A Love Letter to Land Destruction

The groans are audible through the screen. Every single time, always the

same frown and head shake of disapproval: ‘Who in their right mind is defending

land destruction?’, ‘Why would you do that?’, ‘Do you just hate fun?’. Mass land

destruction is easily the most hated archetype in Magic: the Gathering, across the

board. From homebrew Commander games to official WOTC bracket guidelines,

land destruction is seen as taboo. Commander, and the whole game is worse off for

it.

Land destruction deserves a comeback.

With Universes Beyond introducing huge new audiences to this amazing TCG,

there are more and more brand new players daily. Individuals that have never even

seen a trading card game played in real life are now picking up preconstructed

Commander decks just to use their favorite character in a format outside of a

screen. And that’s amazing! Everyone’s journey to Magic: the Gathering is

different, but it all leads to more diverse games with a more active player base.

For these amazing leaps in popularity to continue though, all the diverse play styles

need to be encouraged, not discouraged.

Someone that is brand-new to playing the game will be stunned and amazed

when they inevitably stumble onto a Tymna & Thrasios deck when it is a pretty

well–known staple to most. Learning about creature subtypes will always lead to a

discovery about all of the infinite shenanigans Krenko, Mob Boss can do or even the

imposing force that Slivers can hold over a Commander pod. What happens when

someone who is new to the game learns about Armageddon or Jokulhaups? It

almost looks too good to be true upon reading ‘destroy all lands’ on a card for the

first time. The only real negative that land destruction has is the negative

connotation that the community as a whole gives it.

For a while, the self-policing of Commander and MtG as a whole was a good

thing for the community. Intentionally inflammatory deck types were regulated,

overpowered/overused cards were banned, and fun, interesting games with a

variety of win conditions provided a comfortable playground for long-form games

outside of the gritty seriousness of Modern and Standard. As sad as it is to say,

those days are long past. In an attempt to bring back that sense of comfortability

to Commander, WOTC created the bracket system. A direct, 1-5 grading system to

provide players the ability to play decks of the relatively same power level.

Encouraging more fair, casual play while still creating a sanctioned space for the

ever-popular cEDH at the same time.

© 1993-2025 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Now, back to the new players. How overpowered does land destruction look

when it is the only game mechanic that is explicitly defined by the bracket system?

It’s easy to understand, even new to the game, that an extra turn can be

game–breaking, sure. But in the world of indestructible Urza’s Sagas and

enchantment lands, how can land destruction be so universally decried? Lands are

getting stronger and stronger every release, up to Final Fantasy introducing

adventure lands: lands that can alternatively be used as spells. As lands continue to

evolve and shape into new, exciting forms, it is only fair that the attitude behind

removing these sometimes game-deciding threats evolve and change as well.

A well-timed Fall of the Thran should be applauded!

Infinite combos are everywhere in Magic. Simple combos that can create

infinite life, infinite creatures, infinite artifacts, or even infinite lands are present

on a large scale in every tier of the bracket system. There are even

pre-constructed decks with infinite combos now! How do you stop that as a new

player playing against those infinite combos? Targeted removal for a piece of a

combo requires knowledge of an entire deck or at least popular cards within an

archetype to effectively cancel it out. Even then, it takes knowledge of specific

card types within set combos in order to choose whether or not artifact,

enchantement, or creature removal is needed. A simple fix would be to pack a

Commander deck with every type of removal just in case, but this leads to a whole

slew of dead cards when just the right specific type of removal is needed.

Another fix for dealing with infinite combos, without the dead cards in the

deck, without the needed card knowledge, without competing infinite combos: land

destruction. A Cyclonic Rift can’t be flickered a million bajillion times if a player

doesn’t have the mana base for it. There won’t be 40 quadrillion goblin tokens on

the field if the Krenko player was short one mountain. Land destruction is a simple,

catch-all form of control that is extremely effective for new and old players alike.

It can alleviate a player’s biggest headache without taking up 5+ card slots in the

deck to do it.

The discouragement a new player must feel when they discover that they

cannot remove their biggest threat is heartbreaking. Any widespread artifact

removal can devastate an artifact deck’s mana base, and that is allowed without the

bat of an eye. Destroying a turn 1 Sol Ring is whittling a mana base down by

two-thirds at that point, but perfectly acceptable. Flickering a Teferi’s Protection

and Farewell every turn, also perfectly fine. But have mercy on the individual that

is destroying a single island to protect themselves from a Stormtide Leviathan.

When a player can defeat an entire Commander pod

within the first five turns, why shouldn’t someone be

allowed to slow that individual down for the good of the

entire game?

Sure, land destruction may slow a game down a bit. What could’ve been a 15

minute game could now jump up to an hour. The pros outweigh the cons, though.

Seeing a new player win a game against seasoned veterans is an amazing underdog

story that should be celebrated! The joy of playing a new deck for the first time

against an old rival and watching it work to bring home the win is one of the best

feelings you could hope for in Magic. Removing that all from the game just because

of one specific type of removal is working to discourage diverse play styles from

Commander altogether.

All the best decklists are online anyway. If someone knows that they could

get shunned out of an entire game because of one card, what encouragement is

there for a new player to spend the time looking through the thousands and

thousands of cards Magic: the Gathering has to offer through the decades of its’

printing cycles to build a brand-new deck type for the format? There isn’t any. It

just leads to a regurgitation of the same deck types, same staples, and same

combos, albeit packaged with different commanders depending on the day. When

someone’s mana base is at stake, though? Maybe that 7 cost artifact is a little too

slow now for a deck. A lower rarity, cheaper to cast creature removal may now be

needed to stop a threat while maintaining a lower mana curve.

Land destruction needs to be celebrated! There are entire lines of play in

Magic that don’t exist in a world without land destruction. Islandwalk, sunburst,

land-targeting enchantments; none of these exist in a world where lands can’t be

destroyed. The entire idea of red acting as anything more than a quick aggro deck

or an artifact deck is off the table. Historically, land destruction acted as red’s

form of counters with red elemental blast being the only form of somewhat actually countering in that color. The community dislike of land destruction not only

removes those historically acknowledged lines of play from being used, but it also

discourages any new players from using them. Putting up an invisible wall in the

deckbuilding process that bakes shame/disdain into the game is abhorrent.

If a land destruction spell really is too powerful, it can be put on the Game

Changers list. Otherwise, land destruction deserves to be loved. All classic aspects

of the game are getting reprinted or finding their way back, in one way or another.

That is, besides land destruction. When one card from the ginormous house of

cards that is Magic: the Gathering is removed, it’s not hard for it to all come

crumbling down. It’s been seen with Oko, Emrakaul, and more recently Vivi. One

card can splash onto the scene and pop up in every deck overnight. If adding one

card can affect the entirety of the game so easily, what would happen if a chunk of

cards are removed entirely? Especially if the chunk of cards removed are made to

be removal spells for an ever-strengthening card type? It would be devastating.

So, here’s to land destruction! It can be rough to play against, it can be

devilishly fun to play with, but its an inherent, needed part of the game. New

players should be applauded for doing their homework to find powerful cards that

work well within the format. All the new players, with the popularity of Magic: the

Gathering growing faster than it ever has, will come across land destruction as a

viable line of play at some point. When that happens, they should be met

with a round of cheers.