Ugh, Prowess on a manland would be terrible. So far the spoiled BFZ manlands have mirrored theKeyrunecycle, so it seems like there's a decent chance of a looting Izzet manland. If it doesn't fly, though, it'd be pretty bad.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
First off, the new cycle isn't done yet. There's definitely a chance that if they're going to have more complicated keywords and abilities that it would make the most sense on the remaining two anyways.
I'm hoping you are right.
Secondly, not all of the original manlands were shining examples of creative design. Reach and Unblockable are just as boring and predictable as Hexproof, Double Strike and Lifelink are.
Well, they're not "just as boring and predictable". Reach was pretty new at the time. Unblockable isn't a real keyword, they don't even print it on cards any more, if it were printed today Tar Pit would read "can't be blocked", which is definitely not nearly the same level as the evergreens. But yes, it's certainly within the realm of reasonable guesses in my hypothetical.
Lastly, it's about function, not just form. Despite the fact that Tar Pit has a boring and predictable ability, it's still far and away the best manland. And when it was printed, people weren't complaining about a flavor fail for that card because it didn't have a weird attack trigger or an activated ability. All three of the new manlands are better than the worst two manlands from the original cycle, and even if their design is "boring", all the abilities are perfectly fitting. They make sense in the context of the guild, and that makes the design simple and elegant ...arguably even more important than being overly creative.
No, see, I'm just looking for the bare minimum of creativity here. I'm not debating their function and have specifically stated as much, they are all going to be easy cube includes and we don't even have to see the UR one to know it. My point, and only point, is that if the first cycle was designed so lazily, Ravine would just trample, Tar Pit would just fly, Colonnade would just have vigilance etc etc...they designed the WWK cycle to be just a bit more than "keyword on manland goes here", lest they look too much like the OG manland cycle of Faerie Conclave and co. There is no such effort in the new cycle.
Reach has been a staple ability on green creatures for over 20 years.
Unblockable isn't a real keyword
That doesn't mean it's creative. It's still a plain and obvious dimir ability.
My point, and only point, is that if the first cycle was designed so lazily, Ravine would just trample, Tar Pit would just fly, Colonnade would just have vigilance etc etc...they designed the WWK cycle to be just a bit more than "keyword on manland goes here", lest they look too much like the OG manland cycle of Faerie Conclave and co. There is no such effort in the new cycle.
I don't agree. We have basic and lazy designs in the original cycle too. And we have ones in the original cycle that are just basic abilities and/or evergreen keywords. And this cycle isn't done yet. And the last two guilds are the two that are most likely to have activated and/or triggered abilities, so we'll just see what they do with them.
Maybe what they did for both cycles is choose the best design, and sometimes that happens to be an evergreen ability, and other times it's an activated/triggered ability. You call it lazy, I call it elegant. Choosing the best/right design is more important than choosing the most creative design. Not that any of the original lands (besides maybe Ravine) are any more creative than these lands anyways. Firebreathing, unblockable, evergreen keywords... they're all incredibly basic designs. Ravine is the only one that really stands out as having a different ability, and if it were just a 4/4 trample instead, oh well. It would've traded some "creativity" for some simplicity and the same elegance that the rest are designed with, and likely would've been just as loved by most players.
Regardless of the thought put into the design and I we all have super high hopes for things that bring new and interesting situations to cube. And since we pretty much know these are all going in if you play 4 cycles of duals we are hoping that inclusion really adds something to potential gameplay. In that sense needle spires does a good job more so than raging ravine but obviously less than tar pit and collande which are an archetype on their own.
The competition is not hard in the remaining guilds. The loothouse and scryland are good in izzet decks but those decks would like more non creature threats so a manland will be a slam dunk. In golgari I really don't like anything very much. Likely the ravnica land or the pain land are my 4th favorite but it is pretty bad.
Enjoying the debate here, as great points on both sides and some interesting ideas raised.
1. There's value in simplicity of design as well as elegance in magic. These lands are both simple, elegant, but have interesting gameplay. The hallmark of a great magic card.
2. Dual colored manlands are a fantastic idea and design.
3. I agree not much additional creative design went into the enemy man lands. Less so than the original (so far). Which is what I think corporatenoun's main point is.
4. Is it reasonable to EXPECT/hope for more creativity on these dual lands? Personal preference I guess. But definitely more on the, "oh, you got an A-/B+? What went wrong?" side of things heh.
5. Tarpit's ability definitely vanilla, but the ability matches well with the name and art of the card. You are wandering by this harmless ol' tar pit, then ALL OF A SUDDEN it animates itself and hits you without you noticing. How do you attack TAR?!?.
Raging ravine is simple enough, but I can imagine a giant rock getting angrier and angrier (raging out) as it beats down.
creates an interesting visual. adds to the flavour.
What is it about lumbering falls that make it immune to targeting? shambling vents that give life?
They could have been more creative with the new duals while still maintaining elegance and simplicity IMO, but it doesn't matter at all to me, still enjoy the cards.
I do think it's interesting to note that the BFZ/Oath cycle appears to be better tailored for working with Awaken spells. Lifelink and Doublestrike basically double the output you get from those spells, and Hexproof provides a way to Awaken lands more safely (as many of those spells can be countered by destroying the targeted land in response)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Moderator Helpdesk
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
All of the old creature duals are comparable to common and uncommon creatures with the same CMC as the activation (e.g. Serra Angel) or at least, they would make a good C/U as a creature for the activation CMC. Lumbering falls is similarly Primal Huntbeast (better hexproof creatures like Thrun are rare/mythic) and needle spires is Ridgetop Raptor (Iroas's Champion shows that this land could be probably be more pushed but it is multicolor). Shambling vent doesn't have a great comparison on a C/U, Vampire Nighthawk is a pretty unfair comparison when you're comparing Colonnade to Serra instead of Baneslayer =P but I would draft a 2/3 lifelink common for 2B any day so whatever.
Assuming this trend continues, UR only seems to have Jeskai Elder, Academy Raider and Looter il-Kor as C/U looters for precedence, I'm hoping for evasion over prowess but I'd honestly be fine with UR: 1/2 prowess looter. A 2/1 flying looter for 3 cmc seems a little beyond anything we've gotten for C/U looters unfortunately so I think we can rule that off :(. If the BG land is a 3/3 regen for 1B, it could basically be Skull Collector
I really would like that flying looter, against all hope. 1UR is a stretch but 2UR is doable. Desolate Lighthouse already exists, and I'm not sure how much better they can make the manland
Assuming this trend continues, UR only seems to have Jeskai Elder, Academy Raider and Looter il-Kor as C/U looters for precedence, I'm hoping for evasion over prowess but I'd honestly be fine with UR: 1/2 prowess looter. A 2/1 flying looter for 3 cmc seems a little beyond anything we've gotten for C/U looters unfortunately so I think we can rule that off :(.
I like your comparisons to common and uncommon creatures for corollaries to the BFZ manlands. Maybe we've been thinking too small by expecting a looter from the Izzet manland. Could 2UR: 1/3 Flying, draw a card when it connects be too much to hope for?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I think so. What part of that is red? With Celestial Colonnade, Air Elemental exists as precedent, so it's justified by getting flying from blue and vigilance from white. "Exile the top card of your library, until end of turn, you may play that card" is modern red's version of card draw. It would be more likely on your Izzet land if that's the design.
Desolate Lighthouse doesn't really fix your mana so I always feel it's more of a "spell" than a land. It's good, but it's no manafixing.
I'm not using the Lighthouse as an example of manafixing. I'm using it as an example of power level. If anything, the manland's effect is likely to be weaker because it also provides manafixing*.
*Caveats being that manlands are more vulnerable with their double type, they represent tempo loss, and this one would require a damage trigger to get the effect, which would theoretically balance out its strength
lighthouse comes into play untapped and that offsets the fixing. I brought up prowess because it is the most probable second ability as wizards adds little to nothing to the cost for it.
If we are going to talk about dream izzet manlands give Me a 1/1 flyer that snap casters in connect. Flashback is very red and blue and we are going back to Innistrad.
Draw a card when it connects feels like too much to hope for. A looter seems more realistic. The only lands that draw a card I know of are the best card in Magic and the example of how much balancing this requires. There's also the spoiled one but you have to be hellbent and heavily colorless so its basically Nivix 2. I don't believe we would get "red draw" on attack/hit either since the effect is only good on things like a walker's 0 or an upkeep trigger when you have your lands untapped.
I dunno. For the UR one, I'm hoping it's closer to tar pit instead of another verison of the loothouse. I'd love another wildfire friendly threat for closing games out.
Like I'd love 1UR for a 3/3 flying, but I've put like -10 minutes into how that would affect standard or weather that'd even be good
I actually cut this and the Izzet manland a while ago for the respective Canopy lands. While rereading the discussion here makes me want to reconsider this decision, I just think the Canopy lands are better. Maybe I'll redesign my Landsection as a whole to bring them back though, Manlands are insanely good!
This is the only one of the cycle that I'm not running. It's great in RWx decks that aren't curve out aggro decks. If you're in Jeskai planeswalker control or Boros Wildfire it's really good, but it burned me too many times in my aggressive decks as an ETBT land that slowed down my curve.
I like this land a lot, even in aggro. Having a wrath-proof way to increase your threat density and having an outlet to dump mana into if you draw more lands than you need are really nice qualities. It can hit really hard with any kind of pump effect too, like an anthem, battle cry trigger or god forbid an Elspeth jump trigger.
I run all the manlands except this and wildwood, and run the canopy lands in those slots instead. It's a combination of the manlands being weak enough and the decks wanting the card draw enough that makes me do this (along with dual, fetch, shock for each guild as well). The reason I run canopy over wildwood is cause wildwood is awful and GW likes the card draw and doesn't mind the damage. The reason I run canyon is cause RW really doesn't care about the damage and really wants the card draw, and really doesn't want a CITP land. However, Spires was STILL very good in play and I liked it, just not as much as canyon.
The rest of the enemy pairs all had combinations of the man lands that being too good to cut, not caring as much about the card draw, not caring as much about a CITP land, and not wanting to pay life.
One of the worst in the cycle, which is still quite good. It is also able to attack into four-toughness blockers, which are sometimes a problem for aggro decks. I still think Sunbaked Canyon is significantly better though.
That seems a little too good compared to what we've seen so far. I would be (happily) shocked if we got that.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Well, they're not "just as boring and predictable". Reach was pretty new at the time. Unblockable isn't a real keyword, they don't even print it on cards any more, if it were printed today Tar Pit would read "can't be blocked", which is definitely not nearly the same level as the evergreens. But yes, it's certainly within the realm of reasonable guesses in my hypothetical.
No, see, I'm just looking for the bare minimum of creativity here. I'm not debating their function and have specifically stated as much, they are all going to be easy cube includes and we don't even have to see the UR one to know it. My point, and only point, is that if the first cycle was designed so lazily, Ravine would just trample, Tar Pit would just fly, Colonnade would just have vigilance etc etc...they designed the WWK cycle to be just a bit more than "keyword on manland goes here", lest they look too much like the OG manland cycle of Faerie Conclave and co. There is no such effort in the new cycle.
Reach has been a staple ability on green creatures for over 20 years.
That doesn't mean it's creative. It's still a plain and obvious dimir ability.
I don't agree. We have basic and lazy designs in the original cycle too. And we have ones in the original cycle that are just basic abilities and/or evergreen keywords. And this cycle isn't done yet. And the last two guilds are the two that are most likely to have activated and/or triggered abilities, so we'll just see what they do with them.
Maybe what they did for both cycles is choose the best design, and sometimes that happens to be an evergreen ability, and other times it's an activated/triggered ability. You call it lazy, I call it elegant. Choosing the best/right design is more important than choosing the most creative design. Not that any of the original lands (besides maybe Ravine) are any more creative than these lands anyways. Firebreathing, unblockable, evergreen keywords... they're all incredibly basic designs. Ravine is the only one that really stands out as having a different ability, and if it were just a 4/4 trample instead, oh well. It would've traded some "creativity" for some simplicity and the same elegance that the rest are designed with, and likely would've been just as loved by most players.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
The competition is not hard in the remaining guilds. The loothouse and scryland are good in izzet decks but those decks would like more non creature threats so a manland will be a slam dunk. In golgari I really don't like anything very much. Likely the ravnica land or the pain land are my 4th favorite but it is pretty bad.
1. There's value in simplicity of design as well as elegance in magic. These lands are both simple, elegant, but have interesting gameplay. The hallmark of a great magic card.
2. Dual colored manlands are a fantastic idea and design.
3. I agree not much additional creative design went into the enemy man lands. Less so than the original (so far). Which is what I think corporatenoun's main point is.
4. Is it reasonable to EXPECT/hope for more creativity on these dual lands? Personal preference I guess. But definitely more on the, "oh, you got an A-/B+? What went wrong?" side of things heh.
5. Tarpit's ability definitely vanilla, but the ability matches well with the name and art of the card. You are wandering by this harmless ol' tar pit, then ALL OF A SUDDEN it animates itself and hits you without you noticing. How do you attack TAR?!?.
Raging ravine is simple enough, but I can imagine a giant rock getting angrier and angrier (raging out) as it beats down.
creates an interesting visual. adds to the flavour.
What is it about lumbering falls that make it immune to targeting? shambling vents that give life?
They could have been more creative with the new duals while still maintaining elegance and simplicity IMO, but it doesn't matter at all to me, still enjoy the cards.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
They may say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
Assuming this trend continues, UR only seems to have Jeskai Elder, Academy Raider and Looter il-Kor as C/U looters for precedence, I'm hoping for evasion over prowess but I'd honestly be fine with UR: 1/2 prowess looter. A 2/1 flying looter for 3 cmc seems a little beyond anything we've gotten for C/U looters unfortunately so I think we can rule that off :(. If the BG land is a 3/3 regen for 1B, it could basically be Skull Collector
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge
My cube
My cube on Cube tutor
I'm OP_Forever. I'll be putting this in my signature for a while so everyone know I change my nickname.
I like your comparisons to common and uncommon creatures for corollaries to the BFZ manlands. Maybe we've been thinking too small by expecting a looter from the Izzet manland. Could 2UR: 1/3 Flying, draw a card when it connects be too much to hope for?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I'm not using the Lighthouse as an example of manafixing. I'm using it as an example of power level. If anything, the manland's effect is likely to be weaker because it also provides manafixing*.
*Caveats being that manlands are more vulnerable with their double type, they represent tempo loss, and this one would require a damage trigger to get the effect, which would theoretically balance out its strength
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge
If we are going to talk about dream izzet manlands give Me a 1/1 flyer that snap casters in connect. Flashback is very red and blue and we are going back to Innistrad.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Like I'd love 1UR for a 3/3 flying, but I've put like -10 minutes into how that would affect standard or weather that'd even be good
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
The rest of the enemy pairs all had combinations of the man lands that being too good to cut, not caring as much about the card draw, not caring as much about a CITP land, and not wanting to pay life.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
The list on cube cobra
Read my blog on cube - Latest post June 2nd 2022