"Scapeshift" is a green sorcery printed as a rare for the Magic the Gathering expansion set known as "Morningtide." This is a rather interesting spell in which you can use if you need the necessary mana fixing. If you are playing a multicolored deck, Scapeshift does come in pretty handy for the most part. When you think of it, multicolored decks do need nonbasic lands because they usually produce at least two colors of mana.

The converted mana cost for Scapeshift is four. You will need two green mana and two colorless mana to cast Scapeshift. For what Scapeshift can do, the casting cost is pretty much worth it. With certain cards out on the battlefield, Scapeshift becomes quite the useful card. Keep in mind that this is a sorcery spell and can only be cast during your turn.

What does Scapeshift do in the first place?

When you cast Scapeshift, you sacrifice any number of lands and you draw that many cards. In this respect, if you sacrifice five lands, you can search your library for five lands. Those lands enter the battlefield tapped. Afterwards, you shuffle your library. One could say that sacrificing your lands is a bad thing. However, it is not necessarily a bad thing for the most part due to certain cards for the most part.

You can combine this with "Lotus Cobra" and "Mana Reflection." Lotus Cobra is a mythic rare printed in "Zendikar." It has this Landfall ability. Whenever you drop a land down, you can get one mana of any color. Mana Reflection doubles the mana produced by your sources. With Mana Reflection also on the battlefield, you can drop a land and get two mana of any color to use. In this respect, you can get two mana for each land that you drop. In the case of sacrificing five lands, you get two mana of any one color.

For sacrificing lands, make sure you sacrifice the lands that are already tapped. That way, you have perfectly untapped lands. Using the example of the five lands that were sacrificed, you can place five new lands on the battlefield. During that time, you can get two mana of any color with each land you drop via Lotus Cobra and Mana Reflection. Ten mana of any color is good for a multicolored deck.

This also comes in handy for the Landfall abilities of the cards in Zendikar. If you have something such as "Rampaging Baloths," those five lands would then spawn five 4/4 green beasts.

So far, Scapeshift seems to be a handy card for the most part. In any game, this goes handy with many of the Landfall cards in Zendikar. You can even combine this with "Ob Nixilis, the Fallen." Ob Nixilis, the Fallen has an interesting Landfall ability. With each land you drop, you can make an opponent lose three points of life. Doing so puts three +1/+1 counters on Ob Nixilis, the Fallen. Using the example of five lands, you can make an opponent lose fifteen points of life. You get to put fifteen +1/+1 counters on Ob Nixilis, the Fallen.

Overall, this is quite the interesting sorcery. With the right cards on the battlefield, you can get plenty out of Scapeshift.

Learn more about this author, Can Tran.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Magic the Gathering card analysis: Scapeshift?
We want to hear your view. Write now!