Magic Memories: Lake of the Dead

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Before there was Cabal Coffers, there was Lake of the Dead. I don't think that I've personally used the card in many, many years, but it was once a prize of my collection. I've already sung the praises of Dark Ritual, so it probably isn't too hard to figure out how I used Lake of the Dead: pure, distilled, lightning-fast acceleration of sheer power. Lake of the Dead came out a bit too early to be involved in the tournament Suicide Black decks that would later emerge, but it arguably would fit right in, providing a burst of speed for a price. The card disadvantage aspect may be too much these days, but in the 90's, it was tough to beat this kind of tempo. And the artwork was superb.

In a more controlling deck, Cabal Coffers or Liliana of the Dark Realms would overpower the mana production of this hungry land. But even today, I could see the right sort of deck wanting the more immediate boost granted by Lake of the Dead. A common play was to drop this third turn, sacrifice a Swamp to it, and cast Dark Ritual for a total of 8 mana. Green mana ramp can potentially beat that, but not very easily.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
I've always been fond of this card, but at some point, I traded my only copies away for something I really wanted, and I didn't acquire more until many, many years later and by then, I was no longer actively building casual decks. Seriously, this was 17 or 18 years ago. And I just can't remember what most of my decks were like back then, although they must have been pretty bad. I know I used it in my Necro deck and I think that wasn't it, but the details escape me. I wanted to use it in a Pestilence deck, but I'd already traded mine away.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Unfortunately, like some other cool cards from back in the day, this thing is on the Reserved List. If it had been printed in a more recent set and more of the newer crowd of casual players had gotten their hands on it, we may have seen it used to power out Liliana of the Dark Realms (which could feed it swamps for even more value) or just Phyrexian Obliterator. Still, I think the main reason that no one wants to use it anymore is that other forms of ramp, while perhaps slightly slower, outscale Lake of the Dead without requiring one to sacrifice lands. In particular, there's Cabal Coffers. Still, it was such a cool card in the 1990's. And man, that awesome Pete Venters art...
 
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