And? What are you even talking about? You think non-basic lands should always be worse than basic lands? That makes no sense and suggests you don’t know anything about Magic.
Other dual lands have a condition to have them enter the battlefield untapped. Shocklands enter untapped if you take 2 damage. Fetchlands deal 1 damage to you and effectively result in the same thing as these new duals. M10 duals required that you already have a basic (in standard), while Scars duals needed to be one of your first two land drops. These have no real drawback. It's the color you need when you play it. If you have one of these and a basic land in your opening hand, you have both colors you need with no drawback, much like M10 and Scars duals. You could play 12 of these in a 3 color deck, and there's no reason you shouldn't. Who wouldn't play these over any of the other lands I've mentioned? There's no drawback. And in a set that will inevitably have land bounce to promote landfall effects, you're not even stuck on the first color you picked.
And? What are you even talking about? You think non-basic lands should always be worse than basic lands? That makes no sense and suggests you don’t know anything about Magic.
You've clearly never read articles about how WotC designs cards.
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And in a set that will inevitably have land bounce to promote landfall effects, you're not even stuck on the first color you picked.
And there you have your answer, you need a bounce effect to switch colour. To make that insignificant your landbase or decklist needs to change. Being no land type tied to it these are not fetchable... which in itself is a massive drawback. There is a reason why painlands were cheap before fomo crept in
Don't get me wrong, i like it, i like the utility. But power creep? Eh a little i guess, to me it looks more like lateral innovation, which i like.
How do you not see power creep? Look at Ruin Crab. Look at Nighthawk Scavenger. Tell me those aren't just better versions of the cards they're calling back to. You all look at the set as a whole and see that it's packed with trash, and because of that you can't see the power creep for what it is.
Hedron Crab's most successful application was in Standard Dredge, where you targeted yourself to supercharge a Crypt of Agadeem. This sad new crab cannot do that.
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I wouldn't play those lands in any format. Anyone who thinks these double non basics represent power creep needs to never publically evaluate a card again.
These cards are literally strictly better basic lands apart from land type. So unless your deck massively cares about land type (which is probably not going to be that important in a dual colour deck) then there's virtually no reason to not use these in place of a basic. Please never evaluate cards again, publicly or otherwise.
And? What are you even talking about? You think non-basic lands should always be worse than basic lands? That makes no sense and suggests you don’t know anything about Magic.
It's more complex than that. It's not about duals being worse than basics, but not being strictly better. Granted, these don't have basic land types, but it probably doesn't come up often enough to matter, so they're near strictly better. This is something Wizards had said, for the longest time, not to do. Anyone who has more than passing interest in Magic than typing furiously away on a forum that creatures that die to removal are worthless and garbage and belong to the trash pile would know that.
Of course, duals being pushed the way they are have been since... forever. They're more often than not better than basics in multi color decks, muddying the whole issue. Personally, I consider that to be a bug, not a feature, but whatever. It seems Wizards has dropped the last modicum of pretense that duals should not necessarily be auto includes in any deck.
And in a set that will inevitably have land bounce to promote landfall effects, you're not even stuck on the first color you picked.
And there you have your answer, you need a bounce effect to switch colour. To make that insignificant your landbase or decklist needs to change. Being no land type tied to it these are not fetchable... which in itself is a massive drawback.
These cards don't want to be fetched. Even if they did have basic land types, when you sacrifice your flooded strand, you're already deciding to get either a plains or an island. You can only get one or the other (barring shocklands, of course). These cards not having a basic land type does not change their practical applications in an environment with fetchlands around, in two color decks that is, which are kind of the standard outside of a multicolour heavy meta.
If your deck has basic lands its because the BASIC type has advantages associated to it.
If you can you always play a non-basic land that produces more colors and does not enter tapped, it will always be more useful to a deck that actually wants multiple colors of mana anyway.
Theres even straight up 5-color lands in the form of Cavern of Souls and its friends for tribal decks too.
So if you play a 2+ color deck you want both mana, not choose one or the other.
If you dont have better alternatives you still play what you got, so these flip lands will see play, they are still worse if a deck relies more heavily on 2 colors (especially double costs, say UU and BB , with these lands you cant get both of these, while actual dual lands can produce both combinations).
----
The set is overall powered down quite a bit.
That doesnt mean everything is terrible, at least something out of almost any set is playable, no matter how weak the set in total is conceived as.
A lot of people don't seem to understand "strictly better". Not just in this thread, I hear it all the time. If you have to say "it's strictly better, except for these situations", it's not strictly better.
A lot of people don't seem to understand "strictly better". Not just in this thread, I hear it all the time. If you have to say "it's strictly better, except for these situations", it's not strictly better.
If your deck has basic lands its because the BASIC type has advantages associated to it.
If you can you always play a non-basic land that produces more colors and does not enter tapped, it will always be more useful to a deck that actually wants multiple colors of mana anyway.
Theres even straight up 5-color lands in the form of Cavern of Souls and its friends for tribal decks too.
So if you play a 2+ color deck you want both mana, not choose one or the other.
If you dont have better alternatives you still play what you got, so these flip lands will see play, they are still worse if a deck relies more heavily on 2 colors (especially double costs, say UU and BB , with these lands you cant get both of these, while actual dual lands can produce both combinations).
Fetchlands were played (and valuable) before shocklands came around. These cards do everything fetchlands do, except don't cost 1 life.*
These lands will be played. These lands will be good. Regardless of alternatives, they even out your colour balance for no cost at all.
*You could argue fetchlands remove a land from your library, but I'd assume the one life difference is going to matter more often than the minuscule better odds of drawing a nonland. And even if it didn't, fetchlands are currently not in standard, so being 99% comparable to fetchlands in 2 colour decks, everything said above still goes.
A lot of people don't seem to understand "strictly better". Not just in this thread, I hear it all the time. If you have to say "it's strictly better, except for these situations", it's not strictly better.
Alternatively, the fact that people point out situational exceptions might show that they are, indeed, well aware of the definition of strictly better, but at the same time also of the practical applications of the concept.
How do you not see power creep? Look at Ruin Crab. Look at Nighthawk Scavenger. Tell me those aren't just better versions of the cards they're calling back to. You all look at the set as a whole and see that it's packed with trash, and because of that you can't see the power creep for what it is.
Hedron Crab can target any player, it is usefull for Dreadge
Night Hawk is a 2/3 even vs grave hate.
There are more commons that are really power creeped but those are not good exemples.
Between Cleansing Wildfire in the format and the ramp spells you may choose to play, basic lands aren't going anywhere. I only worry about rare (And Mythic!)lands that have to be pulled out and put back in sleeves frequently.
Fetchlands were played (and valuable) before shocklands came around. These cards do everything fetchlands do, except don't cost 1 life.*
These lands will be played. These lands will be good. Regardless of alternatives, they even out your colour balance for no cost at all.
*You could argue fetchlands remove a land from your library, but I'd assume the one life difference is going to matter more often than the minuscule better odds of drawing a nonland. And even if it didn't, fetchlands are currently not in standard, so being 99% comparable to fetchlands in 2 colour decks, everything said above still goes.
In standard fetchlands supported Psychatog and all forms of Threshold decks and shuffling your library has an intrinsic advantage.
Having more cards in your graveyard is a benefit for all kinds of mechanics.
And every standard format will always play whatever lands they have available, as often they simply cant choose, they have to play what they have as there is no real choice.
These lands basically offer a nice choice of mana if you play mostly one color and just rarely need the other, then these lands are very good, especially if you need one color early and the other just for some late game spells, then these serve you well.
With any dual land in the format fetchlands become 5-color dual lands, which is just obscenely overpowered to any other lands in magic.
couldn't agree more. This has been happening for a long time and only getting worse.
My biggest issue with mtg is the way they have irresponsibly printed creatures with multiple abilities on them, and spell effects. Then they give you horrible spells that are super specific to fight them with.
Now the decision making is completely pointless. You can play all the colors with no risk. You can just mindlessly slap cards on the table and hope you draw better than your opponent. Gg.
Bottom line. Play the pre-baked mechanics and op creatures in abundance or play something else. Thanks for giving me choices
I think you would be right except that land-type is starting to matter more, even in standard. Eldraine utility lands, Nissa, Field of Ruin, the M20 black Shade. I think the point is that basic land types are inherently more valuable from now on and this is the reason why we are past this design rule.
I think power creep on common / uncommon is not a issue at all, it always bothered me that in common creatures could never compete with common removal in limited, not even bad removal. I think having common 'B' grade creatures is a really great move.
The power creep that I don't like is how secondary color effects are getting absurdly good. Like card draw, removal and hasty creatures in green (mono-green in standard right now has more and better removal then any of the mono-colored aggro decks... questing beast is the best haste creature... the top 3 CA engines are all green).
Other example is tokens and big creatures in red. Red have tons of super efficient 3 drops that generates a bunch of tokens left and right. I thought white was the "go wide" color ? Why is that red is allowed to get a 4/3 + TWO very good upsides ? While Knight of Autumn is vanilla when played as a 4/3.
Extinction Event is on par with the best white sweeper in standard. Only wiping even or odd is not exactly a downside as it may preserve your creatures as well. That card should have been mono white or WB but never mono black.
This trend of secondary color effects getting better and better is diluting the color pie. Standard right now is unrecognizable, that is not MtG.
Power creep ruined this game a long time ago. I still play out of nostalgia. Best way is to get your buddies together and just play tabletop. Any competitive environment is just littered with unimaginative net decks built by WotC's dev team.
Its so out of control that cards like lighning bolt, ponder and mana leak can't be printed again because of how awful they make cards like Uro and Kroxa and a million other examples of creatures that destroy the "thinking" aspect of the game.
Deck building is a joke with perfect mana bases and creatures that have better ETB effects than spells. Just slap it together and slap them onto play. All you do now is make sure you don't mess up your sequencing. Its robotic and awful. Its never going to stop.
WotC needed to stop building decks for people a long time ago. Their entire thought process is messed up. I get it. They are a company that needs to make money, but bastardizing their game for the sake of it doesnt have to happen.
Every single set doesn't have to have some new mechanic or some game breaking creature. When Arena came out, I thought this might be the way they control it... NOPE! They just turned it up to 11!!!
As it stands now, games are very mechanical and big plays are printed on the cards, not in the mind of the player. Has been this way for a while.
Just do what I said in the beginning of this post. Get together with friends and draft sets you liked, play formats you enjoy and set your own bans. For instance, escape mechanics in our house work as such: when something escapes and is countered, it is exiled. Stupid how the mechanic actually works.
Yes. WotC have drained their balls all over the strategic element of the game. Magic has become creature slapping and net decking. Things are so out of contrkl powerful that you HAVE to play them. Thematic decks are build for you and mana bases are only a slight encumbrance in a few games.
Yeah, comparing these (especially favorably) to fetches is a joke born of ignorance. Basic land types matter. Shuffling matters. Filling the graveyard matters. Double landfall matters. Deck-thinning matters (a bit). Getting shocks/duals REALLY matters. Any format both of the cycles are legal in care about these things.
The comparison to basics is closer, and in standard you definitely play these, but there's no reason to run them in any other format aside from budget restrictions when better duals exist.
Not being fetchable (off fetches, or path, or rampant growth, etc.) is a big deal.
Not EVER being able to make both colors is ENORMOUS, making them inferior to the majority of 'dual' cycles.
These probably make the cut in 2-color EDH decks, but looking at my 3-color lists I definitely can't find room for them, and 4/5-color decks are right out.
You guys were compaining about too powerful and now we're back to too weak it was the reverse eariler
WHAT DO WANT IN MAGIC SETS?!?!
Well ... a community is not a singular entity, so there is no contradiction.
And even if it was some unified voice, your insinuation also ignores that one can dislike going from one extreme to another, versus settling somewhere in the middle, which is logically consistent. (not saying it is the case here or not - going from one extreme to another, just that it is a logically consistent thing that IMO it appears hypocritical when put in a dishonest context)
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You’re really bad at evaluating power level.
And? What are you even talking about? You think non-basic lands should always be worse than basic lands? That makes no sense and suggests you don’t know anything about Magic.
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You've clearly never read articles about how WotC designs cards.
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Claims:
The kicker variant in WWK will be "Kicker without a kicked effect." - proven wrong Jan 2010 : 2 wrongs
Decks:
:symu::symb: Bloodchief Ascension - Modern
:symb::symr: Rakdos, the Defiler - EDH
:symu::symb::symw: Sharuum the Hegemon - EDH
:symw::symu::symb: Zur the Enchanter - EDH
And there you have your answer, you need a bounce effect to switch colour. To make that insignificant your landbase or decklist needs to change. Being no land type tied to it these are not fetchable... which in itself is a massive drawback. There is a reason why painlands were cheap before fomo crept in
Don't get me wrong, i like it, i like the utility. But power creep? Eh a little i guess, to me it looks more like lateral innovation, which i like.
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Hedron Crab's most successful application was in Standard Dredge, where you targeted yourself to supercharge a Crypt of Agadeem. This sad new crab cannot do that.
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These cards are literally strictly better basic lands apart from land type. So unless your deck massively cares about land type (which is probably not going to be that important in a dual colour deck) then there's virtually no reason to not use these in place of a basic. Please never evaluate cards again, publicly or otherwise.
It's more complex than that. It's not about duals being worse than basics, but not being strictly better. Granted, these don't have basic land types, but it probably doesn't come up often enough to matter, so they're near strictly better. This is something Wizards had said, for the longest time, not to do. Anyone who has more than passing interest in Magic than typing furiously away on a forum that creatures that die to removal are worthless and garbage and belong to the trash pile would know that.
Of course, duals being pushed the way they are have been since... forever. They're more often than not better than basics in multi color decks, muddying the whole issue. Personally, I consider that to be a bug, not a feature, but whatever. It seems Wizards has dropped the last modicum of pretense that duals should not necessarily be auto includes in any deck.
These cards don't want to be fetched. Even if they did have basic land types, when you sacrifice your flooded strand, you're already deciding to get either a plains or an island. You can only get one or the other (barring shocklands, of course). These cards not having a basic land type does not change their practical applications in an environment with fetchlands around, in two color decks that is, which are kind of the standard outside of a multicolour heavy meta.
If you can you always play a non-basic land that produces more colors and does not enter tapped, it will always be more useful to a deck that actually wants multiple colors of mana anyway.
Theres even straight up 5-color lands in the form of Cavern of Souls and its friends for tribal decks too.
So if you play a 2+ color deck you want both mana, not choose one or the other.
If you dont have better alternatives you still play what you got, so these flip lands will see play, they are still worse if a deck relies more heavily on 2 colors (especially double costs, say UU and BB , with these lands you cant get both of these, while actual dual lands can produce both combinations).
----
The set is overall powered down quite a bit.
That doesnt mean everything is terrible, at least something out of almost any set is playable, no matter how weak the set in total is conceived as.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
It's like using "literally" just for emphasis.
The question is, would you risk playing these instead of basic lands if blood moon, back to basics, and/or price of progress were also in Standard?
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Fetchlands were played (and valuable) before shocklands came around. These cards do everything fetchlands do, except don't cost 1 life.*
These lands will be played. These lands will be good. Regardless of alternatives, they even out your colour balance for no cost at all.
*You could argue fetchlands remove a land from your library, but I'd assume the one life difference is going to matter more often than the minuscule better odds of drawing a nonland. And even if it didn't, fetchlands are currently not in standard, so being 99% comparable to fetchlands in 2 colour decks, everything said above still goes.
Alternatively, the fact that people point out situational exceptions might show that they are, indeed, well aware of the definition of strictly better, but at the same time also of the practical applications of the concept.
You know, just a thought.
Hedron Crab can target any player, it is usefull for Dreadge
Night Hawk is a 2/3 even vs grave hate.
There are more commons that are really power creeped but those are not good exemples.
In standard fetchlands supported Psychatog and all forms of Threshold decks and shuffling your library has an intrinsic advantage.
Having more cards in your graveyard is a benefit for all kinds of mechanics.
And every standard format will always play whatever lands they have available, as often they simply cant choose, they have to play what they have as there is no real choice.
These lands basically offer a nice choice of mana if you play mostly one color and just rarely need the other, then these lands are very good, especially if you need one color early and the other just for some late game spells, then these serve you well.
With any dual land in the format fetchlands become 5-color dual lands, which is just obscenely overpowered to any other lands in magic.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
My biggest issue with mtg is the way they have irresponsibly printed creatures with multiple abilities on them, and spell effects. Then they give you horrible spells that are super specific to fight them with.
Now the decision making is completely pointless. You can play all the colors with no risk. You can just mindlessly slap cards on the table and hope you draw better than your opponent. Gg.
Bottom line. Play the pre-baked mechanics and op creatures in abundance or play something else. Thanks for giving me choices
I think power creep on common / uncommon is not a issue at all, it always bothered me that in common creatures could never compete with common removal in limited, not even bad removal. I think having common 'B' grade creatures is a really great move.
The power creep that I don't like is how secondary color effects are getting absurdly good. Like card draw, removal and hasty creatures in green (mono-green in standard right now has more and better removal then any of the mono-colored aggro decks... questing beast is the best haste creature... the top 3 CA engines are all green).
Other example is tokens and big creatures in red. Red have tons of super efficient 3 drops that generates a bunch of tokens left and right. I thought white was the "go wide" color ? Why is that red is allowed to get a 4/3 + TWO very good upsides ? While Knight of Autumn is vanilla when played as a 4/3.
Extinction Event is on par with the best white sweeper in standard. Only wiping even or odd is not exactly a downside as it may preserve your creatures as well. That card should have been mono white or WB but never mono black.
This trend of secondary color effects getting better and better is diluting the color pie. Standard right now is unrecognizable, that is not MtG.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Its so out of control that cards like lighning bolt, ponder and mana leak can't be printed again because of how awful they make cards like Uro and Kroxa and a million other examples of creatures that destroy the "thinking" aspect of the game.
Deck building is a joke with perfect mana bases and creatures that have better ETB effects than spells. Just slap it together and slap them onto play. All you do now is make sure you don't mess up your sequencing. Its robotic and awful. Its never going to stop.
WotC needed to stop building decks for people a long time ago. Their entire thought process is messed up. I get it. They are a company that needs to make money, but bastardizing their game for the sake of it doesnt have to happen.
Every single set doesn't have to have some new mechanic or some game breaking creature. When Arena came out, I thought this might be the way they control it... NOPE! They just turned it up to 11!!!
As it stands now, games are very mechanical and big plays are printed on the cards, not in the mind of the player. Has been this way for a while.
Just do what I said in the beginning of this post. Get together with friends and draft sets you liked, play formats you enjoy and set your own bans. For instance, escape mechanics in our house work as such: when something escapes and is countered, it is exiled. Stupid how the mechanic actually works.
Yes. WotC have drained their balls all over the strategic element of the game. Magic has become creature slapping and net decking. Things are so out of contrkl powerful that you HAVE to play them. Thematic decks are build for you and mana bases are only a slight encumbrance in a few games.
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The comparison to basics is closer, and in standard you definitely play these, but there's no reason to run them in any other format aside from budget restrictions when better duals exist.
Not being fetchable (off fetches, or path, or rampant growth, etc.) is a big deal.
Not EVER being able to make both colors is ENORMOUS, making them inferior to the majority of 'dual' cycles.
These probably make the cut in 2-color EDH decks, but looking at my 3-color lists I definitely can't find room for them, and 4/5-color decks are right out.
Well ... a community is not a singular entity, so there is no contradiction.
And even if it was some unified voice, your insinuation also ignores that one can dislike going from one extreme to another, versus settling somewhere in the middle, which is logically consistent. (not saying it is the case here or not - going from one extreme to another, just that it is a logically consistent thing that IMO it appears hypocritical when put in a dishonest context)