Winter OrbWinter Orb | Art by Mark Tedin

Being forged in the fires of Legacy and Modern, I'm no stranger to mass land denial. My favorite decks of all time in those formats use iconic enchantments, like Back to BasicsBack to Basics and Blood MoonBlood Moon, to severely hinder the opponent. When I finally decided to give Commander a shot, the biggest culture shock was witnessing players' scorn for these cards that lead to me falling in love with Magic in the first place. This hatred runs so deep that it has permeated the rules of the format! In Bracket 1, 2, and 3 I am forbidden from sharing my love of ArmageddonArmageddon with an unsuspecting table. Mass land denial is as foundational to Magic's game system as the mana system itself. In this article, I'm going to delve deeper into mass land denial, its origins, why people get so mad about it, and why you should play with and against it anyway.

A Brief History of Mass Land Denial

For as long as lands have existed, there have been ways to blow them all up. ArmageddonArmageddon, Winter OrbWinter Orb, StasisStasis, and narrower offerings like FlashfiresFlashfires, were first printed in Alpha, Magic's very first set. To a modern Magic designer, the choice to include all of that in the game's first set would sound unhinged. At face value, it also doesn't seem like a great way to retain new players. However, Richard Garfield's view on cards like these really speaks to me. In a Reddit AMA, Garfield said that "cards that destroyed mana, or forced discard, were hated but I wanted them to be part of the environment - I wanted cards people loved and hated rather than cards people thought were alright." The strong emotional reaction that casting an Armageddon causes in a game is the point. Those moments are memorable; they can cause an otherwise typical game state to descend into chaos that players will be left thinking about for ages.

In the early Magic tournament scene, mass land denial was very commonplace. The 1994 World Championships was won by Zak Dolan playing a deck that utilized both Armageddon and the combination of StasisStasis and KismetKismet. Not long after, Erhnamgeddon emerged as a top contender. The whole point of this aggro deck was slamming a huge threat, like Erhnam DjinnErhnam Djinn, and following it up with an Armageddon with the hope that the opponent will flounder trying to solve their newfound mana problems just long enough for a 4/5 creature to finish the job.

The biggest revolution in mass land denial technology came from The Dark with the printing of Blood MoonBlood Moon. This enchantment remains a staple in Modern to this day, and it has inspired other pieces of mass land denial, like Magus of the MoonMagus of the Moon and Harbinger of the SeasHarbinger of the Seas. At the time, Magic was dominated by nonbasic lands from the Alpha dual lands to Library of AlexandriaLibrary of Alexandria and Strip MineStrip Mine. Blood Moon was the first card whose existence gave players any incentive to play with basic lands at all.

Through the remainder of the 1990s and the early 2000s, the prevalence of mass land denial faded. There were a few incredibly powerful options printed, like Back to BasicsBack to Basics and RuinationRuination, but the new standard was wildly over-costed spells like ObliterateObliterate. In the modern era, few pieces of mass land denial make it to Standard sets. The only two that stick out in recent memory are Fall of the ThranFall of the Thran and Zhao, the Moon SlayerZhao, the Moon Slayer, both of which are pale echoes of Armageddon and Blood Moon.

I attribute the fall off of Standard legal mass land denial to the designer's increasing focus on the competitive side of the game. In Alpha, it wasn't assumed that players would be able to access enough cards to build optimized decks. Before the printing of Beta and Unlimited, there weren't even enough copies in existence of a given rare for every highly invested player to acquire a playset of any card. For the first couple months of the game's existence, there was likely only one or two people in a given play group with an Armageddon. That meant the card showed up rarely and created memorable moments when it did. In modern day competitive Magic, giving white aggro decks access to multiple copies of Armageddon could single-handedly prevent players from including cards that cost more than three or four mana in their decks.

Why Does Mass Land Denial Make Commander Players Salty?

I'm willing to wager that the average Commander player that is vehemently against mass land denial as a concept has not actually played with or against it. Armageddon in particular only has an inclusion rate of 0.85%! The salt surrounding these cards in Commander is, in a bizarre way, a cultural institution. I firmly believe that cards like ArmageddonArmageddon earned their reputation in a different era of the Commander format and has yet to be reevaluated.

Imagine it's 2010 and you're playing Commander at a table where all of the decks are packed with draft chaff and slow, dubiously playable cards. Someone casts an Armageddon on turn 5 in a game where the average mana value of a card in a player's deck is likely four or greater. That game is going to be miserable, and it's going to take an additional hour to complete. If I got my start playing Magic at a table where that happened, I'd hate Armageddon. I'd tell all my friends that they should avoid that card and people that play it. This phenomenon happens at many tables, word gets spread far and wide, and suddenly even generations of Magic players that weren't around back then understand that mass land denial is undesirable in Commander.

I play more card games than just Magic, and that's given me the joy of introducing people to Magic before this aspect of the culture has reached them. Without fail, the most common reaction to reading Armageddon for the first time that I've witnessed is total delight! These players are overwhelmed by the power fantasy of ripping their hapless opponents' mana away well before they've learned enough about the game to know any better.

One result of this aspect of Magic culture is that playing against mass land denial becomes a rarity. It simply isn't part of the terms of engagement in casual Magic anymore. When players do encounter it, it comes as a shock and their negative reactions get amplified. Unfortunately, the personality type of a player that's looking to spring a Ravages of WarRavages of War or Back to BasicsBack to Basics on a table and the personality type of a player that would look to tactically deploy these cards as a useful tool that aids them in winning the game doesn't have much overlap. If someone has only played against Armageddon once in their entire life, I'm betting good money the player that cast it was a chaos gremlin and not a prototypical Spike like myself.

Another result of this culture is that lands are, in most cases, sacred. If a player cast a turn two Nature's LoreNature's Lore, it's generally considered bad form to use a Strip MineStrip Mine on the ForestForest they searched for. It's even worse form if all three of my opponents play a Nature's Lore, FarseekFarseek, or ExploreExplore and I decide that the time is right to curve an Arcane SignetArcane Signet into Armageddon. I've even caught flack for casting much worse variations upon these spells, like the famously unplayable draft common: Stone RainStone Rain.

Where Does Mass Land Denial Belong?

At present, the restrictions for Brackets 1, 2, and 3 include mass land denial. Unlike the other prohibited strategies in those Brackets, like chaining extra turns or two card combos, mass land denial isn't prohibited on the basis of power level. If you took a Bracket 3 Dimir () deck that had a healthy amount of card draw, adding Thassa's OracleThassa's Oracle and Demonic ConsultationDemonic Consultation would likely increase that deck's win percentage. The same is true if I took that deck and jammed the ten best extra turn spells in it. But what if I took a white Bracket 3 deck and added ArmageddonArmageddon? In many cases, I'd expect that deck's win rate to go down. Anecdotally, every time I've watched a player other than myself cast Armageddon, they've gone on to lose the game. I must therefore conclude that this restriction exist to spare players the annoyance of facing mass land denial more than anything else.

Sequestering mass land denial cards to levels of play where they aren't good enough to keep up places them in a precarious position. Seldom will I be making a Bracket 4 deck better by putting a four-mana sorcery that doesn't actually win the game in it. These cards are trapped in the weird in-between space of "not good enough for competitive but too annoying for casual."

So where is mass land denial good? Unsurprisingly, the best decks in Commander for Armageddon have similar strategies to the best Armageddon decks from other formats. The primary strategic value of mass land denial is in maintaining the current status quo. The person with the most threatening board will solidify their lead as other players now lack the mana to catch up with them. Decks that use tools like Blood MoonBlood Moon and Armageddon should aim to have an advantage on the battlefield first.

A perfect example is my Ajani, Nacatl PariahAjani, Nacatl Pariah deck, similar to the one I wrote about a few months ago. If I play nearly any one-mana creature in that deck, followed by Ajani, and then any three-mana creature, a turn four Armageddon or RuinationRuination makes me the favorite to win the game, especially if the other players spent those turns ramping and setting up engines that will ultimately be irrelevant without any mana to go with them.

The fun of casting these spells in Ajani is that, while they make me more likely to win, it doesn't just win the game on the spot like a traditional combo. Instead, the game is going to get weird. Armageddon doesn't come without risk. These scenarios encapsulate some of the most fun you can have playing Magic. You play a spell, and then there is suspense. Maybe you've just taken over the game. Maybe the opponents draw well enough that they can team up to stop me. I have little way to know what will happen, and often neither do the other players. If I lose from those positions, I'm still happy because I got a wild ride out of it.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, I'm not advocating for springing mass land denial on Bracket 1, 2, and 3 tables that aren't prepared for it. But, the beauty of the rule zero conversation is that you can just ask the table if you can play your Boros () aggro deck that has an Armageddon in it. I have a little sideboard for my Ajani, Nacatl PariahAjani, Nacatl Pariah deck that allows me to swap in ArmageddonArmageddon, Blood MoonBlood Moon, Magus of the MoonMagus of the Moon, and RuinationRuination at tables that are okay with it. What I am advocating for is saying yes to the person at your table that wants to try out mass land denial for the first time. Look for opportunities to enhance your deck-building with these wonderfully salty pieces of Magic history. In a format as broad as Commander, it's more fun to embrace some of the salty cards than to leave them to rot in a binder or bulk bin.

Now is the part where I want to hear from you. Does mass land denial make you salty? Is it better or worse than other common sources of sodium chloride, like two-card combos or extra turns? Most importantly, what decks would you play mass land denial in if your tables allowed it?