This is a bit different than the stranger cards that I have been posting lately. There's no question that this card is very powerful with its ability to basically "Tinker" any land into play (at instant speed no less), but is that sort of ability consistently good enough for lands? Has this card been wrongly overlooked? Has this card been appropriately dismissed?
I think the problem with this card in testing is that I usually want to ramp stuff instead of replacing one land with another. Aside from Dark Depths and Tabernacle, I cannot think of a single land that would be super awesome to rotate into. I could be wrong though.
The card is playable if you have Library of Alexandria in your deck, or really need that Maze of Ith now. It's playable if you really need to Wasteland/Strip Mine/Tec Edge one of their lands. It's playable if your victory condition is Creeping Tar Pit. There are other nonbasics as well, but yeah.
I'm not convinced that one-shot nonbasic tutors are terribly important, either in archetypes or in general. Only Strip Mine / Crucible comes to mind as a deck where I'd really need such a card.
It's obviously not a ramp spell and should not be viewed as such. It's pretty bad as far as color fixing (use Abundant Growth, Rampant Growth, or whatever else instead), but I suppose it can do that in a pinch. I think Sylvan Scrying, as noted below, is the better path.
I feel obliged to post best case scenario / worst case scenario:
BCS: You're attacking with a 2/3 Steppe Lynx, you have a fetchland in your deck, and your opponent blocks with Inferno Titan.
WCS: The above, but your opponent casts Force Spike, and you can't pay for it.
This is an example IMO where the utility provided does not outweigh the card disadvantage / worst-case scenarios.
Getting Strip Mine when you have Crucible out is probably the best use of this (or getting LoA when you have 7 cards in hand) and both are not particularly easy to pull off, nor are they super insane once you get them. Sure, getting Tolarian Academy when you have four artifacts out or something bonkers like that is possible but definitely not probable.
The times this is insane is far less than the times that it gets countered and you're a card and a land down.
It's not worth a card in the cube. I wouldn't expend a card and sacrifice a Forest to turn it into a Treetop Village. I think you're better off including land tutors first (Sylvan Scrying, Expedition Map) before using a card disadvantage land tutor. The BCS on Crop Rotation is too low in a limited environment to justify what it's average play will actually be. It's a "Tinker" for lands, but what does that really mean?
Everyone is pretty much reinforcing my own thoughts on the card. The advantage of other "Tinker like" effects is that, in addition to general utility applications, they can greatly accelerate the end game. Crop Rotation, while effective from a utility perspective, does not have this accelerated end game mode. Which is a pity since it is a powerful card. Anyone have a differing point of view?
It's not worth a card in the cube. I wouldn't expend a card and sacrifice a Forest to turn it into a Treetop Village. I think you're better off including land tutors first (Sylvan Scrying, Expedition Map) before using a card disadvantage land tutor. The BCS on Crop Rotation is too low in a limited environment to justify what it's average play will actually be. It's a "Tinker" for lands, but what does that really mean?
Sylvan Scrying in particular is way better than Crop Rotation, and it might actually be playable at 720+.
Crop rotation is good when you really want to have a specific land right now, though in a standard cube I dont see it very much (I really need Karakas! perhaps). In a cube with stuff like tron or cloudposts it's good though.
Crop rotation is good when you really want to have a specific land right now, though in a standard cube I dont see it very much (I really need Karakas! perhaps). In a cube with stuff like tron or cloudposts it's good though.
It seems like even in situations where you want a specific land or cards like Tron and Posts, that you'd still rather have something like Sylvan Scrying.
Crop Rotation is honestly only good when it allows you to do something broken, not just complete Tron. I can see playing it in Vintage as a 5th Mishra's Workshop in 5C Stax or Bazaar of Baghdad for Dredge combos, but even then its use is questionable despite potentially winning in the first few turns.
I think if your cube has multiple lands worth searching, I'd still rather use Sylvan Scrying, or for blue, Tolaria West, which can even search non lands. Not that they are cubable, just saying these are the best nonbasic land searchers available IMO.
But to form the colorless Tron and Posts in theme cubes, Expedition Map is definitely the best one.
I like the card. Its a psuedo fetch-land if you like at its worst. You can exchange your basic forest with a dual-land to color fix, or find Ancient Tomb or whatever. Plus if you got Life from the Loam or Crucible of Worlds in your deck its even better. It can also "save" your land from target land destruction.
Except fetchlands are card parity, and this is card disadvantage. And they're free. So this is like a really, really, really bad fetchland ...that costs mana and an additional card... at its worst.
Very few lands in the cube (if any) are worth a mana, a card and sacrificing a land to get them. Especially since you can just pay 2 mana to tutor one up and not suffer the card disadvantage.
You are of course correct. Yes, fetch-lands are better for the purpose of fetching lands in their color, and Sylvan Scrying isn't card disadvantage etc. But personally I like that its an instant rather than sorcery, which also makes it more flexible. The land comes into play (untapped) rather than tapped or into hand, which also can make a difference sometimes. Like many cards in the cube it also need its targets and/or support to really shine, but that's more up to the cube-environment/designer than the card's fault I would say in this case. I can see that in most cubes it might not have enough good targets to make it super :-P and that its not by all means a cube staple, but it can have its uses even with its draw-backs.
If you have all the playable power lands like Mishra's Workshop, Tolarian Academy, Gaea's Cradle, Maze of Ith, etc.. then maybe it's good enough in a small list where it will have consistent targets.
Correct. It's simply not worth a card. It is in constructed because you're almost always countering a Wasteland simultaneously. Which erases the card disadvantage.
We currently don't have enough good land destruction in cube to make this worth a card. Looking at the trend, we probably never will in next 10 years either.
Correct. It's simply not worth a card. It is in constructed because you're almost always countering a Wasteland simultaneously. Which erases the card disadvantage.
I don't think so. Wasteland protection is incidental to its use. It's in constructed because you can pull shenanigans like tapping a Gaea's Cradle for mana, saccing it to Crop Rot, get another Cradle, cast four elves and Craterhoof Behemoth, attack with a bunch of giant dudes. Or tap some Cloudposts for mana, sac a basic land to Crop Rot, get another Cloudpost, untap them with Candelabra of Tawnos, cast Emrakul. It's a combo piece that sometimes helps you toolbox a little bit. Without enough multi-mana lands to help with the combo portion in cube, the toolbox aspect isn't quite good enough on its own.
So it loses the combo potential, and loses the Wasteland insurance. Which means all you have left is a really bad toolbox effect. Which, again, that role is better served with another card.
One problem I've had is how feast or famine Mishra's Workshop is can be on some occasions.
I'm wondering if Crop Rotation is worth a slot (compared to 7 years ago):
- More Land Recursion (Wreen, Ramnup)
- Urza's Saga, Better Manlands, Field of the Dead in addition to Gaea's Cradle, Dark Depths, Karakas, Strip Mine
- Shelldock Isle is a real powerhose in storm (which couldn't be sufficiently supported 5-6 years ago)
- Delve/ Escape support - This can put 3 cards into the bin if it grabs a fetchland
- 1 CMC Ramp (although painful) with Ancient Tomb.
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I just added Crop Rotation to test support for a Lands/Depths archetype. I also agree with Breathe’s points above about a lot of recent printings that make it interesting.
This is a bit different than the stranger cards that I have been posting lately. There's no question that this card is very powerful with its ability to basically "Tinker" any land into play (at instant speed no less), but is that sort of ability consistently good enough for lands? Has this card been wrongly overlooked? Has this card been appropriately dismissed?
Discuss.
Modern: Jund Legacy: RUG Delver EDH: Captain Sisay
I'm not convinced that one-shot nonbasic tutors are terribly important, either in archetypes or in general. Only Strip Mine / Crucible comes to mind as a deck where I'd really need such a card.
It's obviously not a ramp spell and should not be viewed as such. It's pretty bad as far as color fixing (use Abundant Growth, Rampant Growth, or whatever else instead), but I suppose it can do that in a pinch. I think Sylvan Scrying, as noted below, is the better path.
I feel obliged to post best case scenario / worst case scenario:
BCS: You're attacking with a 2/3 Steppe Lynx, you have a fetchland in your deck, and your opponent blocks with Inferno Titan.
WCS: The above, but your opponent casts Force Spike, and you can't pay for it.
Getting Strip Mine when you have Crucible out is probably the best use of this (or getting LoA when you have 7 cards in hand) and both are not particularly easy to pull off, nor are they super insane once you get them. Sure, getting Tolarian Academy when you have four artifacts out or something bonkers like that is possible but definitely not probable.
The times this is insane is far less than the times that it gets countered and you're a card and a land down.
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Sylvan Scrying in particular is way better than Crop Rotation, and it might actually be playable at 720+.
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It seems like even in situations where you want a specific land or cards like Tron and Posts, that you'd still rather have something like Sylvan Scrying.
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But to form the colorless Tron and Posts in theme cubes, Expedition Map is definitely the best one.
Except fetchlands are card parity, and this is card disadvantage. And they're free. So this is like a really, really, really bad fetchland ...that costs mana and an additional card... at its worst.
Very few lands in the cube (if any) are worth a mana, a card and sacrificing a land to get them. Especially since you can just pay 2 mana to tutor one up and not suffer the card disadvantage.
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and a higher amount land destruction than the average cube, I think it wouldn't be the worst idea to run Crop Rotation
I don't think so. Wasteland protection is incidental to its use. It's in constructed because you can pull shenanigans like tapping a Gaea's Cradle for mana, saccing it to Crop Rot, get another Cradle, cast four elves and Craterhoof Behemoth, attack with a bunch of giant dudes. Or tap some Cloudposts for mana, sac a basic land to Crop Rot, get another Cloudpost, untap them with Candelabra of Tawnos, cast Emrakul. It's a combo piece that sometimes helps you toolbox a little bit. Without enough multi-mana lands to help with the combo portion in cube, the toolbox aspect isn't quite good enough on its own.
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I'm wondering if Crop Rotation is worth a slot (compared to 7 years ago):
- More Land Recursion (Wreen, Ramnup)
- Urza's Saga, Better Manlands, Field of the Dead in addition to Gaea's Cradle, Dark Depths, Karakas, Strip Mine
- Shelldock Isle is a real powerhose in storm (which couldn't be sufficiently supported 5-6 years ago)
- Delve/ Escape support - This can put 3 cards into the bin if it grabs a fetchland
- 1 CMC Ramp (although painful) with Ancient Tomb.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
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