They help make the format slower if that's what you want. And you get to rip off the top to figure out what land you need. Susceptible to wasteland effects, though.
The biggest downside is that mirage nonbasics are ugly and the only new face reprint was Grasslands.
I hope one day these show up in M14 or something along with enemy ones.
I actually think these are almost always better than Evolving Wilds/Teramorphic Expanse in my decks. Allows more splashing of a color without even needing a basic for your splash. Having .75 fetches for every fetchable dual is noticeably easier to pick up than typical .5 ratio most cubes have. And I do think they are definitely better than Shardlands once you run all 20 fetchable duals.
Wow, I never realised these could fetch non-basics. They don't look unreasonable to run at all.
For years, up until the Onslaught fetches came out, these lands were in everything. They were THE go-to lands for tutoring up your revised duals (when the revised duals were extended legal). They were all but immediately forgotten when the new fetches came out, because you never needed enough to run both, and the new fetches were better. But singleton is different, and it wasn't until we were reminiscing about the good 'ol days of extended with duals that I was reminded of how damn good the Mirage fetches were for years. And that made me want to re-try them in the cube. At least for the color combinations that could swap out other ETBT lands for them.
I really don't understand why you'd want to run these over something like Scars lands, Filter lands, or even the M10/Inn lands (not to mention I still think the other ETB lands are just better). The incidental value of snagging a dual or shuffling is nowhere near to offsetting that they ETB tapped. Nothing has changed for me since I first ran these. If anything the landscape has gotten much worse. There's stricter competition, better substitutes, and the format is significantly faster. Big ups to anyone playing these and enjoying them, but barring some sort of new cycle of dual lands with basic land types or a Dryad Arbor cycle these won't be seeing the light of day in my on deck binder, let alone my cube.
I really don't understand why you'd want to run these over something like Scars lands, Filter lands, or even the M10/Inn lands (not to mention I still think the other ETB lands are just better). The incidental value of snagging a dual or shuffling is nowhere near to offsetting that they ETB tapped. Nothing has changed for me since I first ran these. If anything the landscape has gotten much worse. There's stricter competition, better substitutes, and the format is significantly faster. Big ups to anyone playing these and enjoying them, but barring some sort of new cycle of dual lands with basic land types or a Dryad Arbor cycle these won't be seeing the light of day in my on deck binder, let alone my cube.
Mountain Valley and Grasslands fetches Murmuring Bosk. The black ones fetch that black land from Shadowmoor that pings players. You can get dryad arbor if you really want. They all fetch both cycles of duals.
I like them because they cost like 50 cents. They also increase variance and I find it boring to play the same old cards every time. The more obscure, yet still pretty good, the better.
I really don't understand why you'd want to run these over something like Scars lands, Filter lands, or even the M10/Inn lands (not to mention I still think the other ETB lands are just better). The incidental value of snagging a dual or shuffling is nowhere near to offsetting that they ETB tapped. Nothing has changed for me since I first ran these. If anything the landscape has gotten much worse. There's stricter competition, better substitutes, and the format is significantly faster. Big ups to anyone playing these and enjoying them, but barring some sort of new cycle of dual lands with basic land types or a Dryad Arbor cycle these won't be seeing the light of day in my on deck binder, let alone my cube.
I just listed a whole bunch of reasons why you'd want to run these lands over the other competition. I don't think there are any strictly better substitutes in the #5 slot, and they're absolutely worth testing against everything else out there right now.
The average draft pool with my cube will have 7 dual land targets that these can hit, one of which should be the exact dual land even if you're only playing a 2-color deck. More if you have a full table of 8 drafters. Plus they have all the advantages of the shuffle effects, deck thinning and non-basic hate-dodging if necessary. And grabbing a dual land is not "incidental value". It's anticipated value.
The only thing I can't understand is the extremely poor and negative attitudes towards these two lands. They've been really serviceable inclusions in the #5 land slot since bringing them in. Every land choice past the 4 auto-include lands has pros and cons versus the rest of the competition, and none of them are clear victors. These lands have just as many reasons to be included as any of the other viable choices for the slot they compete in. I'm actually embarrassed that it took me this long to realize their value.
Well it's been a couple years now since wtwlf123 heaped praise onto these lands, and judging from his and everyone else's lists the opinion has turned around on these Mirage fetches. I really like them but my playgroup wasn't too enthused so they are on the sidelines right now. However, I have proxies of the enemy-color fetchlands until they're reprinted (I am cheap and refuse to get Scalding Tarn at 100+ bucks right now) so I'm thinking of just running these as fetches 6-10. It'll give a slight advantage to allied colors, but enemy color duals can be fetched with them of course, so it keeps the overall fetch count at 10. What does everyone think of them now as a slightly budget option?
And what about overall, are they considered completely unplayable now?
I think they're a fine budget option, though they are definitely super subpar in comparison.
Also, peoples list change all the time as magic constantly grows stronger. The cubes from 2012 look way different than today's, so many good cards have been printed since then.
We have recently readded them in out 475 cube. They almost always get played. Nobody has complained about them. Their big advantage is that they are not duals, they fix multiple colour combinations. The main downside is that aggro doesn't like them.
They are far from unplayable as they can get you your dual lands.
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The biggest downside is that mirage nonbasics are ugly and the only new face reprint was Grasslands.
I hope one day these show up in M14 or something along with enemy ones.
There's a new frame Flood Plain available. But I think the old frame ones look better.
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http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=385729
I think my playgroup and I are starting to agree with this. The lands have been pretty impressive so far.
For years, up until the Onslaught fetches came out, these lands were in everything. They were THE go-to lands for tutoring up your revised duals (when the revised duals were extended legal). They were all but immediately forgotten when the new fetches came out, because you never needed enough to run both, and the new fetches were better. But singleton is different, and it wasn't until we were reminiscing about the good 'ol days of extended with duals that I was reminded of how damn good the Mirage fetches were for years. And that made me want to re-try them in the cube. At least for the color combinations that could swap out other ETBT lands for them.
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Mountain Valley and Grasslands fetches Murmuring Bosk. The black ones fetch that black land from Shadowmoor that pings players. You can get dryad arbor if you really want. They all fetch both cycles of duals.
I like them because they cost like 50 cents. They also increase variance and I find it boring to play the same old cards every time. The more obscure, yet still pretty good, the better.
I just listed a whole bunch of reasons why you'd want to run these lands over the other competition. I don't think there are any strictly better substitutes in the #5 slot, and they're absolutely worth testing against everything else out there right now.
The average draft pool with my cube will have 7 dual land targets that these can hit, one of which should be the exact dual land even if you're only playing a 2-color deck. More if you have a full table of 8 drafters. Plus they have all the advantages of the shuffle effects, deck thinning and non-basic hate-dodging if necessary. And grabbing a dual land is not "incidental value". It's anticipated value.
The only thing I can't understand is the extremely poor and negative attitudes towards these two lands. They've been really serviceable inclusions in the #5 land slot since bringing them in. Every land choice past the 4 auto-include lands has pros and cons versus the rest of the competition, and none of them are clear victors. These lands have just as many reasons to be included as any of the other viable choices for the slot they compete in. I'm actually embarrassed that it took me this long to realize their value.
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I think they're a fine budget option, though they are definitely super subpar in comparison.
Also, peoples list change all the time as magic constantly grows stronger. The cubes from 2012 look way different than today's, so many good cards have been printed since then.
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The only reason I don't run them is because I only have 4 fixers in each combination at 450. At 540, I'd still be using the WU and UB ones.
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They are far from unplayable as they can get you your dual lands.
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