Warped Landscape from Magic the Gathering’s Shadows Over Innistrad set proved prove to be a very useful colorless utility land. While it’s seemingly a worse version of a popular Commander 2014 card called Myriad Landscape, there are both advantages and disadvantages to this common land card.
Firstly, Myriad Landscape is only legal in Commander, Legacy, and Vintage, thanks to not being printed in a set that was Standard legal at one time. It comes into play tapped, but can then sacrifice itself to seek out two basic lands of the same type and put them into play for only two mana. However, being colorless and useful in pretty much any deck, Myriad Landscape is one of the most used lands in Commander. EDHREC estimates that 22 percent of the decks in its database as of May 2022 include Myriad Landscape as part of their mana bases.
The major advantage of Warped Landscape over its Myriad counterpart is that it comes into play untapped, meaning you can tap it for mana as soon as it comes into play. It also lets you sacrifice it for two mana to get a basic land into play tapped. That’s the same mana investment as Rampant Growth, but it requires that you play a land for turn in addition. While it’s not as good as Myriad Landscape, it easily sees play in Commander, albeit at a far lesser rate. As of May 2022, EDHREC has compiled about 10000 decks that play Warped Landscape, a mere one percent of all decks indexed by the website.
Did Warped Landscape see play in Standard?
With the Khans of Tarkir fetchlands no longer in the Standard format when Shadows over Innistrad arrived, some speculated that Warped Landscape would be good for Battle for Zendikar block Landfall triggers. It’s good that you can play it and use its ability in the same turn for two such triggers. While the basic land coming into play tapped puts it on par with a land like Evolving Wilds, although Wilds doesn’t tap for mana. Immediately, Warped Landscape became a key part of many sealed deck and draft decks in high level play. However, when it came to Constructed, you didn’t see anyone in high-level competition playing this card.
Still, you can’t ask a lot from a non-basic land printed at common. Shortening your deck and fixing your mana is always going to be important, especially when mana fixing is at a premium such as in limited play. Unfortunately, Warped Landscape didn’t make the cut in competitive Standard deck, as seeking out basic lands in a format with plenty of dual mana options wasn’t as necessary as it had been in past formats.
Does Warped Landscape see play in other formats besides EDH?
Predictably, Warped Landscape has seen a fair amount of Commander play, especially in Landfall-happy Omnath, Locus of Rage decks. Getting two 5/5 Elemental tokens is pretty good, after all. As mentioned in the open, Warped Landscape sees play in a lot of Commander lists, and while it’s not an optimal play in the format’s competitive scene, it’s still a card that people jam into EDH decks well into 2022.
According to deckbox.org, a haven for casual “kitchen table” decks, Warped Landscape is still added to deck lists all of the time. Mana fixing is always good to have, especially when you’re working with a limited pool of cards and a limited budget. This is always going to be a great common land to have around, and being colorless, it can fit into pretty much any deck if need be. While Myriad Landscape is a superior card in the Commander format, and other competitive formats such as Modern have proper fetchlands, Warped Landscape isn’t a bad land to have as part of a deck building toolbox.
