Why is WotC Inconsistent with Cycles of Dual Lands?
General forum
Posted on July 7, 2019, 12:06 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
I have noticed that WotC sometimes prints dual lands in full cycles (all ten two-color combinations) and sometimes in only half cycles (only all allied-colored combinations or only all enemy-colored combinations).
Why is WotC inconsistent with cycles of dual lands? Would it not be better for the players if they always printed dual lands in cycles of ten cards each time? What does everyone else say about this?
Tyrant-Thanatos says... #3
Don't have any stats on-hand. But from what I recall, it all seems to do with rarity. Rare land cycles only get half the cycle. Common/Uncommons can/usually get the full 10.
I understand WotC not wanting to suck up 10 rare slots with dual lands, but personally I'd rather just see them stop printing rare dual lands altogether.
I mean I guess cycles like shock lands at uncommon might be really powerful, but do cycles like Temple of Silence or Caves of Koilos really need to be rares??
Even Fast Lands and Check Lands seem to me like they really don't need to be rares.
July 7, 2019 2:06 a.m. Edited.
Now what could be interesting would be if wotc printed rare duals, meta hate cards, and similar terrible for limited, but needed for standard/modern into promo packs and only promo packs, they could even just slip one as a random promo in planeswalker decks, it'll get enough of them out there, get the casual mtg products selling more (some stores close by me still had gatewatch in stock and the mono color planeswalker commander decks until they ran out of business or shipped them away to be repacked).
July 7, 2019 4:41 a.m.
Tyrant-Thanatos says... #5
TypicalTimmy: I wholly agree. Especially in the cases of some of the more powerful dual lands like Shock Lands. This way they could print full cycles of lands, without having to worry about flooding the market. I don't know how feasible it is behind the scenes to have 10 lands taking up these "uncommoner" slots, but with them distributed this way, people would still open up a decent number of them, even if not tons of the same individual ones, simply because there are more of them.
I even think it would help to sell packs. I mean if a set came out with Shock Lands at Uncommon, I think I'd have trouble even finding packs.
The other opinion I have that I'd like to throw in about this though is just the feeling of opening a land as your rare in a pack. I mean it feels good from a value standpoint. But did I get a big cool interesting card to show off to my buddies? No. I got a more flexible Swamp . Not my favorite thing to open, especially if its in colors I don't play. This isn't to say that dual lands aren't good, but they're not exciting to open imo.
July 7, 2019 5:23 a.m.
Tyrant-Thanatos says... #6
NGL, I would hate having partial land cycles that aren't one of the two halves. I'm already irritated enough that we have 6/10 on the Horizon Canopy cycle now. I feel trolled by WotC over it tbh.
July 7, 2019 7:07 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #7
Tyrant-Thanatos, I myself have been hoping for a complete cycle of Nimbus Maze , so the fact that WotC printed half a cycle of lands similar to Horizon Canopy makes me feel that they shall do that, eventually.
July 7, 2019 8:50 a.m.
multimedia says... #8
I agree putting 10 rare lands, the entire cycle, in one set is overkill. To make up for this however Wizards needs do something like include a cycle of 10 uncommon dual lands that are playable as alternatives. 10 common dual lands can also stay for Limited reasons. The main reason for these uncommon dual lands is to give players an alternative playable dual land cycle that's not rares thus it's less expensive since there will more of them in circulation. This is especially needed in Standard where you want 4x of a dual land and currently the only playable dual land options are rares.
Examples of playable uncommon dual land cycles would be Pain lands, Battle lands, Shadow lands, Fast lands, Maze lands. Reduce the rarity of these lands to uncommon making them less expensive thus playable alternative options. The Battle lands ( Sunken Hollow ), Shadow lands ( Port Town ) and Maze lands ( Nimbus Maze ) are rare less expensive land cycles that haven't been finished. These are the land cycles that need priority to be finished, reprinted a ton and reduced to uncommon rarity.
The Pain lands especially the allied colored ones need to be reprinted lots and reduced to uncommon rarity to make them all also less expensive playable land options to get more of them into circulation. Adarkar Wastes shouldn't be $8 when Llanowar Wastes is $1... Blackcleave Cliffs is a $40 land because the allied colored Fast lands have never been reprinted. Compare this to $3 Botanical Sanctum which is the high end of how much Fast lands should be. The Check lands are great examples of rare playable dual lands that are way too expensive because they aren't printed enough and are needed right now 4x in Standard decks.
Lands from these uncommon land cycles I'm purposing should to be in all Planeswalker precons, all Commander precons, Challenger decks and Standard Kits. Rare lands that are in Standard, Check lands for example should be in all Commander precons, Challenger decks and Standard Kits. If Wizards wants to make $5-$15 rare lands that need to be 4x in a deck be the center pieces of Standard manabases then there's really nothing stopping them, but they better damn well make other playable less expensive options as alternatives. Or make sure they're printing rare Standard lands in other products. By not doing so it turns players off and pushes players away; myself included, all the way away...
July 7, 2019 11:43 a.m. Edited.
They just do it so you have actual deck building choices to make. If you have perfect mana all the time there would be no need to think about what colors to play because your deck will always have perfect Mana. That means you have no incentive to do anything other than run a 4 or 5-color deck with all the best cards in the format. The last time this happened was when we had fetches and shocks in standard together and that format devolved into a homogenized mess of four-color nonsense good stuff decks. In modern when people build decks like that there are one and two color Decks that are powerful enough in the format to compete with them. Standard is a format whose strategy is somewhat defined by its limited card pool.
July 7, 2019 12:34 p.m.
Flooremoji says... #10
I just want more Storage lands :/
Come on! It was like 2004 when we saw that cycle last!
July 7, 2019 1:58 p.m.
Tyrant-Thanatos says... #11
DemonDragonJ: Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to finally see more of our Future Sight land cycles seeing print. I'm just annoyed to have a 6/10 land cycle. I hope we get the rest of Horizon Canopy , and agree that I really really want to see the rest of Nimbus Maze .
I'm also interested in seeing all 10 (20?) of River of Tears . Though I'm less convinced that will ever happen.
Rzepkanut: This isn't just about Standard though. There are non-standard sets where the practices discussed could be implemented, but they're not. Also if it took Fetch Lands AND Shock Lands to lead to 4-5 color decks, I don't see all 10 Check Lands at uncommon doing the same. That sounds like a bit of a stretch to me.
July 7, 2019 11:10 p.m. Edited.
Sarkhan420X says... #12
cdkime: why would the limited environment matter? constructed is what matters. a given card will only ever see limited play once unless someone cheats. 10 rare lands is far from "unacceptable". i'd also argue that dual lands for each color combo are healthier for limited and promote more options for deckbuilding. if only 5 of the 10 2-color combinations have decent dual lands, it heavily incentivizes building a deck in one of those color combinations.
July 8, 2019 1:02 a.m.
Sarkhan420X says... #13
Rzepkanut: you're looking at standard, when it had fetches AND shocks. now imagine its just one or the other. thats far from "perfect mana". and like Tyrant-Thanatos said, it just feels trolly to have incomplete cycles.
July 8, 2019 1:11 a.m.
This comment probably isn't going to be that helpful, but I'd like to see a full same-time reprint, or new land cycle, of the Torment Tainted lands ( Tainted Peak and friends). A full and complete cycle would take up 20 slots in a Standard-legal set, but they could probably find a place in a summer supplement.
Caerwyn says... #2
I think it comes down to one single question: what is more important for that set’s limited environment - five additional slots in the set or more diversity in colour fixing?
Generally, I think the 5 card slots are more valuable than having a full set of 10 lands. This is particularly true with more powerful lands - taking up 10 common slots with mediocre lands is fine; but having 10 rare lands, without even counting utility lands, is unacceptable.
July 7, 2019 1:42 a.m.