Hi guys -
I was just wondering what you guys thought the dual land cycle in Origins is going to be. It think it's going to be a River of Tears cycle, where each color has a land like that. It would help out any landfall theme in BFZ, and play nicely with the fetches while they're around. What do you think?
I'd love for that cycle to be completed, and you are right that a Standard with fetchlands is a good time to print them. The issue, as has been oft repeated, is that the full cycle would actually be 20 lands, to cover all the two-colour options.
I feel pretty confident that there will never be a River of Tears cycle. Not only does it demand a cycle of 20 lands, it's also a cumbersome design to play and build with. There are memory issues ("Did i play a land?" It's not too challenging but it's definitely there), deck design inflexibility ("I want this mana intensive black instant so I guess I'll start swapping out lands"), and it sets a lot of traps for misplays ("Snap, I meant to play this before my land"). I just don't believe it's a good design. Cool and fresh, yes, but it's not smooth enough in practice for a whole cycle.
Nimbus Maze, on the other hand... It has significant drawbacks (UU and WW is difficult to play), but it's a lot easier and more intuitive.
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Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
I'd most like for them to do enemy fastlands in Magic Origins. Gives the speed for early 2 color aggro when the painlands rotate (when combined with the ally fetches in Khans) and completes a cycle for Modern sake, one that might help aggro decks of ally vs. enemy colors race each other more fairly in a growing to be more agressive modern, and a Modern with T1 burn. So it would help with both Modern and Standard mana bases.
The River of Tears cycle however would be much more of a thing in Battle for Zendikar. If (and we have currently assumed this is the case) that BFZ has a lands matter theme in it, then playing a land to gain a bonus this turn such as River of Tears would make sense there. As such I would think this cycle is much less likely to go into Magic Origins and would be expecting something else in there. My guess for Magic Origins would be for them to do a new cycle of mono coloured non basics based around the place where each of the Planeswalkers come from.
I could be monofetch. Just Tap and sacrifice wihtout losing 1 point of life?
Or I could be mono color fetch land (for blue, red, green, black, colorless).
Tap, sacr., lose 1 point: Search for land that could produce mana of specific # color.
Sacred Plan
Pay 1-2 life point, sac., tap: Search for land that produce black mana and put it on battlefield.
Tap, sacr., lose 1 point: Search for land that could produce mana of specific # color.
Sacred Plan
Pay 1-2 life point, sac., tap: Search for land that produce black mana and put it on battlefield.
They won't ever print lands that fetch for anything but basics. Everything else is much too strong. Searching for filter lands, manlands, mana confluence...? There are countless examples that would make this much too broken.
SInce we are getting 10 worlds, surely 5 different lands will be used? Like in future sight?
No. They're all going to be the same type. Core sets have been showing multiple different planes since M10 yet still always had the cycles be the same for limited. Future Sight was an exception, not the norm. Other cards and basic lands will be used to show off the flavors of the different planes.
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WOut of the ground,I rise to grace...W BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
Allied painlands seem likely to me. They'd complement the enemy painlands from M15, and Origins would be the last time we could see the full cycle being reprinted in Standard without having to return to Dominaria.
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EDH/Commander
(W/U)(W/U)Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage: The New da Vinci (historic control)
(W/B)(W/B)Teysa Karlov: Death Be Not Kind (aristocrats)
(R/G)(R/G)Hallar, the Firefletcher: Yavimaya Burning (kicker and counters)
(B/G)(G/U)Sidisi, Brood Tyrant: Queen of the Damned (dredge)
Maybe Build
(W/U)(U/B)Aminatou, the Fateshifter: And a Child Shall Lead Them (superfriends)
I don't see how River of Tears cycle would have to be 20 cards, it could be a simple 10 when completed.
Ally Color: Travels anticlockwise in the color wheel (WUBRGW). U to Landdrop B
Enemey Color: Travels clockwise in the color wheel (WGRBUW). U to Landdrop G
They could do a 10 card cycle (Checks, Filters, Nimbus Maze cycle, renamed Painlands) with each card representing a plane in the set but all be from the same cycle of lands. So Sunken Ruins could be art of Shadowmoor and Wooded Bastion is art of Zendikar, etc. Not a terribly likely answer, but it would bee a cool answer none the less. The painlands would need a functional reprint for more than half of them to deal with being named after locations on Dominaria.
I still don't believe they will make an allied-only half cycle to go with the allied fetches, as this would mean that at rotation the allied pairs would have 2 dual lands each + [Whatever is in BFZ], while enemy colour pairs would have zero dual lands each, only [whatever is in BFZ].
Addendum:
The mono-fetches are in a curious place to balance I think. If my understanding is correct, a mono-fetch would have the following text-line "T,sacrifice this: search your library for a [basic land type]."
If that is the only line on the card, it breaks the "Strictly better than a basic land" rule, so it would require some minor drawback. The trouble is, as soon as you add any sort of drawback, the land becomes bad in any format without fetchable duals. And we aren't likely to get fetchable duals as long as any of the traditional fetchlands are in Standard.
Another issue these lands would likely run into is that less experienced players would scratch their heads and wonder why theys should play these lands over basics.
@Sting: Depowering wedge decks is an interesting theory. After all, stuff like Siege Rhino will still be around after rotation and provide a pretty strong incentive to play wedge decks.
They may want to depower fixing, and the easiest way to do this would be to have no duals at all in Origins.
But increasing the power of allied fixing over enemy-fixing is still counter to their philosophy of providing equal options for most colour-combinations. I'm not sure if "depowering wedges" is a good enough reason to break with that philosophy, particularly since wedge decks would still have the tri-lands and will presumably be getting enemy-coloured fetches in BFZ.
And I left out the Gainlands on purpose, since I thought we were discussing rare lands. But I should probably have made this more clear.
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If we are looking at what people are expecting from BFZ-block in terms of lands, I feel both fetchlands and manlands are high on the list. Both of the "missing" cycles are enemy here (the fetchlands for being "missing" in standard, the manlands from being missing altogether). So an argument could be made for having those two enemy coloured cycles in BFZ. If that was the case, then Origins could have a slow allied cycle to pair with the ETB enemy manlands. This would indeed skew mana-fixing towards allied decks for a period, but it could be that they feel this is OK for a limited time. (Both RTR-block and Theros block skewed fixing for limited time periods).
It needs to be pointed out heavily that in no way shape or form was Origins designed to be a part of Khans block or DTK in particular. Khans block and Origins where designed/developed before the decision to to go to 2 set blocks. MaRo confrimed such when he stated the the decision was made during design handing off the BfZ file to development. So Origins was created like other core sets with some things for the leaving block and support/hints for the upcoming block.
DTK and Origins being rotated out together is just an akward byproduct to get the new rotation started. They were never designed to work as a block.
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WOut of the ground,I rise to grace...W BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
I was just wondering what you guys thought the dual land cycle in Origins is going to be. It think it's going to be a River of Tears cycle, where each color has a land like that. It would help out any landfall theme in BFZ, and play nicely with the fetches while they're around. What do you think?
There is already a thread on this by the way, although it is still using the M2016-name: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/speculation/601756-m16-lands
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
Nimbus Maze, on the other hand... It has significant drawbacks (UU and WW is difficult to play), but it's a lot easier and more intuitive.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
Or I could be mono color fetch land (for blue, red, green, black, colorless).
Tap, sacr., lose 1 point: Search for land that could produce mana of specific # color.
Sacred Plan
Pay 1-2 life point, sac., tap: Search for land that produce black mana and put it on battlefield.
They won't ever print lands that fetch for anything but basics. Everything else is much too strong. Searching for filter lands, manlands, mana confluence...? There are countless examples that would make this much too broken.
No. They're all going to be the same type. Core sets have been showing multiple different planes since M10 yet still always had the cycles be the same for limited. Future Sight was an exception, not the norm. Other cards and basic lands will be used to show off the flavors of the different planes.
BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
They already confirmed there are only 5 double faced cards in the set, and that those are the planeswalkers.
Ally Color: Travels anticlockwise in the color wheel (WUBRGW). U to Landdrop B
Enemey Color: Travels clockwise in the color wheel (WGRBUW). U to Landdrop G
They could do a 10 card cycle (Checks, Filters, Nimbus Maze cycle, renamed Painlands) with each card representing a plane in the set but all be from the same cycle of lands. So Sunken Ruins could be art of Shadowmoor and Wooded Bastion is art of Zendikar, etc. Not a terribly likely answer, but it would bee a cool answer none the less. The painlands would need a functional reprint for more than half of them to deal with being named after locations on Dominaria.
Addendum:
The mono-fetches are in a curious place to balance I think. If my understanding is correct, a mono-fetch would have the following text-line "T,sacrifice this: search your library for a [basic land type]."
If that is the only line on the card, it breaks the "Strictly better than a basic land" rule, so it would require some minor drawback. The trouble is, as soon as you add any sort of drawback, the land becomes bad in any format without fetchable duals. And we aren't likely to get fetchable duals as long as any of the traditional fetchlands are in Standard.
Another issue these lands would likely run into is that less experienced players would scratch their heads and wonder why theys should play these lands over basics.
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
They may want to depower fixing, and the easiest way to do this would be to have no duals at all in Origins.
But increasing the power of allied fixing over enemy-fixing is still counter to their philosophy of providing equal options for most colour-combinations. I'm not sure if "depowering wedges" is a good enough reason to break with that philosophy, particularly since wedge decks would still have the tri-lands and will presumably be getting enemy-coloured fetches in BFZ.
And I left out the Gainlands on purpose, since I thought we were discussing rare lands. But I should probably have made this more clear.
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If we are looking at what people are expecting from BFZ-block in terms of lands, I feel both fetchlands and manlands are high on the list. Both of the "missing" cycles are enemy here (the fetchlands for being "missing" in standard, the manlands from being missing altogether). So an argument could be made for having those two enemy coloured cycles in BFZ. If that was the case, then Origins could have a slow allied cycle to pair with the ETB enemy manlands. This would indeed skew mana-fixing towards allied decks for a period, but it could be that they feel this is OK for a limited time. (Both RTR-block and Theros block skewed fixing for limited time periods).
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
DTK and Origins being rotated out together is just an akward byproduct to get the new rotation started. They were never designed to work as a block.
BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B