I ran this in my Captain Sisay deck with the understanding that I could bounce any target legend, including lands. The ability to bounce itself made this deck a monster to try to take down since Captain Sisay was essentially hexproof.

The goal of the deck was to bring Captain Sisay out as fast as possible and start searching out legendary lands using Sisay’s ability. I always started with Karakas since this would let me bounce Captain Sisay if she was ever targeted. Once the Captain and Karakas were out, I would start finding whatever land was needed to put whatever bomb was in my hand into play. This deck is from years ago, so you will see nothing new.

"A Legen—Wait for it—dary Deck"

• Creatures (26)
• 1 Skyshroud Elf
• 1 Urborg Elf
• 1 Utopia Tree
• 2 Birds of Paradise
• 2 Nomadic Elf
• 4 Priest of Titania
• 4 Silhana Starfletcher
• 1 Darigaaz, The Igniter
• 1 Dromar, The Banisher
• 1 Nicol Bolas
• 1 Numot, The Devastator
• 1 Phelddagrif
• 1 Sisters of Stone Death
• 1 Sol'Kanar the Swamp King
• 4 Captain Sisay

• Spells (13)
• 1 Congregation at Dawn
• 2 Putrefy
• 1 Supply // Demand
• 1 Wrath of God
• 4 Hull Breach
• 4 Dragon Arch

• Lands (21)
• 1 Swamp
• 8 Forest
• 1 Elfhame Palace
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber
• 1 Arctic Flats
• 1 Eiganjo Castle
• 1 Hammerheim
• 1 Karakas
• 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
• 1 Pendelhaven
• 1 Shinka, The Bloodsoaked Keep
• 1 Tolaria
• 1 Urborg

Buy This Deck

The legendary bombs shifted almost every time I played the deck, so you can treat them as placeholders. The multicolored legends printed in the last four years outclass everything I was using in this deck, so if you are looking to put this together, you will want to upgrade.

The Dragon Arch was added in response to the focused hate the deck began to draw every time I played Captain Sisay. It became difficult to keep her in play, so I started to rely on the Arches to put the bombs into play.

I would love to recommend this deck to you, but if you don’t already own a Karakas, the cost of amassing the deck is crazy, and the deck is far too fragile without Karakas.

Balduvian Trading Post

The reason I liked this was tagging that extra point of damage to an attacking creature, especially when it was an opponent attacking another opponent. I know that the real cost was 3 mana to do 1 damage, but the ability to reuse the activation and the ability to mess up combat math are things that hold a strong allure for me. Admittedly, it’s not the best land, but it’s a fun one nonetheless.

Kjeldoran Outpost

In spite of the downside, I loved this card and still do. There are far more efficient ways to make tokens, but running this in my Soldier-themed deck usually gives me a 3/3 token that I can use to repeatedly chump-block troublesome creatures.

Heart of Yavimaya

A side note on the art: Much of the art for the lands in Alliances does not have that wash of color we are used to seeing in the new art. In newer art, if the land produces green mana, the entire palette of the image has a greenish hue. It becomes very obvious, even without the huge green mana symbol in the text box, that the land makes green mana. The Heart of Yavimaya doesn’t have that hue, and in fact, it has very little green in the picture at all. Your opponents will probably be surprised that the land produces green mana!

Kor Haven

Mikokoro, Center of the Sea

Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers

Hall of the Bandit Lord

If you check, the price on most of these cards is negligible (with a couple of glaring exceptions). For pennies, you too can ride the old-school-land train!

Bruce Richard