You guys may be right, as I rechecked MaRo's article. It gave the impression that the mechanics were to only be used once, but he didn't actually say that, and being the tricky SoB he is, there will probably be duplicates of some of the mechanics/abilities.
Anyways, I still believe that they use a different ability on each land. Either that, or they print 5 of these lands, plus one gainland plus the green land, plus the keyworded lands to make 12.
The one gainland could be like City of Brass.
That's just a scenario, but I am still going with the original theory that there will be more than 1 type of new dual.
I don't see any reason why there wouldn't be a cycle of these lands. As far as I know, all the information on Future-shifted cards has been that keyword abilities will limited to one or two cards each. These don't have any sort of keyword, so they very well could be part of a cycle.
Because this thing is more than likely future-shifted, and Wizards has confirmed that anything future-shifted has only 1 of each type, thus this cannot be a cycle of all the same type of lands. There will be 4-5 more new types of duals in this set, if my math is correct.
If there are 12 lands as suspected, then I can account for 11 of them.
5 of the lands are the Rav Keyworded Cycle.
5 of the lands are 'new' duals, which won't all look alike.
1 of the lands will do something green, as we got Flagstones, Urborg, Kher Keep, and Academy Ruins in the past. This is assuming they don't count Pendelhaven as the green one, but that would break the rule of three because they printed a special mono land in the first two sets.
That leaves 1 land, and the new City of Brass is just a good a guess as anything else I could come up with.
Some of these guys have started hitting the nail on the head (Deaths Door). When I saw Venser, I saw how versatile he is. He is a good tool for blue permission decks that like to wait to cast things on the opponents turn. Moving towards Lorwyn when everything (supposedly) is moving towards mono-colored, this guy will be stronger in mono-bluish decks.
Although Commandeer is still a better answer to a late game Demonfire, the fact that Venser can still help you out in this situation proves his versatility in further. He is never completly useless, as a bounce spell will usually have a target, and a 2/2 body is nearly always useful.
Imagine yourself as a blue player. Your opponent swings at you with a Dark Confidant and a Mirri, and you flash in the Venser to bounce the Mirri, and block the Confidant. I know this is a particulair situation that isn't likely to happen very often, but plays like that are very powerful. How many cards can you think of that can play well against the late game Demonfire and the early creature rush?
Venser is a card that will be solid in almost all situations.
I think he may allow U/W Momentary blink-bounce decks to thrive in T2. You can add in cards like Aven Riftwatcher, Draining Whelk, and Riftwing Cloudskate, as well as adding in other bounce like Boomerang, and Remands and it seems like this deck could do a lot of harm to other decks.
The Mirri is not a good card unless MBA takes off some how. In Rakdos, Solifuge is better and people don't even play 4 of those (usually 2-3).
One more black mana gives a much better vampire, Sengir Nosferatu, and that Vampire isn't even played.
Radha is a playable card. I dont think it's going to break a format, but it seems like a nice card in Gruul. I find myself going between Dryad Sophisticate and Gruul Guildmage as the second two drop next to the Mauler, but Radha might be better than both, especially if you add in more instant speed burn.
I would have loved to see either First Strike or Haste on her though. Haste would be more fair, but First Strike would be more flavorful. I guess we can't split hairs....
Anyways, I still believe that they use a different ability on each land. Either that, or they print 5 of these lands, plus one gainland plus the green land, plus the keyworded lands to make 12.
The one gainland could be like City of Brass.
That's just a scenario, but I am still going with the original theory that there will be more than 1 type of new dual.
Because this thing is more than likely future-shifted, and Wizards has confirmed that anything future-shifted has only 1 of each type, thus this cannot be a cycle of all the same type of lands. There will be 4-5 more new types of duals in this set, if my math is correct.
5 of the lands are the Rav Keyworded Cycle.
5 of the lands are 'new' duals, which won't all look alike.
1 of the lands will do something green, as we got Flagstones, Urborg, Kher Keep, and Academy Ruins in the past. This is assuming they don't count Pendelhaven as the green one, but that would break the rule of three because they printed a special mono land in the first two sets.
That leaves 1 land, and the new City of Brass is just a good a guess as anything else I could come up with.
Although Commandeer is still a better answer to a late game Demonfire, the fact that Venser can still help you out in this situation proves his versatility in further. He is never completly useless, as a bounce spell will usually have a target, and a 2/2 body is nearly always useful.
Imagine yourself as a blue player. Your opponent swings at you with a Dark Confidant and a Mirri, and you flash in the Venser to bounce the Mirri, and block the Confidant. I know this is a particulair situation that isn't likely to happen very often, but plays like that are very powerful. How many cards can you think of that can play well against the late game Demonfire and the early creature rush?
Venser is a card that will be solid in almost all situations.
I think he may allow U/W Momentary blink-bounce decks to thrive in T2. You can add in cards like Aven Riftwatcher, Draining Whelk, and Riftwing Cloudskate, as well as adding in other bounce like Boomerang, and Remands and it seems like this deck could do a lot of harm to other decks.
One more black mana gives a much better vampire, Sengir Nosferatu, and that Vampire isn't even played.
Radha is a playable card. I dont think it's going to break a format, but it seems like a nice card in Gruul. I find myself going between Dryad Sophisticate and Gruul Guildmage as the second two drop next to the Mauler, but Radha might be better than both, especially if you add in more instant speed burn.
I would have loved to see either First Strike or Haste on her though. Haste would be more fair, but First Strike would be more flavorful. I guess we can't split hairs....