As AtheistGod said, in order to print this land on a Standard set they must give us a reason to use it in our decks. Otherwise it should be printed in a Commander set.
I really like the idea of "must pay with colorless mana" that a guy in GDS2 brought up. I feels like the 6th color, it creates a strong colorless matter theme and it helps to set apart regular artifacts from colorless cards tied to ancient draconian magic from Tarkir.
That's a nice idea, though a bit jarring and unwieldy for limited if you have to draft colorless lands. I could see one or two cards with this, but I think it's too complex of a concept for common, particularly in terms of tracking mana in your pool.
More likely I expect we'll see a host of other cards in the set that have text that makes this land matter. They could do Affinity for COLORLESSBASIC, COLORLESSBASIC produces double mana with this in play, ETB with a +1/+1 counter for each mana paid for by COLORLESSBASIC, etc. Again though, the key is the logistics of the land... how many you can reasonably expect to have in a limited deck. If you're going to make this land matter, you're going to have to do it in both constructed and limited, and there's a pretty big difference between having 1/3 or 1/20 of your deck being this land. I'm interested to see how they reconcile the two.
Ideally any colorless land would meet the following criteria:
1. Work in EDH - Primary concern. If it doesn't have a colorless identity, it fails.
2. Doesn't break domain - See: Coalition Victory
3. Enjoy some of the benefits of basic lands - No limits, searching, immune to non-basic land destruction
The most obvious solution is to avoid creating a new basic land type, but keep it as a basic land. If you were willing to get convoluted, you could have something like this:
Cave
Land - Cave
You can have any number of ~ in your deck. Whenever you search your library, you may treat ~ as a basic land. ~ cannot be destroyed, exiled, or targeted by spells or abilities that would not affect a basic land.
T: 1
Ideally any colorless land would meet the following criteria:
1. Work in EDH - Primary concern. If it doesn't have a colorless identity, it fails.
2. Doesn't break domain - See: Coalition Victory
3. Enjoy some of the benefits of basic lands - No limits, searching, immune to non-basic land destruction
The most obvious solution is to avoid creating a new basic land type, but keep it as a basic land. If you were willing to get convoluted, you could have something like this:
Cave
Land - Cave
You can have any number of ~ in your deck. Whenever you search your library, you may treat ~ as a basic land. ~ cannot be destroyed, exiled, or targeted by spells or abilities that would not affect a basic land.
T: 1
Errata'ing the rules so that basic lands don't have to have a type and making a typeless basic seems a lot easier than putting a wall of text on the card. Instead they'd just put Basic Land and there'd be no type after.
I'm really curious what they'd call such a land, though. Not really happy with 'cave.' And I have a hard time seeing how it'd be worth playing in standard. Unless Fate is filled with colorless spells or colorless restricted spells.
A few people are talking as if it is known that this colourless basic will be in standard and in FRF. What exactly did AF say on the matter? I just thought it was mentioned that they had solved the issue and that it is now "possible". What was the context? Did he bring this up himself, or was there a question ("Why wasn't there a sixth, colourless, deck in C14?").
For questions about how the land and "colourless basic land matters" would work in limited, I guess we could look at how snow-lands worked in Coldsnap drafts. I did not play at that time, but if it was anything like Ice Age, the snow-lands where fairly few and far between. They did add stuff like Boreal Druid and Coldsteel Heart, which I suppose they could repeat. Did it work?
This is not the problem with Barry's Land! Why is this so hard for people to understand? The problem is not having the type "Basic" on a land that produces colourless mana, the problem is adding an additional basic land type which will throw off Coalition Victory and the like.
Derpland
Basic Land
T: Add 1 to your mana pool
is perfectly fine! There is absolutely no need to leap through hoops to make that card nonbasic. The "problem" is that Derpland is not Barry's Land because it has no interaction with Domain; that's the reason it was not printed in Invasion or Conflux (well, Invasion predates the use of Basic as a supertype so there were potentially additional problems there. It still wouldn't have been printed in Invasion because it is totally opposed to that block's theme). As a tool for Karn EDH, however, Derpland is perfectly acceptable.
Now that is an idea with which I can agree; a basic land that has no basic land types would not break any aspect of the game, and it also would perfectly fit the spirit and theme of colorlessness.
It just has the slight problem of not doing anything. It's strictly worse than a basic Plains. A colorless basic land needs a purpose to exist and a single format disallowing the use of basic Plains is not a purpose. Any colorless basic land that Wizards prints will come with some reason to run it that isn't "Plains is banned." This could be support cards similar to the way that Domain and Barry's Land would work together, or this could be some marginal benefit such as Shimmering Grotto's second ability.
Let me first make this clear: my intention was to illustrate the difference between Barry's Land and a land that simply has the Basic supertype. Every time this comes up, multiple people make needlessly complicated suggestions of how to solve a "problem" that they clearly don't understand. I do share your concerns about the justification for printing such a card, although I don't accept your assumption that WotC would never print a card that was strictly worse than a basic land except in EDH. I can also think of some extensions of the "colourless matters" thing we've begun to see in Tarkir that would make such a land theoretically worthwhile, but even so it seems unlikely that it will show up in Standard without something else to support it.
Ideally any colorless land would meet the following criteria:
1. Work in EDH - Primary concern. If it doesn't have a colorless identity, it fails.
2. Doesn't break domain - See: Coalition Victory
3. Enjoy some of the benefits of basic lands - No limits, searching, immune to non-basic land destruction
The most obvious solution is to avoid creating a new basic land type, but keep it as a basic land. If you were willing to get convoluted, you could have something like this:
Cave
Land - Cave
You can have any number of ~ in your deck. Whenever you search your library, you may treat ~ as a basic land. ~ cannot be destroyed, exiled, or targeted by spells or abilities that would not affect a basic land.
T: 1
Errata'ing the rules so that basic lands don't have to have a type and making a typeless basic seems a lot easier than putting a wall of text on the card. Instead they'd just put Basic Land and there'd be no type after.
I'm really curious what they'd call such a land, though. Not really happy with 'cave.' And I have a hard time seeing how it'd be worth playing in standard. Unless Fate is filled with colorless spells or colorless restricted spells.
Just having a typeless land would do most of the work, but I'm not sure if it would do it all. I can't think of a great example of what it would break though. As far as making it standard playable and not strictly worse than basics, you'd have to have colorless matters cards like:
Flame of Ugin 1R
Instant
~ does 2 damage divided as you choose among any number of target creatures and/or players. If colorless mana were spent to cast ~, it deals 3 damage instead.
I imagine that the "if colorless were spent to cast this" clause would be keyworded. Alternatively, have something like:
Arcane Golem 2
Artifact Creature - Golem
Spend only colorless mana to cast ~
4/3
Hmm...a colorless basic land is one step closer to a 6th color. Like Purple...
One very, very small step, but a step nonetheless.
Now if the colorless basic land has no land type, then well, that step is like a half-step. (but seriously, if the biggest obstacle for them making a new basic is Coalition Victory, then...I don't even know.)
Anyway, I had an idea, after JovianHomarid (Homarids4ever!) mentioned Snow lands. That is, the colorless basic doesn't have a land type, but a new supertype!
Ugin's Land
Ugin's Basic Land
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
^ I was about to suggest something similar but simpler:
Illusory Plains
Basic Land - Plains Illusion
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
This doesn't have much use outside of EDH,
but it would enable colorless decks to function a lot smoother.
They could also print some enablers to make them more appealing for Standard,
like "Illusion Lands you control have T: Add 2 to your Mana Pool".
Illusion isn't a land subtype and that card would just be a plains also able to tap for 1. It doesn't make much sense.
Remember Imperiosaur? Well, I guess we'll have a similar mechanic. Also, cards like Drain Life that had strict mana requirements. Ah, this sets really looks like Return to Time Spiral.
EDIT: or a sort of new Phyrexia Mana. Like Ghostpump: GG or 1: target creature gets +2/+2 till EoT (1 can only be paid with colorless mana)
I don't think you can do a "basic land" without a subtype, following the actual rules, but it seems a good solution to the problem if it doesn't cause rules issues.
It's totally fine within the rules because, from MTG comprehensive rules:
101.1. Whenever a card’s text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence.
It seems there is a lot of over thinking going on here. As mentioned, there are a few simple guidelines it needs to follow:
1) Needs to be Basic, to allow any colorless EDH deck to run more than one of it and allow for Traveler's Amulet effects to work with it.
2) Needs to not have a new subtype so as not to affect the Domain mechanic.
In addition to this, it needs an incentive to be run in Limited/Standard. In a set/block that is sure to have a colorless theme/sub theme/support, there is plenty of room for something like this:
Colorless-Aligned Dragon, 4RR
Creature - Dragon
If any colorless mana was spent to pay ~ mana cost, it enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it.
Flying
1: ~ gets +2/+0 until end of turn. Use only colorless mana to activate this ability and only once per turn.
4/4
This solves all issues I can think of related to printing a colorless basic land. It's as simple as that.
Is it within the current rules to have differently named basic lands? Like "Delta" that would be a "Basic Land — Island" just for variety's sake
What a fascinating question.
This also ties into myriad landscape as well. (I didn't know that if it said basic land plains it must tap for a white.) God Aaron must have been laughing after he dropped this tidbit seeing us go nuts trying to figure it out. what is the advatage to play this land there must be one
I don't think you can do a "basic land" without a subtype, following the actual rules
Why do you think this? There is no rule to this effect, what makes you and deathtouch_roadrunner assume that there is?
Once more, because a lot of people seem to have missed it, if you think that this is the problem with Barry's Land then you're wrong. Barry's Land needs to have a basic land type because that's the whole point of Barry's Land. As per MaRo's post, the colourless basic to which Aaron refers need not be Barry's Land so it need not have a subtype. There is not, and has not been since 8th Edition, any trouble with attaching the Basic supertype to such a land.
I don't think you can do a "basic land" without a subtype, following the actual rules, but it seems a good solution to the problem if it doesn't cause rules issues.
Based on the current rules, it's indeed totally fine to have a basic land without a subtype.
Quote from Comprehensive Rules »
205.4a A card can also have one or more supertypes. These are printed directly before its card types. The supertypes are basic, legendary, ongoing, snow, and world.
205.4b An object’s supertype is independent of its card type and subtype, even though some supertypes are closely identified with specific card types.
I don't think you can do a "basic land" without a subtype, following the actual rules
Why do you think this? There is no rule to this effect, what makes you and deathtouch_roadrunner assume that there is?
Once more, because a lot of people seem to have missed it, if you think that this is the problem with Barry's Land then you're wrong. Barry's Land needs to have a basic land type because that's the whole point of Barry's Land. As per MaRo's post, the colourless basic to which Aaron refers need not be Barry's Land so it need not have a subtype. There is not, and has not been since 8th Edition, any trouble with attaching the Basic supertype to such a land.
I sort of assumed it must be some sort of rule, because otherwise there's really no reason to not print one, at least in terms of it causing problems. I guess my question is "if you can indeed have a typeless basic -- and based on what the rules experts have said, you can -- then was there really anything to actually solve to create a colorless basic?"
(As someone who is not a rules expert and based on all the talk and rewording revolving around basic land types, the type aspect seemed like the locus of the problem. Without the type aspect, it seems easy to just print such a land without problem. It's then merely in need of a reason to justify it, and a good name.)
I guess my question is "if you can indeed have a typeless basic -- and based on what the rules experts have said, you can -- then was there really anything to actually solve to create a colorless basic?"
(As someone who is not a rules expert and based on all the talk and rewording revolving around basic land types, the type aspect seemed like the locus of the problem. Without the type aspect, it seems easy to just print such a land without problem. It's then merely in need of a reason to justify it, and a good name.)
There probably wasn't a good story reason to have a basic land with no type that produced colorless mana until this block. As previously stated by others, introducing this land will also help EDH players who want to run colorless Commanders and use colorless land sources that could still be retrieved by other basic "fetch" cards. One small benefit of a colorless basic land is that it would be immune to the occasional land hoser card, which probably aren't used much (Karma, Acid Rain, Tsunami, etc.).
Just to make things a bit more clear:
1-Interacting with Domain cards is different from messing with Coalition Victory
The first was THE reason a colorless basic land was designed in first place and it would be a positive aspect of the land. The second was one of the main reasons it never saw print.
But then again, there are other reasons to print a colorless basic land nowadays.
2-Aron never said this land is appearing on a standard set. We're just discussing if it could be.
I don't think you can do a "basic land" without a subtype, following the actual rules
Why do you think this? There is no rule to this effect, what makes you and deathtouch_roadrunner assume that there is?
Once more, because a lot of people seem to have missed it, if you think that this is the problem with Barry's Land then you're wrong. Barry's Land needs to have a basic land type because that's the whole point of Barry's Land. As per MaRo's post, the colourless basic to which Aaron refers need not be Barry's Land so it need not have a subtype. There is not, and has not been since 8th Edition, any trouble with attaching the Basic supertype to such a land.
I sort of assumed it must be some sort of rule, because otherwise there's really no reason to not print one, at least in terms of it causing problems. I guess my question is "if you can indeed have a typeless basic -- and based on what the rules experts have said, you can -- then was there really anything to actually solve to create a colorless basic?"
(As someone who is not a rules expert and based on all the talk and rewording revolving around basic land types, the type aspect seemed like the locus of the problem. Without the type aspect, it seems easy to just print such a land without problem. It's then merely in need of a reason to justify it, and a good name.)
Well I think the key is kind of what AtheistGod said earlier: if it's just "T: Add 1" then it's too weak, and if it's got extra abilities then it doesn't sit easily as "basic" (but not for any technical rules reason, just for the feel of it). That's why Barry's Land was seen as the way to get a basic land into Karn EDH decks, because otherwise what's the justification for printing it? It is of course unclear at this point exactly how they "solved" it or what precisely they "solved", but the justification is a strong contender given that MaRo's saying it won't be Barry's Land (which does have technical rules issues).
Technically speaking, they could print a basic land with a land subtype (as opposed to a basic land with a basic land subtype). Which is a pedantic difference but one that technically matters. That wouldn't mess with coalition victory, but would allow for variable ways to make the land matter for play reasons.
Technically speaking, they could print a basic land with a land subtype (as opposed to a basic land with a basic land subtype). Which is a pedantic difference but one that technically matters. That wouldn't mess with coalition victory, but would allow for variable ways to make the land matter for play reasons.
Technically speaking, they could print a basic land with a land subtype (as opposed to a basic land with a basic land subtype). Which is a pedantic difference but one that technically matters. That wouldn't mess with coalition victory, but would allow for variable ways to make the land matter for play reasons.
I don't know, wouldn't giving a basic land a land type make it seem like that land type is basic? Because it's a land type on a basic land, so that would imply it's a basic land type, even if it's not. It's a confusing little thing.
I don't know, wouldn't giving a basic land a land type make it seem like that land type is basic? Because it's a land type on a basic land, so that would imply it's a basic land type, even if it's not. It's a confusing little thing.
From a rules perspective, the basic land types carry more meaning to them than the Land types do, as basic land types have the intrinsic value of adding whatever color is appropriate.
Desert, Lair, Locus, Mine, Power-Plant, Tower, and Urza's are all land types, without being basic. If they printed a "Basic Land -- Locus" Locus would not be a basic land type. Also this would be a terrible idea and they should never do that specifically. But it would give the colorless land type an identity without screwing up Coalition Victory or increasing the power of Domain.
I'm assuming that the purpose of this land isn't to up the Domain count to 6, otherwise they wouldn't be making comments that this "isn't necessarily Barry's Land", because Barry's Land's entire purpose was to increase the Domain count to 6.
I also don't think it's necessary to have a Relentless Rats type of land that produces colorless mana just for the sake of colorless Commander decks.
There are already something like 150+ lands that can be put into a colorless Commander deck, it really isn't that hard. And if my query here is correct, I count 80 lands that are least functionally identical or superior to a card that just says "T: Add 1 to your mana pool."
So what's the point of having a colorless basic land in Commander? The only thing I can think of is to remove the blatant disadvantage of not having the ability to play basic lands. Classic red cards like From the Ashes, Ruination, Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, Price of Progress have always been a problem, but there could be a real problem now with the new Wave of Vitriol. I think it's time that the colorless disadvantage of not being able to include basic lands in your deck be rectified. So I think that's what this card's purpose is.
So it's probably going to be something with a typeline that begins "Basic Land". Do they HAVE to give it a subtype at all? And if so, can they give it a subtype doesn't automatically become a basic land type, and without being confusing to the extent that Wizards usually doesn't like printing confusing things? Can't imagine they'd do that... so maybe we'll just get "Basic Land". That's it. Is there a problem with that? Probably, but I don't see why they couldn't tweak the comprehensive rules to allow it.
That's a nice idea, though a bit jarring and unwieldy for limited if you have to draft colorless lands. I could see one or two cards with this, but I think it's too complex of a concept for common, particularly in terms of tracking mana in your pool.
More likely I expect we'll see a host of other cards in the set that have text that makes this land matter. They could do Affinity for COLORLESSBASIC, COLORLESSBASIC produces double mana with this in play, ETB with a +1/+1 counter for each mana paid for by COLORLESSBASIC, etc. Again though, the key is the logistics of the land... how many you can reasonably expect to have in a limited deck. If you're going to make this land matter, you're going to have to do it in both constructed and limited, and there's a pretty big difference between having 1/3 or 1/20 of your deck being this land. I'm interested to see how they reconcile the two.
Cubetutor Link
1. Work in EDH - Primary concern. If it doesn't have a colorless identity, it fails.
2. Doesn't break domain - See: Coalition Victory
3. Enjoy some of the benefits of basic lands - No limits, searching, immune to non-basic land destruction
The most obvious solution is to avoid creating a new basic land type, but keep it as a basic land. If you were willing to get convoluted, you could have something like this:
Cave
Land - Cave
You can have any number of ~ in your deck. Whenever you search your library, you may treat ~ as a basic land. ~ cannot be destroyed, exiled, or targeted by spells or abilities that would not affect a basic land.
T: 1
Errata'ing the rules so that basic lands don't have to have a type and making a typeless basic seems a lot easier than putting a wall of text on the card. Instead they'd just put Basic Land and there'd be no type after.
I'm really curious what they'd call such a land, though. Not really happy with 'cave.' And I have a hard time seeing how it'd be worth playing in standard. Unless Fate is filled with colorless spells or colorless restricted spells.
For questions about how the land and "colourless basic land matters" would work in limited, I guess we could look at how snow-lands worked in Coldsnap drafts. I did not play at that time, but if it was anything like Ice Age, the snow-lands where fairly few and far between. They did add stuff like Boreal Druid and Coldsteel Heart, which I suppose they could repeat. Did it work?
(It could make Tomb of the spirit Dragon a slightly less horrible pick in FRF/KTK draft).
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
Let me first make this clear: my intention was to illustrate the difference between Barry's Land and a land that simply has the Basic supertype. Every time this comes up, multiple people make needlessly complicated suggestions of how to solve a "problem" that they clearly don't understand. I do share your concerns about the justification for printing such a card, although I don't accept your assumption that WotC would never print a card that was strictly worse than a basic land except in EDH. I can also think of some extensions of the "colourless matters" thing we've begun to see in Tarkir that would make such a land theoretically worthwhile, but even so it seems unlikely that it will show up in Standard without something else to support it.
No such rule exists.
Just having a typeless land would do most of the work, but I'm not sure if it would do it all. I can't think of a great example of what it would break though. As far as making it standard playable and not strictly worse than basics, you'd have to have colorless matters cards like:
Flame of Ugin 1R
Instant
~ does 2 damage divided as you choose among any number of target creatures and/or players. If colorless mana were spent to cast ~, it deals 3 damage instead.
I imagine that the "if colorless were spent to cast this" clause would be keyworded. Alternatively, have something like:
Arcane Golem 2
Artifact Creature - Golem
Spend only colorless mana to cast ~
4/3
One very, very small step, but a step nonetheless.
Now if the colorless basic land has no land type, then well, that step is like a half-step. (but seriously, if the biggest obstacle for them making a new basic is Coalition Victory, then...I don't even know.)
Anyway, I had an idea, after JovianHomarid (Homarids4ever!) mentioned Snow lands. That is, the colorless basic doesn't have a land type, but a new supertype!
Ugin's Land
Ugin's Basic Land
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
Illusion isn't a land subtype and that card would just be a plains also able to tap for 1. It doesn't make much sense.
Basic Land - Whatever
Add 1 to your Mana pool.
Remember Imperiosaur? Well, I guess we'll have a similar mechanic. Also, cards like Drain Life that had strict mana requirements. Ah, this sets really looks like Return to Time Spiral.
EDIT: or a sort of new Phyrexia Mana. Like Ghostpump: GG or 1: target creature gets +2/+2 till EoT (1 can only be paid with colorless mana)
It's totally fine within the rules because, from MTG comprehensive rules:
101.1. Whenever a card’s text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence.
1) Needs to be Basic, to allow any colorless EDH deck to run more than one of it and allow for Traveler's Amulet effects to work with it.
2) Needs to not have a new subtype so as not to affect the Domain mechanic.
In addition to this, it needs an incentive to be run in Limited/Standard. In a set/block that is sure to have a colorless theme/sub theme/support, there is plenty of room for something like this:
Colorless-Aligned Dragon, 4RR
Creature - Dragon
If any colorless mana was spent to pay ~ mana cost, it enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it.
Flying
1: ~ gets +2/+0 until end of turn. Use only colorless mana to activate this ability and only once per turn.
4/4
This solves all issues I can think of related to printing a colorless basic land. It's as simple as that.
This also ties into myriad landscape as well. (I didn't know that if it said basic land plains it must tap for a white.) God Aaron must have been laughing after he dropped this tidbit seeing us go nuts trying to figure it out. what is the advatage to play this land there must be one
Why do you think this? There is no rule to this effect, what makes you and deathtouch_roadrunner assume that there is?
Once more, because a lot of people seem to have missed it, if you think that this is the problem with Barry's Land then you're wrong. Barry's Land needs to have a basic land type because that's the whole point of Barry's Land. As per MaRo's post, the colourless basic to which Aaron refers need not be Barry's Land so it need not have a subtype. There is not, and has not been since 8th Edition, any trouble with attaching the Basic supertype to such a land.
Based on the current rules, it's indeed totally fine to have a basic land without a subtype.
I sort of assumed it must be some sort of rule, because otherwise there's really no reason to not print one, at least in terms of it causing problems. I guess my question is "if you can indeed have a typeless basic -- and based on what the rules experts have said, you can -- then was there really anything to actually solve to create a colorless basic?"
(As someone who is not a rules expert and based on all the talk and rewording revolving around basic land types, the type aspect seemed like the locus of the problem. Without the type aspect, it seems easy to just print such a land without problem. It's then merely in need of a reason to justify it, and a good name.)
There probably wasn't a good story reason to have a basic land with no type that produced colorless mana until this block. As previously stated by others, introducing this land will also help EDH players who want to run colorless Commanders and use colorless land sources that could still be retrieved by other basic "fetch" cards. One small benefit of a colorless basic land is that it would be immune to the occasional land hoser card, which probably aren't used much (Karma, Acid Rain, Tsunami, etc.).
1-Interacting with Domain cards is different from messing with Coalition Victory
The first was THE reason a colorless basic land was designed in first place and it would be a positive aspect of the land. The second was one of the main reasons it never saw print.
But then again, there are other reasons to print a colorless basic land nowadays.
2-Aron never said this land is appearing on a standard set. We're just discussing if it could be.
Commander: WUBRG Superfriends, GW Rhys Tokens, WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon
Kitchen Table (now that's real Magic): WUBRG Domain, GU Biovisionary, UB Korlash Grandeur, UW Merfolk Mill
Well I think the key is kind of what AtheistGod said earlier: if it's just "T: Add 1" then it's too weak, and if it's got extra abilities then it doesn't sit easily as "basic" (but not for any technical rules reason, just for the feel of it). That's why Barry's Land was seen as the way to get a basic land into Karn EDH decks, because otherwise what's the justification for printing it? It is of course unclear at this point exactly how they "solved" it or what precisely they "solved", but the justification is a strong contender given that MaRo's saying it won't be Barry's Land (which does have technical rules issues).
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
So, for example:
?
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
I don't know, wouldn't giving a basic land a land type make it seem like that land type is basic? Because it's a land type on a basic land, so that would imply it's a basic land type, even if it's not. It's a confusing little thing.
Desert, Lair, Locus, Mine, Power-Plant, Tower, and Urza's are all land types, without being basic. If they printed a "Basic Land -- Locus" Locus would not be a basic land type. Also this would be a terrible idea and they should never do that specifically. But it would give the colorless land type an identity without screwing up Coalition Victory or increasing the power of Domain.
I also don't think it's necessary to have a Relentless Rats type of land that produces colorless mana just for the sake of colorless Commander decks.
There are already something like 150+ lands that can be put into a colorless Commander deck, it really isn't that hard. And if my query here is correct, I count 80 lands that are least functionally identical or superior to a card that just says "T: Add 1 to your mana pool."
So what's the point of having a colorless basic land in Commander? The only thing I can think of is to remove the blatant disadvantage of not having the ability to play basic lands. Classic red cards like From the Ashes, Ruination, Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, Price of Progress have always been a problem, but there could be a real problem now with the new Wave of Vitriol. I think it's time that the colorless disadvantage of not being able to include basic lands in your deck be rectified. So I think that's what this card's purpose is.
So it's probably going to be something with a typeline that begins "Basic Land". Do they HAVE to give it a subtype at all? And if so, can they give it a subtype doesn't automatically become a basic land type, and without being confusing to the extent that Wizards usually doesn't like printing confusing things? Can't imagine they'd do that... so maybe we'll just get "Basic Land". That's it. Is there a problem with that? Probably, but I don't see why they couldn't tweak the comprehensive rules to allow it.