In the card game Magic: The Gathering (MTG) land cards provide the resources to play other cards. They’re ubiquitous and in the eyes of many players, boring. They are like the batteries in the toy: essential but often taken for granted.
The simplest type of land is called ‘basic land’. There are five of them – one for each colour – and they’ve been around since MTG launched back in 1993. And since I got back into Magic about 15 years ago I’ve collected them!
Its always been an informal collection: I just liked the art on them and made a point to keep one of each aside. In time I put them in a binder, and started seeking one ones I didn’t yet have. Over the years the binder grew and grew until it got almost too heavy to pick up, and a change was needed. These past few weeks I’ve sorted all my lands, sleeved and boxed them and had a good look at them all. This post shows off some of the collection.
The above are examples of some of the oldest and newest land cards I have. On the left we have a ‘beta’ card from 1993 and on the right an example from the latest set Kamigawa: Neon Destiny. It’s obvious how the design has updated on the nearly 30 years between them, but it’s notable that these two cards are identical as far as gameplay is concerned.
The above shows the progression of design of a Forest land from 1993 until 2020. You can see the various phases the basic design transitioned through, including the removal of the text describing how to use the card, which occurred relatively early on in the history of the game.
Here we have an assortment of promotional cards, most of which are foiled so they shine with a rainbow effect. These cards are obtained via in-store promotions or by attending events or – as with most of these – by buying them on the secondary market. None of these cost me more than a dollar or so, but some are worth five or ten times that now.
The above shows examples of non-English lands. MTG has been printed in 11 languages and I have lands in most of them (I think). The middle top card is an unusual exception: this is swamp printed in ‘phyrexian’ which is a (fake) language in the MTG universe.
Speaking of events, the above were all given to me by Adam, and are signed cards that he obtained from the artists at various events he attended. The middle one is heavily ‘altered’, which means the artist drew over the art with paint pens, leaving only the name of the card visible. For most of these artists, I have several different signed lands.
Here’s a unique inclusion: the ‘Florence lands‘! She decorated five lands with stickers many years ago and gave them to me as a gift. For all this time they had been the first page in the binder introducing the collection, and they remain an important and unique part of it. I wonder if she remembers making them?
In 1998, when MTG was five years old, an important and notable thing happened with land cards. In the set Unglued the first ‘full art’ land cards were printed. They dispensed with the text box at the bottom to fill the card with art and were very popular. Subsequent sets would rarely include new full art lands. The above shows examples from Unglued to Amonkhet (in 2017).
Full art lands have become more common in recent years, and the above five examples span less than three years of sets. Some think the island shown above (from Unstable) is the prettiest land card ever printed.
Some more basic lands. I’m a big fan of the black and white versions from the recent Innistrad sets, but many weren’t.
The above are five of the ten full art lands from the recent Kamigawa set. These are done in the Japanese ukiyo-e style and are some of the more unusual (and pretty!) lands MTG has ever printed.
Following on from the above is an unusual addition: these are unofficial ‘proxy’ cards made by fans. I got these on Etsy and they are another ukiyo-e inspired set done by a Japanese artist. The quality of these cards is incredibly high, and they’re almost indistinguishable from a real Magic card. (I’m amazed Hasbro hasn’t shut down people selling high quality proxies…)
The above show some of the more unusual and ‘rare’ lands I currently own. These are all from a type of release called ‘secret lairs’, which are very limited cards sold exclusively online. Unfortunately some of the lairs have contained lands, and since I believe they’re overpriced I’ll likely never obtain most of them. However I couldn’t resist buying a few examples on the secondary market. The top left is a ‘godzilla plains’ and the bottom right from a release that went overboard reverse-parodying the full art design motif.
Speaking of rare, a number of my lands have become very collectible. I have many ‘beta’ land cards, and those are worth $10 or more each today, and as I mentioned above some of my promo lands have appreciated a lot in recent years. But the biggest surprise as I was going through my collection was the current value of the so-called ‘APAC lands’.
These were a set of 15 land cards given to customers by game stores in the Asia-pacific region in 1998. I bought a full set many years ago for not much money (I think about $30) and they’ve massively appreciated since. The two above are worth about $150 each, and may be my most valuable magic cards! (I didn’t know this until a few days ago.)
There’s the whole collection. I don’t know exactly how many I have, but it’s more than 1500. I read recently that there’s been over 2200 unique land cards, so I’m missing a great deal, but I suspect most of them are promos or otherwise-unattainable releases like the European equivalents to the APAC lands.
In all these cards you’re probably wondering, which is my favourite? That’s an easy question, and the answer never changes. It’s this APAC plains, which shows Australia:
MTG is more successful than ever, and the set frequency seems to have increased, with each set bringing more basic lands. It’s a cheap card type to collect, since most players don’t care about the lands at all, so I’m not stopping any time soon. I’ll end this post with some examples of lands releasing in the remainder of 2022. If I ever update this post, you can assume I’ve got (some of) these as well:
