Magic Mondays (RCotD #211)

Random Card of the Day #211

Untamed Wilds - 2G
Sorcery
Search your library for a basic land card and put that card onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.

I first looked at this card and was like, "wow!, this is real abusable with shocklands/dual lands" and then I realized I got excited for nothing, as the oracle text basically kind of ruined everything. It only fetches out basic lands, not basic land types. (I mean you could fetch Snow-Covered Swamps.)

This has basically the same wording as green's iconic Rampant Growth, with the exception that it enters the battlefield untapped. But I don't understand when you would play this over Rampant Growth. Let me just make up a scenario.

You have 5 mana, you play Rampant Growth net a land (albeit tapped) and have 3 open mana to do stuff with. Play a 3 cost spell.
You have 5 mana, and you play Untamed Wilds instead. You spend 3 mana to get a land, but it enters untapped. So you now have 3 open mana to do stuff with. Play a 3 cost spell.

There is almost no differential advantage to play this over Rampant Growth, since the mana is the same in both scenarios, Untamed Wilds is strictly worse because it has a higher casting cost, so you would be unable to play this turn 2 compared to rampant growth, which is far more important than an untapped land.

And that's me comparing it to an iconic spell. There are tons of others that are better such as Spoils of Victory or Farseek. And it still doesn't compare to my personal favorite, Harrow, losing in both number of lands dropped (for landfall) and untapped lands entering.

2/5 -- playable but there's so many better choices. The artworks nice though.