Man lands, as they’re called, commonly see tons of play in competitive Magic. This refers to a land that can pay a cost to temporarily become a creature before returning to being just a land at the end of the turn. Not only does this grant your lands extra utility, aiding against flooding out, but you also get evasive threats that are hard to remove.
While many players wrote off the new Manland in MTG Foundations, it has a rather unique quality. Many feel this is a worse version of Mutavault, and we agree, but Soulstone Sanctuary has a rather unique quality that could make it see some play.
Soulstone Sanctuary
Soulstone Sanctuary is not a good man land, but it is a unique one. Spending four mana to make a 3/3 is far from ideal, but some number of lands that can repurpose themselves in low resource situations are needed. The unique quality of this land, however, is that Soulstone Sanctuary permanently becomes land after its animation. There’s no ‘end of turn’ clause that turns this back to a land, though it does continue to be both things at once.
This has its advantages and disadvantages. The most significant disadvantage is that this creature land becomes easier to remove than most man lands. Since Soulstone Sanctuary doesn’t turn back into a land, you open yourself up to boardwipes that man lands can generally dodge. Not only will the land get taken out by the wipe, but you lose a threat that you can use to follow up on the wipe.
The plus side? You don’t need to invest mana into your land every turn. If you play a decently big curve where you’re top-decking big creatures, you may want to keep your Soulstone Sanctuary as a land. That way, you keep your creature, and you also get to commit whatever card you drew. The amount of pressure you can provide with this combination in low resource situations is unprecedented for a man land.
For Standard, Soulstone Sanctuary offers an untapped man land with a weird quirk. In two-colored aggro decks, this may be a better option than the tapped man lands from Wilds of Eldraine and the Lost Caverns of Ixalan. The Sanctuary’s effectiveness may end up being meta-dependant. The more board wipes in a metagame, the less reliable this land will become.
Soulstone Sanctuary in Commander
The biggest winner from Soulstone Sanctuary’s printing is probably Commander. Players who want a generic creature that fits within their typal themes and don’t want to cut a land can run this instead. Utility lands are super popular in the format already.
The biggest reason why Soulstone Sanctuary seems to work best here is twofold. First, games go incredibly long, which makes the higher animation cost for Soulstone Sanctuary sting a bit less. Targeted removal isn’t played as much as it should be either, since trading cards one-for-one in Commander is a bit more disadvantageous with four players at the table. Your chances of drawing gigantic spells are also higher in a lot of decks (assuming you put them in there), so animating the land permanently can help continually support board presence if you don’t have the resources to keep it up all the time.
Because this land can be any creature type, Commander is also going to generally have the best payoffs for Soulstone Sanctuary. Typal strategies are incredibly popular in the format thanks to an expansive card pool. Cards that do nothing on their own, like the new Typal staple Banner of Kinship, that compound the value of other cards, are also prevalent. Those are how you get the most value out of a utility card like Soulstone Sanctuary. Permanently turning into a creature allows it to enable cards like the Banner without restricting your mana.
Perhaps the biggest boon of Soulstone Sanctuary comes when playing an Equipment or Aura Commander deck. Using those cards with man lands is usually a frustrating affair since they fall off when the creature lands turn back into lands. Since Soulstone Sanctuary doesn’t do that, it becomes a much better man land option in decks that care about permanent creature buffs. This could be a great choice for a Captain America, First Avenger Commander deck!
A Case-by-Case Card
Soulstone Sanctuary is a curious land that will have its places, but normal man lands are likely better in the majority of two-player MTG decks. The evasive nature of these threats is a big boon, and Soulstone Sanctuary losing that makes it play a different kind of role. With all the benefits listed in this article, though, it’s clear that this card will likely see play somewhere.
