The MOST OVERPOWERED Lands in Magic: the Gathering

[@NizzahonMagic]

There are a lot of comments about Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale. It's a powerful card to be sure, but it's never been banned or restricted anywhere. It doesn't even see heavy play in any formats, and is mostly a Vintage sideboard card. That doesn't really meet my definition of overpowered.

[@MrDeeluv1996]

I also think viewers are failing to realize that every card on the list an HM will do its job regardless of match up, while as tabernacle is almost useless against a control or combo focused deck. Can’t be overpowered with a glaring weakness.

[@noguy5961]

As someone who plays a fair bit of legacy lands (all proxies of course, I'm not a millionaire), Tabernacle *feels* like a very powerful card when it's useful. Everyone has their own definitions of overpowered, and while yours is fine, I think it's important to respect just how important of a card it is in the 75 of land based control decks. It's a one-of that can be tutored off of a one mana instant and will often win the game if your opponent doesn't play around it. While that may speak more to the strength of Crop Rotation rather than Tabernacle itself, Legacy Lands is a deck that fluctates between 2 and 8% play rate according to MTGGoldfish and that deck would not be relevant in many metas without the silver bullet that is Tabernacle. If a card that singlehandedly keeps a deck relevant against much of the field isn't overpowered, I don't know what is! I'm obviously biased, but I feel like it deserved at least an honorable mention :p

[@hitmangfx7162]

Tabernacle is a more recent "power" card. It doesn't generate mana and it's useless against low or non-creature decks. I bought one back in the late 90s solely for the artwork and later sold it off with the rest of my collection. I never dreamed it would see such a massive increase in price, almost to Unlimited Power Nine levels.

[@astuteanansi4935]

@@MrDeeluv1996 It's a mixed bag for sure, but I think it's worth noting that it's more backbreaking that practically anything on this list when it *is* doing its job. If you're playing an aggro deck and the opponent drops a turn 1 Library of Alexandria or Field of the Dead, you'd be annoyed, but if you see turn 1 Tabernacle, you just *scoop,* no questions asked.

[@Andreasws24]

It's literally the most expensive card in Legacy and a very important part of Legacy Lands. Tabernacle and OG Dual Lands are definitely missing from the list of powerful lands.

[@sethzard]

I knew that cloudpost was powerful, but watching how well it did in the Card Market bracket showed me how busted it was.

[@mushnib]

same. it's hard to actually visualize it until I saw that video and I was like "wow okay"

[@aidennoir597]

Came down here to say this, based on Cardmarket's series it should be way higher on the list.

[@sethzard]

@@aidennoir597 I guess because it isn't format warping in legacy and vintage it would be hard to have it much higher.

[@EmperorNapoleon1815]

Some of Magic’s oldest land designs are incredibly wild, but that’s what makes them incredible. Great video!

[@SirZapdos]

Turn 1 Urborg into Thoughtseize followed by turn 2 Dark Depths into Vampire Hexmage was a nightmare start back in the day

[@starmanda88]

God that sounds like living the dream

[@Rorschachqp]

Nice video. Back in 1994/95, Library Of Alexandria would have been #1 in power at such a level that it would have even topped your 1-3. The reasons were: 5) People playing permission/The Deck would run Ivory Tower 4) There were a lot of Howling Mine decks (Time Walk/Fork with 2 Mines and a Copy Artifact Mine, draw 4 cards each turn) 3) Wheel Of Fortune and Timetwister were extremely common in both your and opponent's deck 2) Lots of free mana artifacts like Black Lotus and Moxen so if you drew Library and played it turn 1, you could tap it right away, draw back to 8, and play your 8th card (whether you drew it or you already had it in hand) for zero mana 1) The OG draw rule where no matter if you go first or second, you always drew your 8th card on draw step

[@ItsDangerousGoAlone]

Fetch lands are the best mana fixing in the game, power up delve and graveyard synergies, and free shuffle for cards like brainstorm. I think it deserved high placement. Even if you weren't going for a man's fixing list, its graveyard synergy power up decks

[@iNCoMpeTeNtplAyS]

best mana fixing is definitely stuff like city of brass and mana confluence but the UNTAPPED fetchlands are powerful because of unintended synergies. they do all that you say as well as deck thinning. you run half as many mana producing lands when you run fetches and the essentially say your staring deck begins with x less cards, thus enabling you to hit what you want even faster and more efficiently

[@jshtng78]

An analysis of the healthiest highly homogeneous formats (or just Standards) would be interesting. Where everyone was basically playing the same strategy but it wasn't seen as a problem.

[@plaopro]

How could you forget guild gates, the most powerful words in magic are named after them "guild gate go"

[@anannoyedpanda]

One of the lands that gets an auto report for me.

[@TimmytheSorcerer]

😂

[@christopherbennett1173]

Massive oversight by nizz

[@superbaas8822]

Were the gates ever banned in anything? He stated early on that if they weren't ever banned anywhere, then they couldn't have been remotely as big a problem as these lands.

[@christopherbennett1173]

@@superbaas8822 uhhh... Who wants to tell him?

[@littlegeek5159]

The other big reason for removing fetches from pioneer wasn't even power level related; banning them just made games snappier because it dramatically reduced the amount of shuffling in any given game.

[@ericfortin559]

Kind of like how Sensei's Divining Top is banned in Modern and Legacy, because people Topping so many times in tournaments makes the games drag on forever.

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

I gotta say, I'm a big fan of including honourable mentions on very good lists like this. Just like I'm a huge fan of "Top 10 Vintage Cards (Minus Power 9)", which I honestly think a few of these cards could make it on.

[@devononair]

Fun fact: When they first printed cards that produce mana indicated by a number in a circle, as on Cloudpost, I thought it made "one mana of any colour," because when I read a casting cost, I read it as, for example, "one blue and one mana of any colour." Natually I read cards like Cloudpost, which have the same symbol, in the same way, and thought they were utterly busted. I presume this is one of the reasons they created the colourless mana symbol.

[@MichaelSmith-fm5ln]

I can kind of see that happening for a newer player maybe.

[@djpheeze]

Back in the 90s we used to use the term "colourless mana" to refer both to colourless mana and generic mana, because they had the same symbols. I don't remember there ever being any confusion back then - but then there also weren't any spells that actually had colourless casting costs, so there was no material reason to care. When I came back to MTG in 2020, all that had changed lol :D

[@hitmangfx7162]

Amazingly, as powerful as Strip Mine was, there was a lot of debate about how many to play as compared to Mishra's Factory back in 1995/1996. The card's power wasn't IMMEDIATELY obvious to a lot of people, but I noticed the uptick in "Turn 1, strip it!" over time. Looking back, a lot of White Weenie decks would have benefitted from them, being aggro and mono-colored. I'm sad I didn't run a four-of with Necropotence, heh!

[@JD-gk7eh]

In the early days, Strip Mine was used less as straight mana denial but rather as an answer to all the powerful lands running around--Maze of Ith, Factory, LoA, and to a lesser extend Workshop (not that great in the early days). Two Maze of Ith completely stalls your board and an unchecked LoA on turn 1 buries you in cards and ends your game before you even knew it. Strip Mine is and was a pretty necessary inclusion in the game at that point. When those lands rotated out and Strip Mine was still around in 4th Edition just destroying basics, it was different.

[@hitmangfx7162]

@@JD-gk7eh I only played Standard aka Type 2. That was where you saw it transition into a four-of "Turn one, Strip it" card over time. Made life hell for permission/control decks.

[@JD-gk7eh]

@@hitmangfx7162 Yup. With just Mishra's Factory in that format for lands that did anything, that's where Strip Mine became a test of "are you running enough lands?" Truthfully, one reason it was so bad at the time was that people didn't budge from the 20/20/20 deckbuilding paradigm (20 creatures, 20 spells, 20 lands) when they really needed to be playing more lands. "Lowering your curve" was not a concept then either. Granted, both those things are signs of how warping Strip was, but it definitely was exacerbated because people did not play enough lands by any reasonable measure.

[@jajob13]

Great video. Watching this got me thinking a cool video would be to break down the years. An example being top 10 cards from 1999. Which is actually 2 videos as well. 10 cards that performed well specifically for that year. And the the top 10 overall cards to come out in that year.

[@ericfortin559]

Fun fact, Strip Mine was originally printed as both an uncommon and rare at the same time, due to having alternate art versions that were printed on different sheets with other cards. In Antiquities, it has 4 different card art versions. Antiquities was the first set to have alternate art versions of a given card . Also, there are actually many zero cost/free creatures that can power up Gaea's Cradle - Phyrexian Walker, Shield Sphere, Ornithopter, Kobolds, Dryad Arbor, etc. The cradle also counts creature tokens, which there are also a ton of ways to get really easily.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Urza's Saga should be on the list for being a win condition and a powerful tutor effect. Staple in legacy, vintage and modern.

[@tepet_mage]

One of the big discussions in our area during Mirrodin was if the artifact lands would have been fair if they came into play tapped

[@NizzahonMagic]

They would still have been too good for Block and Standard, I think. Maybe not Modern, though. After all, the dual artifact lands that enter tapped are legal there.

[@TheShinyFeraligatr]

They only got banned out of block because of a cross-block tournament run on MTGO though, they weren't banned during Mirrodin's original run.

[@chickennoodles4491]

also Thawing glaciers could originally be used twice in a turn cycle by activating it on end step, and had to be errata’d because it was so good at ramping you

[@MortonGoldthwait]

No wonder Cloudpost, Mishra's Workshop and Tolarian Academy are broken. They allow for early Teeka's Dragon!

[@burningpapersun1]

I love the locus lands with thespian stage. This list was a trip down memory lane.

[@LadyBernkastel92]

One of my favorite games of commander was with a friend who was newish to magic, and I played out an artifact land and told him that these were so broken they'd been banned. HE couldn't understand why until I played a thought cast for 1 and then an arcbound ravenger, and I told him 'Now imagine you can have 4 of each iin every deck'.

[@Jalae]

i think dryad arbor deserves an honorable mention. It was never banned (afaik), but there was that one specific printing of it which forced a rule change to nerf it.

[@mrtalos]

Just using the standard system of scoring. "And the most broken land is Island"

[@kizzaht]

11:00 - you mention Strip Mine is limited in all formats except Vintage - that's incorrect - Strip Mine is legal in Commander

[@assault410]

10. Island

[@dieraute6010]

I expected tabernacle to make the list

[@kasuto-no-machi]

Yeah, I was surprised to find out it’s never been banned in any format

[@catoticneutral]

Thawing Glaciers essentially lets you consistently hit mana drops which seems kind of strong even if it doesn't make mana on its own.

[@crazedlink]

I figured a Strip Mine or a Wasteland would literally be a Broken Land.

[@sc2fanterranplayer]

Nice video , i think tabernacle of pendrell vale can be on HM too is maybe rarely played in main deck instead of lands but is still very strong card.

[@NizzahonMagic]

It's never been banned or restricted anywhere. This list isn't about strong cards. It's about broken ones.

[@rominou77]

I was at number 2 and did not see cradle or academy and i was OMG 😱 Finally you did it right

[@monogreen]

There used to be a format on MTGO called classic. It was Vintage before they finished adding all the Vintage cards to mtgo. Library of Alexandria was legal as a 4-of for a time in Classic. Just an interesting fact you may not know.

[@noelproulx2309]

cool list, STrip mine though was not banned till much later and initially only in type 2

[@PlanetTwilow]

Huh? Strip Mine was a 4x in Type 1 (First Nationals) and 4x in Type II (1st Pro Tour and GPs).

[@antivalidisme5669]

The HM list is kinda insane on its own and it says a lot. Quite surprised to not see the dual lands in the list. Beyond this I will always be an eternal "Lake of the dead" lover. My all time favourite alongside "Lotus Valley", yeah I know that one is not great and can be a mess if countered, but the souvenirs attached are bonkers. Cheers

[@NizzahonMagic]

I don't think anyone would describe the original duals as 'broken'.

[@AlieksieiMarcelus]

I like the new format but limiting it to only banned cards left out a few big names. Tabernacle is a huge deal and couldnt make it since it wasnt banned, same goes for wasteland, which while a worse strip mine is still a legacy staple. Perhaps these outliers could come up as honorable mentions?

[@NizzahonMagic]

I think neither Tabernacle nor Wasteland are overpowered. They are just good.

[@pro711200]

​​​@@NizzahonMagicWasteland is single handedly top 5 most defining cards in all of legacy since the advent of the format and wizards admitted it's a card that would have been banned years ago by power level reasons. The existence of wasteland single handedly makes half the lands you mentioned in this list unplayable. You try playing eye of ugin and field of the dead in legacy and you'll lose a lot of games. Furthermore, this list misses ancient tomb which is probably a top 3 card in legacy since the formats inception and played in vintage shops decks.

[@Turdle202]

Gaea’s Cradle is now Itlimoc in Ixalan.

[@cerebralisk]

It's funny that tolarian academy is so turbobanned that it actually has a somewhat reasonable price, though I imagine if the rules committee ever huffed enough glue that unbanning it in commander felt like a good idea it'd be $2000 in a week.

[@bobby1602]

1 strip mine 2 Tolarian academy 3 island 4 workshop 5 library of Alexandria 6 bazaar 7 wasteland 8 dual lands 9 fetch lands 10 urzas saga These are the top lands played in vintage and vintage encompasses the entire card base of mtg.

[@smileygoldfish]

Glacial chasm is an awesome land when paired with Eon Hub

[@Taninriff]

I was surprised Maze of Ith didn’t make the cut. The card was restricted in the early days of Magic as it shut down creature decks.

[@adamn7777]

I used to play it in all my commander decks by default and played a ton of it in legacy in my 42 (I forget the actual number) lands deck. It's such an annoying card

[@shadooper]

My friend was play a lord windgrace commander deck and kept recurring strip mine. It was painful for me... lol

[@davidelrod7865]

6-10 are incredibly suspect. And never would have gotten banned in the first place in a format where Wasteland was legal as a 4 of (which is absurd to leave off this list). 1. Academy 2. Strip Mine (because back when the Legend rule only allowed one Academy to be in play for either player, every list playing Academy also ran Strip/Waste to make sure they got to eventually play their best mana producer) 3. Shop 4. Bazaar 5. Cradle 6. Waste 7. Ancient Tomb (while Cloudpost produces more over enough turns, in more powerful formats, there's not only less turns to work with in a game, but the expected life span of your powerful lands will be less as well, thanks to Waste/Strip, Eye of Ugin/Eldrazi Temple don't cast Tinker/Show and Tell/Sneak Attack/Yawg Will/ Chalice of the Void/The One Ring/ Helm of Obedience/etc, Tomb does) 8. City of Traitors 9. LoA 10. Serra's Sanctum 6-10 on your list suffer from "big fish, small pond" syndrome. There's an ENORMOUS difference between Cloudpost (et al) being absolutely busted in Modern, and being a fringe deck (at best) in Legacy, and unplayable in Vintage. The Legacy decks that run Seat of the Synod? Also run Ancient Tomb. The Legacy Lands decks running Field/Depths as win cons? Are definitely running 4 Wastelands (and usually Ports too) to slow the game down to get to their end game. "But , if left undisturbed, has a higher ceiling!" The fact Wasteland exists (and was Extended legal for a long, long time, before they decided Mana denial like Stone Rain/Winter Orb was no fun) means that judging/ranking has take things like that into consideration before simply saying "well it got banned, so it must be very powerful". Artifact lands were powerful in Block, Standard and Extended, sure. But even by then in Extended, Wasteland had rotated out.

[@hidood5th]

I laughed at the fetch lands with "Lots and lots of top 8s"

[@michlon6144]

With the amount of new varieties of stripmine library of Alexandria could be taken off the banned list

[@MainTopmastStaysail]

I think fetches should have made the list proper. They haven't been banned but they've done even better: whether or not they are legal defines a format. If reprinted into Standard they would either completely remake those formats or have to be pre-banned. They have a massive impact on mana consistency, graveyard size and effective starting life total. They are relevant for every deck while lands like Field of the Dead, Eye of Ugin and the Mirrodin artifact lands are only good in specific archetypes. I haven't done the numbers but there's a real chance that they have collectively scored more points in Top 8s and tournament finishes than any other cards or cycles in the game, including the basic lands.

[@devononair]

including the basic lands? *Shocked face*

[@superbaas8822]

Except they have been banned, and he does address that. Ultimately though the fetches haven't done anything CLOSE to the absurdity these lands have.

[@youtubetrollking1880]

Had no idea saras sanctum was worth so much. Ive got 7 or 8 of them never been played. I bought a lot of urzas block back in the day, and that was one card i always seemed to pull.

[@TimmytheSorcerer]

Richard Garfield used to play 4 libraries himself back in the day, truly insane 😅

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Bazaar of Baghdad is probably the most broken land. It singlehandedly wins the game. When you play against Gaea's Cradle and Tolarian Academy, it can feel dire, but you can win if your opponent doesn't have anything to do with that mana. If they have a big spell, you can still interact with it. Bazaar doesn't care about any of that and is going to win unless you can stop it. The only ways to beat it are Wasteland, Strip Mine and graveyard hate like Leyline of the Void. Tabernacle doesn't even do the job if the opponent has their own Gaea's Cradle. When you play a Bazaar deck in vintage, you aggressively mulligan to find Bazaar because it is one of the scariest cards in the entire format.

[@mrtrance6652]

Bazaar of Baghdad should be #1. Like the deck that plays it literally mulligans till it finds a Bazaar. Even if bazaar is only card in starting hand, it can still lead to turn 2 or 3 win.

[@JamiesGamingDad]

Request: Could you do a top to Interrupts? 🔥 I'm an old player and as many started around the '95 era and only found out this week that interrupts don't exist anymore more. On top of that - no more mana burn?! 🤯

[@djpheeze]

I'm an MTG boomer who only rejoined the game about 3 years ago. I was originally playing in 1999, and Interrupts were already obsolete by then, so here are some other things you should go look up that have changed since the 90s! :) - combat steps (it's mostly the same, but the timing rules have changed a lot) - planeswalkers - vehicles - equipment creatures - the Vancouver mulligan - colorless mana costs I realise you probably already encountered most of those things, but those were the biggest culture shocks I got on my return to MTG after 20 years!

[@JamiesGamingDad]

@@djpheeze all too complicated for me 😂 I'm sticking to my old decks and rules when playing Magic with my son 😁

[@djpheeze]

@@JamiesGamingDad Interrupts were removed from the game to make it simpler! There are now only 2 speeds in the game - sorcery and instant. Interrupt used to be a third mechanic, but I PROMISE the game is much simpler, AND more interesting with the more modern rules! Just to put it out there: if your son likes MTG, he's going to be pissed when he finds out you've been making him play 1995-style, and that you tricked him into thinking Serra Angel was still a good card! (It took me about 18 months to realise how far the standards had moved, and that most spells that used to win the game in the 90s aren't even viable at kitchen-table level in the 2020s)

[@marcoottina654]

I loved the honorable mention existence, thanks :D anyway, lands deserve some power, but more of it the game itself needs balance

[@bananaheals]

Isn't the plural of locus loci?

[@mrtekbunny]

That sounds right but is it?

[@mikotagayuna8494]

That's correct.

[@oxpolitik]

After watching this I'm genuinely surprised there aren't more calls for Cradle to be banned in Commander.

[@JD-gk7eh]

People just don't have the card in enough numbers. You can proxy it, sure, but then the debate becomes about proxies themselves and that's an easy way for people to put a stop to it. If it were $10 and more people owned it, then you might see more arguments about it, but for now, it's just not encountered as much as it would be.

[@ST1mAPB]

PLEASE adjust the volume of the outro!

[@mrpinguimninja]

Good to see my favorite land of all time in the number one slot

[@Waffletigercat]

I think we all knew what the #1 was going to be.

[@djpheeze]

A lot of us thought were pretty sure it was going to be Tabernacle! I'm still not clear how Cradle and Academy counted as one slot, but Sanctum got its own entry.

[@Waffletigercat]

@@djpheeze Because Serra's Sanctum didn't actually make the list at all, while Gaea's Cradle would've been #6 if it hadn't been lumped in with Tolarian Academy.

[@bradg8302]

I know it’s not banned but tabernacle is pretty good and if the criteria were different could probably make a broken lands list

[@magicandlacecardboredtotea6327]

Crusty Jeanland is my most broken land. One of Us. Gooble Gobble.

[@Quiron1985]

Tolarian Academy should be on 1. Posted before watching.

[@cax1175]

We all know why Mishra's Workshop is so good. You're literally 1/3 of the way to winning in one land. Also, I did not know that Gaea's Cradle was legal in Legacy. I wonder if it or EDH is more to do with its insane price.

[@clockblower6414]

Edh definitely. In legacy you may not always want to run it in green but people always jam it in edh

[@ROMANTIKILLER2]

I would definitely bet on EDH, given the size of active player base. On EDHREC only it is accounted for in over 82k decks, but even that is only a sample of the entire population.

[@dredge_into_delve2439]

It's definitely EDH. The card was much less expensive before EDH became the most popular format, and Competitive EDH has risen in popularity too so people have picked this up for that I imagine

[@metaldyldo3662]

Maybe it's not sanctioned, but Old School is a format.

[@EdwintheMagicEngineer]

Dude, you missed Tolarian Academy and Gaia's Cradle? And Library of Alexandria is for darn sure #1. It works in almost any deck and single handedly gives you wins. Almost no matter what your deck is.

[@NizzahonMagic]

It doesn't sound like you watched the video if you didn't see Academy and Cradle.

[@EdwintheMagicEngineer]

@@NizzahonMagic correct I skimmed it and clearly missed those. Not sure how I missed them but yes. I see they were #1. They DEFINITELY deserve to be in the top 5 for sure, I would argue top 2-4. Still though, Library of Alexandria is SO completely the most broken land. Restricted in the formats it's allowed in (Vintage and Old School(9394). Banned in everything else. You can put LoA in almost ANY deck and get a hard win off the card advantage. Having played this game for literally 28 years and actively used ALL the cards you mentioned... I'm telling you LoA is by an absolute longshot the most powerful land in the game. Mana generators help you get to a win... but you must use a deck that supports them. The fact you can use 4x Cradles in Legacy is a huge knock against it's power. And you have to use it in a creature deck. Tolarian is a hard win over cradle both by the fact it's restricted in Vintage when Cradle is not, and also based on the fact it's hard banned in Legacy. The fact that LoA even taps for colorless mana is just extra amazing. Even if it only had the draw ability it would still likely be the most powerful card ever in MTG. If you are playing Vintage or Old School (the only formats which even allow a single LoA) and your opponent plays LoA... if you don't answer it by removing it or dropping his hand size... you are VERY likely to lose.

[@Mississippi_Jack]

I think the busted, non-banned lands at least deserved a shout-out. I don't think you can discuss the best lands in the game without mentioning Tabernacle, Urza's Saga, Revised Splits, Cabal Coffers, and Triomes.

[@NizzahonMagic]

None of those are even closed to banned -- with Urza's Saga as an exception. This list isn't just about good lands -- they have to be overpowered, and those really don't meet my definition.

[@kitsovereign4127]

Great vid. I'd love to see more Top 10s that manage to account for banned cards. Shouldn't Faceless Haven also get an honorable mention?

[@caseywellington4761]

Banned in standard means nothing next to the power level of these

[@Moshladaan]

Ban enemy fetches in Modern and possibly enemy shocklands. Then reprint Hydroblast & Pyroblast in MH3.

[@djpheeze]

My take is that they should ban ALL the fetchlands in Modern. They make it WAY too easy to play 3/4-colour decks in Modern, which gives access to too many cards, and also removes most of the challenge of deckbuilding in an eternal format. Essentially it becomes a pay-to-win format. I know that sounds like I haven't understood the concept of MTG, but the distinction between Modern and Legacy is collapsing. The Modern Horizons cards have created a LOT of unforeseen problems, and banning the fetches would solve a lot of that. It's a less humiliating alternative than (for example) admitting that the Evoke elementals (which were designed for Modern) turned out to be unsuitable for the format they were *specifically* designed for, and are very obviously a mistake. Ban the fetches from Modern and MAYBE the situation can be salvaged.

[@cowisiontv6611]

@@djpheezeif you want a fetchless format just play pioneer. Legacy and modern are very distinct formats, the fact that they have a few played cards in common doesn’t mean they are similar, the majority of the strategies in legacy doesn’t even exist in modern

[@djpheeze]

​@@cowisiontv6611 I mean, that's it right there - if you want to play a 2-player game that has a functioning colour pie, Pioneer is the only option. How did we get to a point where one of the central game mechanics is now considered a niche option that only one format (and an unpopular, moribund format at that) even recognises?

[@TABRIS333]

Why Gaea's cradle costo ~800, while the accademia only 80?

[@markfreenick]

G c is legal in commander

[@nimbus6694]

Also, cradle is played as a 4-of in most decks that use it in 60-card formats, increasing the demand

[@mrmarklin]

Tabernacle, Urza’s Saga,

[@Crunchatize_Me_Senpai]

Holy crap, I know Vintage is a powerful format, but I had no idea Mishra’s Workshop is allowed as a _full four-of_ in it. That seems so insane! How in the hell! Can anyone explain how that doesn’t completely dominate the format and push every other deck out? Especially with the presence of power 9 cards and other insane artifact shenanigans piled on top of it? Jeez, there’s apparently another, _more_ broken land ahead of it! Gotta take a moment to process that one first…

[@tobynburke4959]

Most of the broken artifacts are restricted. Trinisosphere being a good example. Shops is honestly a pretty fair fixture in the format

[@JD-gk7eh]

The other decks win games on the stack. It's faster and a much more powerful way to win the game. Playing a turn 1 artifact that has to sit on board to do something for a few turns is a LOT less powerful than playing 2-3 Moxes and Tinkering out Bolas' Citadel Turn 1. Really, Workshop just gives a few more pieces of fast mana to its deck. Everyone else can have all the artifact mana too and power out cards that cost less (Workshop makes a 4 drop into a 2 drop but blue decks just get a 2 drop that does as much.) The reason Workshop has never been restricted is that you need a card this powerful to compete against blue decks. Blue is so absurdly powerful in Vintage the other colors are just kinda there (black is second because it has tutors...to get blue cards). The reason Workshop doesn't run away with it all is that it's just another powerful option and it limits what you can run (no Force of Will, for one). Various artifacts have been restricted because of Workshop. But there's way more blue cards on the list than cards Workshop got on there. The format's history is blue versus not blue and WotC has kept that in careful check with pointed restrictions.

[@Crunchatize_Me_Senpai]

Wild. Interesting reads. What a different format Vintage is. Thanks for the insight you two!

[@TheMisleduser]

Academy is only 90 bucks? Damn I'm buying a copy. Never bothered looking because of the ban but I'm willing to spend that much even if I barely get to use it.

[@NizzahonMagic]

It's banned in Commander, keep that in mind. But if that's okay with you, don't forget my to use my link! Haha.

[@SmugLookingBarrel]

So the main thing I've learned form this video is that Lands shouldn't -Make a ton of mana. -Win the game on their own.

[@NizzahonMagic]

Surprising stuff, right?

[@haslittle8078]

You missed Hashep Oasis

[@eclipsekitsune2024]

Serra's Sanctum anyone?

[@RickHardpack]

I would argue that Bazaar of Baghdad is the most broken land ever printed simply because you can build an entire deck around it with no other lands. Bazaar decks can mull to 2 and so long as one of them is Bazaar they can still win. Academy requires you to have artifacts in play and actually cast and resolve spells.

[@punkypinko2965]

So ... I looked up a couple of these cards. I thought hey maybe I could use one of them. $2000 ... $3000 ... ok I guess not lol. I could proxy them I guess but it's not really that important.

[@NizzahonMagic]

Yeah, these aren't the kind of cards you use if you're looking to make budget decks.

[@punkypinko2965]

@@NizzahonMagic Budget deck? These are way beyond normal decks, forget budget decks.

[@Mi3n8s0]

where is urza's saga?

[@crawdaddy1234]

Calling number one: Academy

[@natenathan2654]

Dual lands?

[@mocosalado8712]

mazes end may not look like much, in fact, it looks like a terrible card. ahhhhh but pair it with a child of alara and now we’re cooking

[@alexanderhetlinger3294]

I love Tolarian Academy. Since it released back in Saga, it’s been my favorite land. I’m glad it was number 1! 🎉

[@narwhalcheese]

Loci, not Locusts or Locuses

[@svankensen]

Missed tabernacle in Pendrel Vale. That single land was death to creature decks.

[@SpellingBeeWiner]

He mentioned the card needed to have been banned in at least one format and tabernacle never was banned. If it wasn't so expensive that basically no one could afford it it would probably get banned in Commander.

[@cspeeds96]

Woooo

[@Thorandor44]

Bazar of bagdad and squee...

[@senfschmade]

No shelldock or tabernacle? :O

[@NizzahonMagic]

Neither have ever been banned anywhere.

[@sammysammyson]

As always, just nice to note that Field of the Dead isn't legendary. So many 2/2s...so many...

[@Thorandor44]

Mishras factory, and and and

[@arc-sd8sk]

fifth!

[@thevaultwalrus]

tabernacle where

[@NizzahonMagic]

Neither have ever been banned anywhere.

[@tobynburke4959]

Urza's saga is probably stronger than at least half of this list.

[@NizzahonMagic]

There's an argument to be had, but the fact it is legal in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage while most of the cards on this list are banned in at least one of those...