After our article on the 10 best cantrips in the format, you pointed out that we didn’t mention the surveil lands. Indeed, these lands have established themselves as true staples in our format, contributing to a sort of revolution in Magic: The Gathering. Meeting a player who doesn’t include them in their deck is like encountering an outdated interpretation of the game. In this article, we will explore why you should consider including surveil lands in your deck.
What are surveil lands?
Introduced in the Murders at Karlov Manor expansion (MKM), the surveil lands are a cycle of lands that allow you to surveil 1 when they enter the battlefield. This mechanic lets you look at the top card of your library and decide whether to keep it or send it to the graveyard, aiding in strategic planning and enabling players to optimize their draws.
However, the most obvious drawback of surveil lands is that they cannot be tapped for mana during the turn they enter the battlefield. This limitation can pose a challenge for decks that require an explosive start. But what are the real advantages of these lands?
- Fetchability: Surveil lands can be easily fetched through fetchlands or cards that search for specific types of basic lands, further expanding the strategic options available.
- Deck filtering: One of the main strengths of surveil lands is their ability to filter your deck. Through the surveil ability, you can improve the quality of your draws by removing less useful cards and setting up strategic turns. In a 100-card format, variance is higher, but a well-built deck often includes various categories of cards you might want to search for: lands, removals, counterspells, and combo tutors. This allows you to maximize the effectiveness of your plays.
- Synergies with graveyard strategies: The surveil mechanic integrates perfectly with decks that exploit graveyard interactions. Reanimator strategies, for instance, can benefit from the option to discard cards into the graveyard in a controlled manner, improving the overall effectiveness of the game plan. Decks like Kess, Dissident Mage and Tasigur, the Golden Fang, or other decks that include Cling to Dust or Snapcaster Mage can take advantage of and fully utilize the ability of these lands.
- Information: Knowing what’s on top of your library can be an invaluable tool. For example, playing one of these lands from your hand after activating the first ability of Aminatou, the Fateshifter can prove decisive. Furthermore, it can significantly influence the strategic decisions of decks that rely on cards played from the top of the library, like Errant and Giada. This ability not only enriches the gameplay experience but also provides a crucial tactical advantage.
- Two colors: Surveil lands offer the opportunity to generate two different colors of mana and can be integrated into the manabase of many decks. This feature makes them ideal for decks that require specific color combinations, which is a crucial aspect in a singleton format like Centurion.
- They teach you resource management: Including surveil lands in your deck will train you to think of these lands as resources within the deck. If in the past, during the early game when you had “nothing to do,” you fetched at the end of your opponent’s turn for a shockland (like Hallowed Fountain) or a triome (like Savai Triome), now you know you always have a means of Consider at your disposal. Over time, this will lead you to evaluate well when it’s the right moment to take a certain action. If you play two surveil lands, you will likely want to put the first one into play during the early turns. For the second, you can wait for the right moment when you need to dig through your deck for a specific answer or threat. By developing a greater awareness of your resources, you will learn to balance immediate needs with long-term strategies, honing your planning and card management skills in the deck.
How many surveil lands should I play?
The question of how many surveil lands to include in your deck varies depending on the strategy. For two-color decks, including one surveil land may seem obvious. However, it’s not a hard rule: let’s take Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful and Jeska, Thrice Reborn as examples. This top-tier deck has building constraints that lead to the inclusion of legendary lands that produce a single color of mana. Furthermore, the inclusion of cards like Blood Moon can further impact the manabase. This makes adding a tapped land risky, as it can compromise the game’s tempo. This deck needs to race against time to avoid letting control decks stabilize and combo decks assemble their finishing move. Therefore, it is always important to carefully consider the choice of whether to include this type of land.
Regarding three-color decks:
- Aside from rare exceptions, almost every tricolor deck can include one of these lands without issues.
- In most cases, it is advisable to include two surveil lands. However, it’s crucial to consider the total number of lands and how many other tapped or potentially tapped lands (like Inspiring Vantage) we are already playing.
- Reaching three surveil lands can be risky if the previously mentioned factors are not taken into account.
Moving up to four or even five colors complicates the situation. It is not possible to establish a valid rule a priori, as the factors to address increase significantly, and each case should be evaluated individually.
Surveil lands lead to greater depth of play in Centurion Commander. Although they present some challenges, they should always be considered a valid choice for many decks. With the ongoing evolution of the Centurion format, the inclusion of these lands has proven to be a decisive factor in creating winning strategies. If you haven’t yet explored the potential of surveil lands in your decks, now might be the perfect time to start!
