MTG Salvation

Gnottvold Slumbermound
I know, I know. Too slow. Too little impact. But out of this cycle (what we have seen so far), this one is by far the most interresting.
Maybe it´s just me, but playing five color or four color non-green is becoming a bit too easy for my taste. This with loam, Wreen and Ramunap excavator and on top of Avalanche Riders, Plow under, wasteland etc, maybe just maybe could be a thing. Also playable "Destroy target land"-cards a rare these days.

I still think the instant- speed reanimate dimir land is more interesting, but what kills these for me is not the slowness, but that they take a guild slot with a land that only produces one color of mana. This one doesn't overcome that for me either. If you're in a position where you can recur a 7 mana (it has to tap itself) kill a land make a 4/4 loop, what percentage of those games were you not winning anyway? If you draft lands separately all these lands are probably auto-includes. If you don't, they are an easy pass.

This cycle was a missed opportunity to make fixing utility lands. Take Gates of Istfell, for example. Starting with a Coastal Tower as a baseline goes a really long way to making a card like Memorial to Genius worthwhile in comparison to an ETBT plains... Adding mana fixing would greatly reduce the opportunity cost of playing these kinds of cards.

When you look at this land ...it enters the battlefield tapped, doesn't fix your mana, and doesn't do anything until you can afford to pay the 7 mana to activate it. It's just not something I'm interested in.

Its a good point with the land not fixing colors. On a second thought I guess the activation cost would have to be 3GR and the mana be R/G for this to be good enough.

If at least they fix mana, then they can be potential swaps to some of the weaker man lands. But as it is they are too limited. Agreed that it is a missed opportunity. Perhaps when we next return to Zendikar?