Cool Card Design of the Day3/13/2014 - Here are a couple of lands that try to fall in a new spot in the power level spectrum, iterating on past land mechanics.
Sylvan Aqueduct is worse than Flooded Grove, but not strictly worse. It actually shares a lot in common with Nimbus Maze, in terms of fixing colors conditionally. Given that it surely can't be worth making the Ug version and a 20-card cycle), it might arguably be better to replace the first ability with
"{U}, {T}: Add {G}{U}" (or in a hybrid set to replace both with "{GU}, {T}: Add {G}{U}").
"{U}, {T}: Add {G}{U}" (or in a hybrid set to replace both with "{GU}, {T}: Add {G}{U}").
The pain lands have lost a lot of favor since Wizard has started making good dual lands again, so why not cross Battlefield Forge with Jungle Shrine and see what happens?
Aside from lacking basic land types, these are both strict upgrades to Forest!
ReplyDeleteSylvan Aqueduct could be:
Delete"1, T: Add 1G to your mana pool.
G, T: Add UG to your mana pool." , but that's not as clever.
I can't come up with a good solution to Tree City, though, other than to make it a shard-pain-land, which isn't too ridiculous, but doesn't seem that likely to print, either. Murmuring Bosk is about as close as I imagine we'd get.
R&D has unconditionally promised not to print lands that are functionally strictly better than basics. These designs break that promise in a big way.
ReplyDeleteCan you point me to that promise? I'm well aware they're not making cards that are strictly better than basics, but I'm not aware of this one.
Deletehttps://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr65
DeleteI guess it's not as much of a "promise" as I remember, but it's made very clear that this kind of thing won't happen.
Rule #1 – No Land Can Be “Strictly Better” Than a Basic Land
DeleteThe ramification of the “strictly better” rule is that we cannot design lands that tap for a colored mana without having some kind of drawback. The nonbasic land status, incidentally, is not considered by R&D to be enough of a drawback. While there are spells that hose nonbasic lands (like Price of Progress), there are also spells that hose specific basic lands (like Boil) that do not affect nonbasic lands (other than the original dual lands). As such, we consider the ability to be a slight negative but not enough to avoid the “strictly better” problem.
--Yeah, that's black and white.
I'm not 100% convinced that's the best call (more like 90%), but it's almost as pointless arguing a policy that clear as complaining about the Reserved List.
Deletethe ramifications of this rule are actually very beneficial to players especially new ones but not strictly so. if lands that are not as abundant as basic lands become a requirement for building every deck imagine how much that would cost for the players. the fact that really and truely in any reasonable format (not formats with alpha duals) there is always the alternative of running basics and that it will usually perform as well as the deck with duals make the barrier to entry into the game reasonable.
Deleteit sucks from a designers standpoint but there is a really good reason for it.
That holds for powerful lands, but not marginal ones. A card that slightly better than a Forest in ability, but slightly worse in type is neither a must-play, nor hard to acquire (because it can be common).
DeleteTree City? Come on, I can't be the only one thinking of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxnDxfVs64c
ReplyDelete