First of all, I agree these half land cards are awesome, and I am going to add many of these to my Cube.
However I disagree with the specific presupposition that the tap land option is always better than cycling "by wide margin." Sure, I agree that for the majority of cases that's true, but it depends on what the spell is. For a powerful and impactful spell with cycling option you usually want draw a land if you cycle, and in those cases an actual land option is better than cycling. See the mythic cycle in this set - even without the pay 3 life mode those are obviously better with the land mode instead of cycling. But situational early game reactive spells often prefer to cycle into a better spell if the card is no longer useful. Censor vs the new 2-mana Force Spike is a great example of this. Both halves are bad at a certain point in the game, and the land vs 'maybe another spell' consideration is different.
I think you can apply some of that logic to the clone. If you have enough lands you're left with a situational self-clone, and the card is sometimes completely dead. Cycling is never completely dead because there's a chance you draw an impactful spell. I think the land still makes this card better than if it had cycling, but it's closer than many of the other cards in the set, and the point is that it's more nuanced than "the land option is so much better than cycling on every Magic card."
However I disagree with the specific presupposition that the tap land option is always better than cycling "by wide margin." Sure, I agree that for the majority of cases that's true, but it depends on what the spell is. For a powerful and impactful spell with cycling option you usually want draw a land if you cycle, and in those cases an actual land option is better than cycling. See the mythic cycle in this set - even without the pay 3 life mode those are obviously better with the land mode instead of cycling. But situational early game reactive spells often prefer to cycle into a better spell if the card is no longer useful. Censor vs the new 2-mana Force Spike is a great example of this. Both halves are bad at a certain point in the game, and the land vs 'maybe another spell' consideration is different.
I think you can apply some of that logic to the clone. If you have enough lands you're left with a situational self-clone, and the card is sometimes completely dead. Cycling is never completely dead because there's a chance you draw an impactful spell. I think the land still makes this card better than if it had cycling, but it's closer than many of the other cards in the set, and the point is that it's more nuanced than "the land option is so much better than cycling on every Magic card."