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3 years ago ::
Sep 16, 2010 - 4:01PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2008
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This thread is for discussion of this week's Latest Developments, which goes live Friday morning on magicthegathering.com.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 16, 2010 - 9:29PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Mar 10, 2003
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After years of amateur design, I agree with the difficultly of finding a balanced dualland make-up. This doesn't really solve the issues as much as reassign the focus of the drawback elsewhere. But that's fine; the conversation had me thinking the cycle was heading toward a new cycle for core sets, but that isn't necessarily a need.
In short, an okay cycle that brings the focus back to quickness.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 16, 2010 - 9:36PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2010
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More @#$#! rare dual lands.
So either I can play with the "comes into play tapped" lands or I can pay to get the good lands at $15 apiece. And if I want to play enemy colors I'm out of luck. Seriously, why make something as basic as mana fixing rare? Dual lands won't break limited, so all it does is ensure those who pay more money can get the better lands.
I am so lucky to have gotten so many of the Ravnica common lands (in enemy color pairs too). At least they provide card advantage to help make up for the fact that they come into play tapped.
Speaking of Ravnica, what about the Ravnica dual lands? They don't tick down your life piece by piece like the painlands, they just shock you once. So what was the problem with them?
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3 years ago ::
Sep 16, 2010 - 9:38PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Dec 16, 2009
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Ugh, at least the art is nice? I can either play the zendikar "sac"land to search for my right mana, or I can play this land early and have two choices on my first play.
Honestly, this land cycle confuses me. Either I can assume this is a ploy for more Amulet of Vigor type decks, or we're on the verge of threatening the typical land to spell ratio. 
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3 years ago ::
Sep 16, 2010 - 9:56PM
#5
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Well I don't think they could have pushed aggro any harder with this set.
Unless control can pull out some ridiculous shenanigans, the speed of this set is going to be insane. So far we have Koth-mono-red, U-artifact-aggro, White Weenie artifacts, and BU-infect-aggro.
Given that Koth seems to be a must-play for all red decks (and he loves mono-red), you can probably count two of these lands out. Control doesn't want the UW land in case they draw it late game. The only one of these lands I can see getting used consistently is the BU one, maybe the GW one as well.
Overall, I'm unimpressed.
Oh also, dual-lands should not be rare. You already handicap your players with must-have mythics, don't screw with our mana-bases as well.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 16, 2010 - 10:03PM
#6
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Date Joined:
May 18, 2002
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Oh also, dual-lands should not be rare. You already handicap your players with must-have mythics, don't screw with our mana-bases as well.
This isn't Ravnica anymore.
Inflated Mythic prices have a side-effect of deflating rare prices.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 16, 2010 - 10:08PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Jan 11, 2010
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Why this article does not care about Ravnica Lands? Really, it´s big hole.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 16, 2010 - 10:09PM
#8
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Date Joined:
Jul 26, 2006
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tFirst, congrats for dedicating the column to constructed again.
I feel that another cycle of duals may be overkill if the goal is to promote two colored decks. As long as three colored decks doesn't end replacing less colored ones (as it happened for a long time in Standard) it's fine. Other than that, it's a fine cycle and it breaks the usual norm by aiding fast decks rather than slow ones. This may be even playable in Extended or Legacy, so it's really interesting.
The cycle should be completed later in the block with the enemy color lands. Some combinations like GB or RW are popular but lands have been scarce lately. It is sad that some combinations are less playable than others only for flavorful reasons.
Of course, along with the duals it would fit quite well to receive quality nonbasic hate in order to keep fancy 3+ goodstuff decks if they threaten to dominate the format. The vivid lands lesson should not go unlearned.
If Limited gets in the way of printing good Constructed cards...
Screw limited
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3 years ago ::
Sep 16, 2010 - 10:19PM
#9
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I guess I'll speak up for these - they seem out-and-out fantastic for me; obviously great for aggro, but better than most of the alternatives even for control decks. The 'worst-case scenario' is that you draw this on turn 4 when you need it to make your 4th land drop and that keeps you off of Jace/Day of Judgement (or, I suppose, turn 5 where it keeps you off of Baneslayer/miscellaneous Plainswalkers); I just don't see that specific circumstance coming up often enough for it to matter. And once you hit your 5th land drop, more land is obviously important but the schedule for getting it online is less essential, so these should have an absolutely minimal drawback any way you slice it. I'm going to try and grab a playset as swiftly as I can. Neatly done!
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3 years ago ::
Sep 16, 2010 - 10:23PM
#10
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When you mentioned the M10 Duals I got all excited that there'd be enemy colored ones for some reason even though I know it's been said that Wizards feels allied colors should be easier to fix mana for. Still, why can't there be ONE set of dual lands for enemy colors, yes the fetches are nice but they aren't actually dual lands, you have to choose a color and then you're stuck with it. Assume you added some enemy colored duals to the next set, things would then look like this in Standard:
Enemy colors: Fetches plus some sort of dual land
Allied colors: M10 Duals, Man-lands, Lifegain Lands, SoM lands
Still easier to fix mana for allied colors, but not to the point that you just can't play enemy colors because of the mana requirements. Plus I don't agree with "flavor" as a justification for preventing players from playing any combination of two to three colors they wish (I do agree that easy access to 4 or 5 shouldn't be the case).
The end is always nigh.
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