So who uses Underground Sea?

[dontbiteitholmes]

You seem to for some reason think that horders and speculators (and generally, the market,) can't act on a perception that doesn't match reality.

All the blue duals aren't the same power and usefulness in Legacy. Do I have to trot out the charts? I mean I'm not getting new ones but I've done this dance before.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...acy&highlight=

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ens&highlight=

So your contention is that I'm guessing Trop should be the most expensive dual land because it makes up the largest % of top 8 decks?

My point is that Underground Sea goes in a wider variety of decks. Combo, Control, Aggro-Control. Trop doesn't go in Combo usually and any control deck with Trop is going to have an equal of greater number of Seas.

If as a legacy player you have played combo, control, and aggro control in the past 5 years there's probably a 90% chance you've played with Seas.

At any given event I wouldn't doubt there are a greater number of Trops or Tundras at any given time but if you polled every Legacy player who's been playing for more than 3 years I'd bet more have played with Seas than any other dual.

[rxavage]

Goyf is the only reason Trops have seen so much play. I would imagine GZS will help that as well in the future if more badass simic critters see print.

[DragoFireheart]

You'd think Trop or Tundra would be worth more. Is Underground Sea just more rare or something? Is it truly due to the fact that Seas fit in more decks? Or is IBA correct in that buyers are the ones artificially inflating its value?

[xfxf]

When coming back to Magic to play Legacy I was looking at the possible decks I could build and was trying to find the most feasible approach at gathering a flexible yet strong enough card pool. After a lot of reading and online testing the first purchase I made was Underground Seas and Polluted Deltas because I figured I could build Team America, BUG Landstill, Storm decks, Reanimator decks with that manabase and if one of them got pushed out of the meta for some reason I thought I could always be safe with another UB deck.

Having said that I think Volcanic Islands are probably as strong as Underground Seas in Legacy because they are being used in the top decks and in multiple architectures consistently - NO RUG, RUG Tempo, Sneak&Show, UR Delver, 1ofs in Storm combo and Hive Mind decks. There are also negligible splashes in UW control decks sometimes.

In Legacy I would rate Tropical Islands as the third blue dual because its mostly in BUG and RUG shells, not always as 3-4 (think of Team America and BUG control decks), there are 2-3 in Bant decks and a negligible splash in the combo decks. In contrast to the UB, UR colors green is usually the splash or coupled with white as the main color so the UG dual isn't as pivotal as the U.Sea and Volcanic imo.

As for Tundras, they are always used in UW control decks. And a few in Bant style decks which are not extremely popular. There is always a UW deck in the format but with Tundras you don't have that many options in terms of porting your manabase to a different deck. You will stay in the same/very similar archetype whereas U.Sea could be used in completely different beasts (BUG Control 4-of, Reanimator 4-of).

There is also the Vintage factor. Even though Vintage is much smaller compared to Legacy it's reputation has an effect on the perception of cards imo. The fact that it's super important in Vintage will make it always a safe choice, increasing the perceived value of the card.

[Snap_Keep]

You'd think Trop or Tundra would be worth more. Is Underground Sea just more rare or something? Is it truly due to the fact that Seas fit in more decks? Or is IBA correct in that buyers are the ones artificially inflating its value?

Why not read the thread and find out for yourself? People have put forth their own opinions, between those suggestions and your own experience playing Legacy you should be able to form your own opinion about why Sea costs the most out of all the duals.

[lordofthepit]

Underground Sea is currently the worst (least played) blue dual in Legacy, but it is dominant in other formats, and price history definitely affects perception.

As another interesting example, Show and Tell and Sneak Attack are both rares from the same set. Show and Tell sees much more play than Sneak Attack, since it sees play as a 4-of in essentially any Sneak Attack deck, as well as seeing play in other decks. But for a long time, Sneak Attack was the more expensive card.

[Sloshthedark]

I have 3 beautiful trops and no goyfs, only deck where I could have played them were Lands =/ so I play the shit out of Volcs and Seas all the year; and yes storm is still good

[Vicar in a tutu]

Underground Sea is the most $$$ dual land because blue and black are the two coolest colours in magic. Also the artwork is amazing. (Price memory is a third and not so sexy reason.)

[dontbiteitholmes]

To sum it up one last time why I think it's the most expensive

U Sea goes in a variety of Control, Aggro Control, and Combo decks often as a 4x.
Trop goes in The same control decks as U Sea and Aggro Control, but rarely to never Combo.
Tundra goes in very few tempo decks (none of which are very popular right now) and Control.
Volcanic is the closest to U Sea currently and goes in the same variety of decks.

If you don't want to play an Aggro Control deck with Goyf, Lands, or Bug you don't need Trops.
If you don't want to play Bant or UWx Mystic (Or UW tempo lol) you don't need Tundra.
If you don't want to play RUG, RUB, some form of Urx control, TES, or Sneak & Show you don't need volcanic.
But if you don't have Seas that cuts you off from Team America, BUG Control, ANT, Reanimator, Hive Mind, Esper Control, Pretty much any combo deck with Dark Rits, Ub Merfolk (Was a thing at one point), and pretty much any Vintage deck that runs duals except fish and ur Landstill (which is at least somewhat relevant see: Europe still exists).

Seas just fit in more decks. I've played my Trops one time in the past year in a deck without Seas. Played Bug Control, Hive Mind, Team America, UBG Explorers (nic fit hybrid with Intuition), and 4 Horseman with Seas that I can remember, probably more and Rug delver without Oh and and 1x in my current Belcher hybrid if that counts.

[dahcmai]

I always knocked it up to the fact that UB constantly has some sort of presence in the meta. Over the years there's always been combo making it useful there. BUG control is a hell of a fun deck that a lot of people refuse to put down and that kind of thing.

Now if you keep that in mind, let's look at the rest of them.


Tundra. The "mom control" decks rarely showed their faces and typically aren't played much since they tend to go to time a lot anyway. They are hugely meta dependent also. Stoneforge decks use it, but that is fairly recent really.

Volcanic - Typically used as a one of fetch target in a lot of decks. It's been a long time since we had a true UR deck roaming around.

Tropical - Threshold variants use it. They rise and fall with the times.

Savannah - Let's face it, this land sucked until Maverick became a deck worth playing. Enchantress people's are out there, but there's not "that" many who have a fondness for the deck.

Taiga - Goblins and Zoo pretty much are the only ones who use this one. yeah, there's a couple less played decks that do, but for the most part it's only used by these two and even Goblins can go RB or mono-r sometimes. It's hard to count Belchers one of usage.


Bayou, Badlands, Scrubland - All played just a smattering. Usually as splashes or in a deck that doesn't see much play aside from pet decks or some rogue creation.

Plateau - It took Land tax getting unbanned to even have this one played in anything short of Cat Zoo. Poor Plateau.


So Undergrounds really have been useful no matter what constantly over the years for combo alone. It's never wavered, dipped in popularity, or had any reason to say it might be useless due to a changing meta. When combo got hurt by tons of CB, BUG control and Team America got useful. When those two aren't good, combo makes it's resurgence as always.

This is an oversimplification, but it makes sense when you break it down a little.

[FieryBalrog]

True for Vintage, less true for Legacy. Trop's seen a lot more play than U Sea over the past few years, and maybe Tundra too.

It's Vintage that takes the price to the next level. In Legacy BUG is a thing, but it's not that prevalent, and it's mainly combo that makes use of Sea.

Nah I disagree.

I think the allure of Blue Black is the same as it's always been.

You KNOW that almost no matter what there will be a playable Blue/Black combo deck, almost without fail. Blue gives you filter, black gives you rits, discard, and tutors. In Vintage Blue/Black is also usually the best control colors because blue gives counters and power and black gives tutors, confidant, and discard.

Given any random timeframe in eternal formats I think Blue/Black is the least likely color combination to be useless and the most likely color to have an OP combo deck. I don't think there's been a time in the past 10 years when a blue/black deck wasn't tier 1 in either vintage or legacy. Something you can't say about any other color.

[Vicar in a tutu]

True for Vintage, less true for Legacy. Trop's seen a lot more play than U Sea over the past few years, and maybe Tundra too.

It's Vintage that takes the price to the next level. In Legacy BUG is a thing, but it's not that prevalent, and it's mainly combo that makes use of Sea.

Don't forget Esperblade, it's widely regarded as one of the three-four Tier 1 decks in legacy.

[ReinVos]

Sea had a headstart as it was by far the most popular dual in Vintage's heyday. It was way more expensive than the other blue-based duals. When Legacy became widely played, all good duals increased equally % wise.