River of Tears:Gold or Garbage?
By Jeremy Walter
Since the release of future sight I’ve been focussing heavily on standard and in particular the control decks. A card that has puzzled me since the start of my pondering is River of Tears. Is this card good or is it just a glorified and cash expensive Island?
As these are my thoughts on the matter, personal opinion plays a very large factor in my findings. I know these may not be the same as the thoughts of you the reader and as such this may entice flaming. I don’t mind if you don’t like my opinions but please try to keep any feedback polite for the sake of other readers.
As you can see River of Tears is a land which taps for blue mana most of the time but black mana if you’re played a land this turn. This means on the turn you play River of Tears it will tap for black. Is this good? Does a blue/black player want to tap lands in their turn? Can you count on it to tap for black when you need it to? Will it simply be a huge target for all the Detritivores slipping into the sideboards of decks everywhere? Is using an Island/Swamp better? Will River of Tears see play? How does it stack up in other formats? These are some questions I will try to answer based on my on thoughts.
Does a blue/black player want to tap lands in their turn? I’m very biased in my opinion here as I’m a control player at heart and have fallen in love with the Teferi/Teachings or Dralnu Du Louvre decks. Looking through not only my deck list but many other lists of control players I’ve found a trend. The only time you’re going to tap this card for black is if you need to clear the board with a Damnation or are going to use something like Sudden Death or the flashback cost on Mystical Teaching. While the former is something you always going to do in your turn the latter 2 are normally best played in your opponents turn. Most well constructed mana bases can handle the 2BB casting cost of Damnation without too many problems. Between the fantastic Ravnica dual lands, 9th Edition pain lands and the new storage lands from Time Spiral getting multiple colours is not too tricky. Some decks are also playing Ravnica bounce lands to make sure colour stability is maintained as well as making sure crucial land drops aren’t missed.
Most times a control player taps a land it will be in their opponents turn either for a card draw spell such as Think Twice, Tutor with Mystical Teachings or Counterspell with a Remand or Rewind. As far as I can tell for control decks this card is very, very rarely if ever going to tap for black.
I can see this card being used in more pro-active decks like Solar Flare or some form of blue/black aggro, but for the control decks I don’t see it getting much long term play once players realise the drawbacks. I do however believe this is excellent in block constructed but those are 2 different metagames and the lack of Ravnica block duals changes the game play value a lot.
Can you count on it to tap for black wen you need it to? I honestly don’t think so. You can’t always guarantee you’ll play a land when you need to. This added with River of Tears not counting as a Swamp or an Island means you can’t search it up with something like Korlash, Heir to Blackblade . There’s no condition to tapping for blue mana so at least you won’t get hung out to dry there but not being able to always tap for black when you need to is a very bad thing. If you need to play a Sudden Death during your opponents turn you may wish you’d left those basic Swamps and Islands or Underground Rivers in instead of putting these in your deck.
Is it simply a huge target for Detritivore? I think not and this is probably one of the saving graces of this card. People are always going to take out your storage lands, bounce lands, other dual lands and Urza’s Factories first. This is still a target but I think if I was choosing the land to kill off Vore’s trigger I would choose other non-basic lands first.
Is using basic swamps/island better? I personally believe so. The extra basic land slots mean your deck will be a little more resilient against Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon. Magus of the Moon will probably see a lot of play at the 3 drop slot of most aggressive red builds so having even 2 or 3 extra basic lands gives you a little extra staying power if they slip a Blood Moon or Magus past any defences you have set up.
Will this card see play? River of Tears will definitely see a lot of play for a while but I personally feel that most players are going to come to the same conclusions as me over time. I’m not going out of my way to get my hands on these as I don’t feel it’s anything more then an expensive Island with a rare set symbol, some nice art and an occasional Swampy moment. How does it stack up in other format? I personally feel that other then block constructed there are much better cards you can play. Using fetch lands in extended and in legacy the old dual lands as well as fetch lands is a much better option. I’m not sure about limited. I don’t play much sealed so I can’t really comment on its limited playability.
I have found that for the draw-go styles of deck this card is garbage but for any deck that is going to make proactive plays with cards like Persecute and Dread Return this card is pretty solid. As I am a draw-go player I will not be putting this card in my deck. Instead I will be running some extra basic lands and an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or 2 for greater power from Tendrils of Corruption. I put it up to you the reader to prove me wrong or hopefully prove me right. Thank you for reading my thoughts on this matter and I hope you’ll be hearing from me again.
