Shocks act with all the same abilities as duals except that they enter tapped unless their controller pays two life. Many iterations on the original duals were printed over time, but shocklands have taken over as the go-to versions in Standard, Pioneer, Commander, and Modern when legal. The complete lack of downside of the original duals created a power imbalance. Not to mention pairing with cards like Omnath, Locus of Creation, which benefits from having multiple lands enter in a single turn. Having access to more shuffle effects greatly improves the quality of these decks. In Modern, Legacy, and Vintage, Vista acts as an additional fetch to ensure higher shuffle counts, especially in decks that play an abundance of basics like Miracles. Passage saw play as an upgraded Evolving Wilds in formats like Standard and Pioneer. These two fetches are a little different from the Onslaught and Zendikar lands since they can only fetch basic lands. Fetches are a prime example of lands that can improve whole subsets of cards just by strategically using their text outside of their intended purpose. Skilled pilots will keep a fetch or two around on the battlefield to enable a shuffle effect later in the game whenever they find a card that can manipulate the library’s order.Ī key metric that continues to show up is lands that double as either spells or have a special effect on deckbuilding or play patterns. In formats that have Brainstorm or Brainstorm effects like Modern, Legacy, Vintage, and Commander, shuffling away unwanted cards is a huge upside to playing fetches. While these lands have a slight cost in paying life to activate them, they come with a subtle but powerful additional benefit. Your mana capabilities explode compared to having to draw the right colors and this expands the range of cards a deck can play. Having the ability to fix for whatever half of these 2-colored fetches is a powerful effect.Īdd to that the fact that land subtypes like Forest are fetchable by four of the ten fetches, you see that four fetch lands can fetch eight unique duals. They’re a large part of why dual lands are so powerful in older formats and were powerful enough for a pre-format ban in Pioneer. These ten fetch lands serve as the defining lands of Modern. While it’s a fun trivia fact that Alpha only had nine dual lands and Beta saw the printing of Volcanic Island, these ten duals are the foundation of Magic and remain the strongest dual land cycle ever printed. These duals often cost hundreds of dollars for the cheapest versions and upwards of 10k for Alpha versions of Underground Sea. They’re also some of the most expensive individual cards in Magic’s history. The original duals build the foundation of every format where they’re legal. They’re searchable with any affect that can find non-basics with land types like Forest, Swamp, Island, Mountain, or Plains. Lands that tap for two colors and come into play with no conditions. The Alpha and Beta dual lands remain the pinnacle of mana fixing to this day. A major part of these deck’s power stems from the flexibility of their dual lands and the lands that find them. You’ll win more games if you can reliably cast all your spells.Īs deck designers push the limits of greed pile decks you see 3-, 4-, and 5-color decks maximizing the best spells by having the best mana bases. Best Dual Land CyclesĬolor-fixing in Magic has long been a staple of all eternal formats. When a land transcends value or power and becomes defining, that makes it one of the best lands in Magic history. Some formats are synonymous with specific lands and some decks need a certain land to function. But how do you decide which are the best of the best? Lands that see play across various formats, can single-handedly win or dominate games, and allow value to come from your mana base are all powerful enough to be considered great lands. Library of Alexandria | Illustration by Drew Baker
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |