This cycle bothers me a bit - not because of the gameplay. But are the original fastlands reprintable outside Mirrodin? Aren't they way too setting specific to get reprinted here in Kaladesh, for example? Does anyone see an unawkward solution to this?
Welcome to the reason why we haven't seen the allied painlands in a while.
Battlefield Forge is like the only plane-agnostic painland of the Apocalypse cycle I can think of. The other four namedrop locations in Dominaria.
In fact, the allied painland cycle has even more plane-agnostic names with stuff like Brushland, Sulfurous Springs and Underground River.
Anyway if you do the auditory and semantic equivalent of squinting your eyes the names of the SOM fastlands aren't exactly impossible to apply elsewhere, they don't really describe explicit locations but rather natural formations with a metallic flair. If Kaladesh weren't so upbeat I could totally believe in the existence of Darkslick Shores on the plane, depicting the Magic equivalent of an oil spill.
I think any build playing nahiri should not be playing any, as 4 mana is too important to hit.
For more flash/snapcaster - bolt based builds, the U/R one is likely going to see play.
For what it's worth:
I play UB Faeries in a 24-land configuration, with the top of the curve being a 3-3 split of 4cmc spells in Mistbind Clique and Cryptic Command.
4 of my lands are Darkslick Shores, and the fact they come in like Salt Marshes after the third land really REALLY blows, even if they're great for turn 1 thoughtseize with minimal life loss. You can't do Mistbind-Cryptic mindgames with 3 untapped lands and a tapped Darkslick Shores, for obvious reasons.
Now, while you guys don't exactly have the Thoughtseize lifeloss minimization problem (that's something more in common between Faeries and Jund, especially with Jund's well-documented love of Blackcleave Cliffs), what is common between us is that if we can help it, we should never play a land that functionally imitates an Invasion tapland. The only exceptions are the WWK/BFZ/OGW manlands because being a manland is well worth the tradeoff of coming in tapped (why play Coastal Tower when Celestial Colonnade does all that on top of imitating Serra Angel? Why play Salt Marsh when Creeping Tar Pit is all that on top of being a 3/2 unblockable for 1UB?), but past that there's the crucial tempo development of getting to 4 lands untapped, and having lands that fall flat at that crucial development point can really blow.
Though, on the plus, Nahiri can just cycle dead fastlands for you once she's up and running, so maybe it'll work out better than expected?
Anyway that's just my neighboring 2 cents on the matter.
It's not like you guys are UR Delver where playing fastlands fits in with the deck's ground hugging curve (with the exception of Grixis which wants fetches to fuel Delve).
My only issue with these lands is the art. While the allied fast lands have a very unique look to them (you can easily tell one just by looking at it from a distance) while these look very generic (maybe with the exception of BG) that you'd mistake them for some shock lands.
You should try playing Dissension Breeding Pool and Zendikar Misty Rainforest in the same deck, it's ridiculous how similar they'd look.
A problem dual lands of all kinds have, the color palette is standardized such that at a glance you can tell what colors they're relevant for, but if you go by just the art alone you will eventually mistake one for another. Then there's naming conventions, I'm not consciously aware of if the other color combos have it as bad, but UB is one of the worst pairs when it comes to land names, after a while they all start to sound the same.
That said the use of the Mirrodin suns in the Scars fastland cycle did a good job of making them visually distinct, for what it's worth.
It makes me feel very nostalgic for Zendikar-Scars Standard.
Manlands and fastlands, truly a grand time. It's slightly complicated by how the current standard has a tradeoff of "allied colors with stable early to midgame mana" vs "enemy colors with unstable mana but far more functionality" when Zen-Scars was squarely "play allied color pairs along with the odd fetches that still get one of your two colors so you can shuffle JTMS brainstorms," but still it's rather cute how it echoes the past.
Folks, split cards would've been a mechanic they talked about during the panel. And it doesn't really work as a DFC.
I did consider that - afaik they didn't specifically mention coloured artifacts, and that's certainly in the set, right? They consider that a 'mechanic' in the same, unnamed way. If I missed that, then fair enough, my bad.
Colored artifacts are considered part of the deciduous features pool and so it's understandable that its presence goes without explicit announcement as a feature mechanic. Split cards are, besides being infrequent enough that attention would be called to its return, very clearly defined by the rules of the game. Same goes with DFC, so you can't use the DFC template for a split card effect. Splits are closer related to charms and modal spells anyway, DFCs are cards with multiple iterations.
These are making me sad. I'm surprised they're not Red though. But Sadness is a Black domain I suppose?
Everything that begins, ends.
In being aware of the ephemerality of things, one can accept that there eventually must be a conclusion, and in accepting the inevitability of the end one no longer needs to be preoccupied with holding it off.
Sieze the day, live a full life, for everything that begins, ends.
No, they're artifact creatures that dodge sorcery speed removal at the cost of needing creatures in play in addition to them in order to attack. I very much doubt we'll see any of the vehicles posted so far make it to modern, but who knows, there could be some busted ones coming.
I think they could prove to be playable.
Their biggest liability is that they become creatures and no one plays purely sorcery speed removal, but it's this weird intersection of equipment meets manland/animated permanent that could prove to be very much playable (though dying to Kolaghan's Command kinda blows).
The airship that has both an ETB and on-attack ability is a good example of designs to keep an eye out for.
Ok sure most will disagree but vehicles=blah to me. Not just the mechanics of them we have seen but the whole idea of vehicles and flying ships does not fit my view of fantasy gaming. Steampunk fans will love the set and good for them, but for me they are dead on arrival. I do though like the idea of MEDIEVAL fantasy settings outside of European myths and terminology.
It doesn't even really fit steampunk, steampunk (well, steampunk in its most traditional form) utilizes an alternate history context to explore the effects of technological advancements occurring far ahead of schedule, or at the very least a disconnect between the level of technology and its functionality (so admittedly in a fashion it does make sense to call Kaladesh steampunk to some extent when you consider the whole "Rashmi invented a planar portal, what could possibly go wrong?" thing in the story).
It's definitely exploring a more science-focused slice of the speculative fiction umbrella though and I'd say it makes it very unlike what we've been led to expect from Magic; up until now the only bone ever thrown to anyone interested in a scifi flavor of Magic was the old joke article for Space: the Convergence, written back in the Timespiral block years as a what-if look at an alternate version of Magic in the form of a science fiction card game.
Sunken Hollow is a Salt Marsh until you have 2 basics in play.
Paying the life to have an untapped Watery Grave is easier to plan around vs having to warp your land sequencing to have 2 basics up.
Incidentally I don't really approve of only 2 Watery Graves because coming in untapped is super important and paying life is honestly the one condition that is always under our control (barring the printing of some more nonsensical "you can't pay life" hate-creatures; Angel of Jubilation would ruin fetch-shock manabases if it came out sooner, of this I am sure).
It's not that Sunken Hollow is bad per-se, I like the intent of the card, it's just that it's kinda slow and plodding unless you want to run a lot of fetchlands and start every game fetching for an Island and a Swamp before playing things that actually tap for more than one color.
ANGRY ABOUT NEW CHANDRA.
FOUR ABILITIES, THIS WORKED OUT WONDERFULLY LAST TIME.
Battlefield Forge is like the only plane-agnostic painland of the Apocalypse cycle I can think of. The other four namedrop locations in Dominaria.
In fact, the allied painland cycle has even more plane-agnostic names with stuff like Brushland, Sulfurous Springs and Underground River.
Anyway if you do the auditory and semantic equivalent of squinting your eyes the names of the SOM fastlands aren't exactly impossible to apply elsewhere, they don't really describe explicit locations but rather natural formations with a metallic flair. If Kaladesh weren't so upbeat I could totally believe in the existence of Darkslick Shores on the plane, depicting the Magic equivalent of an oil spill.
It'll never fill the Splinter Twin void though.
:/
For what it's worth:
I play UB Faeries in a 24-land configuration, with the top of the curve being a 3-3 split of 4cmc spells in Mistbind Clique and Cryptic Command.
4 of my lands are Darkslick Shores, and the fact they come in like Salt Marshes after the third land really REALLY blows, even if they're great for turn 1 thoughtseize with minimal life loss. You can't do Mistbind-Cryptic mindgames with 3 untapped lands and a tapped Darkslick Shores, for obvious reasons.
Now, while you guys don't exactly have the Thoughtseize lifeloss minimization problem (that's something more in common between Faeries and Jund, especially with Jund's well-documented love of Blackcleave Cliffs), what is common between us is that if we can help it, we should never play a land that functionally imitates an Invasion tapland. The only exceptions are the WWK/BFZ/OGW manlands because being a manland is well worth the tradeoff of coming in tapped (why play Coastal Tower when Celestial Colonnade does all that on top of imitating Serra Angel? Why play Salt Marsh when Creeping Tar Pit is all that on top of being a 3/2 unblockable for 1UB?), but past that there's the crucial tempo development of getting to 4 lands untapped, and having lands that fall flat at that crucial development point can really blow.
Though, on the plus, Nahiri can just cycle dead fastlands for you once she's up and running, so maybe it'll work out better than expected?
Anyway that's just my neighboring 2 cents on the matter.
It's not like you guys are UR Delver where playing fastlands fits in with the deck's ground hugging curve (with the exception of Grixis which wants fetches to fuel Delve).
You should try playing Dissension Breeding Pool and Zendikar Misty Rainforest in the same deck, it's ridiculous how similar they'd look.
A problem dual lands of all kinds have, the color palette is standardized such that at a glance you can tell what colors they're relevant for, but if you go by just the art alone you will eventually mistake one for another. Then there's naming conventions, I'm not consciously aware of if the other color combos have it as bad, but UB is one of the worst pairs when it comes to land names, after a while they all start to sound the same.
That said the use of the Mirrodin suns in the Scars fastland cycle did a good job of making them visually distinct, for what it's worth.
Begun, the GBx wars have.
It makes me feel very nostalgic for Zendikar-Scars Standard.
Manlands and fastlands, truly a grand time. It's slightly complicated by how the current standard has a tradeoff of "allied colors with stable early to midgame mana" vs "enemy colors with unstable mana but far more functionality" when Zen-Scars was squarely "play allied color pairs along with the odd fetches that still get one of your two colors so you can shuffle JTMS brainstorms," but still it's rather cute how it echoes the past.
[UR DELVER INTENSIFIES]
Colored artifacts are considered part of the deciduous features pool and so it's understandable that its presence goes without explicit announcement as a feature mechanic. Split cards are, besides being infrequent enough that attention would be called to its return, very clearly defined by the rules of the game. Same goes with DFC, so you can't use the DFC template for a split card effect. Splits are closer related to charms and modal spells anyway, DFCs are cards with multiple iterations.
Everything that begins, ends.
In being aware of the ephemerality of things, one can accept that there eventually must be a conclusion, and in accepting the inevitability of the end one no longer needs to be preoccupied with holding it off.
Sieze the day, live a full life, for everything that begins, ends.
I think they could prove to be playable.
Their biggest liability is that they become creatures and no one plays purely sorcery speed removal, but it's this weird intersection of equipment meets manland/animated permanent that could prove to be very much playable (though dying to Kolaghan's Command kinda blows).
The airship that has both an ETB and on-attack ability is a good example of designs to keep an eye out for.
It doesn't even really fit steampunk, steampunk (well, steampunk in its most traditional form) utilizes an alternate history context to explore the effects of technological advancements occurring far ahead of schedule, or at the very least a disconnect between the level of technology and its functionality (so admittedly in a fashion it does make sense to call Kaladesh steampunk to some extent when you consider the whole "Rashmi invented a planar portal, what could possibly go wrong?" thing in the story).
It's definitely exploring a more science-focused slice of the speculative fiction umbrella though and I'd say it makes it very unlike what we've been led to expect from Magic; up until now the only bone ever thrown to anyone interested in a scifi flavor of Magic was the old joke article for Space: the Convergence, written back in the Timespiral block years as a what-if look at an alternate version of Magic in the form of a science fiction card game.
Was going to attend FNM up until I realized atlantic hurricane season is at its peak right now.
what
the
****?
and
where's
my
giant
robot?
Paying the life to have an untapped Watery Grave is easier to plan around vs having to warp your land sequencing to have 2 basics up.
Incidentally I don't really approve of only 2 Watery Graves because coming in untapped is super important and paying life is honestly the one condition that is always under our control (barring the printing of some more nonsensical "you can't pay life" hate-creatures; Angel of Jubilation would ruin fetch-shock manabases if it came out sooner, of this I am sure).
It's not that Sunken Hollow is bad per-se, I like the intent of the card, it's just that it's kinda slow and plodding unless you want to run a lot of fetchlands and start every game fetching for an Island and a Swamp before playing things that actually tap for more than one color.