Emergence Zone - A Magic the Gathering (MTG) Card Review

Emergence Zone is an uncommon nonbasic land from Magic the Gathering's War of the Spark. This colorless land is in the vein of Alchemist’s Refuge and Winding Canyons. Not only does it provide one colorless mana by tapping it, but it also has a sacrifice ability for a single mana to give all spells you cast flash until end of turn.That means everything in your hand can be played at instant speed. While Alchemist’s Refuge and Winding Canyons didn’t require you sacrifice them, there are a few things about Emergence Zone that make it a particularly fascinating card across many different competitive Magic the Gathering formats.


While needing to sacrifice Emergence Zone does present a drawback, the ability only costs a single colorless mana for any type of spell you cast. Because you are sacrificing a land, though, sacrificing Emergence Zone essentially costs you two mana and not just one. It’s a fair price for the ability, though, and because you can play it in any deck, Emergence Zone can fit into many different deck strategies.


It has already been suggested that Emergence Zone will see a lot of play in decks that can retrieve it or recur it from the graveyard. Without a doubt, Emergence Zone becomes a lot more powerful with something like Crucible of Worlds in play (which actually is in Standard at the time of War of the Spark’s release).Being able to play it from the graveyard is a crazy powerful play, as it doesn’t even come into play tapped.



Emergence Zone in EDH / Commander


The most obvious place for Emergence Zone to see play is in EDH, as many Commanders already enjoy having access to flash through lands like Alchemist’s Refuge and Winding Canyons. Alchemist’s Refuge, though, requires Blue and Green mana to activate. While the Refuge does not require the sacrifice, it can only be played in decks with Blue and Green mana. Winding Canyons only requires two colorless mana to activate its ability, but only gives flash to creature spells.




Emergence Zone in Modern Colorless Eldrazi


There has already been speculation that Emergence Zone may be played in some Eldrazi decks in Modern. It provides the required colorless mana for some of the Colorless Eldrazi deck’s best creatures like Matter Reshaper, Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, and Endbringer. But, it also gives you the ability to flash in your creatures, something that is relevant with Eldrazi Mimic already in play. The Mimic can copy the power and toughness of any colorless creature that enters the battlefield on your side. That makes for a neat combat trick. Flash is also relevant for flashing in the deck’s other spells like Basilisk Collar. Ghostfire Blade, and Ratchet Bomb. It’s particularly cute with Ratchet Bomb, because Flash allows you to tick it up with an additional charge counter.


Emergence Zone in Standard


Probably the most interesting use for Emergence Zone in the Standard format it enters is a deck heavy on planeswalkers. Sure, planeswalkers have been played at instant speed in EDH before thanks to a wide variety of Flash enablers like Alchemist’s Refuge, Leyline of Anticipation, and Vedalken Orrery. But, with War of the Spark planeswalkers having static abilities besides just loyalty abilities, suddenly giving them the ability to have flash becomes a lot more important. It could be argued that Emergence Zone is going to be a key card in some sort of Planeswalker Control deck. We shall see how this land’s use develops as War of the Spark is released.
How would you use Emergence Zone?