Are the Original Dual Lands too Powerful to Be Reprinted?
General forum
Posted on July 24, 2023, 6:55 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
The original dual lands are on the reserved list, likely because they are perhaps the best dual lands in the game, but, if they were not on the reserved list, I wonder if they would still be too powerful to reprint; after all, they are the only dual lands in the game that unconditionally enter the battlefield untapped, unconditionally provide two colors of mana, and have basic lands types, a combination that no other dual lands have.
What does everyone else have to say about this? Are the original dual lands too powerful to ever be reprinted (presuming that they were not on the reserved list)?
DemonDragonJ says... #3
shadow63, I highly doubt that WotC would want to introduce the original dual lands into modern, so they would only ever be reprinted in a masters set, or possibly even a secret lair.
July 24, 2023 8:15 p.m.
The AB dual lands would not, and should not, be printed into any format they are not already legal in. They're strictly better than arguably the best mana-producing land in Modern and Pioneer (the shocklands), and Standard would pretty much immediately be 3-5 color good stuff piles. Standard is the most color-restricted Constructed format, and adding the AB dual lands, even if they were immediately banned in Modern and Pioneer and whatever all, would likely create the strongest Standard season ever, on the basis of mana availability alone.
July 24, 2023 8:27 p.m.
wallisface says... #5
DemonDragonJ your quote ”I highly doubt that WotC would want to introduce the original dual lands into modern, so they would only ever be reprinted in a masters set, or possibly even a secret lair.” contradicts your whole initial question in this thread, so i’m not sure what you’re asking.
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The reason Wotc won’t reprint these lands is because they are on the reserve list, as you’ve already eluded to.
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Ignoring the reserve list, the lands are far too powerful to be made legal in any format they’re not already legal in, as you’ve already eluded to.
So what’s the question here?
If the question is whether Wotc would be able to print the lands in premium products if the reserve list wasn’t a thing, of course they would - money machine goes brrrr. The price for such a product would be ridiculous and solve nothing, however (imagine mtg30 but quadruple the price).
July 24, 2023 9:15 p.m.
On a pure power level I don't think they would be a problem, though they would of course be very strong. Fetchlands would still be maybe better because of the synergy with landfall, lands in the gy, Brainstorm type effects, and even just land thinning. Duals would absolutely take the slot of current mana fixers and do their whole deal better, but the amount of utility you can get from lands now almost breaks lands into two categories, the lands that make mana and the lands that make mana and do things, and the duals wouldn't even really be the best lands to make mana as long as the fetches are around.
I just think that duals were nuts back in the day because it was really hard to run multiple colors a lot of the time, but now they wouldn't be as strong as fetches, channel lands, or niche picks like Mutavault or Blast Zone
July 24, 2023 9:45 p.m.
wallisface says... #7
Niko9 hard disagree there.
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if we’re talking Modern, the format already runs Shocklands in pretty much every deck. Allowing Duels makes it even more-free to run 5-colour-soup, and probably rapidly degrades the format as a whole. It also invalidates all the current non-fetch land-options (Shocklands, Fastlands, Checklands, prolly also Triomes tbh) making it very hard for Wotc to ever print a relevant new 2-colour land down the line.
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Pioneer is just a scarier version of everything already mentioned above. While the format doesn’t have fetches to abuse these lands as heavily, it still degrades and homogenises the landbase of the format as a whole.
The duel lands are still nuts, as far as them easily being the best application of a land providing 2 colours - as they have no drawback. While you could technically chuck them into a format, it doesn’t mean you should, it just ruins/invalidates any future interesting 2-colour lands that could be made, as well as making it much-more free to run 5-colour soup/goodstuff.
July 24, 2023 10:22 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #8
The current landbases don't prevent the 5c goodstuff from happening. That's no reason to withhold them. Duals would be equally vulnerable to Blood Moon as fetches and shocks are.
Meta impact: Burn would drop win% if shocks weren't needed anymore, because players would have more life in their fetch-manabase.
The best argument made is that, with the duals legal in the format, there's no reason for other interesting two-color lands anymore. Pioneer is already reduced to shocklands (Hallowed Fountain ), fastlands (Seachrome Coast ), painlands (Adarkar Wastes ) and pathways (Hengegate Pathway Flip ), with the occasional Deserted Beach-type lands for slower decks. Introduce the duals there, and nobody would care for Pathways anymore. Not much added to the format, just some possible play patterns eliminated because they'd've been "strictly bettered" and homogenized out of the format.
Not necessarily too powerful in their effect, just boring in their consistency, in a way that can't be fixed in the future.
July 25, 2023 3:53 a.m.
wallisface says... #9
plakjekaas yes, the current landbases don't prevent the 5c goodstuff from happening, correct, but they remove almost all setbacks for doing so. It lets you play 5c without incurring damage and/or slowlands, which is a big, big difference - as 5c’s biggest weakness is normally aggro decks, so every lifepoint matters.
I think those 5c decks become a LOT stronger, as of removes one of their largest weaknesses. It also makes those decks running 2 colours far more likely to run 3c instead, as the downsides for doing so drops significantly.
July 25, 2023 5:44 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #10
The reason the ABUR duals are on the reserve list has nothing to do with them being good duals. They just happened to be rares in the sets that had their rares put on the RL. If the RL had never existed and ABUR duals were printed semi-regularly I don't think that they would be a problem in non-standard environments, and as long as they weren't in the same standard environment as fetches I don't think they would be a problem even there.
However; the non-rotating, non-eternal formats have developed in the absence of ABUR duals and introducing them now would be too large of a disruption to the metagame. In eternal formats printing them would have no impact on the power level of the formats, it would simply make the formats more accessible.
So, no, I don't think ABUR duals are too powerful to reprint. I do however know that they will never be reprinted. And if they are then MtG will already be in its death throws.
July 25, 2023 7:20 a.m.
wallisface That's fair : ) I agree completely that duals wouldn't be a good thing in say mordern or something, but I guess I was thinking of power level as, would they get banned? Every deck would just start fetching for duals, and it would get nuts, but I think the best decks would still be the best decks, some rogue decks might actually get a lot better, but all in all I don't think duals would shake things up to a point where they would get theoretically fast banned if they were legal.
There's just so much fixing now, not to mention treasures too. I've done decks that splashed a color and used no mana sources just treasures and it works maybe too well : )
Duals would be bad, they'd be everywhere, there would no reason not to play them (in this thought exercise anyways where they maybe aren't super expensive) but would they break the game enough that they'd get banned? I don't know, but I think that there probably are already more format-warping cards in the format.
July 25, 2023 12:50 p.m.
Just as a thought exercise I think that easy mana fixing is one of Wizard's larger design mistakes as it largely removes the penalty for trying to play multiple colors. That limiting of restrictions inevitably lead towards more homogenized game play. I'd argue that the competitive landscape of every format they are legal in would be more diverse if the ABUR duals, shocks and fetches had never been printed. And as Wizards prints more multicolor lands without significant drawbacks that whatever format they are legal in becomes less diverse.
Of course that's all a thought exercise. They are all legal where they're legal and that isn't gonna change anytime soon.
July 25, 2023 2:33 p.m.
Im honestly just a sucker for the Domain mechanic so I really want to say yes for boosting the power of card designs like Wild Nacatl... but more than likely would just enable more powerful/degenerate strategies.
I remember being really excited when Wild nacatl got unbanned in Modern...lol boy have times and the power level changed
July 25, 2023 3:30 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #14
Gidgetimer, that shows how arbitrary the reserved list is, and why it is bad for the health of this game in the long term.
July 25, 2023 9:57 p.m.
wallisface says... #15
DemonDragonJ its bad for the health of those formats that allow those cards - it means nothing to all those formats that don’t.
This topic really only concerns Legacy & Commander players. A bigger question might be, in the context of commander, ”why are people wanting to play with cards costing thousands of dollars in a format intended to be played casually”, or perhaps ”is it healthy for a popular casual mtg format to allow reserve list cards to be played at all”.
July 25, 2023 10:24 p.m.
wallisface In the context of commander, I think the answer is really that commander is an incredibly broad format in a way that no other format outside of kitchen table magic really is. You have hyper competitive cEDH where the ABUR duals are almost a requirement for a lot of decks because of how optimized they run. And on the opposite end you have joke decks that aren't designed to win at all. And in between is a whole galaxy of other options.
I think the reserved list is an imperfect measure of power level. You have some of the most powerful cards in the game and then you have cards like Sawback Manticore. From an accessibility standpoint there is also a huge amount of price variation. Sure Mox Diamond is $600+, but Winding Canyons is around $20 and Hatred is about $36, which aren't crazy considering how much a Dockside will run you. So I guess I'd argue that the reserved list shouldn't impact what is and isn't allowed in commander.
shadow63 says... #2
I'm going to assume you mean getting printed into standard or modern. I don't they would ever end up in standard but I could see them getting printed in a modern horizons set
July 24, 2023 7:01 p.m.