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The Magic Chest 6: Clear the Land
At first sight, this isn't a very interesting card. Sure, you can get up to 5 lands into play for only 3 mana, but even if you play with 26 lands in a 62 card deck, you'll still only get 2 lands on average. Not to mention that your opponent benefits from Clear the Land as well. So, how do we make Clear the Land useful? We can use some cards that allow us to arrange our deck any way we want. The problem with that is that it's a combo, we need both cards to get a few lands into play. That doesn't seem worth it. Unless we can find some additional benefit from casting Clear the Land. Notice how each casting mills 5 of your opponent's cards. Lands go into play, but anything else is removed from the game. If you can cast Clear the Land 10 times, you should have milled your opponent to death. Let's give it a try in a blue-green deck with a lot of land. Clear the Land: We have to cast it 10 times at least, so we have to go with four. Revive: Four extra castings of Clear the Land. Reclaim: And four more. That's 12, sure, but a bad Clear the Land could wipe out quite a few. Gaea's Blessing: To make sure we don't deck ourselves and for some final Clear the Land recursion if we need it. Make sure not to bless all Clears back into your library, because your Revives and Reclaims won't work anymore. Let's go with four of these, because you never know how many you'll lose to bad Clears. Soothsaying: The ideal card to go with Clear the Land. Clears get you plenty of mana, which you can use with Soothsaying to prepare your deck for the next Clear or to look for a Clear. Multiples aren't useful, but this card is too important to have any less than four in your deck. Mystical Tutor: To get a Clear quickly. Power Sink: With so much mana, this looks like a no-brainer, but I have my doubts. You're giving your opponent quite a lot of mana as well and you need your mana for other things. Counterspell: This is still the best counter around, but you probably won't have the two blue mana to spare early in the game. Force of Will: I'm not convinced you have enough blue cards to guarantee this being useful. Still, four in the sideboard is almost mandatory against decks with Counterspells, Armageddon and other things this deck really doesn't like. Arcane Denial: It helps your milling strategy, although the card disadvantage won't be much fun usually. Still, it's a guaranteed counter for 1U and if you don't need it, you can always cast a spare Soothsaying and Arcane it, netting you three new cards for the price of two you didn't need. Use Arcane Denial only on your opponent's spells that would really wreck you. Denying Winds: This card isn't necessary, but as this is a deck which expects to have enough mana to cast it and has a complementary strategy, I'd put two if you have them. If not, Stroke of Genius fits the spot as well. Or Whispers of the Muse in a pinch. Glacial Chasm: You need a way to stop creatures and this is the best you can do. It doesn't just stop creatures, it stops all damage to you. That's pretty good. Sacrificing a land shouldn't be too horrible a drawback in a deck with 30 land and the cumulative upkeep should be payable for long enough. If necessary, don't pay it and Reclaim the Chasm or bless it back into your library. Impulse: There's no way to tutor for Soothsaying in the deck and it is quite a vital card. Impulse would help, but that means going with only 26 land. I don't think that would be such a good idea, so I'll leave these out, but if you find yourself wishing for a Soothsaying too often, consider putting four of these in, probably instead of the Arcane Denials. Treetop Village: You can't attack under a Glacial Chasm, so these won't be that useful. Still, with Faerie Conclaves and Stalking Stones as well, you might be able to discourage attacks even without a Chasm. It's worth trying, but I'll leave them out for now, because I want to have quite a few basic lands against Blood Moon, Back to Basics and the likes. Maze of Ith: This and Ice Floe could be useful creature control, but neither of these gives mana and you need a lot of that. Quicksand: This one does give mana and can be quite useful, so I'll put in four. Wasteland: Spot land destruction can be a life saver against horrible stuff like Dustbowl. It doesn't hurt to put in four. Stream of Life: One in the sideboard will help if you expect a lot of damage from your Glacial Chasms. One is enough because you can tutor for it and reuse it with Blessings. There's the risk of a bad Clear, but it's worth taking. Constant Mists: This deck doesn't really like sacrificing its own lands, but against some decks, the Chasms may not be enough. A Constant Mists can fill in for the turn or two it takes you to get a new Chasm. Hydroblast: Against red enchantments like Citadel of Pain you can't do without this. And it's a good red hoser in a deck that doesn't have much use for Chills. Emerald Charm: Certain enchantments just need to be dealt with immediately.
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