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Moxonomy

Barad-dûr

Legendary Land

Most utility lands buy their extra ability with an entry drawback or a steep activation; this one loads both barrels and asks for a corpse on top. The black mana it taps for is the floor, the reason it counts as a land at all, but the payoff is the Amass ability, and every clause on it is a gate. Amass grows a single Army token, piling +1/+1 counters onto one body rather than fanning out a swarm, so this is a going-tall payoff, not a going-wide one. It costs X generic manaX generic manaBlack mana, meaning each point of Army-growth runs two mana, which makes a large Orc quickly expensive: a real threat wants a heap of open lands to fund it. It taps, so it competes with the mana it would otherwise make. And it only fires if a creature died this turn, which turns it from a mana sink into a reward that wants a sacrifice engine or a board already trading bodies. That death clause is the whole tension: the land is inert in a deck where no creature ever dies, and it pays off exactly the attrition-heavy shells chewing through bodies anyway. The legendary-creature check on the enter-tapped condition ties the mechanics back to the tower standing behind its dark lord, but functionally it asks that you already be running a legendary-heavy board where a creature dying is a matter of when, not if. A land that wants a creature to have died before it can Amass is a rare shape, and the growing Orc is the compensation for the loss.

Barad-dûr (pltr)
PLTR · #253srare
Pricing
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Foil: $4.25
Oracle Text

Rules text

Barad-dûr enters tapped unless you control a legendary creature. Tap: Add Black mana. X generic manaX generic manaBlack mana, Tap: Amass Orcs X. Activate only if a creature died this turn.
Legalities

Format Status

Standard
N/A
Pioneer
N/A
Modern
Legal
Legacy
Legal
Vintage
Legal
Commander
Legal
Pauper
N/A
Brawl
Legal
Historic
Legal
Alchemy
N/A
Timeless
Legal
Standard Brawl
N/A
More formats
Old School
N/A
Premodern
N/A
PreDH
N/A
Pauper Commander
N/A
Oathbreaker
Legal
Gladiator
Legal
Penny Dreadful
Legal
Duel Commander
Legal
Future Standard
N/A
COMPETITIVEBRAWL
Legal
TLR
Legal
Printings elsewhere

Other printings

5 sets
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