A quick look around a Legacy tournament or a review of any Top 8 will reveal that Wasteland is omnipresent. To really understand why Wasteland sees so much play, one has to take a look at Legacy’s mana production.
There are very few non-land cards that can produce an initial mana source and are permanent. Cards like Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox are not only rare in Legacy, but they also produce card disadvantage. This leads them to be in decks that can accept this severe drawback. The only other mana sources are either temporary or they are not an initial mana source, which means that they can be used in addition to lands but cannot be a substitute for them.
Most decks in Legacy rely on lands to generate mana. This fact by itself does not immediately make any deck susceptible to Wasteland. Legacy decks could simply choose to play basic lands and that would make Wasteland almost worthless, but this, for the most part, does not happen. The main reason is that best cards in Legacy are distributed across the different colors of the game. This distribution may not be even and the strengths and weaknesses of each color can be argued, but what cannot be argued is that the best cards are not the sole property of one color. If this were the case, there would be many more monochromatic decks than there currently are.
To play the best cards in Legacy requires having access to more than one color of mana. The most common way to accomplish is to use both fetchlands and dual lands. These cards allow any player to have a much better chance of playing their spells in a multi-color deck. Dual lands are also omnipresent in Legacy, because having access to the best cards in Legacy is worth the risk of being hit by Wasteland.
Dual lands are not the only targets of Wastelands. “Manlands,” like Mishra’s Factory and Mutavault, are very common targets for Wasteland. Hitting an opponent’s opposing Wasteland can protect a dual land that has yet to be put into play. Five-color lands like City of Brass, Gemstone Mine, and Undiscovered Paradise are some of the other targets.
The use of dual lands is not exclusive. Some multi-color decks that play basic lands do so to play around Wasteland. Fetchlands make this strategy viable by allowing a player to play multiple basic lands, and they can be fetched when Wasteland will be an issue. These decks usually still play some number of dual lands to reliably play their spells. Playing a deck with only fetchlands and basic lands would avoid Wasteland completely, but it would also mean that this deck would require many more lands in play to play the very same spells. This strategy is largely, unused because drawing basics of the inappropriate color can cause consistency problems for a deck when it really needs another color. Drawing a basic land of the wrong color is much like not drawing a land because, like any non-land card, it does not allow player to play the spells in his or her hand.
Wasteland is not a complete mana denial strategy, but it can accomplish multiple tasks. It can set an opponent back a turn when they are trying to make land drops to get to more expensive spells. It can cut off an opponent from one or more of the colors that they are depending on for casting their spells. It can also punish a player who mulligans by destroying the only land they drew. Finally, since it can be another mana source when an opponent does not have a non-basic land. The fact that it can never be completely dead is one of the reasons it sees so much play.
Wasteland might seem too good to be true, but it has its own drawbacks. Wasteland usually replaces some colored mana sources in any given deck. By reducing the number of colored sources, a deck playing Wasteland can open itself up to opposing Wastelands if it plays non-basics. These decks also sometimes mulligan when they have only an opening hand with Wasteland, or one color source and Wasteland. Wasteland also usually increases the total number of mana sources in deck, and in the late game this can open the deck being flooded with lands. Wasteland’s utility diminishes in the late game, and it is often nothing more than a colorless mana source.
The other main drawback of Wasteland is that, without any other mana disruption, the card by itself is often not enough to reliably inhibit the mana production of an opponent. To maximize the effectiveness of Wasteland requires adding other mana denial cards. Cards like Rishadan Port, Sinkhole, Vindicate, and Stifle, are in decks with Wasteland to make the mana denial more likely against an opponent. The problem sometimes with these strategies is that they do not draw their mana denial early enough in the game to make a difference, or their opponents are able to draw just enough lands to play their spells. When this happens, these decks are often left with mana denial in their hands which is largely useless, or they have traded their cards for their opponent’s lands for no substantial advantage, as they are most likely behind on the board and have little to show for their efforts.
There are a few decks where Wasteland and other land destruction cards are not very useful. Most storm decks do play non-basic lands, but these decks play most of the non-land mana sources that are available in the format, such as Chrome Mox, Lotus Petal, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Dark Ritual, and other accelerants. These decks usually only need an initial mana source to start the combo, and land destruction is often not the best strategy against these decks. Though sometimes Wasteland can be enough to make them stumble and give the deck playing Wasteland enough time to either find other disruption or win before the combo deck can find another mana source. This is usually not the case, and land destruction is largely an ineffective strategy against a deck playing so many mana sources.
The combination of Stifle and Wasteland has been the most recent trend in terms of mana denial in Legacy. Stifle is often much better than Wasteland, because it does not cost the player casting a Stifle to lose their own land drop. Stifle, like Wasteland, has other uses, like stopping an Engineered Explosives, or putting a Phyrexian Dreadnought into play to make it worthwhile when it is unable to hit a fetchland. Stifle would most likely not be playable if it were not for the heavy use of fetchlands in Legacy. Stifle is also a much more efficient land destruction spell when compared to cards like Sinkhole or Vindicate. It also is Blue, which means that these decks can sometimes Brainstorm the card away when it is not worthwhile, or as a last resort pitch it to cast Force of Will. These decks usually combine Stifle, Wasteland, and Daze to prevent their opponent’s from playing any significant spells.
There are other mana denial strategies in Legacy that do use Wasteland, but they are less common because they require a deck to be completely built around them. Cards like Magus of the Moon or Armageddon can only really work with decks that can deal with the symmetrical effects of these cards. There are also other mana denial strategies, like Back to Basics or Choke, that are usually reserved for sideboards because they worthless when facing a given opponent. These cards, unlike Wasteland, have a devastating impact, and do not need other cards to really support them. They can end the game if they resolve, and operate much differently than the Wasteland does. Wasteland can only impact one land, but these impact either multiple lands in play or, even more powerfully, both the lands in play and the ones that will see play.
Will Wasteland be as prominent going forward as it has been in the past and in the present? There is no reason to believe that it will not be. Something radical would have to change about the format to make Wasteland not the card that it is today. Something like getting a great non-land permanent mana source on the level of the original Moxen (Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Mox Emerald, and Mox Pearl). Barring anything new like that, Wasteland figures to be an important part of Legacy’s immediate future.
Wasteland is the foundation for land destruction in Legacy. It takes advantage of the fact that most players will be playing non-basic lands to access the best spells in the format. The non-land mana sources are limited, and have drawbacks that only allow them to be played in certain decks. Wasteland is often paired with other cards to make the effect of the mana denial more potent.
Until next time…
Anwar