Hey,
For those of you who don’t know where my nickname originates, check out this card:
When I started playing Yu-Gi-Oh, Burning Land became one of my favorite cards. I enjoyed the idea of prison decks where I would lock myself behind a wall of defensive spells (Messenger of Peace, Gravity Bind, etc.) and burning the opponent with spells or swinging with creatures that could directly attack life points.
The problem with that strategy is the lack of power it has. Burn during the early days of Yu-Gi-Oh is not that strong. Tremendous Fire is the main source of damage, dealing 1000 damage to the opponent and 500 to the controller. The second runner-up in direct damage cards is Ookazi which deals 800 points of damage without the repercussion.
The burn archetype has a finite source of damage. Only recently did cards such as Wave Motion Cannon and Meteor of Destruction provide additional outlets for damage. In addition, life gain strategies hurt burn decks. If an opponent has the means to gain more life than potential damage dealt, then the burn deck fails.
What Burning Land does is provide a source of continuous damage should the standard burn gas not be enough to take out an opponent. During each standby phase, Burning Land will deal 500 damage to that player.
Burning Land does not differentiate between the owner nor the opponent. The 500 damage is dealt indiscriminately each standby phrase.
There are two ways to break the symmetry of Burning Land:
- Deal more damage than your opponent can.
- Negate the damage dealt by Burning Land either by life gain or Des Wombat.
First, dealing more damage. While burn cards will be your main source of damage, don’t forget about direct attackers such as Catalyst of Light and Jinzo #7. Creatures that also deal nonattacking damage such as Bowganian and Solar Flare Dragon are also good choices.
There are even ways to use the damage dealt to you for your own advantage. One of my favorite cards to pair with Burning Land is Attack and Receive. Whenever Burning Land deals 500 damage to you, Attack and Receive will deal 700 damage as well as 300 damage for each copy of Attack and and Receive in your graveyard. Numinous Healer has a similar effect except healing for 1000 points and 500 for each copy in the graveyard.
Numinous Healer does the opposite of burn by healing the damage to the player. Another good card to use is Solemn Wishes since it’ll restore 500 life at minimum each turn.
Finally, Des Wombat. Des Wombat negates any damage from card effects. With a Wombat on the field, you can sit pretty and deal damage to your opponent with Burning Land without taking any burn damage.
There’s a potentially more powerful version of Burning Land that I want to cover next time. It can end the game ten times faster than Burning Land, but it also has a greater chance of killing you.
Till next time,
BurningLandBrawler
