Magic the Gathering players should often ask themselves how much they should spend on a deck is worth. Some players run decks that contain an $160k Back Lotus, while others will simply crack a few $4 booster packs and create a deck out of the cards inside. Most players fall somewhere in between these two extremes, and are willing to spend a reasonable, or slightly more than reasonable, amount of money on their hobby.
But the amount of money that players are being asked to spend on land cards is unreasonable. The lands that are required to play some of Magic The Gathering's most popular formats have shot up in price in recent years, reaching levels that are untenable for many players. This is bad news for the longterm health of Magic, as many players are finding the barrier to entry to be simply too high.
Expensive Magic Lands
In Magic, there are five different colors of mana, and many decks have cards that need more than one of these colors.. This puts a premium on lands that can create more than one color, as they are more flexible than lands that can only create for one. Most lands that can be used to generate more than one mana come in to play tapped, meaning that a player can't use them the turn it's played. These lands, like the Core set 2020 scry lands, are generally considered fine, but not great.
However, there are certain lands that can both create two different colors of mana and can come into play untapped. There are three broad categories of untapped lands. Shocklands tap for two colors, but a player has to pay two life for the land to come in to play untapped, Checklands only come into play untapped if the player already controls another basic land, and a player can pay one life and sacrifice a Fetchland to find an untapped land. All three of these land types are very important for building an optimal land base, and all three are very expensive.
Take for example, the blue/black versions of each of these lands seen above. The blue/black Shockland is currently selling for about $9.50, the Checkland is about $6, and the Fetchland is going for a whopping $24. A blue/black deck will normally run four copies of each of these lands, which is the maximum allowed in Magic's rules. When one compares these prices to those of basic one color Magic lands, which sell for literally pennies, it's easy to see that there is a problem.
It's easy to say that Magic is an expensive hobby, and write off expensive lands as just another example of this. But it's not that simple. There's always been a space for budget deck building in Magic, and creative players can build some powerful decks without spending all that much money. But every single budget deck that is in more than one color would be objectively better with expensive lands in it. There is no way to build around this, and there are no unique or fun outs. If a deck has a better land base, then it will perform both faster and more consistently than a deck without one.
While this might not be a huge deal for players who like to just play at the kitchen table with their friends, it's a very big deal for players who are looking to play competitively. One of the more popular competitive formats of Magic is called Modern. Players can build Modern decks with any cards that were printed between 2003 and today, with the exception a few banned MTG cards.
Modern is a very expensive format, where some staple cards can cost upwards of $80 to $100. According to the popular, Magic finance website, MTGoldfish, the cheapest meta relevant deck in Modern is a red/blue agro deck, which relies on direct damage spells to kill the other player as quickly as possible. The deck costs about $450, which is relatively cheap, considering the fact that Modern decks can run into the thousands of dollars, especially if they're running expensive cards from new Magic sets.
If one breaks down the costs of the deck, a new picture begins to emerge. All together the deck's spells, creatures and sideboard, cost about 120 dollars, which is expensive, but not necessarily bank breaking. It's about the price of two new video games. But the lands for the deck cost over 330 dollars, which is close to triple the the price of the rest of the deck.
And the lands aren't even the fun part of the deck, they're just the skeleton that holds the rest of the deck together. While there are some Magic decks that rely on land based synergy, for most players, lands are simply a means to and end. They're the tools that let gamers play flashy spells and huge monsters. It's very demoralizing to half to shell out so much money for what is to many, the least interesting part of the game.
With prices like these, it's easy to see why many players who would otherwise be interested in Modern, end up avoiding the format - it's just too expensive. If a player isn't willing to pay over 330 dollars for what is essentially a "budget" deck, they're simply not going to be able to compete, especially at the top level of Magic play. These expensive lands are acting as a massive barrier to entry for new players. This isn't just true of Modern, many fans are unable to play other formats like Vintage, Legacy, or even Commander, due to the price of lands.
The Solution for MTG's Expensive Lands
So what is the solution to this expensive land problem? Pleasent Kenobi, the popular Magic YouTuber and content creator has a simple solution. He's started a campaign where he and many other players are calling on Magic's developer, Wizards of the Coast, to simply reprint these lands more frequently in new Magic The Gathering expansions.
Pleasentkenobi has a good point. Without dedicated and frequent reprinting, Shocklands, Checklands, and Fetchlands will not only remain expensive, but actually increase in price. If Wizards of the Coast wants to keep Magic accessible, the best way to do so is to make more of these lands available to the players.
And there is good news. During this week's Zendikar Rising reveal event, Wizards of The Coast announced that it would be reprinting half of the Fetchlands in the upcoming expansion Modern Masters 2. Now, this expansion isn't coming out till 2021, and packs of Modern Masters 2 will probably cost about twice as much as a normal pack. But still, many players are very happy with this news. If basic economics is to be believed, an increase in the supply of Fetchlands should help lower the price by quite a bit.
The announced reprints are a great start, but unless Wizards commits to frequently reprinting Fetchlands, Shocklands and Checklands, prices will start to rise again. Both Shocklands and Checklands were reprinted in recent expansions, which is one of the reasons they're so much cheaper than the Fetchlands. But the expansions they were included in have recently fallen out of print, meaning that the prices for these lands could start to rise again in the near future.
For many players, reprinting these lands isn't just about making Magic affordable, but about leveling the playing field. Players want to play a game where it takes skill, and not money, to win.
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