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Magic: the Gathering - Battle for Zendikar |OT| Lands matter (but nothing else does)

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Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Planechase 2009, Planechase 2012, Planchase....2015?

obviously its time to roll the planar die
 
Maybe we get to roll the Planar Die again this year haha

Planechase was a pretty successful product, it supports Commander without having to be dedicated to it so it's still useful for people who play other casual formats, and it's easy to expand without needing a really crazy new gimmick every time, so I feel pretty confident they'll do another one at some point. Next summer would be a good time, it will have been four years.

The off-year product has to start doing more reprints. There are too many for MM now, and the new Standard rotation makes a lot of the non-land ones hard to do.

I'm thinking they're going to be doing more booster-based supplemental sets for this exact reason. Conspiracy had some solid older reprints in it, and future sets like this could include some pretty spicy stuff without producing the kind of availability issues that the Commander decks have had in the past.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Not gonna lie, I would by the shit out of a booster pack driven Planechase designed around drafting if they printed it in oversized packs with one plane in each
 

Firemind

Member
Gimme Conspiracy 2!!
18b.png
 

kirblar

Member
If this is legit, that's the colorless mana symbol. So Kozilek is 10cc, but requires two mana be completely colorless.

edit: That really doesn't look like Raymond Swanland art.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The land is what is game-breaking, not the creature.
 

jph139

Member
Yeah, that's how I've always assumed they'd do the colorless basic land. Feels kind of weird to do it in a small set, though.

But it's been something I've been looking forward to for a long time now, so fingers crossed it's real!
 

Crocodile

Member
  • Really clean, never before seen art
  • Appropriate copyright and card set info
  • No weird camera angles, no blurriness
  • Plausible evolution of major current mechanics
  • Plausible and appropriate templating
  • Not horribly degenerate or underpowered
It's certainly not 100% but I'm inclined to believe its real more than its fake right now

Also that new land wouldn't count as a sixth type for Domain but would be a basic land EDH decks with a colorless general could use correct?
 

kirblar

Member
  • Really clean, never before seen art
  • Appropriate copyright and card set info
  • No weird camera angles, no blurriness
  • Plausible evolution of major current mechanics
  • Plausible and appropriate templating
  • Not horribly degenerate or underpowered
It's certainly not 100% but I'm inclined to believe its real more than its fake right now

Also that new land wouldn't count as a sixth type for Domain but would be a basic land EDH decks with a colorless general could use correct?
Correct.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The issue is that it doesn't actually solve the Barry's Land problem in any way. It's possible they simply decided to never do Barry's Land in favor of designing one to allow Colorless EDH decks to run a land.
 
As weird as these spoilers are -- and they really are super weird -- the art means you have to assume they're real to start. Pretty much every high-effort fake we've ever seen in 20 years of evaluating rumored cards can get busted by tracing back the artwork -- people don't have high-quality artwork just lying around, and so they have to find it the same way the people evaluating their card will, by poking around the internet. When a vaguely plausible card has never-before-seen artwork that's on-brand and accurate, it's probably real -- this is the same way we knew flip-Chandra was real when she got leaked super-early.

In this case the art is even extra specific. Kozilek obviously has a specific look, so any art of him should be something we can track down. And the wastes image is a landscape transformed into bismuth, which is an incredibly weird thing to have a picture of normally, but an incredibly normal thing to have as an illustration on a land in a set where Kozilek-brood eldrazi transform the land into bismuth.

If these are real though... goddamn what a weird fucking block. BFZ is already wild and incoherent and this seems like a pretty insane mechanic to introduce just for a single small set.

The issue is that it doesn't actually solve the Barry's Land problem in any way.

Correct, it just solves the Karn-on-a-Budget Commander problem.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Correct. It's also quickly breaks a lot of stuff and isn't worth doing.

That's what I'm saying - it doesn't solve the problem that Barry's Land couldn't make it out of development for, instead its aimed at something completely different. In that sense, it's not really a "solution" to the Barry's Land problem, its technically just something else. If you don't care about domain at all, then a sixth basic without a subtype is actually very easy under the rules with the Basic Land supertype in existence.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
I want that to be true, but I don't know why they would wait till the small set to introduce the colorless mana symbol

Unless the idea is that you have to pay for it with Waste?
 
Sally has another one:

cdb2e87f06ab314f40bd54d78e8636a0.png


The thing that really throws me here is... why would it produce <>? And it's plausible for a mythic to not have reminder text explaining a new type of mana symbol, but kind of less so a rare. Although looking at Coldsnap, Rimefeather Owl is a rare that doesn't have the snow mana reminder text....

That's what I'm saying - it doesn't solve the problem that Barry's Land couldn't make it out of development for, instead its aimed at something completely different. In that sense, it's not really a "solution" to the Barry's Land problem, its technically just something else. If you don't care about domain at all, then a sixth basic without a subtype is actually very easy under the rules with the Basic Land supertype in existence.

Yes, and Aaron Forsythe strongly hinted at PAX Aus last year that they were going to be doing this at some point in the future.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
I mean, if its not just a new shorthand for colorless mana at what point is this literally just a sixth color in everything except effects that care about the number of colors?
 

kirblar

Member
I mean, if its not just a new shorthand for colorless mana at what point is this literally just a sixth color in everything except effects that care about the number of colors?
It's a psuedo-6th color that's backwards compatible.
Hm. Why does this say "add one (diamond colorless) to your mana pool", rather than just say "add 1 to your mana pool"?
To establish the colorless mana symbol.
 
I really hope they don't carry over "add <> to your mana pool" outside of this set, it's kind of hideous.

God, it's so weird to introduce this mid-block.
 

Neoweee

Member
This also is exactly what is produced by Herald of Kozilek and Shrine of the Forsaken Gods.

It also plays very nicely with the cycle of uncommon sacrifice lands from Battle.

I really hope they don't carry over "add <> to your mana pool" outside of this set, it's kind of hideous.

God, it's so weird to introduce this mid-block.

Battle is absolutely full of cards that produce colorless mana, though. The symbol is new, but it plays extremely well with what they've already one.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I mean, if its not just a new shorthand for colorless mana at what point is this literally just a sixth color in everything except effects that care about the number of colors?

No, because nothing else uses it. It just makes casting specific spells harder since nothing else actually uses Eldrazi Mana for anything.
 

Matriox

Member
No, because nothing else uses it. It just makes casting specific spells harder since nothing else actually uses Eldrazi Mana for anything.

I imagine the basic is a formality and something for draft rather than constructed. We have a ton of lands that tap for colorless in BFZ, and would bring back the painlands from Origins to a little relevance if it takes off.
 

kirblar

Member
I imagine the basic is a formality and something for draft rather than constructed. We have a ton of lands that tap for colorless in BFZ, and would bring back the painlands from Origins to a little relevance if it takes off.
Basic lets them be used in EDH and be searched up. It's very relevant.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Nothing has indicated that <> is the same as (1).
I would think it's safe to assume that even if it isn't the same thing, it's probably colorless because if it wasn't it would break the game in a bunch of other ways.
 

Neoweee

Member
So <> as a cost is "only colorless mana" seems to be the consensus, while <> in the mana pool is either only for <> or only for colorless cards?
 
<> isn't colorless mana. It can just be spent as colorless, just like every other color can. It will be called "colorless" so as not to screw with the color pie, work with EDH, and play nicely with 21 years of Magic history, but it's just a sixth type of mana and thus basically a sixth color.

<> costs can only be paid with <> mana. Colorless costs can be paid with <> or any other color. We're going to need a name for <> mana; I guess we'll call it "grey" mana?

Ugh I like this less and less the more I see it.
 
So <> as a cost is "only colorless mana" seems to be the consensus, while <> in the mana pool is either only for <> or only for colorless cards?

I'm inclined to think it's like the snow mana symbol in costs, in that <> can only be paid for by <>.
Image.ashx


The weirdest part of these cards is precisely that there is no reminder text.
 
<> mana = (1)

<> cost = only <>

No, <> mana is <> mana. It's not (1) mana. You can just spend it that way, the same as you could any other color. It's functionally a sixth color that will be called "colorless" because adding a sixth color isn't something you can really do at this stage.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
For whatever weird reason having it be in Kozilek's mana cost is fine to me but having it also be in the cost of activated abilities is where I start to like it less
 

Firemind

Member
<> isn't colorless mana. It can just be spent as colorless, just like every other color can. It will be called "colorless" so as not to screw with the color pie, work with EDH, and play nicely with 21 years of Magic history, but it's just a sixth type of mana and thus basically a sixth color.

<> costs can only be paid with <> mana. Colorless costs can be paid with <> or any other color. We're going to need a name for <> mana; I guess we'll call it "grey" mana?

Ugh I like this less and less the more I see it.
I like it!

much better than typing colorless

<>
 

kirblar

Member
No, <> mana is <> mana. It's not (1) mana. You can just spend it that way, the same as you could any other color. It's functionally a sixth color that will be called "colorless" because adding a sixth color isn't something you can really do at this stage.
Sol Ring produces (2). Which is now <> <>.
 
Battle is absolutely full of cards that produce colorless mana, though. The symbol is new, but it plays extremely well with what they've already one.

Yeah, it's not even that it's weird adding the mechanic midblock (since, as you note, they do at least have the stuff necessary to support it.) It's really that adding a symbol for colorless mana halfway through a block, after printing a ton of cards that use the old symbol for it, is aesthetically super jarring.
 
See, I would have made "Wastes" tap for (1) and have the <> symbol be a "cost only" symbol, much like how Phyrexian Mana is a cost-only symbol. Then you have <> mana costs only payable with colorless mana. Boom. Way cleaner than adding a seventh type of mana that can be in your pool.
 
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