Murders at Karlov Manor Land Review: Duals, Full-Art Basics, and More

Last updated on March 27, 2024

Hedge Maze | Illustration by Andrew Mar

With every single Magic set released, there’s a particular set of cards that interests everyone: lands. The reason is simple: Even if you play a certain MTG format that’s more powerful than Standard, or if you only play casual Commander with your friends, chances are you’ll want to improve your mana base. Lands can add utility to your deck, help fix your mana, and more. Murders at Karlov Manor doesn’t disappoint in this regard: We have 10 new surveilling dual lands and a few other utility lands that can be of interest too.

Today we’re taking a look at all MKM lands of interest and how can we get them in various art treatments. Also, starting with MKM, Set Boosters and Draft Boosters have converged into the new Play Booster, while we still have the Collector Boosters intact. So, without further ado, let’s see what MKM lands we can get in Play Boosters and Collector Boosters.

The Surveil Lands Cycle

• Commercial District
• Elegant Parlor
• Hedge Maze
• Lush Portico
• Meticulous Archive
• Raucous Theater
• Shadowy Backstreet
• Thundering Falls
• Undercity Sewers
• Underground Mortuary

Here’s what gets the interest of MTG players: rare dual lands. These are highly sought-after cards for Constructed play across multiple formats, so they tend to be valuable and expensive.

A surveil land like Commercial District has the two basic land types, mountain and forest, and you get to Surveil 1 when it ETBs.

To surveil, you’ll look at the top card of your library, and decide if it stays on the top or if it goes to the graveyard. While it’s not card advantage, it can be a resource advantage if you manage to put an important card into your graveyard, or if you can get rid of a land you’re not interested in drawing, and so on. These can be fetched, so it will be a common occurrence in a game to fetch one of these in your opponent’s end step and surveil your next draw. These lands will be strong in Standard, Pioneer, EDH and other formats too.

Public Thoroughfare

Public Thoroughfare is your typical Rupture Spire, with the additional upside that you can tap an artifact instead of paying mana. In decks that need mana fixing, and in 5-color EDH decks, it can be a nice cheap fixing tool, especially if you have artifacts lying around.

Scene of the Crime

Scene of the Crime is very similar to Roadside Reliquary, in that you can sacrifice this land to draw a card later in the game. It’s also an artifact land, and a clue for decks that need more synergies related to it.

Basic Full-art Lands

Ravnica is a city plane, so the Full-Art Impossible Lands show exactly that. There’s one for each basic land, and in these you’ll see how truly extense and impossible the city of Ravnica is.

Draft Chaff

Branch of Vitu-Ghazi

I think Branch of Vitu-Ghazi is more of a Limited land than a Constructed one. EDH decks interested if face-down cards are relevant. I might be underrating the land since it has no downside, so it can be an easy inclusion in decks. The good news is that it filters mana and can tap right away when turned face-up, so you refund the spent to flip it right away. 

Escape Tunnel

Escape Tunnel is an Evolving Wilds, with a  more restrictive and one-time-only Rogue's Passage / Access Tunnel ability.

I love Rogue's Passage, and I also love Evolving Wilds, and this is in the middle of them. I’d say it’s a very nice card for Limited, allowing us to fix mana and help a disguise creature get in once.

Murders at Karlov Manor Commander Lands

The MKM Commander decks managed to reprint a few nonbasic lands, although nothing really exciting, noteworthy, or in high demand. We’ve got a reprint of Bounce lands (Azorius Chancery, Simic Growth Chamber), Theros Scrylands (Temple of Enlightenment, Temple of Mystery), Tango lands (Sunken Hollow, Cinder Glade), and Reveal lands (Choked Estuary, Fortified Village), among other frequently reprinted land cycles.

Where to Get Them

Ok, here’s where it gets complicated. As we know, MKM is going to be sold in Play Boosters and Collector Boosters. There are different rules and percentages for each of them, especially regarding the different art treatment and foiling possibilities, so let’s break the odds down for each product:

Play Boosters

A basic structure of a MKM Play Booster is:

• 6 commons – can have nonbasic common lands;
• 1 common / The List card – can have nonbasic common lands;
• 3 uncommons – can have nonbasic uncommon lands;
• 1 rare/mythic rare slot – can’t have surveil lands;
• 1 basic land slot;
• 1 non-foil wildcard slot – can have any nonbasic land, including borderless surveil lands;
• 1 traditional foil wildcard slot – can contain Traditional Foil Basic Lands and any nonbasic land.

Basic full-art lands can be obtained in Play Boosterstext. A full-art Impossible basic land appears in one-third of Play Boosters (26.66% non-foil; 6.33% foil). You can also get traditional foil basic lands in 20% of Play Boosters.

Since the surveil lands are rare, they’ll appear in the Wildcard slot and in the Traditional Foil Card slot. They can’t be in the rare slot. Surveil lands will appear in both regular and borderless treatment.

Before we get into Collector Boosters, it’s important to note that 1-in-6 boosters will have a dual land as well as the regular rare slot. That has some implications in Limited, because there’ll be more dual lands going around, as well as for collecting them. If you get a MKM booster box, you’ll get six dual lands on average – while also getting 36+ rares/mythics from the regular rare slot.

Sale

Magic: The Gathering Murders at Karlov Manor Play Booster Box - 36 Packs (504 Magic Cards)

• INTRODUCING PLAY BOOSTERS—Get the best of Draft and Set Boosters, combined into one! Play Boosters are great for Limited play and fun to open, with a possibility of multiple Rares and at least 1 shining foil card in every pack
• TRACK THE CLUES. CRACK THE CASE—Play detective as you collect evidence, don disguises, and identify suspects to decipher the deadly murder mystery at the heart of Ravnica
• PACKS MAY CONTAIN MULTIPLE RARES—Each MKM Play Booster contains 1–4 cards of rarity Rare or higher, including the possibility of a special Borderless Mythic Rare card from Magic’s history
• SHINING FOIL CARD IN EVERY PACK—Every Play Booster contains 1 shining Traditional Foil card of any rarity; in 20% of packs you’ll also find a Traditional Foil Land card (which may even be Full-Art!)
• MAY CONTAIN ART CARDS, A PLAY BOOSTER EXCLUSIVE—Now found only in Play Boosters, some packs also contain an Art Card showcasing a piece of art from the Murders at Karlov Manor set, sometimes with a foil signature from the artist

$107.79

Buy on Amazon

Collector Booster

Here’s your best chance of getting cards with special art treatment, including lands of any rarity and basic lands. MKM Collector Boosters have:

• 4 Traditional foil commons – that includes nonbasic common lands;
• 3 Traditional foil uncommons – that includes nonbasic uncommon lands;
• 1 Traditional foil full-art Impossible basic land;
• 1 Non-foil showcase Magnified or showcase Dossier common or uncommon – no lands here
• 1 Traditional foil rare or mythic rare
  • Traditional foil rare dual land (12.5% chance in this slot)
• 1 Non-foil Booster Fun rare or mythic rare
  • 11 Rares (25% in this slot) with the borderless treatment
• 1 Traditional foil Booster Fun rare or mythic rare
  • 11 Traditional foil rares (13.1% in this slot) with the borderless treatment

So as we can see, this is your best bet to get foil cards of any rarity, as well as borderless surveil lands.

Sale

Magic: The Gathering Murders at Karlov Manor Collector Booster (15 Magic Cards)

• CHASE DOWN RAVNICA’S KILLER CARDS—Track down the city’s most notorious cards as you collect evidence, don disguises, and identify suspects to decipher the deadly murder mystery at the heart of Ravnica
• BEST BOOSTERS FOR COLLECTORS—Collector Boosters are a shortcut to the coolest cards in a set, with packs full of Rare cards, shiny foil cards, and special alt-art, alt-frame cards
• EXCLUSIVE SPECIAL TREATMENTS—Found only in Collector Boosters, every pack contains at least 2 Extended-Art card and may contain a card with a special new type of foil treatment
• MORE RARE CARDS—Collector Boosters contain more hard-to-find cards than any other Murders at Karlov Manor booster, with 5 cards of rarity Rare or higher in each pack
• PLAY A GAME THAT FUSES ART, STORIES & STRATEGY—Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game that weaves deep strategy with art and mechanics that explore the themes of a particular world and story—whether you want to play a casual game with friends, collect cool cards, or get competitive, Magic welcomes you to The Gathering

$19.96

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Wrap-Up

Archdruid's Charm | Illustration by Liiga Smilshkalne

It’s very unusual for a set to have a cycle of 10 dual lands, so MKM has surprised everyone in this department. Surveil lands will be very important in Constructed formats with a smaller card pool, particularly Standard and Pioneer. They can be strong additions in Sultai / Golgari decks that care about the graveyard, especially with the new Collect Evidence mechanic.

MKM has other niche lands like the artifact clue land Scene of the Crime and the disguise land Branch of Vitu-Ghazi, but the verdict is still out on these. Hopefully they’ll find a home. What do you think of these lands? Are you excited about adding them to your decks? Let me know in the comments section below, or leave us a tweet on Draftsim Twitter.

Thanks for reading folks, and may you have a good time cracking MKM boosters for lands and other goodies.

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