I think Wizards will do what they usually do in the other sets and fill out the other lands of the non-represented colors in the next set with new tribes or shifted tribal colors. Perhaps the Treefolk will dip deeper into black and white for that color combination land or maybe giants will move back into the more traditional color combination of red and green?
I personally think these lands are better then the Invasion CIPT lands as they could come into play untapped but not as good as the 10th pains. The only real issue I have with them is they are like so many other cards in this set, go Tribal or go home. What I mean is it looks hard to make a non-tribal deck that they have pre-built for us. The only ones of these lands that will be used in other formats such as Extended are going to be the Elf and Goblin lands, with an off chance of the Merefolk land getting some love. No one is playing enough Treefolk or Elementals in other formats to warrant a CIPT land when we have pains and Rav duals.
Sorry about the rant but it’s just these lands do not sit well with me as a rare, they feel uncommon except the Elf and Goblin lands.
What we're doing here is akin to taking the text of Moby Dick, locating specific words therein, rearranging them to create a passage from Fight Club, and concluding from this evidence that Tyler Durden is based on Ahab.
well...here comes another land that'll turn into a chase rare that's gonna end up costing $15-20 a piece...just great...
I like the card, but we all know that "you" are never gonna pull one. life works like that.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
well...here comes another land that'll turn into a chase rare that's gonna end up costing $15-20 a piece...just great...
I like the card, but we all know that "you" are never gonna pull one. life works like that.
The only way that this should become a chase rare is if some B/G elf deck takes off in Block.
Otherwise it's an enemy tapland, which while unique, isn't overpowered. Pains will be run before this in most B/G decks in Standard. Overgrown tomb is better in Extended.
It's good, but only as great as the B/G elf deck ends up being.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
^^
MTGO Writer and Epic Time-Waster.
If you have questions about MTGO PM me, I'm all up ons, as it were.
Check out my articles on http://puremtgo.com/ I'm the nerd you see there... wait, not that one. Nope, not that one either... yeah. That one.
The only real issue I have with them is they are like so many other cards in this set, go Tribal or go home. What I mean is it looks hard to make a non-tribal deck that they have pre-built for us.
I actually did some counting... Less than 1/3 of the spoiled cards are strictly tribal love/hate.
These lands, although tribal, seem playable to me even with a splash of the tribe in question. Nameless Inversion, for instance, could go into any black deck. Heck, these are at least as good as Terramorphic Expanse in a 2-color deck, and even better if you don't want to thin your mana base.
The CIPT lands were always faster than mana screw, and back in the Invasion days, we were stunned to see them. And compared to the Tempest enemy CIPT plus pain lands...
As for them being rares, I like having a high percentage of good rares, and as far as I'm concerned, these make 5 happy rare slots. Cards like these make booster buying worth it, whereas Hamletback Giants don't.
Given Cochese's comments and WOTC's interest in seeing creature combat integral to the game, it would be interesting to see a 5 color land of this sort that required you to reveal a creature card with mana cost 3 or higher. (Or something like that.)
Pains will be run before this in most B/G decks in Standard.
what, like they won't play both?
I just drew up a possible B/G decklist for post-Lorwyn T2, and it has 13 playable elves (including Nameless Inversion) for something like a 2/3 chance of having an elf when you have this land (not to mention the ~88% chance of not drawing the land opening hand... that doesn't seem right. someone correct me.)
point being, either you'll 1) not draw this land opening hand 2) get the land and an elf or 3) get the land and no elf. If 1, nobody cares. If 2, you're golden. If 3, it's still pretty good (and you might not even have a 1-drop). (for any of these, assume the first couple turns, not just the opening hand)
On the other hand, these lands have a high kick-in-the-nuts potential of playing it tapped and then drawing an elf the next turn.
awwww. i wanted it to be the neo durres not a stupid tribal land. all well, i guess i'll have to keep waiting for conformation. the tribal lands are good i just don't like them a lot cause i think they're enough non basic lands in T2 already but whatever.
Durrës is indeed a much more beautiful setting than whatever tangled thicket Mr. Moeller had in mind when painting this land's art.
Historic memorials, tombs, ruins and castles abound in Albania, the fulcrum of the tides of control in the Mediterranean between East, North, and West.
NOw, onto the land. I agree with those who say that yet another cycle of dual lands, even if they are essentially CIPT lands most of the time, will be a financial burden some of us can't bear. However, look at the set. It's a tribal set. Guess which demographic plays tribal more than any other? Besides dedicated Tribal Wars formats on MODO, you're looking at the casual crowd. So how is this not a burden on Standard players? Because not every tribal deck will be competitive.
One can predict Elves, Merrow, and Goblins/Boggarts will all be popular, and all have lands. With the exception of Lorwyn's Elves, their colors are complementary not enemy-colors. They give concrete bonuses that have real value in competitive play: make mana, draw cards, (un)tap stuff, blow things up. (At least the ones we know of already seem to have a good representation in those areas.) So this means that U/W, B/G, and B/R lands will be hot. At least $10, maybe $15 but probably not, because sometimes they will CIPT and you won't have a choice.
Fae with their U/B may not do as well. The faeries I've seen so far are really disappointing and don't seem to jibe with current control strategies. They seem over-costed, fragile, and overly dependent on other cards, especially other Faeries, to be good. Not exactly the creature type to build a strong basis for strength in numbers. Maybe the land will still be used in UB as a plain ol' CIPT but shoudln't command $10 for this purpose...in a deck with access to Tendrils and/or Consume Spirit UGriver is strictly better. (I sincerely hope some UB fliers with real power and/or versatility come from this block, and validate my personal inclination to want to acquire some UB tribelands anyway...)
I honestly doubt there will be a 5-color Elementals or 3-color Treefolk land, but if it's true, the tribes themselves will have to be absolutely gangbusters to warrant survival of 3-and 4-color decks in Standard after Rav leaves. Treefolk have the best hope as they are 1) in colors that are well-supported by Time Spiral's offerings 2) have solid bodies and very useful abilities: Doran is a house for instance and 3) overlap 67% with another tribe which has definite play value in Standard. Will we see a B/G/W triland that requires a Treefolk? Probably not, but if so, it would PROBABLY be of equal or greater value.
Honestly i don't think these will cost too much (with exception of Goblins and maybe Elves) until someone starts putting together viable T2 decks in tribal style.
There's thusly 3 White, 3 Black. 2 Green, 2 Blue, and 2 Red, making a cycle that fits the Tribes, but still feels very complete even without a full 10.
We could see (pure speculation):
- Spirit
- Beast/Elemental/?????
- Beast/Kavu
- Snake
It would still fit in existing tribal patterns very well, without resorting to Class (ie :symur:Wizard or :symwb:Cleric or :symrg:Shaman).
I know not everything has to be a "complete" cycle but it feels like such a ripoff if only 6/10 came from the whole block. As my post shows, there's enough existing race tribes to use for the other 4, without having to cause problems in Lorwyn.
There's thusly 3 White, 3 Black. 2 Green, 2 Blue, and 2 Red, making a cycle that fits the Tribes, but still feels very complete even without a full 10.
We could see (pure speculation):
- Spirit
- Beast/Elemental/?????
- Beast/Kavu
- Snake
It would still fit in existing tribal patterns very well, without resorting to Class (ie :symur:Wizard or :symwb:Cleric or :symrg:Shaman).
I know not everything has to be a "complete" cycle but it feels like such a ripoff if only 6/10 came from the whole block. As my post shows, there's enough existing race tribes to use for the other 4, without having to cause problems in Lorwyn.
It has already been confirmed that there are only 5.
Also...they aren't adding to the tribes.
Why dilute them? This isn't Ravnica, they could stand a little more development in Morningtide. (Rav block used three sets to define 10 guilds. Using two sets to define 8 tribes is wholly reasonable.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
News and spoiler contributor for GatheringMagic.com
From the article, we can consider that: WU, BG, UB, GW, BR make sense (the aggro tribes that need/would care for a mana of any color turns 1-2. Giants don't have a tribal one drop, and the only two drop will probably be Jotun Grunt. This means that the RW land could be played turn 1 without untapping just fine, and that's not the point with these lands).
From Imp's Mischief's info, we can consider that: WU, BG, UB, BR, RW make sense (Kithkin don't get one, and they're mostly White anyway).
From the suggested W/B symmetry, we can consider that: WU, BG, UB, RW make sense. White plus an ally and an enemy, Black plus an ally and an enemy, 2 allied and 2 enemy lands in the end.
From pure logic, we can consider that: WU, BG, UB, BR, RW, GW make sense. They are all the color-pair tribes, after all.
From power level issues, we can consider that: WU, BG, UB, RW, GW make sense, because ''Goblins don't need it'' or ''would be too good with it''.
From all of this ^ we can consider that:
Nothing makes any effing sense. Go figure
Ahhh, a truly brilliant analysis :D.
But personally I don't think they'll have a RW one. Every signal so far says that these exist to enable weenie decks, and Giant =/= weenie.
I think we'll see BG, BR, and BU for sure, and probably WU unless the merrow turn out to be very very controlish.
In standard the GW and RG duals from Future Sight round out the needed allied pairs for weenie strategies (probably kithkin and some zoo variant).
The only odd man out is the BG enemy colored one, which is probably why it was previewed first.
I'd imagine the other color pairs will get some kind of special land over the next three sets.
And the shame is for players of Extended and older formats, I think. It also rather throws the whole "allied" and "enemy" color divisions out the window (by denying a R/G in favor of B/G), as well as the general division of multicolor support... giving Black more secondary colors in its mana base than other colors have.
I wouldn't mind the cycle if it was distributed evenly, or if the color favor went to Green rather than Black. Black is supposed to be the most self-centered and least communal member of the colored pie, with many effects based on the number and presence of Swamps and making your board as black as possible.
I see eschewing flavor and the color pie to be more "diluting" to Magic than making another 10-pair cycle. Plus, it shows a very narrow design perspective, as the new lands disrupt what has essentially been a "sacred balance" for the entire existence of the game. All the other multicolor-producing land cycles around have always been a cycle of the 5 allied colors or of 10 enemy colors.
It's an aspect of the color pie engine. Lands do not favor a color. The colors themselves either utilize, or fail to utilize, lands as part of their color. But yep... now the Lands themselves favor Black for this set. Why? Because messing up existing "unwritten rules" is "new design space".
It won't be long before we get:
- More incomplete cycles favoring a specific color
- Red Enchantment removal
- Black Artifact removal
- More White counterspells
- More Red bounce
- Black bounce
- White drawing
Technically all that can be justified... but the question is:
How long before these "unwritten rules" are broken and this game becomes as screwed up as Yu-Gi-Oh?
But personally I don't think they'll have a RW one. Every signal so far says that these exist to enable weenie decks, and Giant =/= weenie.
...hmmm, that's all good, but... the Giant's do have a dual land.
I can confirm, Merfolk, Elves, Faeries and Giants from what I've heard and seen, and WOTC tells us Goblins get one thanks to the new Art from the podcast.
So we either have our five right there without the Kithkin, or we have six with them included. Both of which are quite possible.
It's probably the best of the Tribelands since if you are playing a green/black deck you probably are already playing at least Llanowar Elves. As opposed to other tribal lands which won't work in most deck without playing the tribal cards over potentially better normal cards.
...hmmm, that's all good, but... the Giant's do have a dual land.
Which, we can surmise means one of two things. Rather the developers liked giants so much they printed early mana fixing cards for first turn drops or... Lorwyn has a lot of baby giant previews coming our way real soon. Which I really hope is true. With 115 cards still left to see (assuming Planeswalkers are 302-306) that leaves us with a lot more giants to fit into them needing a aggro land. Go go baby giants in other words!
So we either have our five right there without the Kithkin, or we have six with them included. Both of which are quite possible.
I'd assume the Kithkin wouldn't have a dual land. At the moment we don't have any Kithkin that isn't coloured white and if we assume Giants are :symr::symw: and Merfolk are :symw::symu: thats two duals that Kithkin can feasibly use seeing as :symb::symg: are two colours that flavor wise don't suit small, white creatures... yet
Remember...
The Lorwyn developers were sick of the long trend of unfair anti-weenie-deck color-fixing discrimination. Why couldn't creature decks get the upper hand in mana-fixing for once? In a block about creatures and tribes, and in particular about eight multicolor tribes, many of them packed with powerful aggressive creatures for one and two mana in both colors...
Forgot about the little bugger didn't I? Well, he isn't aggro and in this case the land isn't going to get him into play any faster then normal. But seeing as how Scrye seems to have all the MTG cards we'll see pretty soon me thinks.
Gilt-Leaf Palace makes Doran more viable, doesn't it? Turn 1 Gilt-Leaf Palace, Llanowar Elves; Turn 2 Plains, Doran, the Siege Tower ...
It does, but not as much as a treefolk multiland would.
Post Shards of Alara combos here please, for the convenience of the forum-goers
GENERATION 11: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and add 1 to the generation. social experiment.
I personally think these lands are better then the Invasion CIPT lands as they could come into play untapped but not as good as the 10th pains. The only real issue I have with them is they are like so many other cards in this set, go Tribal or go home. What I mean is it looks hard to make a non-tribal deck that they have pre-built for us. The only ones of these lands that will be used in other formats such as Extended are going to be the Elf and Goblin lands, with an off chance of the Merefolk land getting some love. No one is playing enough Treefolk or Elementals in other formats to warrant a CIPT land when we have pains and Rav duals.
Sorry about the rant but it’s just these lands do not sit well with me as a rare, they feel uncommon except the Elf and Goblin lands.
Guildmaster Jarad
I like the card, but we all know that "you" are never gonna pull one. life works like that.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
The only way that this should become a chase rare is if some B/G elf deck takes off in Block.
Otherwise it's an enemy tapland, which while unique, isn't overpowered. Pains will be run before this in most B/G decks in Standard. Overgrown tomb is better in Extended.
It's good, but only as great as the B/G elf deck ends up being.
MTGO Writer and Epic Time-Waster.
If you have questions about MTGO PM me, I'm all up ons, as it were.
Check out my articles on http://puremtgo.com/ I'm the nerd you see there... wait, not that one. Nope, not that one either... yeah. That one.
I actually did some counting... Less than 1/3 of the spoiled cards are strictly tribal love/hate.
These lands, although tribal, seem playable to me even with a splash of the tribe in question. Nameless Inversion, for instance, could go into any black deck. Heck, these are at least as good as Terramorphic Expanse in a 2-color deck, and even better if you don't want to thin your mana base.
The CIPT lands were always faster than mana screw, and back in the Invasion days, we were stunned to see them. And compared to the Tempest enemy CIPT plus pain lands...
As for them being rares, I like having a high percentage of good rares, and as far as I'm concerned, these make 5 happy rare slots. Cards like these make booster buying worth it, whereas Hamletback Giants don't.
what, like they won't play both?
I just drew up a possible B/G decklist for post-Lorwyn T2, and it has 13 playable elves (including Nameless Inversion) for something like a 2/3 chance of having an elf when you have this land (not to mention the ~88% chance of not drawing the land opening hand... that doesn't seem right. someone correct me.)
point being, either you'll 1) not draw this land opening hand 2) get the land and an elf or 3) get the land and no elf. If 1, nobody cares. If 2, you're golden. If 3, it's still pretty good (and you might not even have a 1-drop). (for any of these, assume the first couple turns, not just the opening hand)
On the other hand, these lands have a high kick-in-the-nuts potential of playing it tapped and then drawing an elf the next turn.
Durrës is indeed a much more beautiful setting than whatever tangled thicket Mr. Moeller had in mind when painting this land's art.
Historic memorials, tombs, ruins and castles abound in Albania, the fulcrum of the tides of control in the Mediterranean between East, North, and West.
NOw, onto the land. I agree with those who say that yet another cycle of dual lands, even if they are essentially CIPT lands most of the time, will be a financial burden some of us can't bear. However, look at the set. It's a tribal set. Guess which demographic plays tribal more than any other? Besides dedicated Tribal Wars formats on MODO, you're looking at the casual crowd. So how is this not a burden on Standard players? Because not every tribal deck will be competitive.
One can predict Elves, Merrow, and Goblins/Boggarts will all be popular, and all have lands. With the exception of Lorwyn's Elves, their colors are complementary not enemy-colors. They give concrete bonuses that have real value in competitive play: make mana, draw cards, (un)tap stuff, blow things up. (At least the ones we know of already seem to have a good representation in those areas.) So this means that U/W, B/G, and B/R lands will be hot. At least $10, maybe $15 but probably not, because sometimes they will CIPT and you won't have a choice.
Fae with their U/B may not do as well. The faeries I've seen so far are really disappointing and don't seem to jibe with current control strategies. They seem over-costed, fragile, and overly dependent on other cards, especially other Faeries, to be good. Not exactly the creature type to build a strong basis for strength in numbers. Maybe the land will still be used in UB as a plain ol' CIPT but shoudln't command $10 for this purpose...in a deck with access to Tendrils and/or Consume Spirit UGriver is strictly better. (I sincerely hope some UB fliers with real power and/or versatility come from this block, and validate my personal inclination to want to acquire some UB tribelands anyway...)
I honestly doubt there will be a 5-color Elementals or 3-color Treefolk land, but if it's true, the tribes themselves will have to be absolutely gangbusters to warrant survival of 3-and 4-color decks in Standard after Rav leaves. Treefolk have the best hope as they are 1) in colors that are well-supported by Time Spiral's offerings 2) have solid bodies and very useful abilities: Doran is a house for instance and 3) overlap 67% with another tribe which has definite play value in Standard. Will we see a B/G/W triland that requires a Treefolk? Probably not, but if so, it would PROBABLY be of equal or greater value.
- Giant
- Kithkin
- Merfolk
- Faerie
- Elf
- Goblin
There's thusly 3 White, 3 Black. 2 Green, 2 Blue, and 2 Red, making a cycle that fits the Tribes, but still feels very complete even without a full 10.
We could see (pure speculation):
- Spirit
- Beast/Elemental/?????
- Beast/Kavu
- Snake
It would still fit in existing tribal patterns very well, without resorting to Class (ie :symur:Wizard or :symwb:Cleric or :symrg:Shaman).
I know not everything has to be a "complete" cycle but it feels like such a ripoff if only 6/10 came from the whole block. As my post shows, there's enough existing race tribes to use for the other 4, without having to cause problems in Lorwyn.
It has already been confirmed that there are only 5.
Also...they aren't adding to the tribes.
Why dilute them? This isn't Ravnica, they could stand a little more development in Morningtide. (Rav block used three sets to define 10 guilds. Using two sets to define 8 tribes is wholly reasonable.)
Twitter
Ahhh, a truly brilliant analysis :D.
But personally I don't think they'll have a RW one. Every signal so far says that these exist to enable weenie decks, and Giant =/= weenie.
I think we'll see BG, BR, and BU for sure, and probably WU unless the merrow turn out to be very very controlish.
In standard the GW and RG duals from Future Sight round out the needed allied pairs for weenie strategies (probably kithkin and some zoo variant).
The only odd man out is the BG enemy colored one, which is probably why it was previewed first.
I'd imagine the other color pairs will get some kind of special land over the next three sets.
Cabal Coffers / Tainted 'cycle' * / Krosan Verge / Riftstone Portal shows that they've been willing to do similar things in the past (Torment & Judgment).
*http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/index.aspx?term=tainted&Field_Name=on&setfilter=All%20sets&typefilter=Lands&output=Spoiler
And the shame is for players of Extended and older formats, I think. It also rather throws the whole "allied" and "enemy" color divisions out the window (by denying a R/G in favor of B/G), as well as the general division of multicolor support... giving Black more secondary colors in its mana base than other colors have.
I wouldn't mind the cycle if it was distributed evenly, or if the color favor went to Green rather than Black. Black is supposed to be the most self-centered and least communal member of the colored pie, with many effects based on the number and presence of Swamps and making your board as black as possible.
I see eschewing flavor and the color pie to be more "diluting" to Magic than making another 10-pair cycle. Plus, it shows a very narrow design perspective, as the new lands disrupt what has essentially been a "sacred balance" for the entire existence of the game. All the other multicolor-producing land cycles around have always been a cycle of the 5 allied colors or of 10 enemy colors.
It's an aspect of the color pie engine. Lands do not favor a color. The colors themselves either utilize, or fail to utilize, lands as part of their color. But yep... now the Lands themselves favor Black for this set. Why? Because messing up existing "unwritten rules" is "new design space".
It won't be long before we get:
- More incomplete cycles favoring a specific color
- Red Enchantment removal
- Black Artifact removal
- More White counterspells
- More Red bounce
- Black bounce
- White drawing
Technically all that can be justified... but the question is:
How long before these "unwritten rules" are broken and this game becomes as screwed up as Yu-Gi-Oh?
...hmmm, that's all good, but... the Giant's do have a dual land.
I can confirm, Merfolk, Elves, Faeries and Giants from what I've heard and seen, and WOTC tells us Goblins get one thanks to the new Art from the podcast.
So we either have our five right there without the Kithkin, or we have six with them included. Both of which are quite possible.
It's probably the best of the Tribelands since if you are playing a green/black deck you probably are already playing at least Llanowar Elves. As opposed to other tribal lands which won't work in most deck without playing the tribal cards over potentially better normal cards.
Machius proudly supports R_E's right to Rumour!
Which, we can surmise means one of two things. Rather the developers liked giants so much they printed early mana fixing cards for first turn drops or... Lorwyn has a lot of baby giant previews coming our way real soon. Which I really hope is true. With 115 cards still left to see (assuming Planeswalkers are 302-306) that leaves us with a lot more giants to fit into them needing a aggro land. Go go baby giants in other words!
I'd assume the Kithkin wouldn't have a dual land. At the moment we don't have any Kithkin that isn't coloured white and if we assume Giants are :symr::symw: and Merfolk are :symw::symu: thats two duals that Kithkin can feasibly use seeing as :symb::symg: are two colours that flavor wise don't suit small, white creatures... yet
Remember...
Also, the article says there will be a few Green Kithkin.
And WOW @ some of these other new cards. The Evokers really are quite nice, especially as sideboard material.
There isn't a Kithkin one.
We already have been told as much by one of the rumor posters.
Twitter