The Land Destruction deck

Land destructions work on the principle that if your opponent has no land, they do nothing but let you kill them. The purpose of the deck is to strip your opponent of mana to paralyze them until you can get something out that will kill them. A side effect of this is that they will have many cards in their hand, so a logical first choice would be Black Vise.

However, there are other effects that keep your opponent from being able to do anything. Nether Void (legends) is one such effect. If all spells cost 3 more to cast, and you keep your opponent under 4 mana in play, they are effectively paralyzed. Other choices may include Stasis or Winter Orb.

The most difficult part about constructing an effective land destruction deck is balancing land destruction effects out with non-land destruction effects. Typically, your opponent's deck will have 20 or more mana producing effects. However, it is probably overkill to have 20 different land destruction effects and will make your deck less effective rather than more. If your opponent has no lands in play, your land destruction spells are worthless to you.

Another difficulty is figuring out which route to take when thinking about what to include to kill your opponent. You could try creatures, or Black Vise as mentioned earlier (even though it's restricted in type 2), or maybe Storm Seeker. Strategies are diverse.

Cards that negate or equalize land destruction effects include Equinox (seldom effective), Consecrate Land, Pyramids (rarely seen), Land Equilibrium, Balance and decks that function on fewer than 2 mana effectively, such as a weenie creature deck. Also, if your opponent is able to get a Land's Edge into play, they may decide to simply discard land for damage, and discard other cards to avoid damage from Black Vises and Storm Seekers. Another annoying card is the Zuran Orb. It comes into play for free, and every time you target a land for destruction, your opponent will sacrifice it to gain 2 life. For reasons like this, you should not rely on the Black Vise and Storm Seeker to do your damage for you.

Many people put Dingus Egg and Ankh of Mishra into land destruction decks. This may be useful, but I have found them to be unreliable ways of inflicting damage. Besides, they may also do damage to you!

Of course, in any deck, you should be wary of Counterspells. Furthermore, if your opponent has 4 mana in play (this is a bad thing) and one of them is an island, don't forget Deflection (Ice Age).

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