(I apologize for any typos this week, I had less time to edit due to University commitments coming up unexpectedly)

When I first started writing this article, it got long and became a kind of pseudo-deck dump. It was ugly and unreadable, so I decided to take a different approach to examining manabases in upcoming Kaldheim Standard. Rather than trying to assume what decks will be most important, I came to some fundamental assumptions about lands, their power, and when you should include them in a manabase. I want to discuss these assumptions, and the ways in which certain meta-game shifts may change these evaluations.

To begin with, I want to address the elephant in the room when it comes to Lands in upcoming Standard: Snow. Snow is an interesting mechanic, and while I personally am a fan, and there are cards with Snow mana symbols I am super excited for, I also recognize the fears many players have.

https://twitter.com/nicknprince/status/1348380834361851905?s=20

Nick’s point here is one a lot of players feel, and I can’t fault them. I have basic land art I am partial to. When I started writing this piece, I just assumed playing Snow-Covered basics was better, but then one more card was previewed.

Reidane is the card that punishes Snow enough that I can see it not just being strictly better to play Snow lands. For this reason, I will not build manabases with Snow lands unless I have a payoff in mind. In addition, there is also a cycle of ten Snow dual lands with basic land types which enter tapped. The existence of Snow lands is about payoffs, but the playing basic lands (Snow or not) is also impacted by arguably the best land in the format: Fabled Passage.

Fabled Passage fixes your mana base and makes all color combinations more viable. Being able to fetch specific basics made the 4c Omnath decks able to break Standard, and Fabled Passage also enables extra landfall triggers when that’s relevant. While the Pathway Cycle doesn’t enable extra landfall triggers, it similarly solves a lot of mana-woes.

Above is the Izzet Pathway, but every color pair has a Pathway, which makes a lot more color combinations far better. Specifically, the four new Pathways are WU (Azorius), BG (Golgari) , UG (Simic), and BR (Rakdos). These open up a lot of options in other formats, specifically Historic, but for Standard the completion of the Pathway cycle is even more important. This opens far more space for three, four and maybe even five color decks. As well as two color decks which were not previously viable. The tension however is with more color intensive cards. A card with three blue pips in its cost is difficult for a mana base with a lot of Pathways to cast.The other problem with Pathways is their lack of land types. The other lands without types are, of course, the Modal Double Faced Cards (MDFCs) lands which are powerful in their own right, but they aren’t dual lands or mana fixing.

MDFCs are cards which have two faces, and you can decide which one to play. For the purpose of this discussion, the most relevant are the MDFCs which are a spell on one side and a land on the other. The cost of all of these is two fold. For the non-mythics, they are tapped lands. For the Mythics, to get them into play untapped, you must pay three life. The other cost is their lack of land types. Agadeem, The Undercypt is not a swamp.

The cost of types I will address momentarily, but I want to discuss MDFCs as a whole quickly. They are powerful, and while not every MDFC has seen play, their effects and their ability to double as a land in certain situations makes them versatile. Playing a given MDFC land is down mostly to how much utility it can have as a spell. The question I believe people should ask when deciding if they should include a specific MDFC is “Am I happy with this as a spell? Am I okay with it as a land?” I believe the answer to both of these needs to be yes, or mostly yes to consider playing a given MDFC. For example, Agadeem’s Undercrypt in Rogues is key as a spell, and it can make unwinnable situations winnable. In addition, sometimes three life for an untapped black source is just fine, if not ideal. The Temples (etb tapped scry one duals) also do not have basic land types, but only Esper was playing those, and I see almost no reason to play Temples outside of Yorion shells with all of the Pathways existing. While MDFCs and Pathways don’t have types, there is a cycle of non-Snow lands with types. The Triomes.

The Triome cycle is not complete, there are only five. The above is Ketria (Green, Blue Red). The others are Savai (White, Black, Red), Raguin (White, Blue, Red), Indatha (White, Black Green), and Zagoth (Black, Green, Blue). Each of these lands have basic land types, enter tapped, and can be cycled for three mana. Because of this, when examining three color decks, I think biasing towards these options is valuable. However, the existence of Pathways opens up a lot of deck building space and color combinations, even without Triomes. Triomes ability to cycle has seen them be included in decks which don’t utilize the third color, Rogues played Zagoth Triome for a period. Now, normally the cost of types is related to their ability to be “fetched,” but standard only has one fetchland (Fabled Passage), and it only gets basic. The importance of land types matters for another cycle of lands: the Castles.

The castle Cycle each have very different abilities, and their potential utility is by far the most contextual of any lands (except for Snow lands which should only go in Snow decks). Their abilities all cost either three or four mana, and they require tapping. land. Functionally, this means castle activations cost four or five mana. For this reason, I want to discuss when I believe they should be included, and when they shouldn’t. Firstly, Castle Ardenvale is best in control shells where it enables bluffing, and can be used to make 1/1s if your opponent doesn’t cast something worth countering or otherwise interacting with. Castle Ardenvale is also useful in aggro shells because it functions as wrath protection in worst case scenarios. For this reason, I see Ardenvale as a near auto-include in any base white deck. Castle Vantress is a card I, personally, don’t like. I don’t think it’s valuable in control shells, I would much rather spend 4 mana to make a 1/1 in the late game, and if I get to a point where I am activating both Castle Ardenvale and Vantress in my Control deck, I feel like I have already lost. If a Mono-Blue aggressive, “aggro-control,” deck exists, I never want to waste five mana to scry two. There are just better things to do, including one of my favorite cards in the set Ascendant Spirit.

For this reason, I don’t see Castle Vantress as a playable card in most scenarios. Most players trick themselves into playing in control decks because there is little theoretical downside, but I think there are better options. For example, playing snow lands so your deck can use Ascendant Spirit as a finisher. Castle Locthwain is the most rawly powerful of the Castles, and I think it’s great in almost any deck which can reliably have double black. Life for cards is powerful, and drawing cards is much better than scrying, and four mana is meaningfully less than five. Castle Embreth is interesting because I think it has the lowest opportunity cost of any of the Castles, and the most potential benefit. The only reason not to play Castle Embereth I can imagine is if some red based control deck picks up, but even then, you likely play Bone Crusher Giant, and making that 5/3 in a pinch can win games. For this reason, I see Embereth as a near auto-include in any base Red deck. Lastly, Castle Garenbrig. Arguably the most narrow land in the cycle, and much like Castle Embreth, you need to have Creatures for it to generate value. If GW (Sylesnea) blink takes off again, I don’t think it fits into those shells. However, Castle Garenbrig is key to the success and speed of Mono-Green Food, a deck which I think might still have a place in Kaldheim Standard. Any creature based green decks which are close to mono-colored should consider playing this Castle.

With Castles addressed, this leads to what are, in my mind, the hardest lands to evaluate. In Kaldheim, at Uncommon, there is a cycle of lands which enter tapped, and can be sacrificed for some effect. Each of these is very different, so I want to rank them quickly, but I don’t think my full evaluation of them is helpful. Rather, I will put them into manabases when they fit into that colors strategy already, and see if they play out. If they don’t, I will happily cut them for the basics.

1. Gates of Istfell — WU
2. Immersturm Skullcairn — BR
3. Great Hall of Starnheim — WB
4. Litjara Mirrorlake — UG
5. Skemfar Elderhall — BG
6. Surtland Frostpyre — UR
7. Bretagard Strongold — WG
8. Port of Karfell — UB
9. Axgard Armory — WR
10. Gnottvold Slumbermound — RG

I don’t want to write too much about these lands because the only two I think realistically have a good chance of seeing play are the Azorius and Rakdos ones, potentially the Orzhov and Simic ones, and after that I don’t see any of these lands being key players in Standard. Azorious just seems very powerful in control decks, and the Rakdos one seems like a fixed version of Ramenap Ruins. These cards are difficult to evaluate in my estimation. One example of my above: “Only play these if they fit into a decks strategy” is Don’t play the UB one in Rogues to get back a bad one drop for example. For the same cost, you can buy, play and cast a card with Lurus.

With the different land choices addressed, the next question is “How many should I play?” In my mind, people often play too few lands in their Standard decks. People are undervaluing the MDFCs, and counting them as lands too often in my estimation. The lowest land-counts in hyper linear, aggressive decks are about 20 (in current mono-white lists), with 2–4 MDFCs in the mix. I think this number may need to go up to account for both Boast and Foretell.

While I can not give answers to exactly what decks or color combinations will be viable, I am trying to lay out models for how I think building manabases should go. A small bullet list version of what I put in more detail above:

Castles — (Obvious caveat that you should ONLY include these if your deck includes the color of the Castle)

• Ardenvale — Aggro and Control lists should play this card
• Vantress — Maybe play in Control, but I think there are better things to be doing
• Locthwain — Aggro and Control lists should play this card
• Embereth — Aggro decks should play this card
• Garenbrig — Heavily creature based, almost mono colored decks should play this

Pathways — Play them as 4 ofs in 2 color, and adjust based on cards in 3,4,5

Snow — Only use Snow lands if there is a good and important payoff in the deck

Temples — Don’t play them, unless you are companioining Yorion.

Triomes — Definitely play them in three color decks with the colors corresponding to an individual Triome, possibly valuable in Yorion builds without the third color, if there aren’t better card selection options

• MDFCs — Play MDFCs if the answer to the two questions “Am I happy with this as a spell? Am I okay with it as a land?” are both yes

Ranking of the Kladheim Color Pair Cycle

• WU
• BR
• WB
• UG
• BG
• UR
• WG
• UB
• WR
• RG
• Land Counts — Even aggro decks should play more lands than traditional, especially if you count MDFCs as lands.

Next week, I will be posting an article with some decklists and ideas I have for Kaldheim Standard! I hope you join me then!