Faceless Haven is a nonbasic Snow land card from Magic the Gathering’s Kaldheim set. While it only adds colorless mana, because it is a Snow source, it helps you to cast permanents and use abilities that require Snow mana. Also, it has another ability that allows it to become a 4/3 creature with vigilance and all creature types until end of turn. While that ability requires three mana from Snow permanents, which could include other copies of Faceless Haven, the opportunity cost to include this land may not be as high as people think, especially with snow basic lands and tapped dual lands coming with Kaldheim.
In many ways, Faceless Haven is much like a Standard staple land of the past in Mutavault. Like Mutavault, Faceless Haven also gains any tribal buffs that happen to be in play thanks to his Changeling ability. However, the fact that it doesn’t have to tap to attack thanks to vigilance means it’s potent on both offense and defense.
While having to focus entirely on Snow mana to activate this seems like an issue, mono-colored Decks which are already running Snow basic lands are happy to play this. Imagine this in Goblin decks in Historic, where Faceless Haven gains all of the Goblin boosts such as +1/+1 boosts and haste! Elves can also play this if they remain mostly mono-Green. Even in non-Tribal decks, Devotion decks such as Mono-White, Mono-Blue, and Mono-Black Devotion won’t have any trouble playing Faceless Haven, either.
Faceless Haven may be one of the best creature lands printed in awhile. Just look how Crawling Barrens from Zendikar Rising has proven to be in control decks. Yes, Barrens can boost itself with two +1/+1 counters every time you pay four mana, but Faceless Haven begins as a 4/3 with vigilance. In a tribal deck, Faceless Haven is often going to be a 5/4 or 6/5. ‘
The opportunity cost of playing Faceless Haven is relatively low, as while the snow dual lands come into play tapped, so do many other dual lands that see play. Mono-colored decks are happy to play it, and even two-colored tribal decks shouldn’t have any trouble animating Faceless Haven. Plus, there’s a clone in Standard to copy it in Moritte of the Frost, although it’s much better if you copy Faceless Haven while it’s a creature, allowing Moritte to come into play with two additional +1/+1 counters.
Faceless Haven should see play in formats other than Standard, thanks to Snow cards being popular in formats like Modern. Having a colorless land with a fairly easy restriction to overcome should increase the power level of many decks that could use a creature land to complement their gameplan, especially decks already light on creatures. It’s doubtful we’ll see Faceless Haven in many three-color decks, never find four or five color decks. But, there are plenty of ways for this land to be good and it could easily become a staple before we know it.
Even Black/Blue Dimir Rogues will find a way to play Faceless Haven, even if the deck has to drop a couple of Pathways and Temples to add the snow dual land. It actually has decent synergy with cards like Of One Mind and Soaring Thought-Thief. At the very least, Goblins will be happy to play Faceless Haven, as will the tribes that are gaining monumental support in Kaldheim: Angels, Dwarves, Elves, Giants, and Shapeshifters.
How would you play Faceless Haven?
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