Armageddon - MTG Card of the Day #5

Welcome to MTG Card of the Day, where I show off one rad-as-heck Magic: the Gathering card, explain what I think makes it so cool, and share some interesting facts. You don’t need to know anything about Magic! Just have an appreciation for cool fantasy art, nerd history, and potentially broken game mechanics.

Many people consider land destruction to be "unfun," but it's an integral component to Magic in all formats, from Standard all the way to Vintage. Your mana base is just another resource that you have to protect if you want to win... -Werewolf

The only acceptable response to this resolving is leaping across the table and strangling your opponent. - Omnei_of_Bant

People really hate land destruction in MTG. It isn’t a broken or overpowered tactic or anything - it’s mostly looked down upon because, as the argument goes, it just makes the game less fun. 

Cards that destroy your creatures or counter your spells? That’s just a part of the game’s normal back-and-forth. But in Magic, your land cards are essentially your money - you tap them to pay the casting cost for all your other cards. So when your lands are destroyed, that isn’t someone beating you at the game, that’s someone preventing you from playing the game entirely.

In recent years Magic’s designers have shied away from printing as many land destruction cards, and have re-balanced them to be more expensive and harder to cast. 

But land destruction back-in-the-day? That’s a different story entirely. As evidenced here by Armageddon. For just four mana - four! - you can destroy every single land in the game, including your own. In modern Magic, you would have to spend four mana just to destroy a single target land.

I mostly chose this as a Magic COTD selection for how thematically rich it is. I’m a big fan of a card’s theme and lore really closely matching what the card actually does. And “Armageddon” destroying all lands? Tough to think of a thematic match much better than that. 

I’m also a big fan of cards that have very simple and basic rules, but have a profound impact on the game. “Destroy all lands” is just three words, but it’s definitely an “oh shit” moment.

So while Armageddon isn’t overpowered or banned or even particularly nasty, when compared to a mean card like Stasis, we’re still unlikely to see a card like it printed again. As Magic designer Randy Buehler put it - “When I lose because I’m attacked with an enormous dragon, I usually can’t help but smile. Dragons are cool and fun, even when my opponent has them. Land destruction, on the other hand, is rarely either cool or fun.”

Have a hard you want to see appear in MTG Card of the Day? Leave a comment and lemme know!