by Richard Rowell, Gaming Successfully Staff
As was greatly anticipated by mana, there is indeed a cycle of enemy-colored man-lands in Battle for Zendikar. While the blue/green edition, Lumbering Falls, doesn’t look exciting, getting a 3/3 hexproof beater for 2UG is perfectly acceptable. The other thing to consider is that the Awaken mechanic now makes a bit more sense. Awaken is an alternate casting cost featured on some instants and sorceries that gives you the effect of the cast card plus animates one of your lands into a 0/0 Elemental creature with X amount of +1/+1 counters placed on it. It also gains haste, meaning it can attack right away as long as it's untapped.
While this at first seems counter-intuitive, the way that counters work, if you animate a man-land that has had counters placed on it already, it will gain the effects of those counters. This means that if you cast Ruinous Path and made Lumbering Falls into a 4/4 Elemental land, you could later activate its animate cost to become a 3/3 Hexproof creature and get a 7/7 Hexproof Elemental creature for a turn.That’s certainly not nothing.
The best examples of using +1/+1 counters on man-lands are Inkmoth Nexus and Raging Ravine. The Nexus often becomes a creature in Modern Affinity and gains a +1/+1 from the tap ability of Steel Overseer. Even after the Nexus reverts back to a land, nothing makes the counters go away, so they remain there until the next time the Nexus is activated. (Blinkmoth Nexus works the same way, but it isn't as exciting without Infect.) Raging Ravine, the red/green man-land from Worldwake, actually puts a +1/+1 counter on itself whenever it declares an attack. It’s good enough to still see Modern play, as it’s a threat that keeps getting bigger and bigger.
While it may be Magical Christmas Land to hope for Awaken cards being playable in Modern Affinity to get 5/5 Inkmoth Nexii with Infect, it’s certainly possible for the new man-lands to get considerable boosts from the Awaken mechanic. Ruinous Path is probably the most playable we’ve seen, though. Then again, using a card like Dromoka’s Command to give one of your animated lands a +1/+1 counter or using some Bolster shenanigans to pump up your lands is possible. We’ve seen the power that man-lands have, especially in Modern, so while the Blue/Green one may not be the most powerful of the cycle, it’s going to show up in Standard.
While this at first seems counter-intuitive, the way that counters work, if you animate a man-land that has had counters placed on it already, it will gain the effects of those counters. This means that if you cast Ruinous Path and made Lumbering Falls into a 4/4 Elemental land, you could later activate its animate cost to become a 3/3 Hexproof creature and get a 7/7 Hexproof Elemental creature for a turn.That’s certainly not nothing.
The best examples of using +1/+1 counters on man-lands are Inkmoth Nexus and Raging Ravine. The Nexus often becomes a creature in Modern Affinity and gains a +1/+1 from the tap ability of Steel Overseer. Even after the Nexus reverts back to a land, nothing makes the counters go away, so they remain there until the next time the Nexus is activated. (Blinkmoth Nexus works the same way, but it isn't as exciting without Infect.) Raging Ravine, the red/green man-land from Worldwake, actually puts a +1/+1 counter on itself whenever it declares an attack. It’s good enough to still see Modern play, as it’s a threat that keeps getting bigger and bigger.
While it may be Magical Christmas Land to hope for Awaken cards being playable in Modern Affinity to get 5/5 Inkmoth Nexii with Infect, it’s certainly possible for the new man-lands to get considerable boosts from the Awaken mechanic. Ruinous Path is probably the most playable we’ve seen, though. Then again, using a card like Dromoka’s Command to give one of your animated lands a +1/+1 counter or using some Bolster shenanigans to pump up your lands is possible. We’ve seen the power that man-lands have, especially in Modern, so while the Blue/Green one may not be the most powerful of the cycle, it’s going to show up in Standard.
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