It's taken the game some time to find dual lands that are reasonably balanced. I mean, the Alpha Tropical Island cycle was strictly better than it's basic land counterpart, so it was quickly remedied. Comes-into-play tapped lands were the most obvious fix, and were generally accepted as balanced for years. There was the occasional (okay, a fair number) of rare lands that just did something absurd (I'm looking at you, Cabal Coffers), but the comes-into-play-tapped trigger was still fair for your mana fixing needs. When the multi-colour blocks came about, of course, mana fixing was nigh impossible with these kinds of lands. They had no choice but to upgrade the duals- Ravnica is the most obvious offender, and it's lands became immensely pricy and popular because of the (nearly) unprecidented colour fixing (and that they were all but required for the set). Fifth Dawn's five colour mini-theme also pushed the non-basics a fair bit. Once these blocks were all but forced to set the precident, the game had to re-settle on a slightly higher quality of lands. Alara essentially put it over the edge in terms of colour requirements. That's why you see the strictly-better-than cycles in Alara and M10. I doubt the duals could reasonably scale any higher, barring any absurdities.
I mean, I'm not doubting that the volcano is considerably weaker now, and that it's good to inform new players that this is now outclassed- but it just seems a little unfair that this is being looked back on with distaste.
Kirbster
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(6 votes)
I thought these cards were fantastically good when they first came out. After that one turn, they were just as good as a dual land. That's right - no damage, no depletion counters... just a multitude of options.
Hah, that sounded like a cheesy ad. Anyways, it wasn't until later I clued in that half the reason the duals were so good is that they still counted as their component basic land types. Thanks for that, fetch lands.
But I digress. I still like the original tap-lands a lot. You know why? I can get some of them for 10 cents at my local cardstore. Can't say that for the shock lands, the tri lands or even the refuges. So there.
infernox10
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
I guess this was made to try to fix dual lands,
And was one-upped by Dragonskull Summit.
It's always interesting to see how Wizards attempts the balance act, making things either too weak from the version they're trying to fix, or making something different, but still very powerful.
Comments (3)
I mean, I'm not doubting that the volcano is considerably weaker now, and that it's good to inform new players that this is now outclassed- but it just seems a little unfair that this is being looked back on with distaste.
Hah, that sounded like a cheesy ad. Anyways, it wasn't until later I clued in that half the reason the duals were so good is that they still counted as their component basic land types. Thanks for that, fetch lands.
But I digress. I still like the original tap-lands a lot. You know why? I can get some of them for 10 cents at my local cardstore. Can't say that for the shock lands, the tri lands or even the refuges. So there.
And was one-upped by Dragonskull Summit.
It's always interesting to see how Wizards attempts the balance act, making things either too weak from the version they're trying to fix, or making something different, but still very powerful.