Basic Land Game is a Magic the Gathering variant where all you play in your deck is basic lands. How many, that varies but common decks seem to be either 5 or 10 of each non-Waste basic. It’s a game that has probably as many variants as there are playing groups. Here are the rules I’ve learned but I’ve seen different rules being played with.
It’s a fun quick game that can be played between rounds or while waiting for your play group to arrive.
Lands are the cheapest cards but there’s also a lot of variety so you can build your deck with your favourites (like the John Avon full arts above).
The goal
To win, you need to either play a full domain (1 of each land) or 5 of a kind of one type of land.
Setup
Shuffle your deck and draw 3 cards. Player who goes first cannot draw a card on their first turn.
If you go first and drew only Mountains and/or Forests, you get a free mulligan (as neither does anything on first turn going first).
If you go second and drew only Forests, you get a free mulligan.
Playing lands
Each land has an Enter the Battlefield ability:
- Swamp: Your opponent shows you 3 cards from their hand. Discard one. (Alternative: discard a random card from opponent’s hand.)
- Forest: Return a card from your graveyard to your hand.
- Mountain: Destroy target land.
- Plains: Draw a card.
- Island: you can either play it to Scry 1 (Look at the top card of your library. You may put that card on the bottom.) or use it as a counterspell (to counter a land, you must exile the same type from your hand and discard an Island.)
Print the rules
I’ve made an A4 sized rules zine you can print and fold (see Zine folding pattern) to keep with your lands.
Other people
- SnapCasters video
- Alternative rules by UltimateGuard: The Basic Land Game: Rules, Gameplay & Strategy
- Tolarian Community College’s video on Basic Land Game
- MTG Wiki page