Let's talk about lands

gogol666

I know it is not the hottest topic at the moment, but giving some love to lands seems just fair: everybody is complaining that the game is becoming slower and slower and we can use fewer and fewer good ramp spells and only in green.
My proposal is to have both the memorial and the dual lands' cost at about 6-8 mana and have the dual lands ability to trigger when there are fewer than 10 gems of a given color.

Mburn7

gogol666 said:

I know it is not the hottest topic at the moment, but giving some love to lands seems just fair: everybody is complaining that the game is becoming slower and slower and we can use fewer and fewer good ramp spells and only in green.
My proposal is to have both the memorial and the dual lands' cost at about 6-8 mana and have the dual lands ability to trigger when there are fewer than 10 gems of a given color.

Variations of this have been floated, I personally think the memorials would be ok at 10 (to match the delerium lands' cost as a convert 2 with an extra ability).
Its not a high priority issue, so I doubt we'll hear much, though.

Kinesia

I have hope they are listening because we were just talking about the need for things that could be cast in one turn to get out of some specific holes and when they tweaked Gilded Lotus they didn't put it back to 7 but dropped it further to 6... So perhaps they _do_ start to see the need.

DBJones

Personally, I think the dual lands effect would work best with the 5 or more condition on the first color only. Then they would always convert at least some gems, and they're slightly more likely to make matches than the totally random dual lands. I agree they need a cost reduction too.

Mainloop25

Blue has the best mana ramp in standard right now with Storm The Vault. That's weird. 

Bil

   I must confess the gap beetween the amazing lands in RIX (or even XLN in a lesser extent) and the really disapointing lands in DOM is stunning.
   I would really love to see some flavorful lands more often.
   Besides, a 2 gems converter shouldn't exceed 6 mana if it has nothing else to offer ...  Let's just consider nissa's pilgrimage or even fetile thicket, both common from origins under 3 mana. Who would ever play the green memorial for 13 mana? and how can this card even be a rare? ... That doesnt make sense at all.

TheExaminer

Bil said:

   I must confess the gap beetween the amazing lands in RIX (or even XLN in a lesser extent) and the really disapointing lands in DOM is stunning.
   I would really love to see some flavorful lands more often.
   Besides, a 2 gems converter shouldn't exceed 6 mana if it has nothing else to offer ...  Let's just consider nissa's pilgrimage or even fetile thicket, both common from origins under 3 mana. Who would ever play the green memorial for 13 mana? and how can this card even be a rare? ... That doesnt make sense at all.

Nissa piligrimage was clearly a design mistake tho, it is way too strong for its cost and rarity. At that time devs didnt realize how strong gem conversion is.
I think the cycling duals are pretty much fair in terms of effect/cost ratio. 

TheExaminer

Talking about lands tho, I would like to say that it would be extremely nice of devs if they added more utility lands like those uncommons from zendikar. Considering how much support land supports got from Dominaria, it is very depressing that the only 'cool lands' in the game are Rishadan port and Arch of Orazca (and may be Blighted Fen).

ElfNeedsFood

Mainloop25 said:

Blue has the best mana ramp in standard right now with Storm The Vault. That's weird. 

The only drawback to StV is it has ramp time to get it to flip...  once it flips...

ElfNeedsFood

I think this batch of lands is so middling that they won’t get addressed. They’re not great, or even good, but they’re not 32 Mana terrible, so they will muddle along unloved and unused but also unfixed. 

gogol666

To me, all of them are 32 Mana terrible: I never played the delirium, but I found the cycling lands decent if not strong.
At 7 Mana they provide a minor ramp and you could cycle them if not needed.
Memorials (same level of rarity) provide a minor ramp and a minor effects on destroy. Everything for 13 Mana.
The other cycle of rare dual lands provided a minor ramp only, but for 5 Mana.

I'm fine with not playing them, but I would have preferred to have 5 decent cards at the rare level instead of having a pile of dull dull placeholders

PS I agree that at uncommon level the dual lands match the delirium lands. So now we have two cycled of uncommon dual lands that are not worthy their slot

ZW2007-

This batch of lands is pretty terrible. I like that they convert two gems to one color because the conversion on all other lands is laughable at best (I've watched Llanowar Wastes convert a green gem to black, then convert that same gem back to green.) but the cost is prohibitive. The Origins common lands and the AKH rares are the best example of what these cards should be. The commons cost 6 for two shields, the rares cost 6 for 3 shields and have a special ability. The uncommons and rares in DOM should match this. The only reason for them not to is that they are intentionally slowing down the game. At their current mana cost, they simply don't do enough to be worth using. I was playing both of the black conversion ones from DOM to combo with Chainer's Torment but neither seemed to get into play fast enough or stick around long enough. I ended up switching both out and only replacing with Llanowar Wastes and it seems better.

FindingHeart8

I hope they bring back the gates for Return to Ravnica.

Maybe splash in a Maze's End as a masterpiece

Mburn7

FindingHeart8 said:

I hope they bring back the gates for Return to Ravnica.

Maybe splash in a Maze's End as a masterpiece

How would that work?  You can only have 10 cards in a deck, that needs 11.

What if it was a PvE encounter?  Deck only has 10 gates in it, wins instantly if all 10 are out

EDHdad

I think it would only work if at least one of the gates had the text "at the beginning of your turn, if you control 10 or more gates with different names, you win the game"

EDHdad

Also, if they had cycling, so you could pitch the ones you don't need

EDHdad

BTW, one of the most glaring omissions in the game are the cycle of basic lands - Forest, Mountain, Swamp, Island, Plains.

They could be super common supports (so common that everyone just has them and they aren't in packs).  Possibly they would come in with 3 shields and then convert 1-2 gems to the appropriate color, for a casting cost of 3-6 mana.

EDHdad

TheExaminer said:

Nissa piligrimage was clearly a design mistake tho, it is way too strong for its cost and rarity. At that time devs didnt realize how strong gem conversion is.
I think the cycling duals are pretty much fair in terms of effect/cost ratio. 

Did they figure out the error before or after they came up with Rishkar's Expertise?

Nissa's Pilgrimage is a perfectly fair card.  The only imbalance comes from the fact that they didn't give something similar to the other colors, at a slightly higher cost.

FindingHeart8

EDHdad said:

BTW, one of the most glaring omissions in the game are the cycle of basic lands - Forest, Mountain, Swamp, Island, Plains.

They could be super common supports (so common that everyone just has them and they aren't in packs).  Possibly they would come in with 3 shields and then convert 1-2 gems to the appropriate color, for a casting cost of 3-6 mana.

Watch them be Masterpiece cards only.  Octagon will make you work harder for a basic land than you ever have in your entire life lol

FindingHeart8

EDHdad said:

I think it would only work if at least one of the gates had the text "at the beginning of your turn, if you control 10 or more gates with different names, you win the game"

well yeah, the card wouldn't work the same in mtgpq as it does in paper magic.  It would probably merely have a similar direction.

Maybe a support that enters with:

"When this support enters the battlefield, it gains X shields, where X are the number of supports you have in play.

At the beginning of your turn, if you control 10 or more supports, your opponent takes X damage where X is the number of supports you control times 10."

something like that

TheExaminer

EDHdad said:

TheExaminer said:

Nissa piligrimage was clearly a design mistake tho, it is way too strong for its cost and rarity. At that time devs didnt realize how strong gem conversion is.
I think the cycling duals are pretty much fair in terms of effect/cost ratio. 

Did they figure out the error before or after they came up with Rishkar's Expertise?

Nissa's Pilgrimage is a perfectly fair card.  The only imbalance comes from the fact that they didn't give something similar to the other colors, at a slightly higher cost.

It is fair, but at the same time it is too good. 
If I compared Nissa's Pilligrimage to paper magic cards, it would not be Black Lotus, but more like Dark Ritual.
Dark Ritual is not good enough to get banned in any of the formats, however everyone knows that DR is powerful, the card has been played regularly in every deck that has use for 3+ black mana, and the card is never ever getting reprinted in a newer (non-master) set. Instead, we are getting a bunch of Pyretic Rituals.

Similarly, developers never made a single support converter, with conversion/cost ratio even close to pilligrimage (although gilded lotus might have been the one, I have no idea, never played with it).

Rishkar's expertise, hour of promise and similar are beyond my understanding though, I have no idea why they continue making cards like this.