The card in focus: the Fetch countries
This week I'll be snowing in on countries, more precisely the fetch countries. There are 10 different fetch countries and they all do the same thing - they fetch countries from the deck. How sad you might be thinking? Yes, lands are probably not the most fun cards to get for your deck - but they are almost always the most important, which is why it's important to understand how powerful lands can be for certain decks.
In any game that plays more than two suits in Commander, fetchlands are a fantastic way to ensure that you have a better chance of finding all of your needed suits in time. If you play Modern, Legacy or Vintage, you know that fetchlands are one of the most important cards to have access to.
Why are the countries so good?
Get the color you need
We take the land “Polluted Delta” as an example, you cannot lose it for mana, but you can pay 1 life and sacrifice it to look up an Island or Swamp card, from the deck. The fact that it says Island or Swampcard is important, it allows you to retrieve double countries that have the country type Island or Swamp. It is not only basic countries that have it, but also some double countries (and triple countries). With a Polluted Delta you can pick up a Watery Grave (Island and Swamp), a Blood Crypt (Swamp) or a Raugrin Triome (Plains, Island, Mountain). As long as the land type Island or Swamp is written on the card you want to look up, you can find it.
This by extension means that if you play a black and green deck, you can play a Polluted Delta in your deck to be able to draw Overgrown Tomb, Woodland Chasm or why not your Bayou?
Having the land fetch the color you need is also a huge advantage when building your deck, especially when deciding which lands and how many lands you need in each color. In a normal 60-card deck, 20-24 lands are usually needed. If you want to be reasonably sure of having green mana turn 1 to play a Llanowar Elves then you need to have about 14 lands (preferably more) giving you green mana in the deck. If you play more colors than green, you need countries for that color as well, then we are already up to 28 countries if you only use Basic countries. This is usually solved with dual lands that can produce both types of mana, for example Necroblossom Snarl. Four Snarls in the deck count as 4 Forest and 4 Swamp, then we're down to 10 Basic lands of each color and 4 Necroblossom Snarl.
Fetch lands have the same effect and become even more powerful in games that play three or more suits as they can count as all three suits.
In the Modern format, it's not unusual for almost half of the lands in the deck to be fetch lands, as they also have the bonus effect of reducing the number of lands in the deck once you've scouted a land. And anyone who has played Magic knows that drawing too many lands can be terribly frustrating and lead to many unnecessary losses, this reduces the risk of that (at least a few percent).
In Commander, the fetch lands have the advantage of being counted as colorless as they do not generate mana themselves. This allows a Polluted Delta to be played in decks even if the deck does not contain either black or blue. Having five different fetch lands in the deck effectively means you have six copies of your Raugrin Triome for example, which is one of the best lands available in a Jeskaile deck (white-blue-red).
So to summarize, starting the game with a fetchland turn 1 can pretty much guarantee you have access to the colors you need to play your spells.
Other bonuses with Fetchländer
Mixing up the deck
Sacrificing a fetchland and searching the deck may not sound like much of an advantage, but there are small advantages to be gained from mixing up the deck. A classic example is that you play a Brainstorm hoping to find another land in the deck, you draw your three cards and still see no land... Then you are stuck on lands and know that the next two cards you draw are not lands either , then you sacrifice your fetch land and reshuffle the deck to have another chance at finding a land (or if you just don't like the cards on top of the deck).
Landfall triggers
If you're playing a game with land drops or just an Avenger of Zendikar, you'll want to play out lands. A fetch land causes your landfall tiggers to happen twice.
When lands in the graveyard give bonuses or benefits
If you have a Ramunap Excavator (for example) in a game that lets you play lands from the graveyard, a fetchland guarantees that you can play a land every turn, as long as your Excavator survives. This coupled with effects that allow you to play multiple lands each turn can give you large amounts of mana very quickly.
Disadvantages of the fetch countries then?
They cost lives. Yes, they do. But in formats where you start at 20 life, 1 life costs much less than not being able to play out your creatures or removal spells quickly.
The biggest downside to the game is that a lot of time is spent searching the deck and shuffling. The matches will contain less playing time and more "dead time" when you just sit and wait for the opponent to finish mixing.
I hope this gives some insight into why fetch lands are so sought after and important to many Magic formats. If you have other advantages, or disadvantages of the fetch lands, please comment below to help everyone become a better Magic player.
/Fetch the cod