MTG Salvation

Mirage Fetchland should also be reconsidered, seeing that there's starting to be a good amount of fetchable duals available now.

In my cube, the best of this cycle will probably be the Gruul land. As I'm not supporting green aggro, R/G decks are mostly green ramp decks splashing red. Normally not producing green mana on turn one is bad with mana elves, but R/G decks are usually heavy on green and light on red requirements (in a large part due to green's fixing), so you are likely to have other green sources. The land is fetchable with Nature's Lore and Three Visits and that is a major selling point. Green has the most basic land synergies in my cube, with Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary and Nissa, Worldwaker, and Goyf likes lands in the 'yard. R/G also struggles with card flow, so the cycling is very relevant.

I am leaning toward at least testing all of them. Then see if I want to cut down to just the blue ones. Though aggro might not want them black and red midrange or control happens too. The red ones are perfect for the control deck with a red splash when the other color is a main color.

Man, these are tasty. I want the full set though, not just allied. So will likely wait for that. Don't screw me over wizards.

In a 540 with ABUR, Shocks, Fetches, Manlands and Painlands, would you cut painlands for these (assuming the other 5 bicycle lands will be out next set)? Seems brutal to lose pains for aggro and colorless matters? The fetchability and cycling are tasty though...

I'm running 4 cycles, but lacking ABUR duals for cost reasons. I've thought about cutting the painlands for a second set of shocks, but these seem pretty interesting. Some cool synergies, like with Loam and Knight of the Reliquary. I've got some thinking to do. Entering tapped sucks for aggro, and I was very happy to get the Temples out of my cube because of that. Does cycling make up for it? Seems so in everything but WR, WB, and RB for me.

I second your thoughts Mike. If there were a full cycle of Talismans I would probably try and compensate by switching Signets for Talismans, and Pains for Bicycles. However, as things stand I feel that it would take a lot of gymnastics to fit Bicycles in and still adequately support aggro and colorless matters.

I currently run fetch, shock, manlands, and checklands (Can't afford duals). I'm also picky about running full cycles and not mixing up pain/check/fast/etc. Assuming they complete the cycle, should I swap out checklands for these? I realize in a couple color pairs they might be less desirable, but overall would this be an improvement?

I don't have ABUR duals, so I'm strongly considering adding the blue duals and counting the manlands as spells. Cutting Reflector Mage will be tough, I've grown to love it.

Wow these are great lands. I definitely want to squeeze these into my 540 and will probably cut painlands to do so.l...eventually. Hope we don't have to wait 4 years for the rest of the cycle. I'll likely cut my colorless/waste subset to do so but I'm not in a huge rush with only half the cycle.

Wizards is terrible about printing full cycles. The Blackcleave Cliffs lands took years to complete. The Mirage fetches are incomplete. The Canopy Vista duals are incomplete. There's no good reason to think that Wizards is going to complete this cycle anytime soon. I hope to be wrong, but Wizards really sucks at this.

I think I'm going to take out the tango lands for these. Fetchable cycle lands? I'm okay with this.

More good lands equals more choices for people to tune their cubes to what they want. But why do people stick to cycles? Especially with lands like this that always enter the battlefield tapped. Cutting pain lands for these will be slowing down your cube while giving an advantage to midrange and control decks. Is that what Azorius wants? Is that what all your guilds want? I think more then ever, with so many options, people need to evaluate each guild on its own merit and give it the lands that suit it best. That's what options are for, right?

Quote from steve_man »

Aight, now that sticker shock is out of the way, here are my cohesive thoughts.

- Budget aside, I wouldn't play any of these over dual / fetch / shock / manland. I like every manland over these duals since they both ETB tapped regardless, but the manlands are actual threats. Cycling and being fetchable are nice, but so are win conditions that are fetchable by Primeval Titan.

- The blue ones are in contention for the 5th best guild land, especially if you're not running colorless matters cards.

- Non-blue guilds may prefer the fast / painlands to these, but being able to cycle does mitigate a lot of the ETB tapped drawback.

I agree with this. I would likely run the Pains as my 5th cycle because then my cube would be big enough to support colorless cards and I could run the full cycle. Or I might run these with enemy painlands.

Cheers,
rant

Quote from MikePemulis »

Wizards is terrible about printing full cycles. The Blackcleave Cliffs lands took years to complete. The Mirage fetches are incomplete. The Canopy Vista duals are incomplete. There's no good reason to think that Wizards is going to complete this cycle anytime soon. I hope to be wrong, but Wizards really sucks at this.

I feel like it's a conscious decision on their part to keep a steady drip of anticipated content. Maro talks all the time about being economical with design space and releasing cycles at different times is a key example of this. I agree, it sucks for cube owners because we love cycles and Tend to be somewhat OCD

Really wish they just woulda put the cycling cost at a hybrid mana, but these are super sweet for sure. Was looking to put an extra land in for each color combo anyway.

these are cool. I was really hoping that Ash Barrens would make it into the set so i can get a foil of that art but maybe not.

Quote from TorontoJock »

But why do people stick to cycles?

While I generally prefer full cycles for my dual lands, this is an even higher priority for duals with basic land types. It just feels unfair to give some color combinations more fetchable duals than others. If these bicycle lands were enemy colored, I would just use all of them to somewhat fill out the cycle started with the allied battle lands. Since both types of duals are allied, this option is off the table, leaving me stuck with unbalanced fetchable duals. I am really annoyed by this. Around the original Innistrad, Wizards said that they wanted to complete dual land cycles as quickly as possible, to give all color combinations the same options. Then they stopped doing this only four or five years later. Damn.

Quote from steve_man »

I'm wondering if they're going to have anything other than 2 mana cycling things. Land cycling or Krosan Tusker type effects would be pretty cool, so far all we have is Archfiend of Ifnir (who grows more powerful every day!)

There is Renewed Faith in this set, so we will definitely get cycling triggers and cycling costs other than 2. We've heard nothing about cycling variants yet. My guess is that Amonkhet will have only normal cycling and then Hour of Devastation may have a varaint (basiclandcycling or TYPEcycling or even something new).

I like these. What I'm struggling with is finding room for them. I have 5 lands in each guild. Four are non-negotiable (ABU duals, shocks, fetches, manlands). That leaves my pseudo-custom 5th guild land cycle, which is 7 painlands and 3 Temples. In the allied colors, it's all painlands. These are better than painlands much of the time, except early in an aggressive deck and for supporting "colorless matters." I don't want to go to 6 lands per guild. This cycle will certainly require some thought.

I like these lands, but I'm having a hard time pulling the trigger on replacing the pain lands with them as my fifth land cycle. I feel as though my drafters, myself included, already have a hard time making the few colorless matters cards we're running work.

The only colorless-matters cards I still run are Eldrazi Displacer and Reality Smasher. Since I went to Signets over generic rocks, these are tougher to make work, even with a full set of painlands. I may just cut them both. Yeah, they're sweet cards, but warping a whole manabase to fit two cards that are very good but not bonkers is tiresome.

One thought is to run the allied cycling lands and allied Talismans, then the enemy painlands and enemy Signets. That seems fine, if unbalanced. I don't like certain colors having access to more fetchable duals, though.

Wizards: complete the cycle in Hour of Devastation and throw us a bone with lands for a change.

Quote from MikePemulis »

Wizards is terrible about printing full cycles. The Blackcleave Cliffs lands took years to complete. The Mirage fetches are incomplete. The Canopy Vista duals are incomplete. There's no good reason to think that Wizards is going to complete this cycle anytime soon. I hope to be wrong, but Wizards really sucks at this.

To be fair, they are just in a bind here to some extent. They just printed an enemy land cycle in Kaladesh (finishing off an older cycle), Standard needs an allied cycle next. They could have reprinted an old allied cycle here instead, but then we wouldn't have these sweet things.

They could have theoretically finished a cycle in like Origins and/or M15 instead of reprinting enemy pain lands, though.