I foolishly left my tokens on the table at the prerelease, not realizing there was a promotion code on them. If anyone found my token at Versus SF, feel free to use the code....
Well, first it's 2G, not G, so that's slightly relevant.
Sure -- what I meant is that the net cost is G. You spend 2G and get 2 back to spend right away (or BG or UG etc as you prefer, which makes it strong mana fixing too) because the lands enter untapped.
I'm just asking this in the EDH forum because that's the context I'd use the card in, but seems to me in a number of high-power formats this card ought to be amazing.
What downside am I missing? Since the new lands come in untapped, it basically works out to be ramp for a single green mana. And that's leaving aside things like landfall triggers, graveyard recursion, etc.
Reckless card drawing/looting effects are Izzet. Donate is both blue and red with Harmless Offering.
From a lore perspective, most couples tend to be red in Magic. Equally, considering we don't know their total history either as one could be Akroan originally.
Reckless card draw and donate are not among K&T's effects.
They're a couple, and they're from a plane that includes a red-aligned city (although they are identified by name with the blue-and-white aligned city). That's a pretty weak connection.
Mainly the reason this hasn't happened is that it can only have two outcomes:
- Doesn't do much (Captain of the Watch doesn't help your Fields of the Fallen) so it's just extra words on a card that don't mean anything
- Is OP (Priest of Titania is balanced around Elves costing mana; if you made an Elf Forest you'd drastically increase its ramp capacity)
- You especially can't use any of the designs you've postulated above because they're better than basic lands in the second situation and have no downside.
The latter is the power level I'd intended -- these would be intended to be introduced as rares in a tribal-focused limited environment, and then take their place as auto-includes in EDH decks with the appropriate theme. I have an elf-tribal EDH deck and a friend runs goblins with Krenko, so I know how good those cards would be. I don't think they would be ban-in-legacy good like Artifact Lands, but they'd be very good.
Unfortunately the examples I posted above aren't comparable -- and I'm realizing it would be very difficult to come anywhere near balancing the power level in a five-color cycle of these cards. I'd imagined Spirit Island and Soldier Plains would have lots of good possibilities, but the phrasing on all the Kamigawa spirit tribal stuff is "Whenever you cast a spirit" making the tribal land useless there. There are still a few decent interactions with Innistrad cards, but nothing like what elves, goblins, and zombies could do. And you're right: a glance through Gatherer shows that "Fields of the Fallen" would be almost totally pointless -- it interacts with Knight-Captain of Eos and War Falcon and as far as I can see, that's it.
So the real obstacle to making cards of this kind may not be the principle of the thing, but just that only a couple of tribes would benefit. Although I guess if they were introduced in a tribal set we can imagine they'd come with a bunch of other "same type" cards to make them more flexible :).
[ETA: I see that a "Human" creature type would have way more utility than "Soldier" on a card like this. Unfortunately it's also the only tribe I've found that has a downside -- there are several "destroy target human" or similar cards in Innistrad.]
The reason why these lands haven't been done is because they don't work in the rules.
The rules are changed to allow new forms of play all the time -- recently we've seen a flurry of fairly significant changes to the basic game rules (mulliganing, planeswalker commanders etc).
If allowing lands to have creature subtypes would harm the game, that's one thing. But it means nothing to say "lands can't have creature subtypes because lands don't have creature subtypes".
(You're right about Primordial Soup. I guess Shapeshifter would be the subtype and then Changeling a keyword on the card.)
I'm new to standard on MTGO (in the past I've just played EDH and drafted) and for the past week I've been running into nothing but those damned aristocrats decks. Unless I get very lucky on the draw and they get very unlucky on theirs, they just wipe me right out.
What are the answers to this deck? Anafenza would be one but I don't have a copy, and I guess any exile-based removal and bounce rather than destruction and damage-based removal, which is a change I'm in the process of making though it doesn't really fit my decks.
But is there a standard anti-Aristocrats deck I could be running (the "Bastille" deck?)
At the beginning of your end step, if you didn't take a turn before this one, lose 20 life. Take an extra turn after this one. Exile Part the Chain Veil.
I like both the old mish-mash of styles and the current more consistent high-fantasy look, but I don't think Wizards treats their artists terrifically well, and that can naturally lead to less care being put into the work -- especially as the artists are reportedly given very micro-managing directions for what the cards should look like.
At least one of their prominent artists has recently stopped working with Wizards because he felt badly treated, and while his work is good, the last several cards he painted have a pretty obvious "f--- it, just get the job done" feeling.
Many artists won't be in a financial position to give up a major client, so they may very well just continue churning out pieces to order, growing less and less inspired the more they feel trapped.
Sure -- what I meant is that the net cost is G. You spend 2G and get 2 back to spend right away (or BG or UG etc as you prefer, which makes it strong mana fixing too) because the lands enter untapped.
What downside am I missing? Since the new lands come in untapped, it basically works out to be ramp for a single green mana. And that's leaving aside things like landfall triggers, graveyard recursion, etc.
How does it cost five cents?
8 black commanders
7 white commanders
7 red commanders
6 blue commanders
4 green commanders
As far as I'm aware, the color wheel has also been kept symmetrical in previous sets. Is this not kind of weird?
Reckless card draw and donate are not among K&T's effects.
They're a couple, and they're from a plane that includes a red-aligned city (although they are identified by name with the blue-and-white aligned city). That's a pretty weak connection.
It's clearly a Simic effect, arguably given a whitish feel by the group-hug aspect.
There's no red.
For their second try at four-color, there needed to be a reason for all four colors.
The latter is the power level I'd intended -- these would be intended to be introduced as rares in a tribal-focused limited environment, and then take their place as auto-includes in EDH decks with the appropriate theme. I have an elf-tribal EDH deck and a friend runs goblins with Krenko, so I know how good those cards would be. I don't think they would be ban-in-legacy good like Artifact Lands, but they'd be very good.
Unfortunately the examples I posted above aren't comparable -- and I'm realizing it would be very difficult to come anywhere near balancing the power level in a five-color cycle of these cards. I'd imagined Spirit Island and Soldier Plains would have lots of good possibilities, but the phrasing on all the Kamigawa spirit tribal stuff is "Whenever you cast a spirit" making the tribal land useless there. There are still a few decent interactions with Innistrad cards, but nothing like what elves, goblins, and zombies could do. And you're right: a glance through Gatherer shows that "Fields of the Fallen" would be almost totally pointless -- it interacts with Knight-Captain of Eos and War Falcon and as far as I can see, that's it.
None of these cards would boost Coat of Arms, Alpha Status, or Caller of the Hunt.
So the real obstacle to making cards of this kind may not be the principle of the thing, but just that only a couple of tribes would benefit. Although I guess if they were introduced in a tribal set we can imagine they'd come with a bunch of other "same type" cards to make them more flexible :).
[ETA: I see that a "Human" creature type would have way more utility than "Soldier" on a card like this. Unfortunately it's also the only tribe I've found that has a downside -- there are several "destroy target human" or similar cards in Innistrad.]
The rules are changed to allow new forms of play all the time -- recently we've seen a flurry of fairly significant changes to the basic game rules (mulliganing, planeswalker commanders etc).
If allowing lands to have creature subtypes would harm the game, that's one thing. But it means nothing to say "lands can't have creature subtypes because lands don't have creature subtypes".
(You're right about Primordial Soup. I guess Shapeshifter would be the subtype and then Changeling a keyword on the card.)
I don't think it would really be broken in the same way that artifact lands were, but I may just be missing the possibilities.
The only other obstacle I see is that people playing the less common tribes in each color might resent the boost given to these tribes.
Do you think we'll ever see cards like this?
What are the answers to this deck? Anafenza would be one but I don't have a copy, and I guess any exile-based removal and bounce rather than destruction and damage-based removal, which is a change I'm in the process of making though it doesn't really fit my decks.
But is there a standard anti-Aristocrats deck I could be running (the "Bastille" deck?)
Temple Garden. I will never own this until I can afford the original Ravnica version. (The new one in BFZ is terrible too)
Mystic Gate. That is maybe the least mystic gate I have ever seen.
Oh, and the John Avon Plains from Unhinged. Why, John, why?
Artifact
At the beginning of your end step, if you didn't take a turn before this one, lose 20 life. Take an extra turn after this one. Exile Part the Chain Veil.
At least one of their prominent artists has recently stopped working with Wizards because he felt badly treated, and while his work is good, the last several cards he painted have a pretty obvious "f--- it, just get the job done" feeling.
Many artists won't be in a financial position to give up a major client, so they may very well just continue churning out pieces to order, growing less and less inspired the more they feel trapped.