I’ve always been enamoured of the basic land cards in MTG. I used to sort my lands so I kept a copy of each unique card separate from the bulk that I used in decks. I valued the more exotic examples, and considered them an important part of my collection.
< Unhinged
So is it any wonder that a few months back I decided to start putting the basic lands – and just the basic lands – together in a binder. I was then bitten by the collecting bug and went out and purchased basic lands (at the price of $0.10 each) to fill the empty spots in the collection. The binder grew, the pages filled. And eventually my ‘land binder’ had become a fairly complete collection of MTG basic land.
< Mirrodin
How many cards is this you ask? The answer is… about 600 cards.
I have every land for each expansion from Tempest onwards, excluding all of the non-full-art Zendikar lands (that were only in premades). I have most of the Ice Age land, except some examples are from Cold Snap. And I have a motley collection of Unlimited lands. As for core sets, my collection of land from 8th Edition onwards is complete. I also have all of 6th Edition but (amusingly) am missing quite a bit of 7th Edition.
< Zendikar
Harder (in some cases much) to obtain are the lands that were packed into the non basic products Wizards has sold over the years. And even then I have a great deal of these. I’m speaking of such things as Beat Down, Portal, Duel Decks or the Un-sets. That said the biggest gaps in my collection are definitely in this area. For instance I have zero Battle Royale lands, and only 2 examples from Portal: Three Kingdoms (not surprising, since it was the expansion with the smallest print run in English).
Speaking of language, I only have 2 foreign language lands (both Japanese). One of these days I’ll make a better effort to obtain lands in each of the 9 languages MTG is printed.
< Lorwyn
Obtaining lands is a bit tricky because few people seem to value them. As such, checking retailers online is rarely successful since they will treat all swamps as the same card irrelevant of expansion. Isolating the gaps in the collecting in the pre-numbered days is also proving to be tricky, and my research has even revealed a few errors on Gatherer. I shall continue though – after all a collection is started to be completed!
< Kamigawa
A benefit of my land-interest is that when a new product or expansion is announced I find myself as interested in the land as anything else! Although I’ve only been back ‘into’ MTG for about a year I have to say the most exciting post on their website in that time was when they showed the Eldrazi lands. Not only did they form a mural, but the fact they even existed at all (new lands for the third in a block?) was something unexpected and delightful.
Scars Of Mirrodin will be out in a few weeks. I haven’t seen the lands yet but since it is a sequel to Mirrodin and that set had some of the most unique and striking land art in the history of MTG I am optimistic that we’re in for a treat 🙂
Before selling my collection for the second time (number three going strong!), I had all 15 of these – http://bit.ly/cjopIL. IIRC, you got them by buying a set number of boosters “while stocks lasted”. When I played in tournaments (before they were overrun by stinkies), I would never use more than one land from the same set. Another memory: judging at a tourney in Newie, I busted a guy with a creature out that he didn’t have the mana to cast. He was playing B/U and using the “Tempest” lands, which he stacked haphazardly. He’d pulled a swifty thanks to the swamps being kinda island-y (or was it the other way around?) and his inexperienced, nervous opponent hadn’t noticed. I could tell by the look on his face that it was the opposite of an honest mistake. Should have DQed the little bastard.
Holy crap those APAC lands are cool…
…but even cooler are the ‘Guru Lands’. I had to google them to find images and then… Then my jaw dropped.
My collection feels so what empty now 🙁