With all the back-and-forth on Twitter with Ted Knutson (@nextlevelspec) over speculating and ethics and so forth, actions speak louder than words. MTGOTraders very kindly agreed to give me the current hotlist prices on some cards after I had already submitted a sell order a day earlier at a lower price. That's not something a speculator would do, and it's just one of the reasons why I love doing business with these guys.
I'm not sure if this is the best choice, but I like it because it is (a) in the public domain, and (b) is invertible on its own - no need for two pictures.
The references to MBS Game Day seem irrelevant to the title of this thread, which is specific to the set that comes after MBS, i.e. "Action". People have puzzled over the copyrighting of "Mirrodin Pure" as well as "New Phyrexia," and ruled out the possibility of alternate sets based on some sort of community activity. Flip cards, or some variant thereof, would be an elegant way to have both titles mean something; a trigger such as the number of poison counters could change the whole game state; particularly interesting in multiplayer, where players could be switching factions as they get infected. I'm not sure at this point how exactly you would implement this, but nothing about MBS Game Day prevents it.
Pendrell Cathedral
Legendary Land
All creatures have "At the beginning of your upkeep, pay 1 or return this creature to its owner's hand."
Menorah of Tawnos 1G
Artifact
XT: untap up to X target lands.
Pendrell Mists is itself on the Reserved List, but the Pendrell Cathedral might work - not sure if going to the graveyard is much better or worse in Legacy. Exiling the creatures would make it stronger, but might unbalance the format.
Magus of the Candelabra (and Magus of the Tabernacle, for that matter), seem not to have done the trick, probably because creature removal is more common than land destruction, and you also have the casting cost to worry about.
Retrorobot made the good point that replacing cards like Tabernacle is almost trivially easy, once you take away the problem of maintaining balance in Standard. I am more and more convinced that we will see WOTC releasing non-Standard-legal cards in special sets. It's just too easy and profitable for them not to do it. Can anyone think why they wouldn't?
I'm concerned this is degenerating into one more "should they or shouldn't they reprint Reserved List cards" thread. It appears that possibility is closed, hence I started this thread to speculate how WOTC might act to preserve Legacy's accessibility as a format without taking the drastic step of banning or restricting certain cards. There have been a lot of great suggestions, which I think proves that it is possible to create alternatives that could allow new players to compete in Legacy without unbalancing Standard. As this is the Speculation forum, I will go ahead and speculate that, within the next two years, WOTC will print new dual lands that are competitive with or even superior to the original duals and release them as part of special sets that are not legal in Standard. The key is keeping them out of Standard, because this is what prevents WOTC from doing this as part of a regular set. A more fundamental change, however, would come from the decision to print completely new cards in Duel Decks and Premium Deck Series sets. This would go beyond the original duals to encompass cards like Sliver Queen that, if replaced by strictly superior new cards, would actually increase the attractiveness of the special sets over what they would be even if the Reserved List was abolished. IMHO, this is such an attractive route for WOTC to go (because it increases profits from retail sales, which banning doesn't), that I think it is highly likely they will do it. This could also be a route to reprinting some of the older cards that aren't on the Reserved List but are in high demand.
Underground Lake
Land - Island Swamp(R) (:symtap:: Add or to your mana pool)
If you control a card named Underground Sea, sacrifice Underground Lake.
When Underground Lake comes into play you lose 1 life unless you control another card named Underground Lake.
I'm not a big fan of the "if you have [original dual], sacrifice [new dual]" template and its variants, because it seems very awkward, and I doubt R&D would go so far as to call out specific cards for hate outside the context of a set theme. They'd be more likely to just ban or restrict them. Which, I might add, is not outside the realm of possibility; Aaron Forsythe recently tweeted for suggestions on cards to ban or restrict, implicitly in reaction to the Reserved List update, which he made clear he disagreed with. To me, the importance of this thread is that it illustrates ways that R&D can deal with the problem of Legacy staples without banning them, which would be unfortunate for everybody. I'm sure there is debate going on within WOTC about this very approach. You could see the shocklands as a real-life example of WOTC trying to provide viable alternatives to the original duals; the main problem was that they had to be balanced in Standard, which is why I suggested putting them in special sets.
Such a card exists, it's called Mana Crypt, and it's banned in Legacy.
Sorry, I don't get your reply. According to Gatherer, Mana Crypt only produces 2, and deals 3 damage each upkeep unless you win a coin flip. So how is it a substitute? Plus, I think it's banned because it was a book promo, and thus almost impossible to get except on MTGO.
Putting some more thought into the "play this beside your duals" problem...
What if you could make the new duals better than the original ones without making them strictly better than basic lands? One way I can see to do this is to give them some sort of protection from non-basic land hate. You could take any of the proposals mentioned thus far, and add the following ability:
[CARDNAME] does not count as a non-basic land.
If this creates some horrible rules conundrum, here are some other possibilities:
{1}: [CARDNAME] is indestructible this turn.
{tap}: [CARDNAME] is indestructible this turn.
Protection from lands
Protection from red
What do people think of that?
As an aside, let me make clear that I do not see these land ideas as a way to make Legacy more affordable. Rather, they are a way to keep Legacy from getting way more expensive than it already is. Releasing these as part of a special set or sets would still leave them quite rare and expensive; the point is that you would at least be able to get them, whereas the finite supply of the original duals places a hard limit on the number of people who would be able to compete in tournaments. As the game ages, and more and more players see a large percentage of their collections rotate out of Extended, they are going to want to be able to use those cards in Legacy. It doesn't make sense to have something as dumb as a dual land be a barrier to entry.
I don't have as much of a problem with Goyfs and Baneslayers and Jaces because they (a) do something cool to justify their cost; (b) can be reprinted if needed to address supply issues; and (c) are vulnerable to evolution in the metagame. The original duals have none of these attributes; they are just plain boring, and I have a hard time working up the enthusiasm to buy them just so I can compete in tournaments.
Since the Mana Crypt debacle, WotC has avoided printing unique cards that can't be acquired by buying boosters. Now, putting them in something like a Duel Deck or a Premium Deck would probably ensure a decent distribution, so we'll let that part slide.
The biggest problem with your Underground Lake is that you now have people running 4 Underground Lake in their decks, but now they're playing people who have 4 Underground Lake and 4 Underground Sea. So what you'd want to do is have the extremely ugly rules text:
"Underground Lake counts as Underground Sea for deckbuilding purposes."
That's the only way to fix that. And really, I don't see them doing that. Ever.
Good point about the doubling up, but we'd have to do some playtesting to see how much of a difference it would make to have four of both kinds vs. four of one kind. The idea is not to replace the original duals, but to keep the prices from spiking too high by creating more viable alternatives. Part of what has prevented this from happening is concern about unbalancing the Standard environment, which wouldn't be an issue if the cards were not released in a core set or regular expansion. I like many of MTGColorPie's proposals.
Others have proposed restricting or banning the cards on the Reserved List, which is another way to address the issue, but I'd rather see players have more choices rather than less.
Now that the Reprint Policy has been tightened up, we know there will be no reprints of Legacy staples like the dual lands. In addition, there will be no more reprints of reserved list cards in special sets after 2010. However, this does not mean that WOTC could not print new cards in special sets, just like they changed the "all reprint" philosophy in M2010. There has been much discussion of how much better Premium Decks: Slivers would have sold if WOTC had been allowed to include Sliver Queen, but what if they had created a new Sliver card that was even better in the deck? This would have made the product even more attractive, because now there would be a card available nowhere else. Such cards would probably only be Vintage and Legacy-legal, because they wouldn't be part of the regular core set/block schedule.
To get things started, here's an idea for a dual land that would be competitive with Underground Sea in Legacy, but wouldn't violate the reprint policy:
Card Name: Underground Lake
Types: Land - Island Swamp
Rarity: Rare
Text: Tap: Add {U} or {B} to your mana pool. If you have no other lands on the battlefield, Underground Lake does 1 damage to you.
This is almost as good as an Underground Sea, and functionally equivalent if you have any other land out. The drawback is pretty minimal. Obviously, it would be overpowered in Standard, but by releasing it in a special set, you could avoid that problem.
What do you think? Is this an option you think WOTC might pursue?
Pendrell Mists is itself on the Reserved List, but the Pendrell Cathedral might work - not sure if going to the graveyard is much better or worse in Legacy. Exiling the creatures would make it stronger, but might unbalance the format.
Magus of the Candelabra (and Magus of the Tabernacle, for that matter), seem not to have done the trick, probably because creature removal is more common than land destruction, and you also have the casting cost to worry about.
Retrorobot made the good point that replacing cards like Tabernacle is almost trivially easy, once you take away the problem of maintaining balance in Standard. I am more and more convinced that we will see WOTC releasing non-Standard-legal cards in special sets. It's just too easy and profitable for them not to do it. Can anyone think why they wouldn't?
Just to get us off the duals for awhile, anyone care to speculate on what a replacement for The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale might look like? Or maybe Candelabra of Tawnos?
I'm not a big fan of the "if you have [original dual], sacrifice [new dual]" template and its variants, because it seems very awkward, and I doubt R&D would go so far as to call out specific cards for hate outside the context of a set theme. They'd be more likely to just ban or restrict them. Which, I might add, is not outside the realm of possibility; Aaron Forsythe recently tweeted for suggestions on cards to ban or restrict, implicitly in reaction to the Reserved List update, which he made clear he disagreed with. To me, the importance of this thread is that it illustrates ways that R&D can deal with the problem of Legacy staples without banning them, which would be unfortunate for everybody. I'm sure there is debate going on within WOTC about this very approach. You could see the shocklands as a real-life example of WOTC trying to provide viable alternatives to the original duals; the main problem was that they had to be balanced in Standard, which is why I suggested putting them in special sets.
Sorry, I don't get your reply. According to Gatherer, Mana Crypt only produces 2, and deals 3 damage each upkeep unless you win a coin flip. So how is it a substitute? Plus, I think it's banned because it was a book promo, and thus almost impossible to get except on MTGO.
What if you could make the new duals better than the original ones without making them strictly better than basic lands? One way I can see to do this is to give them some sort of protection from non-basic land hate. You could take any of the proposals mentioned thus far, and add the following ability:
[CARDNAME] does not count as a non-basic land.
If this creates some horrible rules conundrum, here are some other possibilities:
{1}: [CARDNAME] is indestructible this turn.
{tap}: [CARDNAME] is indestructible this turn.
Protection from lands
Protection from red
What do people think of that?
As an aside, let me make clear that I do not see these land ideas as a way to make Legacy more affordable. Rather, they are a way to keep Legacy from getting way more expensive than it already is. Releasing these as part of a special set or sets would still leave them quite rare and expensive; the point is that you would at least be able to get them, whereas the finite supply of the original duals places a hard limit on the number of people who would be able to compete in tournaments. As the game ages, and more and more players see a large percentage of their collections rotate out of Extended, they are going to want to be able to use those cards in Legacy. It doesn't make sense to have something as dumb as a dual land be a barrier to entry.
I don't have as much of a problem with Goyfs and Baneslayers and Jaces because they (a) do something cool to justify their cost; (b) can be reprinted if needed to address supply issues; and (c) are vulnerable to evolution in the metagame. The original duals have none of these attributes; they are just plain boring, and I have a hard time working up the enthusiasm to buy them just so I can compete in tournaments.
Good point about the doubling up, but we'd have to do some playtesting to see how much of a difference it would make to have four of both kinds vs. four of one kind. The idea is not to replace the original duals, but to keep the prices from spiking too high by creating more viable alternatives. Part of what has prevented this from happening is concern about unbalancing the Standard environment, which wouldn't be an issue if the cards were not released in a core set or regular expansion. I like many of MTGColorPie's proposals.
Others have proposed restricting or banning the cards on the Reserved List, which is another way to address the issue, but I'd rather see players have more choices rather than less.
To get things started, here's an idea for a dual land that would be competitive with Underground Sea in Legacy, but wouldn't violate the reprint policy:
Card Name: Underground Lake
Types: Land - Island Swamp
Rarity: Rare
Text: Tap: Add {U} or {B} to your mana pool. If you have no other lands on the battlefield, Underground Lake does 1 damage to you.
This is almost as good as an Underground Sea, and functionally equivalent if you have any other land out. The drawback is pretty minimal. Obviously, it would be overpowered in Standard, but by releasing it in a special set, you could avoid that problem.
What do you think? Is this an option you think WOTC might pursue?