I pretty much knew about THAT article, and I asked cause I COULDN'T find an article relevant to colors (not because I'm too dumb or lazy to search myself). Now I know Wizards NEVER said they wouldn't make colored lands. So multicolored lands should not be dismissed yet. And that's all that I'm saying.
Dude! Seriously! Have you not been paying attention? Turn 1 you drop a land that's RGB Jund rare and you play Bloodhall ooze . Turn 2 you attack for 3. EVERY DECK WILL HAVE THIS! It's a constructed warping thing to do and they stopped doing this with the artifact lands.
Dude! Seriously! Have you not been paying attention? Turn 1 you drop a land that's RGB Jund rare and you play Bloodhall ooze . Turn 2 you attack for 3. EVERY DECK WILL HAVE THIS! It's a constructed warping thing to do and they stopped doing this with the artifact lands.
Seriously, drop it!
..not to mention it would make celestial purge as a very POWERFUL uncommon (well actually its powerful right now)
i've thought about that too. that if they'd make that land... a multiCOLORED land.. the ooze would skyrocket all over the place.
No one said the lands had to be allied colored...enemy colored lands could work because none of the "color matters" cards rely on enemy colors. It would make Celestial Purge a powerful LD card (sometimes), but it's a dead card against a lot of decks still, and there is no other good LD to pair it with (especially in white). Lands being colored is a drawback most of the time, not a benefit. Also, how many cards even have the "color matters" mechanic on them right now? Bloodhall Ooze Celestial Purge Cliffrunner Behemoth Controlled instincts (can't effect land) Corrupted Roots (the lands probably won't have basic subtypes) Dark Temper Ember Weaver Filigree Fracture (can't effect land) Ignite Disorder (can't effect land) Kederekt Parasite Mirror-Sigil Sergeant Parasitic Strix Rhox Meditant Sedraxis Alchemist Toxic Iguinar View From Above
So they aren't going to print them because of 12 cards, most of which won't even be playabe with the "free" activator? If a majority of the block was designed around color matters like Lorwyn was designed around creature type matters, I would agree that they would not print these. As it is now, I see no reason they could not. I would expect them to be 2 colored and not tri-colored since the tri-colored theme seems to have gone out the window at this point of the block, and it would break bloodhall ooze.
There will be at least one card for every possible combination of multiple colors. That is 5 allied pairs, 5 enemy pairs, 5 arc triplets, 5 wedge triplets, 5 quadruplets and WUBRG.
In addition, I predict that the cards will have different numbering than usual - it will start with WU cards, then UB, BR, RG, GW, then the rest. It doesn't make much sense to just order the WHOLE SET alphabetically (for one, it might be pretty inconvenient when recording decks in limited). The allied pairs will replace monocolored cards in this set. Just like when they changed numbering of hybrids in Shadowmoor/Eventide to split them up since there was too many of them.
i know that hybrid cards are not considered gold... but what if they introduced TRIbrid (a hybrid but with 3 colors instead of 2) cards... those COULD be considered gold... that way they could have one drops... and it could work with the wedge theme...
Also, how many cards even have the "color matters" mechanic on them right now?
It doesn't matter. The lesson of artifact lands was that you can't balance a "count things of type X" mechanic around both paid-for permanents of type X and free land permanents of type X. If you try, people will just always enable the mechanic by playing the lands, because they're that much more efficient, and so you have to balance such effects around the lands (which means they'll be crappy if you use them with the permanents you paid for.) It's a general principle that applies to all such mechanics, which is how development knew not to even bother testing it with Tribal lands. Colored lands that exist as enablers for color-matters mechanics are a 100% comparable situation, which is how we know for absolute fact that this is not something that this set will include.
How do people think the multicolour will be distributed?
I think we're almost a lock for seeing every combination represented, plus or minus the 4-color ones. Conflux established that as Alara merges, we see more color combinations, not fewer. Arcs aren't going away because this block is all about continuing to support things once they're introduced; wedges are likely to show up to represent combinations of mana that couldn't exist in pre-merger Alara; WUBRGs are pretty much a given.
It would be extremely difficult to fill out the set with just two-color cards, doing all pairs + arcs + WUBRG would just give it the same distribution as Conflux, so the only real room to expand is to take all the combinations that Alara already supports, then add wedges and maybe 4-colors.
Dryad arbor is essentially Llanowar Elves that also eats your land drop. It doesn't give you a colored permanent "for free", and it is vulnerable to many more things than land is. The main reason the land is colored is because it's a creature, just how they often tack creature colors onto numerous manlands like Faerie Conclave
They experimented with making mutavault simply a colorless tribal land, but decided to turn it into a creature to a) make it more solveable b) make the effect not-free.
Now I know Wizards NEVER said they wouldn't make colored lands. So multicolored lands should not be dismissed yet. And that's all that I'm saying.
This is tantamount to "Well, Wizards never said they wouldn't make an Enchantment Planeswalker Land!"
As the last straw, if you're wondering what could be the harm of putting the block's relevant subtypes onto a ton of no-mana-cost lands, I've got three words for you: Mirrodin artifact lands. Let's just say we've learned our lesson from that little debacle.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. That last part from the qoute is not solely applicable to Tribal Lands. I can't help it if you can't see that colored lands, let alone multicolored lands, are no-mana-cost enablers for the the Alara block and Shadowmoor block cards that care about colors.
You can cling to the idea that there could be a "multicolor land" that would somehow have a drawback to balance it out, just for the sake of having a land in the set, but the evidence points to there being no such thing.
Colored lands that exist as enablers for color-matters mechanics are a 100% comparable situation, which is how we know for absolute fact that this is not something that this set will include.
No, we don't. You forget about a thing called "scaling".
See, Mirrodin was an artifact block with lots of powerful cards
which cared about other cards being an artifact or not being an artifact, most prominent of which were affinity-cards. Thus, artifact lands became... Bad mojo.
Lorwyn was a tribal block, with lots of blah-blah-blah, read the above. And even so, they printed mutavault and reprinted faerie conclave in X and they are kinda tribal.
Now let me ask you: is Shards of Alara "colour matters" block? I think not. There is medium "colour matters" theme in Conflux, yes, but in the Shards block? Nope. There are ten cards only and not a single overpowered one. Dare I say not a single decent one, really. Oh, there is a colour matters theme in Shadowmoor block but it is directed on creatures and lands mostly, not on permanents. In reality, Lurebound Scarecrow and Bloom Tender are the only two cards which will become somewhat decent with the existance of multicoloured lands.
And don't you think that such careful approach to "colour matters" mechanic smells somewhat fishy?
That doesn't mean that there will be gold lands in Reborn, but that does mean that you can't boast with 100% assuredness that there'll be no gold lands in Reborn. Time will tell.
Yeah right I must be too stupid. Can't you consider other peoples' opinion without insulting their intelligence? Are you so little confident in your own opinion? I know that VERY WELL.
I have not insulted anyone, nor insinuated anything about their intelligence. I merely stated that I can post evidence, but I can't make anyone accept it.
Still WotC didn't say anything about multicolored lands.
Right, it was an article about Tribal during a tribal block. Why would they talk about any planned or feasible themes or mechanics? The evidence in the article is the reference to the lessons learned from artifact lands. Charlequin best summed it up a few posts up:
Colored lands that exist as enablers for color-matters mechanics are a 100% comparable [to artifact lands], which is how we know for absolute fact that this is not something that this set will include.
You don't have to accept this evidence, but you have not credibly countered it or supplied any facts to the contrary.
Are we in Exageration Land or what ? Bicolored lands are not probable RIGHT. But it is absolutely not comparable to Enchantment Planeswalker Land. Here they would be perfectly in line with the set.
Once again: I am NOT saying: "there will be multicolored lands in ARB.
(You just said they would be perfectly in line with the set)
I'm only saying that people are ruling this possiblity too arbitrarily, mistaking a possible "hint" with an evidence. The reasoning is right, but is presented in a wrong and abusive manner.
I'm not saying multicolored Enchantment Planeswalker Lands are going to be in this set, I'm only saying that you are ruling the possibility too arbitrarily, mistaking what is improbable for exaggeration, and presented in an overly sensitive and angry manner.:)
Lorwyn was a tribal block, with lots of blah-blah-blah, read the above. And even so, they printed mutavault and reprinted faerie conclave in X and they are kinda tribal.
These cards require activation, they aren't free enablers. A man-land would be colorless before it can be turned on....
@Charlequin: I see very well what you're meaning, but no, we don't know "for absolute fact". That assertion is wrong. Say that the idea of multicolored lands is very unlikely if you will, and that is true. But telling something like "known for absolute fact" is abusive, and will be until lack of lands in ARB is actually proven or officially announced.
There's very little reason to believe that this theory holds any water because people are supposing the existence of lands whose only purpose is to do something that R&D have specifically identified in the past as being destructive to design, and very little reason to believe that R&D somehow can't manage to design a set without lands when they've done it twice before. And it doesn't even make sense to print such cards in this block (where there are a few, but not that many color-matters cards) rather than in Shadowmoor where color-matters was an explicit theme.
So debating the tiny nuanced areas in which our information might not be 100% complete (maybe they printed a single Legendary Land that's every color or something) is fairly pointless; inasmuch as we ever know something in advance of a final, accurate spoiler, we can feel confident that this set isn't printing color-matters enabler lands.
Now let me ask you: is Shards of Alara "colour matters" block? I think not.
So you think that artifact lands are just dandy to print as long as you print them anywhere but Mirrodin?
No. R&D makes decisions with a broader focus than just the latest set to enter Standard. Color enabler lands would have exactly the kind of negative effect on any future color-matters effects that artifact lands would have on artifact-matters effects, and this would render them rather pointless in Standard anyway: they'd have only a few effects to power up, and those effects would be balanced around those lands, meaning that they'd be unplayably bad without them.
It being a creature was precisely my point. It's a simple way of making a land be one or more colours (just because Dryad Arbor was monocoloured, doesn't mean they couldn't do a multi version), and since it has so many obvious drawbacks (summoning sickness on a land+vulnerability being the two most significant ones), there is no way it could lead to the kind of imbalance we got with affinity and artifact lands.
Like I said, I don't think we'll see this in ARB. But we can't know for a fact that we won't, until we see a list.
It's a 1/1 1 colored creature. If they printed a 1/1 2 or 3 colored creature land, it would be strictly better than Dryad Arbor which is something they probably don't want to do. Let's not even get the where they start printing 2 color 2/2 creature lands or better. Why don't they just print a Darksteel Collosus land?
Gentlemen - exactly which part of "Discussion about "colored" lands will be reserved ONLY for speculation threads" have you NOT understand?
You were asked several times to drop it here.
Stop trying to catch each other by word and trying to prove your discussion superiority, it adds nothing to the thread, and such a behavior WILL be considered spamming. And don't feed the trolls.
Really quickly on the topic of multi-colored lands and all this arguing, etc what have you.
Are multi-color lands not one of the most flavorful ideas we could see in ARB? Now, I see a lot of the arguments against and for and I think there is merit in both.
Don't you think though that the idea of multi-color lands is pretty much right in line with the flavor ideas of Alara? Start with the lands separated (in a sense), add cards that allow you to mana fix like crazy because the shards are bumping into each other, etc. Then finally when everything is merged you might have all kinds of weird landscape which could include things like multi-color lands.
I wouldn't rule it out completely though I do see why many people don't think it will happen.
Really quickly on the topic of multi-colored lands and all this arguing, etc what have you.
Are multi-color lands not one of the most flavorful ideas we could see in ARB? Now, I see a lot of the arguments against and for and I think there is merit in both.
Don't you think though that the idea of multi-color lands is pretty much right in line with the flavor ideas of Alara? Start with the lands separated (in a sense), add cards that allow you to mana fix like crazy because the shards are bumping into each other, etc. Then finally when everything is merged you might have all kinds of weird landscape which could include things like multi-color lands.
I wouldn't rule it out completely though I do see why many people don't think it will happen.
Except the flavor of mana and the flavor of color alignment are not the same.
Lands produce mana. Lands can produce multiple colors of mana if the right landscape or situation arises. (When lands come together...)
Aside from manlands, lands do not get colors. They get colors from manlands for flavor and functional reasons.
For lands to be colored, the flavor would be that they are a product of that color of mana...which doesn't make sense because you are still playing them as a land.
This discussion still belongs in speculation.
Please move it there.
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Except the flavor of mana and the flavor of color alignment are not the same.
Lands produce mana. Lands can produce multiple colors of mana if the right landscape or situation arises. (When lands come together...)
Aside from manlands, lands do not get colors. They get colors from manlands for flavor and functional reasons.
For lands to be colored, the flavor would be that they are a product of that color of mana...which doesn't make sense because you are still playing them as a land.
This discussion still belongs in speculation.
Please move it there.
I mostly agree with that and Alara has pretty much shown what you say to be true but each of the shards was also missing two colors and two mana sources. Bant (apparently) has no Islands or swamps on its surface.
If that is true than the association of mana color and land is there (which we know of course because... it always has been). I agree with you but I do feel Alara has a stronger sense of not just mana color but also land type. Looking at the lands (which I think are great) they made two versions that are normal for that shard and then two versions with show that shard being influenced by a neighboring shard.
So what i'm saying then is, couldn't those lands become even larger combinations? As far as balance, I would really doubt it because it just seems overwhelmingly powerful. But as for the idea of it being in the Alara block, I don't think its horribly farfetched.
And sorry i'll move to that thread I guess I just didn't want to leave what you said without responding to it.
Well this might be the set that gets me back into magic after I quit during alara.
Slowing down standard seem wierd to me cus I havent played in ages, last time I looked it was "control deck with 4 copies of cryptic and 3-4 of wrath.dec season" which bored the hell outta me lol.
It must have been a while since you actually looked then, since the most popular deck by far right now is RW "Boat Brew", a weenie/token/Reveillark deck.
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:symur::symur::symur::symur::symur:
Several years ago, WotC apparently surveyed Magic players across the globe. They found that people liked turning things sideways, and hated LD. This is the result:
I can't freakin' wait to draft Shards block now that this has come out. Someone actually threw out the idea of an all gold set a long time ago and I was super excited at the idea of it. By the way, who was it that came up with that idea? I want them to give me some lottery ticket numbers!
Seriously, draft will be pretty cool with an all gold set at the end. And it makes total sense with all the mana fixing they put in the first 2 sets.
Dude! Seriously! Have you not been paying attention? Turn 1 you drop a land that's RGB Jund rare and you play Bloodhall ooze . Turn 2 you attack for 3. EVERY DECK WILL HAVE THIS! It's a constructed warping thing to do and they stopped doing this with the artifact lands.
Seriously, drop it!
..not to mention it would make celestial purge as a very POWERFUL uncommon (well actually its powerful right now)
i've thought about that too. that if they'd make that land... a multiCOLORED land.. the ooze would skyrocket all over the place.
NO LANDS IN REBORN people. now quit the fuss..
ChibiSwan! YOU ROCK!
...........Shin on the textless Cryptic Command
Wouldn't that only balance the colored lands more?
Bloodhall Ooze
Celestial Purge
Cliffrunner Behemoth
Controlled instincts (can't effect land)
Corrupted Roots (the lands probably won't have basic subtypes)
Dark Temper
Ember Weaver
Filigree Fracture (can't effect land)
Ignite Disorder (can't effect land)
Kederekt Parasite
Mirror-Sigil Sergeant
Parasitic Strix
Rhox Meditant
Sedraxis Alchemist
Toxic Iguinar
View From Above
So they aren't going to print them because of 12 cards, most of which won't even be playabe with the "free" activator? If a majority of the block was designed around color matters like Lorwyn was designed around creature type matters, I would agree that they would not print these. As it is now, I see no reason they could not. I would expect them to be 2 colored and not tri-colored since the tri-colored theme seems to have gone out the window at this point of the block, and it would break bloodhall ooze.
There will be at least one card for every possible combination of multiple colors. That is 5 allied pairs, 5 enemy pairs, 5 arc triplets, 5 wedge triplets, 5 quadruplets and WUBRG.
In addition, I predict that the cards will have different numbering than usual - it will start with WU cards, then UB, BR, RG, GW, then the rest. It doesn't make much sense to just order the WHOLE SET alphabetically (for one, it might be pretty inconvenient when recording decks in limited). The allied pairs will replace monocolored cards in this set. Just like when they changed numbering of hybrids in Shadowmoor/Eventide to split them up since there was too many of them.
figure of destiny = charmander
mulldrifter = counsel-man
profane command = pro manuver
It doesn't matter. The lesson of artifact lands was that you can't balance a "count things of type X" mechanic around both paid-for permanents of type X and free land permanents of type X. If you try, people will just always enable the mechanic by playing the lands, because they're that much more efficient, and so you have to balance such effects around the lands (which means they'll be crappy if you use them with the permanents you paid for.) It's a general principle that applies to all such mechanics, which is how development knew not to even bother testing it with Tribal lands. Colored lands that exist as enablers for color-matters mechanics are a 100% comparable situation, which is how we know for absolute fact that this is not something that this set will include.
I think we're almost a lock for seeing every combination represented, plus or minus the 4-color ones. Conflux established that as Alara merges, we see more color combinations, not fewer. Arcs aren't going away because this block is all about continuing to support things once they're introduced; wedges are likely to show up to represent combinations of mana that couldn't exist in pre-merger Alara; WUBRGs are pretty much a given.
It would be extremely difficult to fill out the set with just two-color cards, doing all pairs + arcs + WUBRG would just give it the same distribution as Conflux, so the only real room to expand is to take all the combinations that Alara already supports, then add wedges and maybe 4-colors.
Has its own unique drawbacks (like, say, being a creature) and is only one color besides.
They experimented with making mutavault simply a colorless tribal land, but decided to turn it into a creature to a) make it more solveable b) make the effect not-free.
This is tantamount to "Well, Wizards never said they wouldn't make an Enchantment Planeswalker Land!"
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. That last part from the qoute is not solely applicable to Tribal Lands. I can't help it if you can't see that colored lands, let alone multicolored lands, are no-mana-cost enablers for the the Alara block and Shadowmoor block cards that care about colors.
You can cling to the idea that there could be a "multicolor land" that would somehow have a drawback to balance it out, just for the sake of having a land in the set, but the evidence points to there being no such thing.
No, we don't. You forget about a thing called "scaling".
See, Mirrodin was an artifact block with lots of powerful cards
which cared about other cards being an artifact or not being an artifact, most prominent of which were affinity-cards. Thus, artifact lands became... Bad mojo.
Lorwyn was a tribal block, with lots of blah-blah-blah, read the above. And even so, they printed mutavault and reprinted faerie conclave in X and they are kinda tribal.
Now let me ask you: is Shards of Alara "colour matters" block? I think not. There is medium "colour matters" theme in Conflux, yes, but in the Shards block? Nope. There are ten cards only and not a single overpowered one. Dare I say not a single decent one, really. Oh, there is a colour matters theme in Shadowmoor block but it is directed on creatures and lands mostly, not on permanents. In reality, Lurebound Scarecrow and Bloom Tender are the only two cards which will become somewhat decent with the existance of multicoloured lands.
And don't you think that such careful approach to "colour matters" mechanic smells somewhat fishy?
That doesn't mean that there will be gold lands in Reborn, but that does mean that you can't boast with 100% assuredness that there'll be no gold lands in Reborn. Time will tell.
Right, it was an article about Tribal during a tribal block. Why would they talk about any planned or feasible themes or mechanics? The evidence in the article is the reference to the lessons learned from artifact lands. Charlequin best summed it up a few posts up:
You don't have to accept this evidence, but you have not credibly countered it or supplied any facts to the contrary.
(You just said they would be perfectly in line with the set) I'm not saying multicolored Enchantment Planeswalker Lands are going to be in this set, I'm only saying that you are ruling the possibility too arbitrarily, mistaking what is improbable for exaggeration, and presented in an overly sensitive and angry manner.:)
These cards require activation, they aren't free enablers. A man-land would be colorless before it can be turned on....
There's very little reason to believe that this theory holds any water because people are supposing the existence of lands whose only purpose is to do something that R&D have specifically identified in the past as being destructive to design, and very little reason to believe that R&D somehow can't manage to design a set without lands when they've done it twice before. And it doesn't even make sense to print such cards in this block (where there are a few, but not that many color-matters cards) rather than in Shadowmoor where color-matters was an explicit theme.
So debating the tiny nuanced areas in which our information might not be 100% complete (maybe they printed a single Legendary Land that's every color or something) is fairly pointless; inasmuch as we ever know something in advance of a final, accurate spoiler, we can feel confident that this set isn't printing color-matters enabler lands.
So you think that artifact lands are just dandy to print as long as you print them anywhere but Mirrodin?
No. R&D makes decisions with a broader focus than just the latest set to enter Standard. Color enabler lands would have exactly the kind of negative effect on any future color-matters effects that artifact lands would have on artifact-matters effects, and this would render them rather pointless in Standard anyway: they'd have only a few effects to power up, and those effects would be balanced around those lands, meaning that they'd be unplayably bad without them.
It's a 1/1 1 colored creature. If they printed a 1/1 2 or 3 colored creature land, it would be strictly better than Dryad Arbor which is something they probably don't want to do. Let's not even get the where they start printing 2 color 2/2 creature lands or better. Why don't they just print a Darksteel Collosus land?
You were asked several times to drop it here.
Stop trying to catch each other by word and trying to prove your discussion superiority, it adds nothing to the thread, and such a behavior WILL be considered spamming. And don't feed the trolls.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
Actually this block has a lot of bears...okay scrap that.
Are multi-color lands not one of the most flavorful ideas we could see in ARB? Now, I see a lot of the arguments against and for and I think there is merit in both.
Don't you think though that the idea of multi-color lands is pretty much right in line with the flavor ideas of Alara? Start with the lands separated (in a sense), add cards that allow you to mana fix like crazy because the shards are bumping into each other, etc. Then finally when everything is merged you might have all kinds of weird landscape which could include things like multi-color lands.
I wouldn't rule it out completely though I do see why many people don't think it will happen.
Except the flavor of mana and the flavor of color alignment are not the same.
Lands produce mana. Lands can produce multiple colors of mana if the right landscape or situation arises. (When lands come together...)
Aside from manlands, lands do not get colors. They get colors from manlands for flavor and functional reasons.
For lands to be colored, the flavor would be that they are a product of that color of mana...which doesn't make sense because you are still playing them as a land.
This discussion still belongs in speculation.
Please move it there.
Twitter
I mostly agree with that and Alara has pretty much shown what you say to be true but each of the shards was also missing two colors and two mana sources. Bant (apparently) has no Islands or swamps on its surface.
If that is true than the association of mana color and land is there (which we know of course because... it always has been). I agree with you but I do feel Alara has a stronger sense of not just mana color but also land type. Looking at the lands (which I think are great) they made two versions that are normal for that shard and then two versions with show that shard being influenced by a neighboring shard.
So what i'm saying then is, couldn't those lands become even larger combinations? As far as balance, I would really doubt it because it just seems overwhelmingly powerful. But as for the idea of it being in the Alara block, I don't think its horribly farfetched.
And sorry i'll move to that thread I guess I just didn't want to leave what you said without responding to it.
It must have been a while since you actually looked then, since the most popular deck by far right now is RW "Boat Brew", a weenie/token/Reveillark deck.
Several years ago, WotC apparently surveyed Magic players across the globe. They found that people liked turning things sideways, and hated LD. This is the result:
I can't freakin' wait to draft Shards block now that this has come out. Someone actually threw out the idea of an all gold set a long time ago and I was super excited at the idea of it. By the way, who was it that came up with that idea? I want them to give me some lottery ticket numbers!
Seriously, draft will be pretty cool with an all gold set at the end. And it makes total sense with all the mana fixing they put in the first 2 sets.