Magic: the Gathering - Are dual lands "strictly better" than basic lands?

[Mr. President]

By dual lands, I mean the Taiga and its cousins. There is a strong argument that they are strictly better than basic lands: They produce two different types of mana with no disadvantage whatsoever. But I can also think of a few weaknesses:

1. The rules state that you may only have four of any card with the same name in a deck, other than basic lands. You're not allowed to use twenty Taigas to power a green-red deck.

2. Being two land types sometimes makes them vulnerable to more types of hosing. Tundra is destroyed by both Tsunami and Flashfires.

3. The very fact that they are non-basic lands makes them vulnerable to cards that specifically target non-basic lands. The best example is Blood Moon, which will be re-printed in the Eighth Edition of the core set.

I personally think that non-basic lands are strong but sometimes vulnerable. Wizards of the Coast thinks that they are "strictly better" than basic lands and should never be printed again. But what do you think?

[LDiCesare]

Dual lands allowed a lot of early mana, allowing multi colored decks to be effective. Thus they allow a stronger start. They are strictly better because you would gladly put versions like those which cost you 1 life to produce colored mana in your deck.
Before Blood Moon, the dual lands were exceedingly powerful. If you don't have cards specailly made to destroy non basic lands, you will have trouble getting rid of the basic lands.

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by Mr. President

I personally think that non-basic lands are strong but sometimes vulnerable. Wizards of the Coast thinks that they are "strictly better" than basic lands and should never be printed again. But what do you think?

As someone who has played Magic for about ten years off and on, I would say that they shouldn't be reprinted. The flexibility they give you in the opening can be very powerful. And getting them out early changes the balance of power too much.

Another reason is that I possess dual lands and I don't want others to get them.

But I can also think of a few weaknesses:

1. The rules state that you may only have four of any card with the same name in a deck, other than basic lands. You're not allowed to use twenty Taigas to power a green-red deck.

I think this is an adequate limitation, as 20 dual lands of any flavor makes for an enormously powerful deck.

2. Being two land types sometimes makes them vulnerable to more types of hosing. Tundra is destroyed by both Tsunami and Flashfires.

3. The very fact that they are non-basic lands makes them vulnerable to cards that specifically target non-basic lands. The best example is Blood Moon, which will be re-printed in the Eighth Edition of the core set.

If their flexibilty makes them more vulnerable, so be it. This is the risk you take playing with them in your deck.

[Caesar the Great]

i remember in the olden days i played in a tourney.... blue/green deck the dual lands were incredibly helpful - i was able to do over 15 damage in 4 turns in 6 seperate games

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by Caesar the Great
i remember in the olden days i played in a tourney.... blue/green deck the dual lands were incredibly helpful - i was able to do over 15 damage in 4 turns in 6 seperate games

I certainly prefer the old days. I pick up a stack of new cards every 12/18 months or so, and I think there's just too many concepts in the game now, some better than others. While they've kept the balance fairly well maintained, I think they've pushed it about as far as they can logically push it idea-wise.

I tried teaching someone the game now, and it seems much more difficult than teaching someone seven or eight years ago. How much more can they possibly add?

Given the cards out now, I think reintroducing the original dual lands concepts back into the game would tip the balance too far on this game.

[SnowFire]

The point is, Mr.P, that ignoring hosers the dual lands are better. You can tap for either color right away! It punishes people without lots of cash. At least painlands have a drawback, so there's something said for playing with less of them. Dual lands are just beyond broken. This really punishes people who just start, and have basic lands that are just worse.
Note that in causual play, lots of people play sans hosers of any kind- making duals awesome. In tournament play, this would force everyone to start packing non-basic hate, when it would be nice to have people concentrating more on their own strategies.

The current crop of non-basics are fine- they're good and useful in the right decks, but it requires a conscious decision to use them.
So in short:
1. This is true of any card. Is Ancestral Recall any less broken being that you can only have 1 of them in your deck?
2. Yes, and because they're so awesome that weakness will have to be used more. This is a very specific Achilles Heel, too... imagine if The Abyss was reprinted in 8th edition. Sure, it has a weakness (untargetable and artifact creatures ignore it), but it's darn specific, and making everybody play decks of nothing but artifact creatures, haste creatures (as burn spells), and untargetable creatures seems dumb. Because that card is too good, and WILL define the enviornment.
3. See 2.

I just returned from splitting for 3rd place with a Psychatog deck- with 12 Islands and 12 Swamps, since I don't own any painlands. I'm glad I didn't have to shell out 40 bucks for 4 copies of Underground Sea if that was reprinted and the price fell to 10 each (it'd be $100 + for that now, I'm sure).

[Urban Ranger]

Dual lands are pretty overpowering. Of course, they make prime targets for land deniers (Stone Rain, Psychic Venom) but the price to pay is still small.

[Zero]

i threw away my magic cards about 6 years ago(?) dammit...

how much is shiva dragon worth? I remember it being worth $20 bucks in my days. (1st edition)

[SnowFire]

http://sales.starcitygames.com/custo...=Shivan+Dragon

Looks like around 6 bucks, unless you want to get an Alpha/Beta/Unlimited copy.

Compare this to duals, which albeit were last printed in Revised:
http://sales.starcitygames.com/custo...nderground+Sea

[Frankychan]

I think the limitation on the amount of dual-lands in a deck is sound. They are just a little "cheese". But your right in that they are more vulnerable to cards than normal.

The cards I hate are the white "circle's of protection". My friend's whole deck was CoP's and white-weeny creatures. I was playing a green deck and I couldn't even touch him.

[CapitanGarlic]

Lots of counters help with the circles, I've found.

As for the dual lands -- I have one or two, and I use them, but they don't seem terribly unbalanced to me. And, if all else fails, I've got my Armageddon.

[Mr. President]

For circles, you can toss in a dash of white for Disenchant (dual lands help you here too! ). Green has Tranquility and the like from the older sets; also, they just added (in Onslaught) a card called Naturalize which is functionally identical to Disenchant except with one green mana instead of one white mana in its casting cost.

Blue decks can get around them with an under-appreciated gem I like to call Mana Short.

[Richard Bruns]

On the main topic, market forces (the price) clearly state that dual lands are strictly better. Flexibility is power. Any dual land should have some kind of drawback, like pain or coming into play tapped.

I like the addition of new concepts. Remember that each set only has a few, as they let all the old concepts go away. If you play Type 2, there are actually less things you need to learn now compared to several years ago. They got rid of things like Rampage and replaced it with a clear sentence that explains the ability.
Green should have no problem getting around white weenies and CoP´s by speed and/or brute force. If you get your critters out fast, you will keep him on the defensive, and he´ll be tapping so much mana for that CoP that he will never be able to take the offensive. Don´t make the mistake of not attacking just because you will do no damage. Force him to use up all his mana, and you will come out on top.

If it is a stalemate, remember that green creatures usually stomp whites, especially with the recent crop of good green weenies. You can pick his army to bits, and then attack. Anyone who uses CoP´s is at a serious mana disadvantage, and if you are green you will have mana advantage. Instead of attacking the CoP directly, try putting howling mines in your deck and put a vast army on the board as his hand fills with cards he can´t cast.

[Mr. President]

Sorry, what exactly does Type 2 mean? I'm afraid I never quite mastered the tournament lingo.

I actually do find the "new" Rampage-like ability much more elegant than the old one. So despite the text of my signature link, the new cards aren't all bad. Historically (with the exception of Legends) there have only ever been a couple of cards from each expansion that I got excited about anyway.

[FlameFlash]

I'm going to agree here with Burns: flexibility is power... but you also need to consider that fast start is power as well.

I'm just remembering a recent game with a friend of mine during lunch. He brought out his cards and I randomly grabbed a deck to use. Turned out it was his white deck.

When we play, we don't care if cards are banned or not... a lot of the banning in our minds is the fact that WoC just wants to sell more cards to those of us who have decks we love but are now illegal in tournaments (like I ever played in one of those anyway )

To the topic at hand, I would repeat that I'd love to have one of those cards (and have recent versions that come in tapped or the like) but I like playing with rainbow decks that require such mana needs as blue/black or red/green etc.

Trying to play with a rainbow deck with basic land? I think not. It's possible, but it denies the fast start principle... so unless you know you're playing somebody else who isn't a fast start player, you're screwed.

In recent games I've been screwed anyway... anybody remember the Battle Royal chest (or whatever the multiplayer game box was called with the 40-card premade decks)?

I still have my decks in the shape of multiplayer games that take some time to start up, but because you're in a multiplayer game, you don't get beaten to a pulp as much early on.

I was kicking butt.

Now I'm in college, out of HS, and the one other guy who knows how to play magic goes on the 1v1 strategy. It's killing me! If I only had more time in the day I'd have already redesigned a couple of decks to go with this strategy... maybe for another thread, but hopefully I get some MtG faithfuls this way: any recommendations to a 1v1 deck design? Just general info, I'm thinking flier one or two color deck with some good walls and spells... probably red/blue, red/green, or red/black.

[Urban Ranger]

If I play a white weenie deck, I'll have Wrath of God, Armmageddon, and Balance, other than Crusade.

[SnowFire]

My friend's whole deck was CoP's and white-weeny creatures. I was playing a green deck and I couldn't even touch him.

For causual play, you should always have a little bit of everything being that you don't know what you're facing, compared to some hyper-tuned tournament decks. Playing without enchantment removal- just one card, somewhere- is asking for trouble, for precisely this reason. At least with one Tranquility in your deck, you can stall the game until you draw it, maybe.

Also, don't forget that he's getting a lot of wasted draws if he has ALL the COPs in his deck. Whenever he draws a COP Red or something in his opening hand, it's like you've gotten rid of some of his spells for free, and can beat him down more easily.

For circles, you can toss in a dash of white for Disenchant (dual lands help you here too! ).

You're exactly getting at the problem with duals (ignoring the fact that they recently printed Naturalize). I love multiple color decks, but it shouldn't be so easy and so painless as tossing in some duals. Diversifying your mana base should require a concious decision and being forced to give up some other things to mana fix properly. Duals just say "I'm a forest too, so no big deal!"

Trying to play with a rainbow deck with basic land?

Actually doable, for what it's worth. Apperantly they tried to encourage this in the Invasion block by reprinting the card Harrow (Sacrifice a Land: Search your library for 2 other basic lands. Turn your forest into an island and a plains, or whatever it is you need!) and having cards that did more based on the number of basic lands you have, something I applaud. It would have gone nowhere if duals had been in the enviornment, of course, as painless mana-fixing is still better than spells that fetch lots of basic lands.

I'm thinking flier one or two color deck with some good walls and spells...

Hmm... Blue & White have most of the good fliers. I think the Blue Red idea sounds good- get out big Blue fliers while holding the ground with stuff like Wall of Air, and then use Red to burn off any opposing fliers and maybe your opponent. There's a fun common from Judgement that might be good for your purposes, Arcane Teachings. It's a red and 2 generic mana (3 total) for +2/+2 to enchanted creature with Tap: Do 1 damage to target creature or player. Stick it on a Wall to make it an uber-wall, and since you're never attacking with it, you get to use its tap ability every turn.

Type II

This is "Standard" or the most recent 2 blocks of cards. I gleefully ignore it for casual play, but it's good to have 1 or 2 decks Type II complaint if you feel like a tournament. The logic is that they don't want to make new players have to catch up on 10 years of Magic (aka Type I) in order to be competitive, so only the most recent blocks are legal... while simultaneously encouraging the remaining players to keep on buying new cards since their old ones eventually get rotated out.

I've never played Extended, but it's apperantly in-between Type I and Type II (so the last 7 blocks are legal, or something. I think Tempest and on are legal in Extended, Mirage & Ice Age aren't.).

[Felch]

Man, I first started playing when Ice Age was new. Then I quit like a year later. It's too damn expensive.

[Ben Kenobi]

You can have a five colour deck, but it really helps to have harrow, and some pain lands.

I run a five colour sliver deck, which works if I get some decent lands. City of Brass really helps here.

As for Dual Lands, they're the only cards that I have had stolen. That's why I think they are among the most popular magic cards.

As for green

Creeping mould also helps here. 4 mana, 2GG, destroy target artifact, enchantment or land.

[Mr. President]

Talking of diversifying mana bases - isn't a City of Brass generally better than a painland dual like Shivan Reef? After all, the latter gives you only two colors of mana, whereas a City of Brass can provide you with any color.

FlameFlash: Technically blue and green are enemies, but for they've served me as a good 1v1 combination in the past. I used to play a deck that had blue card-drawing cards and control effects, relying on green for creatures.

The most recent version of it was something like

4 Boomerang
4 Force Spike
1 Sindbad
2 Krovikan Sorceror
2 Prodigal Sorceror
1 Hurricane
4 Scryb Sprites
4 Grizzly Bears
2 Tranquility
2 Stream of Life
2 Llanowar Elves
1 Air Elemental
1 Mana Short
4 Giant Growth
4 Unstable Mutation

(Just to give you an idea of what I think about. ) I got the idea to use blue and green because they're opposing colors and each brings something that the other doesn't.

Edit: In this case blue has card-drawing effects that get creatures and lands out faster, and green has quick creatures and mana acceleration.

[Ben Kenobi]

Do you have any Wall of Blossoms?

They are great because they provided some card drawing for Green without having to diversify mana.

[FlameFlash]

I look forward to trying these out!

Here's another question: interrupts vs. instants.

I know interrupts have been done away with in newer rule sets... should interrupts be used as instants, or still as interrupts? IMHO they should still be used as they were intended for non-serious games with friends which come from a wide variety of years and expansions but I was just curious... the new fellow plays differently than I'm used to, which I think is part of why we haven't had as much fun yet (plus my old group I taught a lot of them how to play ) ...except for that bastard with the Angel Deck.

[Mr. President]

Officially, interrupts are to be considered instants.

Unofficially, you can do whatever you want.

[FlameFlash]

'nother question: counterspells such as counterspell or remove soul which are designated as interrupts... countering a spell is right when the spell is cast, correct?

[SnowFire]

Yup. It ends up working out almost the same as it did before. Functionally, they started calling spells-as-they're-being-cast as being "on the stack," which makes sense since the whole First-in-Last-Out rules were precisely a stack. Functionally, when both players decide to do nothing, the next spell on the stack resolves, and both players have a chance to do something again.

As an example: I cast Giant Growth on my creature. You now have a chance to respond. You can counter it as usual, or do nothing and let the spell resolve. The fact that counters are now instants means that you can also do something like cast Merchant Scroll (1U: Search your library for a Blue Instant or Interrupt and put it in your hand. Well, just Instant I guess), let that resolve (unless your opponent counters it, of course), fetch a counter (that Giant Growth is still "on the stack" and hasn't resolved yet), then counter Giant Growth.

Also note that if for some reason there are multiple spells on the stack, counters can hit any of them. So if your opponent casts a Giant Growth and then somebody else casts a Lightning Bolt, you can still counter the Giant Growth even though something else is "on top of it.

Mr. P: Have you ever heard of a card called Nature's Lore? I have one in my Green-Red deck, and I think it was a common... it's 3GG for "Target player gains 8 life." Since I rarely want to cast something like Stream of Life early (I now have 2 more life. Hurray.), and getting to 9 mana for an 8-point Stream takes forever, I really like that better, myself.

[Grumbold]

Glad I got out of this game at Ice Age time.

Dual lands are "strictly better" unless you see your opponent reaching for a particular deck so you know to pick one with a counter strategy.

Personally I liked dual lands because for fun play it allowed multicoloured decks and Legends decks that I would never ever have seriously considered for tournament play. The strongest strategies are primarily single colour and even with 4 dual lands available I'd not usually try and counter a monocolour deck like a white weenie with a dual colour one.

[Mr. President]

Originally posted by SnowFire

Mr. P: Have you ever heard of a card called Nature's Lore? I have one in my Green-Red deck, and I think it was a common... it's 3GG for "Target player gains 8 life." Since I rarely want to cast something like Stream of Life early (I now have 2 more life. Hurray.), and getting to 9 mana for an 8-point Stream takes forever, I really like that better, myself.

I don't have one of those, but I do have a Taste of Paradise (3G, Gain 3 life; gain an additional 3 life for each 1G you pay in addition). I sometimes use that instead of any Streams of Life at all.

[Shadowstrike]

For just life-gaining, there are quite a few combos which allow you to gain lots of life for little cost... Angelic Chorus/Wall of Junk comes to mind. Of course that's a white combo, so that may not help. Perhaps you should consider replacing Grizzly Bears and Scryb Sprites? They're solid creatures, but green has all sorts of really beat-down creatures for not a lot of mana (at lweast back when I still played a few years back)

Going back to the point about green stomping white weenies - that's where first strike creatures come in real handy, especially since they can be stacked up to block and take out single big threats and remain unscathed. That or Wrath.

Dual-lands are game-breakers. As onthers have mentioned, the flexibility trhey offer, combined with the fact that few things target them specifically makes them really powerful. I couldnt imagine playing decks of more hten two colors without 'em. Of course, they're resally expensive so its not too easy to get for the casual player.

[Mr. President]

A couple of dedicated beatdown players that I talked to think that Wrath of God is the most broken card ever.

I used to have a Killer Bees, which was in all my green decks back in the day. I could toss in a Whippoorwill or Land Leeches in place of one of the Bears or the Sprites, get the versatility up.

[Grumbold]

Of all the deck types I think land destruction is the nastiest to play. Your opponent may win but most of the time is going to be sitting around unable to do anything. Like dual lands, most of the cards needed for a really good land destruction deck are on the banned or restricted list.