Land Tax

Premodern-legal editions of Land Tax — old-border printings plus any period-appropriate foil promos (Arena/Judge, through Scourge). Hover to preview an edition on the card; click to select it.

Fourth Edition

1995·4edrare

Selected

Old-border editions + pre-Scourge promo foils (Arena/Judge). Modern-frame reprints (8th Edition onward) exist but are not period-appropriate printings.

Why It's Banned

For a single white mana, Land Tax sits on the battlefield and, on each of your upkeeps when an opponent controls more lands than you, fetches up to three basic lands from your library to hand, refilling your grip turn after turn at almost no cost. In Premodern's grindy, fair-deck environment that asymmetry is brutal: it both thins your deck (boosting topdecks) and fuels engines like Scroll Rack, which recycles the lands back atop your library for fresh cards each turn. An enchantment that generates relentless, uninteractive resource advantage for one mana warps the format toward a single dominant control engine.

Land Tax debuted in Legends (1994) and was later reprinted in 4th Edition (1995) and the Battle Royale box set (1999); its 4th Edition printing keeps it inside the Premodern-legal pool. It was a defining piece of "Tax Rack" and weenie/control shells, was unbanned in the format's June 2018 list, and was ultimately re-added to Premodern's banned list in the July 2023 update for its runaway, Scroll Rack-fueled card advantage.

Trivia & Lore

• Land Tax was first printed in Legends (1994), where it was an uncommon illustrated by Brian Snoddy.
• Land Tax was restricted in Standard (Type 2) in July 1996 and simultaneously banned in Legacy (then called Type 1.5) that same month; it was later banned in Extended in July 1998. (It was not part of the February 1996 announcement, which only restricted Black Vise and banned Mind Twist.)
• Land Tax sat on the Legacy banned list for years and was finally unbanned in the June 20, 2012 DCI B&R announcement (effective June 29, 2012), the same update that banned Griselbrand and Sundering Titan in Commander/EDH.
• The signature engine pairs Land Tax with Scroll Rack: Land Tax stuffs your hand with basic lands, then Scroll Rack swaps those dead lands onto the top of your library in exchange for an equal number of fresh cards, effectively converting a handful of basics into three new spells per turn. The combo was so well known it was colloquially shortened to 'Tax/Rack.'
• Randy Buehler won the 1998 North American Extended Championship with a Land Tax / Scroll Rack 'Tax Rack' deck. He was the 1997-98 Pro Tour Rookie of the Year, later worked in Wizards of the Coast R&D, and was inducted into the Magic Pro Tour Hall of Fame in 2007.
• The classic kill version is 'Tax Edge': Land Tax loads your hand with basics, then Land's Edge lets you discard those lands to deal 2 damage each to a player's face. Library of Leng is run alongside it to remove the maximum hand size so you can hoard lands as ammunition instead of discarding down at end of turn.
• Land Tax anchored 'Deck Parfait,' a mono-white Type 1 control deck created by French-Canadian (Quebecois) player Raphael 'K-Run' Caron that placed second in the first Beyond Dominia Type I Tournament of Champions, using the Land Tax/Scroll Rack engine and a silver-bullet toolbox of single powerful spells rather than four-ofs.
• Land Tax is NOT on the Reserved List, which is why Wizards has been free to keep reprinting it. Printings beyond Legends include Fourth Edition, Renaissance, Masters Edition III, Battlebond (#94), Double Masters (#20, 2020), Commander Masters, a Judge Promo, and a Wilds of Eldraine: Enchanting Tales reprint.
• Land Tax's trigger has an intervening 'if' clause: it won't even go on the stack unless an opponent controls more lands than you, and it does nothing if you've caught up on lands by the time it resolves. Per the rulings, you still shuffle your library after searching even if you choose to grab zero basics.

Critical Rulings