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

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The thing about Dual Lands is they allow fast starts, just like Time Walk, Black Lotus, various Mox'es, etc. Also, like these cards, there's practically no cost for using them.

No I disagree. Dual lands still count as the one and only land you can play that turn and can only be tapped for one of its mana sources. What it does do is erode the clear superiority single colour decks have over multicolour decks. I haven't followed the scene in recent years but 95% of the successful tournament decks in the two years that I followed it seriously were monocolour. You just can't afford to get dealt 3 land of one colour and 4 spells of another. Its suicide.

Time walk, moxes, black lotus and the rest actually violate the principle that your mana pool can only grow by 1 mana per turn. If you have a mana pool of 4 when your opponent only has 1 or 2 then you can too easily get an insurmountable early lead. That is why most of those cards got banned or restricted even when they were still in print.

[SnowFire]

Heading back to the original topic: I think this issue was solved most effectively in Invasion, with the "dual lands" there- they produce either color of mana, helping avoid color screw, but they come into play tapped. So you have your choice of consistency or speed. A nice balance.

Grumbold: 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.

You just can't afford to get dealt 3 land of one colour and 4 spells of another. Its suicide.

Ah, but this is how dual-lands DO allow Fast Starts, as Urban Ranger described. Simply put, in order to insure that the situation you describe- color screw- happens less often, dual and 3-color decks have more land in them. You draw more land and less threats as a result, but since the absolute quantity is greater, your chances of color screw go down too. As an example, a White Weenie deck that runs just fine on 2 lands I have uses only about 20 lands (all Plains and a few variants)- but a Blue-Black control deck I have needs to run 24-25 lands (13 Islands, 12 Swamps). But, ignoring quantity of land for a moment, if I could somehow replace that with 9 Islands, 8 Swamps, and 4 Underground Seas, I have the same chance as drawing Blue or Black mana as before- but I'm running 4 fewer lands, and can pack those spots with more useful spells. Alternatively, I can keep the land base the same (11 Islands, 10 Swamps, 4 US) and be extra-sure that I don't get color-screwed, if I need that quantity of mana for expensive spells.

As for tournaments, popular decks at tournaments I've gone to recently:
Blue-Green Aggressive-Control (It actually doesn't run that many lands for a 2 color deck either, and it still is awesome and can recover easily from 1-land opening hands).
Blue-Black Control (like my deck)
3-color combo-lock (Black, Blue, Green "Opposition" deck)
Green-White beatdown
Blue-White Control
Red-Green Land Destruction
5-color Black (Black base, uses weird things like Riftstone Portal to splash Green & White spells one week, Grand Coliseums for Red spells the next week, maybe Blue in his next version...)
5-color Blue (Blue base, uses weird tricks to cast creatures of pretty much any color)
White Weenie (I've got one of these, too)
Mono Black Control

6 multicolored decks, 2 weird psuedo-mono color decks, and 2 genuine single color decks. I'm not a huge follower of the international magic Scene, but from what little I hear at the place I play, the 3-4 "decks to beat" are all multi-colored too. This is without dual lands Type II, mind. So I disagree that mono-color decks are inherently superior. They trade power for consistency, generally, and give up the flexibility of having access to two colors as well as the syngery that often results when grabbing another color.

Like dual lands, most of the cards needed for a really good land destruction deck are on the banned or restricted list.

Actually, there aren't any land destruction spells on the Restricted list- well, except for Balance, but that's a bit more than a plain old LD spell. The dual lands are unrestricted, as well.

http://www.wizards.com/dci/judge/main.asp?x=judge/resources/sfr_type1

Because it amused me, I dug up this "competitive" Type I deck which extensively uses the duals to power its mana base and further its goal of playing with the most broken spells ever. Not as bad there, because competitive Type I is supposed to be sillily powerful with the Ancestral recalls are flying around, but definitely not something we'd want reprinted. Its totals were Blue (18), Black (6), White (3), Red (2), Green (2), Artifact (1), and 28 Mana sources. With a 5-color sideboard.

[Mr. President]

It seems to me that coming into play tapped is only a disadvantage in terms of speed. You can't use it that first turn you play it, but every turn after that it's got that amazing flexibility.

[Grumbold]

Looks like all the new cards and combo's have made a big difference then!

[Ben Kenobi]

I'd rather use the painlands then the tapped lands. 1 life is a small price to pay to avoid colour hosing.

[Panda]

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

Hmm, let's see:

1. They don't come into play tapped
2. You take no pain for tapping for either colour
3. Although (as has been noted) it does increase your vulnerability to land-colour hosers, it [i]increases[i] colour flexibility in the deck by, what, 20%

Extended deck without dual lands:
6 Forests
10 Mountains
4 Karplussan Forests
4 "utility" lands

Extended deck with dual lands:
4 Forests
8 Mountains
4 Karplussan Forests
4 Taiga
4 "utility" lands

In any fast deck, I don't care about taking pain from lands if in doing so I a)avoid mana screw, b) make the best use of the mana available to me, and c) put down bigger threats every turn and get a turn 5 kill.

BTW I started playing in Feb 2000, about the same time as "planeshift" in Invasion Block. So I have never known the joy of turn 1/ turn 2 kills (not even in "Shandalar" *sniff*).

[Mr. President]

Why would you want to do or be done by a first-turn kill?

[Panda]

Tell a lie: it is possible in Shandalar using a Black Lotus, Forst or Mountain, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Channel.

Why would you want to do ... a first-turn kill?

Because you can?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Panda
Tell a lie: it is possible in Shandalar using a Black Lotus, Forst or Mountain, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Channel.

Isn't there also a Wall of Cindar that you can destroy for 3 points of red or green mana?

[Ben Kenobi]

UR:

Timber Wall

http://pulsar.jb.com/mtg/deckmaster/deckmaster/cards/tinder_wall.html

Still use this in my old RG deck.

Tell a lie: it is possible in Shandalar using a Black Lotus, Forst or Mountain, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Channel.

Actually, you don't need the lightning bolt.

Play Black Lotus
Play Mountain
Sac Black Lotus for GGG
Tap Mountain for R
Cast Channel, pay 19 life for 19 colourless mana
Cast Fireball, paying R, G +19 C will give you 20 mana.

[Panda]

Isn't there also a Wall of Cindar that you can destroy for 3 points of red or green mana?

Tinder Wall
{G}
Creature - Wall
0/3
0: Sacrifice Tinder Wall to add RR to your mana pool. Play this ability as an interrupt.
R: Sacrifice Tinder Wall to have it deal 2 damage to target creature it blocks.

And of course there is also Fireblast:

Fireblast
{4}{R}{R}
Instant
You may sacrifice two mountains instead of paying Fireblast's casting cost.
Fireblast deals 4 damage to target creature or player.

Embermages aren't well known for their diplomatic skills