by Can Tran

Created on: November 07, 2009

"River of Tears" is a nonbasic land printed as a rare for the Magic the Gathering expansion set known as "Future Sight." While this is no longer legal in a standard format, River of Tears seems to be a good card in an extended format and an EDH (Elder Dragon Highlander) format. In a blue and black deck, River of Tears makes an excellent nonbasic land card to have. There are some benefits that River of Tears offers that other nonbasic lands do not offer.

Like the other lands, River of Tears does not have a casting cost. You can play River of Tears at any given time you can play a land. In a multicolored deck, you will need plenty of mana fixing in the form of artifacts, enchantments, and nonbasic lands. If you are playing a multicolored card that has black cards, River of Tears should be a consideration. This is because River of Tears has qualities of a land that provides mana fixings.

What does River of Tears do in the first place?

Initially, you can tap River of Tears to add one blue mana to your mana pool. In this respect, you can tap River of Tears for one blue mana. Still, being able to tap for mana in general is always a good thing. This is extremely important for mana fixing and mana acceleration. For mana fixing, you will always need a specific color of mana in order to play most of your spells. Mana acceleration allows you to get the mana fast enough to play those spells. However, there is more to River of Tears than just tapping it for one blue mana.

In a sense, River of Tears could be considered somewhat of a predecessor to the Landfall cards in the "Zendikar" expansion set. Whenever you play a land, River of Tears taps for black mana. In this respect, it helps with mana acceleration and mana fixing. Should be using a blue and black deck, this ability makes River of Tears a good card to have on hand.

In an extended format, this is one card one should consider looking into. For the EDH format, you may have a general that requires blue and black mana. Thus, you can only have blue and black cards in your deck. It would not hurt to have mana fixing in the form of nonbasic lands. With that said, you can put in River of Tears.

Overall, River of Tears seems to be an all right card depending on what type of deck you are using. One of the best things about River of Tears is that you can immediately use it upon playing it. It does not enter the battlefield tapped. You can immediately tap it for blue mana. Or, you can find a way to bring another land onto the battlefield and tap River of Tears for one black mana.

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