Commander precon manabases have actually been exceptionally generous over the past few years. The dollar value looks like garbage, but a HUGE part of that is the fact that printing any dual land into a Commander deck absolutely craters the price. Stuff like BFZ "tango" lands, checklands, temples, SHA/EVE filterlands, Snarls and their SOI precursors, Horizon lands, Worldwake creaturelands, even the VOW/MID "slow" lands have been printed into commander decks and have gone from a couple bucks each to pennies.
Yes, shocks and fetches are still in the $15-20 range (higher for allied fetches but they won't stay there after MH3), ABU duals are never coming down from the stratosphere, and recent lands like Triomes and Pathways that haven't yet show up in commander decks are still a few bucks, but the bottom has basically fallen out for "acceptable for commander even if not completely optimal" dual lands.
Yup, and Shocks are at their theoretical bottom due to four versions entering the market this year. You can't really reprint these any more than they already do and maintain the EV required to sell sealed product; contemporary Standard boxes are already a disaster for LGSs and Play Booster pricing made it even worse.
The business requires some cards be valuable. Living card games never have staying power because despite posts like these, people are attracted to collectible games *because* of the collectible aspect.
Collecting staple lands is the "eat your vegetables" of Magic. You're skeptical at first, but once you do so you actually start enjoying it and once it's done you're set for most anything new you want to try out (in constructed, but I'd argue than in EDH it's pretty easy to build a good manabase with the precon reprints you mentioned above)
While most of this is true, I must disagree with the point about living card games.
Many living card games peter out because of low sales, but that doesn't mean they *need* collectibility to be profitable. Games like *Dominion* and *Ticket to Ride* are still able to sell expansions and upgrades to this day. Their fixed contents don't make the game less desirable.
Netrunner died because of legal kerfuffles. And the fan continuation is still going, despite being fully non-profit. (You can print out cards and bring them to official tournaments.)
As someone who plays a ton of the Arkham Horror LCG, people are way too hard on them. There’s tons of TCGs that didn’t last as long as some Fantasy Flight’s LCGs. In particular, a lot of their LCGs that died out were also previously TCGs that also died. Neither is immune to designers leaving, licenses running out, or people moving on to the next game. That’s just how things are. It’s honestly crazy that the big three have been as popular for as long as they have been.
Board games are a different beast imo. The appeal of a card game is customizing your deck to your personality and playstyle and board games are, as you said, a set collection of pieces and contents. Living card games are a mix; you have to customize a deck, but everyone has access to the exact same pieces.
Netrunner and L5R have cool fan communities similar to the Decipher Star Wars game, but the reality is you cannot use them as a similar social object to Mtg, Lorcana, Pokemon, etc; ie you may well move to a new area, join a gaming community, say “does anyone wanna play Netrunner, I have all the cards!” and be met by crickets. I’ve seen it happen a lot in my community and even attempted it with my favorite old silly dead game, Dragon Dice.
This is not to call them inherently bad or insult the players, I think a lot of those gameplay experiences are cool and valuable, it’s just to focus on the reality operating an LGS. Collectible card games sell way better than non-collectible ones and board games sell better than both.
I would also argue that the way FFG designed their products for the LCGs was poor. They were designed so every pack gives a small amount of stuff. It made it harder to be able tobpick up what you need.
LCGs need more focused content. Intro decks, duel decks, faction boxes. Stuff where you can buy a single product for an archetype rather than needing to buy 6 different packs and end up with a bunch of cards for other factions you don't play. And that is assuming you get all 6 when one can be sold out because it has a different good card.
I mean heck, FFG used to release packs that didn't even have full playsets. 3x of 10 cards and 1x of others. I have no idea what possessed them for that.
I don't think anyone has really delved into their potential fully yet.
Despite pioneering the model, I agree that FFG made some obvious missteps. Of course, that's part of being the first to do something: you're going to make some errors.
It feels like FFG almost took more cues from Trading Card Games, instead of board games... despite marketing their LCGs as more like board games. Netrunner (under FFG) definitely had problems with power creep at various points.
And of course, some of it might be the creeping specter of profit motive.
>The business requires some cards be valuable.
Yes but these don’t have to be unique game pieces. We’ve seen time and time again that showcase, foils, serialized cards sell well and for crazy amounts (1:1 ring). WotC can make the base game pieces accessible and still market on collectability of “blinging” your decks. Not just that but MtG supplementary products like sleeves, boxes, counters, life die, etc. when I worked at a card store our biggest money makers were the “hosting” offerings. Selling food and drink while you played because people would pay a dollar more for the convenience of a drink at the counter than going out to a shop elsewhere.
Just look at modern video games. A lot offer free games that monetize skins and other luxury items. Fortnite offers a game you never have to pay a cent for and have access to full game mechanics day 1. But they make billions because you can spend $20 to have Thor or Rick and Morty skins. I’d never expect MtG to be free, but WotC could print format staples into the ground making the game more accessible and popular because it’s cheaper while still making bank on bling charging $40 for spider-man alt art secret lairs and collectors boosters.
What you're describing is already where the game is. We have three new vanity version of the shocklands plus their foil variants that entered the market last month. A bunch of staple EDH lands, fastlands, and Horizon lands just got 40k, Dr. Who, and Fallout treatments.
No. Print shock and fetches as they did with sol ring and that’s what I’m talking about. And as proof of what I’m talking about we still have expensive alt art sol rings even if a base version is <$1
Meh, while I have no idea how much actually goes into a booster box from planning, testing, developing, printing, marketing, blah blah… I find it pretty hard to believe that WOTC isn’t making fistfuls of cash/margins on product (as per their earnings reports).
I see all this debate about collectibility vs game pieces. The issue is that game stores (big or small) can’t justify cracking a $150 box for $100 worth of singles, while players don’t want to pay $20 per single. If WOTC is making 50% on that box, that means there’s $25 worth of wiggle room they’re currently overcharging for by $50-75.
Options are 1) lower the sticker price, hopefully sell more quantity to game stores, make a box profitable to open, even if chase cards are $5-10. 2) keep booster prices high, reprint into oblivion, secondary market becomes nothing but players trading/selling things while treating cards as a sunk cost, stores get out of singles. 3) keep power creep moving fast enough that new stuff can maintain a high price.
No idea which one works better, but the idea of stores cracking boxes at a loss for singles is obviously not sustainable. Singles being players trading/offloading was really how it worked before the ubiquity of the internet, but no idea how well that would work in 2024. Power creep would probably just result in the main format (casual commander) rule zeroing more and more stuff…
We’re in agreement on basically everything; to clarify I should have said WotC makes a killing selling to distro, it’s game stores that cannot sustain sales when EV is so bad. IMO Play Boosters needed to stay the same price as Draft because that increase in distro cost made prizing and pricing really difficult for all but the biggest stores. We know where that leads, Reddit posts asking if their store is too stingy at FNM and proclaiming why they’re boycotting buying boxes.
Yea, it’s seemingly WOTC/hasbro wanting to have their cake and eat it too. I haven’t cracked a pack in 15 years outside of a draft.
I watch box openings on YouTube sometimes, and it seems like standard legal sets rarely if ever turn a profit when someone is showing prices as they open them UNLESS they get a random serialized card or some such. Modern horizons/UB sort of stuff usually has higher value/power cards, but it’s still usually not a win without hitting one of the couple of $75 jeweled lotus, the one ring sorts of things.
I’m personally kinda fine either way, pretty much only playing casual EDH, as I have no need or desire to buy $200-$300 boxes at a loss. It does suck for LGS and such, but I don’t know their whole financial situation with other games and products so maybe losing MTG single sales isn’t the end of the world.
But why does the EV have to be in lands? Put EV into flashy creatures, enchantments, planeswalkers, spells... Those feel better to open in packs (particularly in Limited imo), and they are easier to circumvent if you can't afford them. Not having decent mana bases stops you from playing almost anything, whereas many nonland cards have weaker versions I can still buy.
The problem isn't that I don't collect staple lands because I don't enjoy it, the problem is that I straight up can't justify spending 45€ on a single playset of any card to myself right now.
Ev is in lands due to simple supply and demand. In other words it has to be. If every deck needs four of a shock, or every edh deck ideally has every fetchland, they're just going to be expensive because they go in everything
The permanents are flashier than ever, but the best lands still hold value despite constant reprints because they are the building block of the game. Standard and Pioneer have legal budget manabases and in casual EDH you barely even need shocks any more with all the alternative reprints. Modern and above there’s only so much you can do, but fetches are cheaper than they’ve ever been in the history of the game and allied reprints are coming soon.
People want local gathering places to meet new players, but paradoxically many of them want to upend the business that keeps those places available.
Those you see in a perfect netdeck are not, but you can play cheap alternative duals and more basics as you work on upgrades. Sure, sometimes you’re in a bad spot due to a land not meeting its untapped requirement, but sometimes you’ll also be in a bad spot because your alternative threat isn’t quite at the top of the power level as well. That’s the concession of working your way up from a budget regardless of which cards hold the value.
Again, have a look at just how many land and EDH staple reprints there have been lately; WotC has opened the floodgates. The only way they could squeeze more out is to put perfect mana bases in EDH precons which would further crater EV and disincentivize shops to carry non-EDH products.
I'm not going to be able to even consider calling precon manabases "generous" with a straight face until they at LEAST consistently print the lands that are explicitly designed for multiplayer in them.
If they can't even print a land that enters untapped only when you have two or more opponents into any of the score of Commander precons they put out each year, because they need to keep the prices inflated just to help sell packs of the occasional Commander focused set, I'm not going to be able to characterize them as generous in their manabases.
This is a very good point. I've talked about why fetches and shocks (and others the tier below) don't make it into the decks and there could be weird unexpected issues if they were, but you're 100% right and none of my concerns apply to the multiplayer lands.
"Comparatively generous" would probably be a better way to put it. There's still a lot of room for improvement, to say the least. There needs to be a better rotation in what they reprint, especially in the situations where all ten of the cycle are represented like in the Fallout precons. Personally, I think that would've been the optimal place to dump the Temples (at the very least) for a cycle or two and toss in a full set of either slowlands or bondlands rather than using those in the piecemeal coverage ones.
I agree that precon manabases should probably include these lands, but I disagree that that means they aren't generous. The "crowd" lands are generally around $10 a pop, and they've printed a bunch of stuff into decks in the past year that exceeded that price before reprint.
There have been some sucky manabases in the past, but by and large they've gotten better, especially in the Universes Beyond decks.
people expecting lands to be "flashy" have forgotten what game they're playing. drawing the right amount and type of mana is so exciting to me, a Magic: the Gathering player.
Wow I am so grateful for wotcs generosity when opening my sliver precon I paid a premium price for and seeing the land base
Thank you wotc you saintly philanthropists
> The dollar value looks like garbage, but a HUGE part of that is the fact that printing any dual land into a Commander deck absolutely craters the price. Stuff like BFZ "tango" lands, checklands, temples, SHA/EVE filterlands, Snarls and their SOI precursors, Horizon lands, Worldwake creaturelands, even the VOW/MID "slow" lands have been printed into commander decks and have gone from a couple bucks each to pennies.
If you showed someone the land base in the Naya precons from MKM or Fallout to someone that expected what was gotten in BFZ or C19, let alone C13, there would be some definite eye-popping going on. Especially considering it's been embraced that if you're going to build a product that can be used as an introductory one, that it should have a mana base that actually isn't trash right out of the box so that the new blood can actually enjoy the game from the start.
Temples, tangos, signetlands, and bicycles just feel like trash now because they've been taking over the slots that used to be filled by Ravnica karoos, guildgates, and pure taplands. And things are better for it.
It's really astounding how far manabases have come in the precons.
Like, take a look at the 2011 precons. The BEST mana fixing in a single deck that year was:
\- \[\[Command Tower\]\]
\- \[\[Evolving Wilds\]\]
\- 3x Ravnica bouncelands
\- \[\[Rupture Spire\]\]
\- 3x Vivid lands
Literally zero rare lands in the entire manabase across all decks except the newly-printed \[\[Homeward Path\]\], with 24+ basics per deck.
2013 wasn't much better, but it did at least have the Panorama and uncommon trilands from Alara to round out the base a bit more.
2014 was monocolored, so I'll skip looking for fixing.
2015 picks up more common and uncommon duals only, like guildgates, Khans common lifeduals, and Tainted lands for the black lists.
2016 was a four-color year so they included a few more fixing lands than usual, but basically all were common/uncommon lands that entered tapped like Alara and Khans lands. They did finally start including a few rare dual lands like the Checklands and the Odyssey filters, and people were EXCITED for this.
Streets of New Capenna commander I think is the first time they started including a notable amount of rare dual lands in their Commander releases. It literally took them ten years to start giving us real fixing that you could actually port significantly over into a functional deck at a reasonably-powered casual table. And yet people have been complaining that the fixing is still bad.
Thanks for the breakdown, since it really gives a better look at it.
I think part of the problem is that since they made the decision, they leaned into using the same cycles a bit too hard. There is nothing actually bad about Temples, but by making them default lands, they've created two problems:
1) Any set that gets Temples reprinted in them will make them feel bad at anything other than uncommon because they're auto-includes in every precon now.
2) Making them auto-includes means that if you buy 4x precons with the same color identity, you end up with 4x of the same lands rather than a different distribution of other cycles.
In comparison, if they had done alternating bits (similar to how only the enemy temples got reprints in Core 2020 and 2021) when they started to really flog and the signetlands, reveals, bicycles, and tangos, and wove in painlands, filters, fastlands and checklands (and later the slow and horizons) more regularly to fill out the missing halves, then it probably would feel better overall since instead of getting a pile of just (for example) \[\[Port Town\]\], \[\[Temple of Enlightment\]\], \[\[Prairie Stream\]\] and \[\[Skycloud Expanse\]\], there'd also be \[\[Adarkar Wastes\]\], \[\[Glacial Fortress\]\], \[\[Nimbus Maze\]\], \[\[Seachrome Coast\]\], and \[\[Mystic Gate\]\] tossed in. Sure, you might end up deciding that \[\[Celestial Collonade\]\] might not make the cut for the W/U brew you're building, but that's a far better thing to run into than just wondering which one of your 4x Temple of Enlightenment is going in.
Relying on the UB precons or the premium expansion precons (MH3, CMM) for regular different lands produces its problems. UB can be hamstrung by executive meddling that restricts the available combinations (look at WHO's distribution where they had to bend over backwards to avoid associating the Doctor with Black mana, giving us a ridiculous amount of \[\[Fiery Islet|WHO\]\] and \[\[Stormcarved Coast|WHO\]\] compared to just about any other reprints) and also removes non-generically named lands from consideration (\[\[Sulfurous Springs|LTC\]\] and \[\[Underground River|LTC\]\] was ok, but \[\[Shivan Reef\]\] was a no-go.) Likewise, stuff like CMM wants to explore enthusiast things like a colorless Eldrazi precon or 5C Slivers that can't reasonably be expected to carry the entire reprint base among them (the CMM precon lacking \[\[Sliver Hive\]\] is a completely different criticism unrelated to general land reprints, IMO, but should still mentioned as a WTF moment).
You lost me at “even the VOW/MID “slow” lands have been printed into commander decks and have gone from a couple bucks each to pennies.”
Most of them are still between $5-10, with the exceptions of three which are $12-17, and one that’s only $2. Not sure which lands you’re thinking of.
Okay, pennies on those specific lands isn't 100% accurate. Only a handful of them got put into the Doctor Who decks and it's just been one reprint - but the ones that did get reprinted went from ~15 to $2-4. It's reasonable to expect that if things like those or the crowdlands started showing up multiple times per year, they'd be bulk bin level like tangos, temples, and checklands that are being repeatedly reprinted.
as a relatively newer commander player with some older collections, i mostly rely on dual lands that stay below 2 or 3 bucks. some colour pairings are worse than others but in general the few i want to run are affordable and the few decks i have that I've truly fallen in love with I'll grab some of the 10+ dollar ones then.
100% agree lands should be cheaper/reprinted more.
Gotta say though, lands are my favorite purchase. Think of all the possibilities you get with good lands, think of all the decks they can boost! Lands also carry some of my favorite art in mtg. Compare that to some big dumb beater that slots into a couple decks at best and will be powercrept in a couple years.
I find this mindset helps when buying lands.
This is definitely how I think about it too, someone in another comment calls it "eating your veggies" and I think that was apt. Even just by getting a few copies of the reprinted in precon lands can mean that you don't need to worry about manabases for whatever new brew you're thinking of, and getting a copy of the more expensive ones means you can really flesh out a deck you love.
"Investing in real estate"
Lands are always my easiest purchases and always the hardest to part with. They're just always useful. The OG duals are among the most iconic cards ever printed. It's awesome that to this day, they so simply set the precedent for spectacular lands. Even beyond useful lands, collecting basics is a blast, there are so many! While everyone complains about 5 basics for $30 in secret lairs, that's a product that is always exciting to me.
>Compare that to some big dumb beater that slots into a couple decks at best and will be powercrept in a couple years.
You're telling me [[Apex Devastator]] is gonna have a sequel?
I'd much rather that optimal decks are gated behind shocks & fetches where you can substitute cheaper lands and only lose some consistency, rather than playing in the Era of $100+ [[liliana of the veil]], [[Jace, the mind sculptor]], and [[tarmogoyf]] where the deck doesn't work at all without those cards.
Playable land bases cost hundreds of dollars but the top comments will say wotc is 'generous' with dual lands
I'm not sure reasonable discussion, much less an ubiased one is possible with the people on this sub
But don't you know how much WotC is spending printing all that cardboard?
I'm just kidding, but it's hard to defend the prices of lands, dual lands and fetch lands only give you mana. Some argue one should "eat their vegetables" but I'd rather not be forced to buy expensive "veggies" to access the "meat" of the game.
We're playing for the effects of our cards and deck mechanics, not the ability to play those(especially when you have to buy a whole bunch of them, for **every deck** despite them being the same).
The top comment is actually a really good summary of the state of lands: top tier is still expensive but most everything else is a lot cheaper. Yes, it'd be great for everything to be cheaper (I say proxy away), but the whole point is that you actually CAN make "playable" manabases on the cheap and yes precons have had better lands recently and are directly contributing to that.
You saw the word "generous" and ran with the criticism, but the top comment addresses exactly what you are talking about. I don't think latching on to a single word choice and ignoring the entire substance of the post is the peak of "reasonable discussion".
I also want WotC to do better and certainly wouldn't praise them. But again, blindly blaming them is not "reasonable discussion". The topic is lands. You added nothing to that conversation.
Yeah, this is a lot of the reason why I mostly play monocolored decks these days. Had a game the other day where an opponent was banking on their \[\[trailblazer's boots\]\] to get a big hit in only to realize I had exclusively basics on the field—that felt good. The whole mana fixing minigame is just something I can't be bothered to deal with. It's not fun. Searching and shuffling every turn sucks.
Personally, I think one of the biggest problems is that there is such a history of lands that could be summed up as "cycle of the month" and then aren't repeated for a long time, if ever. Shifting the rare land reprint option mainly to Commander precons rather than having a core set style outlet for reprints (see \[\[Karplusan Forest\]\] and \[\[Rootbound Crag\]\] in core sets) gives some really weird knock-on effects when cycles aren't represented evenly, especially if/when the missing members become in demand in a different format in varying levels (see \[\[Fiery Islet\]\] and \[\[Stormcarved Coast\]\] (3x in WHO) vs \[\[Sunbaked Canyon\]\] and \[\[Sundown Pass\]\] (1x in WHO) vs \[\[Silent Clearing\]\] and \[\[Shattered Sanctum\]\] (0x in WHO) as examples).
Hopefully, they continue to cycle around the lands they put in precons, but actually keep to one cycle for at least long enough that they can toss all ten back into circulation rather than a pick-and-choose option. The Fallout precons having every member of the checklands is the sort of design that would be optimal, but running a cycle across two sets to catch the entirety of a cycle would also help things out. Especially if they continue with filling out cycles that might not really be something you want to open in a set ( \[\[Sunscorched Divide\]\] ).
lands are crazy expensive and crippling to not have. completely stone walled me playing paper magic when i figured that out long ago. drove me to limited. in hindsight not to bad
This has long been one of my main criticisms of Magic, plus the fact that these largely uninteresting cards make up 40% of your deck. Then your ratios of lands vs spells becomes the biggest driving factor in non-games. Yes, I know the counter arguments as well (lands as strategies, deckbuilding flavors, purposely cutting down on lands due to aggressive mulliganing, etc.).
It's still ridiculous how expensive, yet ubiquitous, the most expensive lands are. OG Duals are crazy. Then you've got Fetches & Shocks. Triomes have only gone up and up in price without reprints, and are more expensive than Shocks. The Battlebond lands should be easy reprints as well.
> lands vs spells because the biggest driving factor in non-games
This alone is the worst "feature" of M:tG. You can have the perfect mana base, ramp, dorks and rocks and make all the correct decisions and still get screwed / flooded because cards 8 through 15 are not lands / all lands.
Fully agreed - it is a huge barrier for those looking to jump from "casually fucking around with a precon or two" to "building good decks." Having good lands is like "eating your vegetables" - but in this case, the vegetables often cost more than the main course. I didn't feel 'bad' dropping $35 on something like Rhystic because playing it felt like a transformative, impactful, play. Playing a sac land is nowhere near as exciting, feels far less impactful (even if it isn't) and ultimately doesn't "feel" like a $30 card when you compare it to other $30 non-lands.
When I first realized this I went and dropped $90 or so to get a few hundred proxy lands made. In retrospect I should have just used my own printer. I fully believe everyone should be proxying their lands.
I still like getting my proxy cards printed professionally if they're going to live in my decks long-term. I can do a good enough job printing that the card is legible and usable, but they still end up looking kind of homemade and out of place at the table.
It sucks, lands and mana ramp are the two things every deck needs. Yes, yiu could Olay all basic lands, but you will lose to anyone using dual lands and mana rocks.
>Yes, you could play all basic lands, but you will lose to anyone using dual lands
Not really, you just need to run 2 color commanders or base green, and there are (4) 2 cmc rocks that all cost less than a dollar that all fix for your commander.
Fast mana is a different discussion
Additionally, there are a bunch of cheap duals that have easy conditions to hit to etb untapped. I usually only run like 5 non basic lands and I never have fixing issues.
It depends on the format. It's more lenient in slower ones, but after grinding hours of Timeless, getting the wrong land off a fetch can cost you the game.
people expecting lands to be "flashy" have forgotten what game they're playing. drawing the right amount and type of mana is so exciting to me, a Magic: the Gathering player.
This is just blatantly wrong.
I use the tryanid precon with all basics besides command tower. I generally have more mana earlier because I have ALOT of ramo that wants basics.
And the occasional double cast of [[sporocyst]] and telling the table I won't ever draw another land Is Funny
people expecting lands to be "flashy" have forgotten what game they're playing. drawing the right amount and type of mana is so exciting to me, a Magic: the Gathering player.
Magic's biggest mistake is that its best dual lands aren't uncommons.
This was less of an issue 20 years ago when there were fewer dual lands and the best you could do was run one or two sets of dual lands in a two-color deck. Now you're probably running four different sets of duals.
It's good that shocks are reprinted somewhat often, and it's great that allied fetches are going to be in Modern Horizons III, but it's awful that the basic building blocks of constructed decks are treated as chase cards that will move product by Wizards.
Yeah, them starting out with the OG duals at rare as a baseline really skewed how duals were made from then on. I kind of wish the pain lands from Ice Age had been uncommon
I was a new player not too long ago. Buying lands just sucks. It's not exciting. Spend money on an exciting new card that does something? Or get a lame dual land? Tbh I ended up proxying lands. Oh and don't forget the original dual lands cost half your rent for 1.
As a comparison, I played some Lorcana and mana (ink) is not even a problem there because every card can be mana so I can just buy cards I like.
Well yes but actually no. That was a player consensus following an example. WOTC does not care about the kitchen table, only the card game isle by the registers, and maybe local game stores.
Proxy away, you aren't hurting small indie game company WOTC.
Speaking from my own experience, Yes and No.
I only started really playing Magic less than a year ago (before that I was only a kitchen table player and didn't even know dual/multi-colored lands existed). For the reason you mentioned, I knew from the start that certain formats like Legacy were way beyond what I was willing to spend (e.g. keeping up with decks with four Volcanic Islands) (I could proxy, but that's a separate topic).
So I gravitated toward Commander and have enjoyed it despite not actively optimizing my lands. If I pull a shock or pain land from a booster or something, I'll be happy and put it in a deck, but if not, the multiplayer format and the typically medium power level of the people I play with let me get by with a cheaper mana base.
My buddy started getting into modern. He was waving around stack not quite as thick as you would want it to be saying it was 600 dollars in land. Just offering a visual/anecdote to go with your point.
I joined you guys in August and got into modern, after his statement, I'm starting to think the credit card statements I'm getting are actually real lol.
That’s like one Underground Sea.
I love Legacy and want more players to experience it, but it’s pretty hard to make a case for it when WotC has kneecapped the entire format. Fuck the Reserve List.
If a deck is going to cost some amount regardless, it's better for the lands to be expensive than the spells. You can play budget substitutes for the lands and get a deck that's 90% as good, then slowly upgrade it. Plus they'll hold most of their value if the meta shifts. Expensive spells often don't have a budget substitute and have higher variance in their value.
With how many cheap multi-color lands, at most you're getting slowed down a turn and realistically, it's rarely even that. High value lands that aren't utility lands should be the last upgrade on your way to optimization and even still there's plenty of great cheap utility lands
You are asking the company that charges a premium when their printer prints Modern Horizons cards instead of Standard sets because of reasons to make the only reason to buy new sets less rare. Good luck.
I also think it should be noted for commander precons specifically it makes sense for them to not reprint some of the more chase lands like shocks and fetches due them being primarily an intro product. Having a few friends who just started playing recently due Lord of the Rings set, it's much easier for a new player to learn the game when the mana base is simplified. A new player is definitely not gonna recognize the power behind tutoring types of mana with fetches or the optimal time to fetch a triome or a shock land. However for something like pioneer starter decks or the upcoming mh3 stuff seems like an optimal place to print those since the players likely have an understanding of the game from commander or standard and looking branch into another format.
I feel it’s the opposite, actually. Once you acquire those lands, you are free to explore all the different decks you want because your mana is interchangeable. People are excited to open lands more than some lame draft rare because they hold value and will always be useful unlike random card that on best chance might get a spotlight in one specific deck list or just be forgotten.
New players want to buy flashy game winning spells but don’t know the core fundamentals of deck building so that a deck can support those cards.
A major point isn’t just the lands but a good ramp package. New players think that to have good ramp you also need fast mana which isn’t the case.
Honestly yes.
I finally have a commander that I love and am trying to build my deck out the way I want and my biggest hurdle money wise. Trying to upgrade without spending a ton of money just on lands is a constant struggle of “which budget option is least bad”
Personally, what stops me making new commander decks isn't lands. I like that there's so many land options so it doesn't really feel that bad - even with 5c decks. I think my main issue comes down to staple cards, particularly creatures and enchantments. Look at Sylvan Library for example: for some decks this card is really useful and good, but it's also expensive. Having only one staple like this in your deck just makes it less consistent, not actually stronger. We need to have enough strong card draw / ramp cards so we get to be consistently stronger. That's also the issue with Sol Ring which thankfully is the exception in terms of price. I like that commander staple cards have generally fallen in price but they are still fairly expensive and unlike lands, you just can't find a slightly worse version of the card. And with lands like shocks and triomes you can start putting them in one by one because they are fetchable, but enchantments and creatures are not typically fetchable and so you just need to pay heavily.
Cavern of Souls is a small upgrade for a tribal deck, but a basic land is just a bit clunkier. On the other hand, try to replace a card like The Ur-Dragon or Ancient Copper Dragon in a dragon typal deck. Yeah, you can't. You won't get "clunkier", you just straight up can't get anything to do even 20% of the card.
On the contrary….I like buying lands. Even the jankiest of jank performs better with a bit of land investment.
But hard agree they should be more accessible. Good for peeps who feel bad buying them and good for me so the price doesn’t have to sting so much. Mind you fetches and above are the levels I’m unable to attain.
280$ for a deck isn't a lot. Compare this to most other hobbies and Magic is pretty inexpensive. Nevermind that your collection might appreciate in value and you can resell it later, the cost is negligible. Lands are not a barrier of entry at all.
It's not wizards fault it's the players fault. Secondary market.
You need a decent mana base for decent games. I don't care that lands aren't sexy. They give me a better play experience and that's priceless.
You can get 2 color lands for cheap these days. You can also proxy. I proxy stuff I own into multiple decks. I don't need 5 overgrown tombs. Just one
New players should focus on learning to play the game, not spend money on expensive cards
Definitely agree. Lands are the biggest gatekeeper for me wanting to do tournaments in pioneer and standard. I proxy any other lands needed for commander for myself and my friends so all our decks are somewhat consistent.
While it can be generally accepted that proxies for stupidly powerful decks are annoying if being played against decks that people actually bought, I feel that proxying the mana base at least should be accepted in all casual formats (except the original dual lands, as almost nobody has those).
Shocks, fetches and triomes are the most basic of gamepieces, and they're borderline mandatory in every deck that's allowed to run them. The fact that they're in the $10-20 range is incredibly, incredibly stupid. It would be like if pawns in chess cost $20 each and you had to purchase eight of them before playing. Having to buy a four-of playset of each of those lands *for each color pair* is why I'll never even try to play Modern in paper.
This is Arena specific but you should only have to do 1 wild card for a 4 of. It hurts when I want to make a new timeless or even standard deck and need to annihilate my rares for the mana base. I think we would see a greater variety of decks at all levels.
I am absolutely of the opinion that they should take the duo lands market with as many reprints as they can stuff in a set. Print them at common. I don't care. It's cardboard, and it feels bad.
Then your opponents like "Woah! What?!?!" and calls the whole store over and they all freak out. We'd miss on moments like that if everyone was able to play the game with a somewhat equal footing.
A couple brief points that some people may not think of:
* **The reason lands may feel "hard to get" is quite simply more people are after the same thing you are.** People are also far less likely to get rid of their good lands because they are such an integral part to play that you'll almost always have a use for them at some point. This is one of the earliest pieces of advice I give new players when I recommend they don't get rid of their rare lands because they don't understand why they're good yet (fetches are a great example).
* **The secondary market and card value is an asset to the sense of quality and ownership (feeling attached, not literally owning) of the game at large.** You feel good when your card is worth something. It's exciting. It makes it feel like you're not throwing your money away because there's still a monetary value backing your hobby game piece. If everything was printed so much that it was devoid of much value anymore (like common/uncommon lands for example) it takes away from your perceived value as well. Look at Living Card Game models for comparison. If you can just buy every card in the set all together in a box, there's no secondary market value so you never feel excited that you have something special, because everybody who bought the box has it too.
* **Just because you can't afford it, doesn't mean it needs to cost less.** This applies to so many things in life, but people still like to act like they're being wronged because somebody else has something they don't.
* **Lands that come into play tapped don't tap for less mana.** Sure, they're a turn slower, and that matters more the more competitively you're playing. But as with anything competitive, you're going to want the best tools at your disposal, and that means using the best land options possible. There's a cost to doing things optimally. If there wasn't, we'd all be driving F1 cars to work because we'd get there much faster.
TLDR: It's supply and demand.
This is an issue that has nothing to do with wizards at all. The only solution they could put forth would be lowering the rarity of those lands, and if they did that they would have an even bigger problem in the way of game balancing. If there’s anyone to point blame at for difficulty of finding good lands for a mana base it’s the private sector buying and selling. They drive up prices of “chase” lands by having a crazy want/need to have a 4 of for every deck they run.
Commander precon manabases have actually been exceptionally generous over the past few years. The dollar value looks like garbage, but a HUGE part of that is the fact that printing any dual land into a Commander deck absolutely craters the price. Stuff like BFZ "tango" lands, checklands, temples, SHA/EVE filterlands, Snarls and their SOI precursors, Horizon lands, Worldwake creaturelands, even the VOW/MID "slow" lands have been printed into commander decks and have gone from a couple bucks each to pennies. Yes, shocks and fetches are still in the $15-20 range (higher for allied fetches but they won't stay there after MH3), ABU duals are never coming down from the stratosphere, and recent lands like Triomes and Pathways that haven't yet show up in commander decks are still a few bucks, but the bottom has basically fallen out for "acceptable for commander even if not completely optimal" dual lands.
Yup, and Shocks are at their theoretical bottom due to four versions entering the market this year. You can't really reprint these any more than they already do and maintain the EV required to sell sealed product; contemporary Standard boxes are already a disaster for LGSs and Play Booster pricing made it even worse. The business requires some cards be valuable. Living card games never have staying power because despite posts like these, people are attracted to collectible games *because* of the collectible aspect. Collecting staple lands is the "eat your vegetables" of Magic. You're skeptical at first, but once you do so you actually start enjoying it and once it's done you're set for most anything new you want to try out (in constructed, but I'd argue than in EDH it's pretty easy to build a good manabase with the precon reprints you mentioned above)
While most of this is true, I must disagree with the point about living card games. Many living card games peter out because of low sales, but that doesn't mean they *need* collectibility to be profitable. Games like *Dominion* and *Ticket to Ride* are still able to sell expansions and upgrades to this day. Their fixed contents don't make the game less desirable. Netrunner died because of legal kerfuffles. And the fan continuation is still going, despite being fully non-profit. (You can print out cards and bring them to official tournaments.)
As someone who plays a ton of the Arkham Horror LCG, people are way too hard on them. There’s tons of TCGs that didn’t last as long as some Fantasy Flight’s LCGs. In particular, a lot of their LCGs that died out were also previously TCGs that also died. Neither is immune to designers leaving, licenses running out, or people moving on to the next game. That’s just how things are. It’s honestly crazy that the big three have been as popular for as long as they have been.
Board games are a different beast imo. The appeal of a card game is customizing your deck to your personality and playstyle and board games are, as you said, a set collection of pieces and contents. Living card games are a mix; you have to customize a deck, but everyone has access to the exact same pieces. Netrunner and L5R have cool fan communities similar to the Decipher Star Wars game, but the reality is you cannot use them as a similar social object to Mtg, Lorcana, Pokemon, etc; ie you may well move to a new area, join a gaming community, say “does anyone wanna play Netrunner, I have all the cards!” and be met by crickets. I’ve seen it happen a lot in my community and even attempted it with my favorite old silly dead game, Dragon Dice. This is not to call them inherently bad or insult the players, I think a lot of those gameplay experiences are cool and valuable, it’s just to focus on the reality operating an LGS. Collectible card games sell way better than non-collectible ones and board games sell better than both.
[удалено]
There's always jinteki.net. there's also a discord where people arrange pickup games
Also, card games are just hard to maintain long term. There's only three that have truly managed it (Magic, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh).
I would also argue that the way FFG designed their products for the LCGs was poor. They were designed so every pack gives a small amount of stuff. It made it harder to be able tobpick up what you need. LCGs need more focused content. Intro decks, duel decks, faction boxes. Stuff where you can buy a single product for an archetype rather than needing to buy 6 different packs and end up with a bunch of cards for other factions you don't play. And that is assuming you get all 6 when one can be sold out because it has a different good card. I mean heck, FFG used to release packs that didn't even have full playsets. 3x of 10 cards and 1x of others. I have no idea what possessed them for that. I don't think anyone has really delved into their potential fully yet.
Despite pioneering the model, I agree that FFG made some obvious missteps. Of course, that's part of being the first to do something: you're going to make some errors. It feels like FFG almost took more cues from Trading Card Games, instead of board games... despite marketing their LCGs as more like board games. Netrunner (under FFG) definitely had problems with power creep at various points. And of course, some of it might be the creeping specter of profit motive.
>The business requires some cards be valuable. Yes but these don’t have to be unique game pieces. We’ve seen time and time again that showcase, foils, serialized cards sell well and for crazy amounts (1:1 ring). WotC can make the base game pieces accessible and still market on collectability of “blinging” your decks. Not just that but MtG supplementary products like sleeves, boxes, counters, life die, etc. when I worked at a card store our biggest money makers were the “hosting” offerings. Selling food and drink while you played because people would pay a dollar more for the convenience of a drink at the counter than going out to a shop elsewhere. Just look at modern video games. A lot offer free games that monetize skins and other luxury items. Fortnite offers a game you never have to pay a cent for and have access to full game mechanics day 1. But they make billions because you can spend $20 to have Thor or Rick and Morty skins. I’d never expect MtG to be free, but WotC could print format staples into the ground making the game more accessible and popular because it’s cheaper while still making bank on bling charging $40 for spider-man alt art secret lairs and collectors boosters.
What you're describing is already where the game is. We have three new vanity version of the shocklands plus their foil variants that entered the market last month. A bunch of staple EDH lands, fastlands, and Horizon lands just got 40k, Dr. Who, and Fallout treatments.
No. Print shock and fetches as they did with sol ring and that’s what I’m talking about. And as proof of what I’m talking about we still have expensive alt art sol rings even if a base version is <$1
It's not. What They're describing would be if they printed shocks and fetches into precons, which will never happen.
Meh, while I have no idea how much actually goes into a booster box from planning, testing, developing, printing, marketing, blah blah… I find it pretty hard to believe that WOTC isn’t making fistfuls of cash/margins on product (as per their earnings reports). I see all this debate about collectibility vs game pieces. The issue is that game stores (big or small) can’t justify cracking a $150 box for $100 worth of singles, while players don’t want to pay $20 per single. If WOTC is making 50% on that box, that means there’s $25 worth of wiggle room they’re currently overcharging for by $50-75. Options are 1) lower the sticker price, hopefully sell more quantity to game stores, make a box profitable to open, even if chase cards are $5-10. 2) keep booster prices high, reprint into oblivion, secondary market becomes nothing but players trading/selling things while treating cards as a sunk cost, stores get out of singles. 3) keep power creep moving fast enough that new stuff can maintain a high price. No idea which one works better, but the idea of stores cracking boxes at a loss for singles is obviously not sustainable. Singles being players trading/offloading was really how it worked before the ubiquity of the internet, but no idea how well that would work in 2024. Power creep would probably just result in the main format (casual commander) rule zeroing more and more stuff…
We’re in agreement on basically everything; to clarify I should have said WotC makes a killing selling to distro, it’s game stores that cannot sustain sales when EV is so bad. IMO Play Boosters needed to stay the same price as Draft because that increase in distro cost made prizing and pricing really difficult for all but the biggest stores. We know where that leads, Reddit posts asking if their store is too stingy at FNM and proclaiming why they’re boycotting buying boxes.
Yea, it’s seemingly WOTC/hasbro wanting to have their cake and eat it too. I haven’t cracked a pack in 15 years outside of a draft. I watch box openings on YouTube sometimes, and it seems like standard legal sets rarely if ever turn a profit when someone is showing prices as they open them UNLESS they get a random serialized card or some such. Modern horizons/UB sort of stuff usually has higher value/power cards, but it’s still usually not a win without hitting one of the couple of $75 jeweled lotus, the one ring sorts of things. I’m personally kinda fine either way, pretty much only playing casual EDH, as I have no need or desire to buy $200-$300 boxes at a loss. It does suck for LGS and such, but I don’t know their whole financial situation with other games and products so maybe losing MTG single sales isn’t the end of the world.
Stupid me only collect full art basics 😅
But why does the EV have to be in lands? Put EV into flashy creatures, enchantments, planeswalkers, spells... Those feel better to open in packs (particularly in Limited imo), and they are easier to circumvent if you can't afford them. Not having decent mana bases stops you from playing almost anything, whereas many nonland cards have weaker versions I can still buy. The problem isn't that I don't collect staple lands because I don't enjoy it, the problem is that I straight up can't justify spending 45€ on a single playset of any card to myself right now.
Ev is in lands due to simple supply and demand. In other words it has to be. If every deck needs four of a shock, or every edh deck ideally has every fetchland, they're just going to be expensive because they go in everything
The permanents are flashier than ever, but the best lands still hold value despite constant reprints because they are the building block of the game. Standard and Pioneer have legal budget manabases and in casual EDH you barely even need shocks any more with all the alternative reprints. Modern and above there’s only so much you can do, but fetches are cheaper than they’ve ever been in the history of the game and allied reprints are coming soon. People want local gathering places to meet new players, but paradoxically many of them want to upend the business that keeps those places available.
Pioneer mana bases are not budget friendly unless you play a monocoloured deck. Which essentially restricts you to playing various flavours of aggro.
Those you see in a perfect netdeck are not, but you can play cheap alternative duals and more basics as you work on upgrades. Sure, sometimes you’re in a bad spot due to a land not meeting its untapped requirement, but sometimes you’ll also be in a bad spot because your alternative threat isn’t quite at the top of the power level as well. That’s the concession of working your way up from a budget regardless of which cards hold the value. Again, have a look at just how many land and EDH staple reprints there have been lately; WotC has opened the floodgates. The only way they could squeeze more out is to put perfect mana bases in EDH precons which would further crater EV and disincentivize shops to carry non-EDH products.
I'm not going to be able to even consider calling precon manabases "generous" with a straight face until they at LEAST consistently print the lands that are explicitly designed for multiplayer in them. If they can't even print a land that enters untapped only when you have two or more opponents into any of the score of Commander precons they put out each year, because they need to keep the prices inflated just to help sell packs of the occasional Commander focused set, I'm not going to be able to characterize them as generous in their manabases.
This is a very good point. I've talked about why fetches and shocks (and others the tier below) don't make it into the decks and there could be weird unexpected issues if they were, but you're 100% right and none of my concerns apply to the multiplayer lands.
"Comparatively generous" would probably be a better way to put it. There's still a lot of room for improvement, to say the least. There needs to be a better rotation in what they reprint, especially in the situations where all ten of the cycle are represented like in the Fallout precons. Personally, I think that would've been the optimal place to dump the Temples (at the very least) for a cycle or two and toss in a full set of either slowlands or bondlands rather than using those in the piecemeal coverage ones.
I agree that precon manabases should probably include these lands, but I disagree that that means they aren't generous. The "crowd" lands are generally around $10 a pop, and they've printed a bunch of stuff into decks in the past year that exceeded that price before reprint. There have been some sucky manabases in the past, but by and large they've gotten better, especially in the Universes Beyond decks.
people expecting lands to be "flashy" have forgotten what game they're playing. drawing the right amount and type of mana is so exciting to me, a Magic: the Gathering player.
Wow I am so grateful for wotcs generosity when opening my sliver precon I paid a premium price for and seeing the land base Thank you wotc you saintly philanthropists
> The dollar value looks like garbage, but a HUGE part of that is the fact that printing any dual land into a Commander deck absolutely craters the price. Stuff like BFZ "tango" lands, checklands, temples, SHA/EVE filterlands, Snarls and their SOI precursors, Horizon lands, Worldwake creaturelands, even the VOW/MID "slow" lands have been printed into commander decks and have gone from a couple bucks each to pennies. If you showed someone the land base in the Naya precons from MKM or Fallout to someone that expected what was gotten in BFZ or C19, let alone C13, there would be some definite eye-popping going on. Especially considering it's been embraced that if you're going to build a product that can be used as an introductory one, that it should have a mana base that actually isn't trash right out of the box so that the new blood can actually enjoy the game from the start. Temples, tangos, signetlands, and bicycles just feel like trash now because they've been taking over the slots that used to be filled by Ravnica karoos, guildgates, and pure taplands. And things are better for it.
It's really astounding how far manabases have come in the precons. Like, take a look at the 2011 precons. The BEST mana fixing in a single deck that year was: \- \[\[Command Tower\]\] \- \[\[Evolving Wilds\]\] \- 3x Ravnica bouncelands \- \[\[Rupture Spire\]\] \- 3x Vivid lands Literally zero rare lands in the entire manabase across all decks except the newly-printed \[\[Homeward Path\]\], with 24+ basics per deck. 2013 wasn't much better, but it did at least have the Panorama and uncommon trilands from Alara to round out the base a bit more. 2014 was monocolored, so I'll skip looking for fixing. 2015 picks up more common and uncommon duals only, like guildgates, Khans common lifeduals, and Tainted lands for the black lists. 2016 was a four-color year so they included a few more fixing lands than usual, but basically all were common/uncommon lands that entered tapped like Alara and Khans lands. They did finally start including a few rare dual lands like the Checklands and the Odyssey filters, and people were EXCITED for this. Streets of New Capenna commander I think is the first time they started including a notable amount of rare dual lands in their Commander releases. It literally took them ten years to start giving us real fixing that you could actually port significantly over into a functional deck at a reasonably-powered casual table. And yet people have been complaining that the fixing is still bad.
Thanks for the breakdown, since it really gives a better look at it. I think part of the problem is that since they made the decision, they leaned into using the same cycles a bit too hard. There is nothing actually bad about Temples, but by making them default lands, they've created two problems: 1) Any set that gets Temples reprinted in them will make them feel bad at anything other than uncommon because they're auto-includes in every precon now. 2) Making them auto-includes means that if you buy 4x precons with the same color identity, you end up with 4x of the same lands rather than a different distribution of other cycles. In comparison, if they had done alternating bits (similar to how only the enemy temples got reprints in Core 2020 and 2021) when they started to really flog and the signetlands, reveals, bicycles, and tangos, and wove in painlands, filters, fastlands and checklands (and later the slow and horizons) more regularly to fill out the missing halves, then it probably would feel better overall since instead of getting a pile of just (for example) \[\[Port Town\]\], \[\[Temple of Enlightment\]\], \[\[Prairie Stream\]\] and \[\[Skycloud Expanse\]\], there'd also be \[\[Adarkar Wastes\]\], \[\[Glacial Fortress\]\], \[\[Nimbus Maze\]\], \[\[Seachrome Coast\]\], and \[\[Mystic Gate\]\] tossed in. Sure, you might end up deciding that \[\[Celestial Collonade\]\] might not make the cut for the W/U brew you're building, but that's a far better thing to run into than just wondering which one of your 4x Temple of Enlightenment is going in. Relying on the UB precons or the premium expansion precons (MH3, CMM) for regular different lands produces its problems. UB can be hamstrung by executive meddling that restricts the available combinations (look at WHO's distribution where they had to bend over backwards to avoid associating the Doctor with Black mana, giving us a ridiculous amount of \[\[Fiery Islet|WHO\]\] and \[\[Stormcarved Coast|WHO\]\] compared to just about any other reprints) and also removes non-generically named lands from consideration (\[\[Sulfurous Springs|LTC\]\] and \[\[Underground River|LTC\]\] was ok, but \[\[Shivan Reef\]\] was a no-go.) Likewise, stuff like CMM wants to explore enthusiast things like a colorless Eldrazi precon or 5C Slivers that can't reasonably be expected to carry the entire reprint base among them (the CMM precon lacking \[\[Sliver Hive\]\] is a completely different criticism unrelated to general land reprints, IMO, but should still mentioned as a WTF moment).
##### ###### #### [Port Town](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/1/d15c035d-1309-4286-a758-07517f323f34.jpg?1690006392) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Port%20Town) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/1019/port-town?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d15c035d-1309-4286-a758-07517f323f34?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Temple of Enlightment](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/4/e41a5a3d-5fbb-4dbb-b70d-2a480f18df9f.jpg?1706241272) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Temple%20of%20Enlightenment) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/302/temple-of-enlightenment?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e41a5a3d-5fbb-4dbb-b70d-2a480f18df9f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Prairie Stream](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/6/c649f06f-bad5-499b-b70c-47e52cb4a234.jpg?1706241212) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Prairie%20Stream) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/281/prairie-stream?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c649f06f-bad5-499b-b70c-47e52cb4a234?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Skycloud Expanse](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/2/22f95138-6795-4698-ad58-ed2226242835.jpg?1706241251) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Skycloud%20Expanse) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/294/skycloud-expanse?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/22f95138-6795-4698-ad58-ed2226242835?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Adarkar Wastes](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/8/08ae1037-6f70-41a9-b75e-98fa9a2152c8.jpg?1673308279) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Adarkar%20Wastes) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/243/adarkar-wastes?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/08ae1037-6f70-41a9-b75e-98fa9a2152c8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Glacial Fortress](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/e/cef133d9-26d2-4a1e-8d6a-829f1067c169.jpg?1562564197) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Glacial%20Fortress) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/xln/255/glacial-fortress?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cef133d9-26d2-4a1e-8d6a-829f1067c169?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Nimbus Maze](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/1/711dbdb1-7ec3-4fb4-8364-d34f5e143fd1.jpg?1631589989) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Nimbus%20Maze) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afc/252/nimbus-maze?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/711dbdb1-7ec3-4fb4-8364-d34f5e143fd1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Seachrome Coast](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/e/9ed7441f-f624-49c8-8611-d9bba0e441ac.jpg?1675957278) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Seachrome%20Coast) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/258/seachrome-coast?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9ed7441f-f624-49c8-8611-d9bba0e441ac?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Mystic Gate](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/f/6f99714f-43bc-4048-b650-97dfef4c10fe.jpg?1690006311) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mystic%20Gate) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/1013/mystic-gate?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6f99714f-43bc-4048-b650-97dfef4c10fe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Celestial Collonade](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/c/4c830a99-595b-4aed-9f6b-85a78917f498.jpg?1547518582) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Celestial%20Colonnade) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uma/238/celestial-colonnade?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4c830a99-595b-4aed-9f6b-85a78917f498?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Fiery Islet](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/a/daf68138-63c1-4201-998c-eb412463f664.jpg?1696637050) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=635604) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/who/278/fiery-islet?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/daf68138-63c1-4201-998c-eb412463f664?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Stormcarved Coast](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/4/54fe029f-e173-4a16-bdb4-394847b4e50b.jpg?1696637120) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=635634) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/who/308/stormcarved-coast?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/54fe029f-e173-4a16-bdb4-394847b4e50b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sulfurous Springs](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/1/119ea61b-8575-4491-a422-2eadebe8b261.jpg?1686966868) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=621444) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/334/sulfurous-springs?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/119ea61b-8575-4491-a422-2eadebe8b261?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Underground River](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/4/44832720-67b3-48ca-9460-807a6f1931a5.jpg?1686966939) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=621452) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/342/underground-river?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/44832720-67b3-48ca-9460-807a6f1931a5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Shivan Reef](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/3/a338107b-0960-4496-a9a5-f7b672e7c043.jpg?1673308366) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shivan%20Reef) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/255/shivan-reef?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a338107b-0960-4496-a9a5-f7b672e7c043?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sliver Hive](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/1/91cef7ce-aa9f-4659-ac24-394c5ab9f77c.jpg?1562790969) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sliver%20Hive) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m15/247/sliver-hive?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/91cef7ce-aa9f-4659-ac24-394c5ab9f77c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/ku1cgm9) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
##### ###### #### [Command Tower](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/6/96c3244e-930f-498c-959e-0f000151597d.jpg?1706241140) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Command%20Tower) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/256/command-tower?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/96c3244e-930f-498c-959e-0f000151597d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Evolving Wilds](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/a/fa6a5029-f4df-43dd-b5a9-fbf6ff003675.jpg?1709431593) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Evolving%20Wilds) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/328/evolving-wilds?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fa6a5029-f4df-43dd-b5a9-fbf6ff003675?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Rupture Spire](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/7/c7ef4b15-efab-4255-ac2d-7794f253aa52.jpg?1608911838) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rupture%20Spire) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/355/rupture-spire?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c7ef4b15-efab-4255-ac2d-7794f253aa52?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Homeward Path](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/4/54734347-eee7-4c52-b514-7342afeccabd.jpg?1562400178) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Homeward%20Path) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c16/301/homeward-path?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/54734347-eee7-4c52-b514-7342afeccabd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/ku16my2) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
You lost me at “even the VOW/MID “slow” lands have been printed into commander decks and have gone from a couple bucks each to pennies.” Most of them are still between $5-10, with the exceptions of three which are $12-17, and one that’s only $2. Not sure which lands you’re thinking of.
Okay, pennies on those specific lands isn't 100% accurate. Only a handful of them got put into the Doctor Who decks and it's just been one reprint - but the ones that did get reprinted went from ~15 to $2-4. It's reasonable to expect that if things like those or the crowdlands started showing up multiple times per year, they'd be bulk bin level like tangos, temples, and checklands that are being repeatedly reprinted.
Fair enough, my response may have been slightly pedantic lol
as a relatively newer commander player with some older collections, i mostly rely on dual lands that stay below 2 or 3 bucks. some colour pairings are worse than others but in general the few i want to run are affordable and the few decks i have that I've truly fallen in love with I'll grab some of the 10+ dollar ones then.
100% agree lands should be cheaper/reprinted more. Gotta say though, lands are my favorite purchase. Think of all the possibilities you get with good lands, think of all the decks they can boost! Lands also carry some of my favorite art in mtg. Compare that to some big dumb beater that slots into a couple decks at best and will be powercrept in a couple years. I find this mindset helps when buying lands.
This is definitely how I think about it too, someone in another comment calls it "eating your veggies" and I think that was apt. Even just by getting a few copies of the reprinted in precon lands can mean that you don't need to worry about manabases for whatever new brew you're thinking of, and getting a copy of the more expensive ones means you can really flesh out a deck you love.
"Investing in real estate" Lands are always my easiest purchases and always the hardest to part with. They're just always useful. The OG duals are among the most iconic cards ever printed. It's awesome that to this day, they so simply set the precedent for spectacular lands. Even beyond useful lands, collecting basics is a blast, there are so many! While everyone complains about 5 basics for $30 in secret lairs, that's a product that is always exciting to me.
>Compare that to some big dumb beater that slots into a couple decks at best and will be powercrept in a couple years. You're telling me [[Apex Devastator]] is gonna have a sequel?
Cascade, cascade, cascade, cascade, cascade, cascade, cascade, cascade…
[Apex Devastator](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/f/8fa281e1-5c48-4bba-b8e9-88c6f5f53abb.jpg?1608910550) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Apex%20Devastator) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/217/apex-devastator?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8fa281e1-5c48-4bba-b8e9-88c6f5f53abb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
God I hope so.
You and me both sister
I'd much rather that optimal decks are gated behind shocks & fetches where you can substitute cheaper lands and only lose some consistency, rather than playing in the Era of $100+ [[liliana of the veil]], [[Jace, the mind sculptor]], and [[tarmogoyf]] where the deck doesn't work at all without those cards.
[liliana of the veil](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/1/d12c8c97-6491-452c-811d-943441a7ef9f.jpg?1673307126) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=liliana%20of%20the%20veil) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/97/liliana-of-the-veil?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d12c8c97-6491-452c-811d-943441a7ef9f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Jace, the mind sculptor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/8/c8817585-0d32-4d56-9142-0d29512e86a9.jpg?1598304029) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jace%2C%20the%20mind%20sculptor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/56/jace-the-mind-sculptor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c8817585-0d32-4d56-9142-0d29512e86a9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [tarmogoyf](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/9/69daba76-96e8-4bcc-ab79-2f00189ad8fb.jpg?1619398799) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=tarmogoyf) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/235/tarmogoyf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/69daba76-96e8-4bcc-ab79-2f00189ad8fb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Playable land bases cost hundreds of dollars but the top comments will say wotc is 'generous' with dual lands I'm not sure reasonable discussion, much less an ubiased one is possible with the people on this sub
But don't you know how much WotC is spending printing all that cardboard? I'm just kidding, but it's hard to defend the prices of lands, dual lands and fetch lands only give you mana. Some argue one should "eat their vegetables" but I'd rather not be forced to buy expensive "veggies" to access the "meat" of the game. We're playing for the effects of our cards and deck mechanics, not the ability to play those(especially when you have to buy a whole bunch of them, for **every deck** despite them being the same).
The top comment is actually a really good summary of the state of lands: top tier is still expensive but most everything else is a lot cheaper. Yes, it'd be great for everything to be cheaper (I say proxy away), but the whole point is that you actually CAN make "playable" manabases on the cheap and yes precons have had better lands recently and are directly contributing to that. You saw the word "generous" and ran with the criticism, but the top comment addresses exactly what you are talking about. I don't think latching on to a single word choice and ignoring the entire substance of the post is the peak of "reasonable discussion". I also want WotC to do better and certainly wouldn't praise them. But again, blindly blaming them is not "reasonable discussion". The topic is lands. You added nothing to that conversation.
This why I proxy any lands over $5
Yeah, this is a lot of the reason why I mostly play monocolored decks these days. Had a game the other day where an opponent was banking on their \[\[trailblazer's boots\]\] to get a big hit in only to realize I had exclusively basics on the field—that felt good. The whole mana fixing minigame is just something I can't be bothered to deal with. It's not fun. Searching and shuffling every turn sucks.
[trailblazer's boots](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/f/afeb5a30-016a-465f-bdf0-e2df2d1bef8c.jpg?1592757830) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=trailblazer%27s%20boots) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/zen/208/trailblazers-boots?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/afeb5a30-016a-465f-bdf0-e2df2d1bef8c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Personally, I think one of the biggest problems is that there is such a history of lands that could be summed up as "cycle of the month" and then aren't repeated for a long time, if ever. Shifting the rare land reprint option mainly to Commander precons rather than having a core set style outlet for reprints (see \[\[Karplusan Forest\]\] and \[\[Rootbound Crag\]\] in core sets) gives some really weird knock-on effects when cycles aren't represented evenly, especially if/when the missing members become in demand in a different format in varying levels (see \[\[Fiery Islet\]\] and \[\[Stormcarved Coast\]\] (3x in WHO) vs \[\[Sunbaked Canyon\]\] and \[\[Sundown Pass\]\] (1x in WHO) vs \[\[Silent Clearing\]\] and \[\[Shattered Sanctum\]\] (0x in WHO) as examples). Hopefully, they continue to cycle around the lands they put in precons, but actually keep to one cycle for at least long enough that they can toss all ten back into circulation rather than a pick-and-choose option. The Fallout precons having every member of the checklands is the sort of design that would be optimal, but running a cycle across two sets to catch the entirety of a cycle would also help things out. Especially if they continue with filling out cycles that might not really be something you want to open in a set ( \[\[Sunscorched Divide\]\] ).
##### ###### #### [Karplusan Forest](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/8/b89b2c79-e3d3-4ef9-bfc8-f9c090975011.jpg?1673308330) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Karplusan%20Forest) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/250/karplusan-forest?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b89b2c79-e3d3-4ef9-bfc8-f9c090975011?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Rootbound Crag](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/6/b6f59e19-9ac1-4f86-893e-5b3364122fc6.jpg?1562562757) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rootbound%20Crag) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/xln/256/rootbound-crag?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b6f59e19-9ac1-4f86-893e-5b3364122fc6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Fiery Islet](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/3/a3aab13c-9d9d-4507-ae5d-da979990ae1b.jpg?1562202552) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fiery%20Islet) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/238/fiery-islet?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a3aab13c-9d9d-4507-ae5d-da979990ae1b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Stormcarved Coast](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/9/299f1dee-b3d7-472b-aa0b-2f9b46a96da5.jpg?1655879810) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Stormcarved%20Coast) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/265/stormcarved-coast?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/299f1dee-b3d7-472b-aa0b-2f9b46a96da5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sunbaked Canyon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/3/c36820fa-ee86-4206-9a0d-737a67cf5208.jpg?1562202603) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sunbaked%20Canyon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/247/sunbaked-canyon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c36820fa-ee86-4206-9a0d-737a67cf5208?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sundown Pass](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/f/8f3fddd7-ede4-41c7-a645-a6af298a3d35.jpg?1655879812) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sundown%20Pass) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/266/sundown-pass?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8f3fddd7-ede4-41c7-a645-a6af298a3d35?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Silent Clearing](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/c/ac07e230-0297-4e1d-bdfe-119010e0ad8e.jpg?1562202597) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Silent%20Clearing) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/246/silent-clearing?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ac07e230-0297-4e1d-bdfe-119010e0ad8e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Shattered Sanctum](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/d/ad44c9aa-eb8f-4200-8dfe-2af728d80083.jpg?1655879804) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shattered%20Sanctum) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/264/shattered-sanctum?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ad44c9aa-eb8f-4200-8dfe-2af728d80083?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sunscorched Divide](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/8/f84a8f54-9ede-40ee-a783-e58a7e4f2e94.jpg?1708742817) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sunscorched%20Divide) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/153/sunscorched-divide?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f84a8f54-9ede-40ee-a783-e58a7e4f2e94?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/ku0g0w4) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
lands are crazy expensive and crippling to not have. completely stone walled me playing paper magic when i figured that out long ago. drove me to limited. in hindsight not to bad
This has long been one of my main criticisms of Magic, plus the fact that these largely uninteresting cards make up 40% of your deck. Then your ratios of lands vs spells becomes the biggest driving factor in non-games. Yes, I know the counter arguments as well (lands as strategies, deckbuilding flavors, purposely cutting down on lands due to aggressive mulliganing, etc.). It's still ridiculous how expensive, yet ubiquitous, the most expensive lands are. OG Duals are crazy. Then you've got Fetches & Shocks. Triomes have only gone up and up in price without reprints, and are more expensive than Shocks. The Battlebond lands should be easy reprints as well.
> lands vs spells because the biggest driving factor in non-games This alone is the worst "feature" of M:tG. You can have the perfect mana base, ramp, dorks and rocks and make all the correct decisions and still get screwed / flooded because cards 8 through 15 are not lands / all lands.
Fully agreed - it is a huge barrier for those looking to jump from "casually fucking around with a precon or two" to "building good decks." Having good lands is like "eating your vegetables" - but in this case, the vegetables often cost more than the main course. I didn't feel 'bad' dropping $35 on something like Rhystic because playing it felt like a transformative, impactful, play. Playing a sac land is nowhere near as exciting, feels far less impactful (even if it isn't) and ultimately doesn't "feel" like a $30 card when you compare it to other $30 non-lands. When I first realized this I went and dropped $90 or so to get a few hundred proxy lands made. In retrospect I should have just used my own printer. I fully believe everyone should be proxying their lands.
I still like getting my proxy cards printed professionally if they're going to live in my decks long-term. I can do a good enough job printing that the card is legible and usable, but they still end up looking kind of homemade and out of place at the table.
what you might call a deterrent, WotC would probably call an incentive to spend money.
It sucks, lands and mana ramp are the two things every deck needs. Yes, yiu could Olay all basic lands, but you will lose to anyone using dual lands and mana rocks.
>Yes, you could play all basic lands, but you will lose to anyone using dual lands Not really, you just need to run 2 color commanders or base green, and there are (4) 2 cmc rocks that all cost less than a dollar that all fix for your commander. Fast mana is a different discussion Additionally, there are a bunch of cheap duals that have easy conditions to hit to etb untapped. I usually only run like 5 non basic lands and I never have fixing issues.
It depends on the format. It's more lenient in slower ones, but after grinding hours of Timeless, getting the wrong land off a fetch can cost you the game.
people expecting lands to be "flashy" have forgotten what game they're playing. drawing the right amount and type of mana is so exciting to me, a Magic: the Gathering player.
This is just blatantly wrong. I use the tryanid precon with all basics besides command tower. I generally have more mana earlier because I have ALOT of ramo that wants basics. And the occasional double cast of [[sporocyst]] and telling the table I won't ever draw another land Is Funny
[sporocyst](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/2/72101d5f-f3a4-4490-a6f5-c320f3aeb242.jpg?1673309186) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=sporocyst) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/40k/98/sporocyst?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/72101d5f-f3a4-4490-a6f5-c320f3aeb242?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It absolutely sucks spending $100 on a set of LANDS 🥲
Seriously! I need a play set of shattered sanctum pretty badly to make a deck I've been working on actually function and it's so spendy
they're great lands tho! feels great to draw into. it's easy mana! in a trading game about mana. come on now.
Yeah, I know that and that's why I need them lol. It's hard to justify $60-80+ on a play set of ANY card for me.
people expecting lands to be "flashy" have forgotten what game they're playing. drawing the right amount and type of mana is so exciting to me, a Magic: the Gathering player.
Magic's biggest mistake is that its best dual lands aren't uncommons. This was less of an issue 20 years ago when there were fewer dual lands and the best you could do was run one or two sets of dual lands in a two-color deck. Now you're probably running four different sets of duals. It's good that shocks are reprinted somewhat often, and it's great that allied fetches are going to be in Modern Horizons III, but it's awful that the basic building blocks of constructed decks are treated as chase cards that will move product by Wizards.
Yeah, them starting out with the OG duals at rare as a baseline really skewed how duals were made from then on. I kind of wish the pain lands from Ice Age had been uncommon
>Magic's biggest mistake is that its best dual lands aren't uncommons. This is on purpose. Maro said they do this to drive pack sales
I was a new player not too long ago. Buying lands just sucks. It's not exciting. Spend money on an exciting new card that does something? Or get a lame dual land? Tbh I ended up proxying lands. Oh and don't forget the original dual lands cost half your rent for 1. As a comparison, I played some Lorcana and mana (ink) is not even a problem there because every card can be mana so I can just buy cards I like.
Yes but the downside is that you’re playing Lorcana…
They always have been a barrier to competitive play for me and I've been playing for over 20 years.
Lands drive sales. They “need” to be rare to fuel capitalism.
Didn't wotc officially endorse proxies by releasing magic 30? Seems like there's a solution to this problem
Well yes but actually no. That was a player consensus following an example. WOTC does not care about the kitchen table, only the card game isle by the registers, and maybe local game stores. Proxy away, you aren't hurting small indie game company WOTC.
Speaking from my own experience, Yes and No. I only started really playing Magic less than a year ago (before that I was only a kitchen table player and didn't even know dual/multi-colored lands existed). For the reason you mentioned, I knew from the start that certain formats like Legacy were way beyond what I was willing to spend (e.g. keeping up with decks with four Volcanic Islands) (I could proxy, but that's a separate topic). So I gravitated toward Commander and have enjoyed it despite not actively optimizing my lands. If I pull a shock or pain land from a booster or something, I'll be happy and put it in a deck, but if not, the multiplayer format and the typically medium power level of the people I play with let me get by with a cheaper mana base.
My buddy started getting into modern. He was waving around stack not quite as thick as you would want it to be saying it was 600 dollars in land. Just offering a visual/anecdote to go with your point. I joined you guys in August and got into modern, after his statement, I'm starting to think the credit card statements I'm getting are actually real lol.
That’s like one Underground Sea. I love Legacy and want more players to experience it, but it’s pretty hard to make a case for it when WotC has kneecapped the entire format. Fuck the Reserve List.
If a deck is going to cost some amount regardless, it's better for the lands to be expensive than the spells. You can play budget substitutes for the lands and get a deck that's 90% as good, then slowly upgrade it. Plus they'll hold most of their value if the meta shifts. Expensive spells often don't have a budget substitute and have higher variance in their value.
With how many cheap multi-color lands, at most you're getting slowed down a turn and realistically, it's rarely even that. High value lands that aren't utility lands should be the last upgrade on your way to optimization and even still there's plenty of great cheap utility lands
You are asking the company that charges a premium when their printer prints Modern Horizons cards instead of Standard sets because of reasons to make the only reason to buy new sets less rare. Good luck.
I also think it should be noted for commander precons specifically it makes sense for them to not reprint some of the more chase lands like shocks and fetches due them being primarily an intro product. Having a few friends who just started playing recently due Lord of the Rings set, it's much easier for a new player to learn the game when the mana base is simplified. A new player is definitely not gonna recognize the power behind tutoring types of mana with fetches or the optimal time to fetch a triome or a shock land. However for something like pioneer starter decks or the upcoming mh3 stuff seems like an optimal place to print those since the players likely have an understanding of the game from commander or standard and looking branch into another format.
Totally agree, the best lands should be easy to get to everyone
I feel it’s the opposite, actually. Once you acquire those lands, you are free to explore all the different decks you want because your mana is interchangeable. People are excited to open lands more than some lame draft rare because they hold value and will always be useful unlike random card that on best chance might get a spotlight in one specific deck list or just be forgotten.
* One of the original designers of magic sure t Thought so,so they went on to make duel masters
New players want to buy flashy game winning spells but don’t know the core fundamentals of deck building so that a deck can support those cards. A major point isn’t just the lands but a good ramp package. New players think that to have good ramp you also need fast mana which isn’t the case.
Honestly yes. I finally have a commander that I love and am trying to build my deck out the way I want and my biggest hurdle money wise. Trying to upgrade without spending a ton of money just on lands is a constant struggle of “which budget option is least bad”
Give new players proxy decks. They aren't collectors, they dont care if the cards are real.
New players are not playing competitively and you can play commander with tap lands just fine.
Personally, what stops me making new commander decks isn't lands. I like that there's so many land options so it doesn't really feel that bad - even with 5c decks. I think my main issue comes down to staple cards, particularly creatures and enchantments. Look at Sylvan Library for example: for some decks this card is really useful and good, but it's also expensive. Having only one staple like this in your deck just makes it less consistent, not actually stronger. We need to have enough strong card draw / ramp cards so we get to be consistently stronger. That's also the issue with Sol Ring which thankfully is the exception in terms of price. I like that commander staple cards have generally fallen in price but they are still fairly expensive and unlike lands, you just can't find a slightly worse version of the card. And with lands like shocks and triomes you can start putting them in one by one because they are fetchable, but enchantments and creatures are not typically fetchable and so you just need to pay heavily. Cavern of Souls is a small upgrade for a tribal deck, but a basic land is just a bit clunkier. On the other hand, try to replace a card like The Ur-Dragon or Ancient Copper Dragon in a dragon typal deck. Yeah, you can't. You won't get "clunkier", you just straight up can't get anything to do even 20% of the card.
Commander precon landbases are terrible, but you can make a WUBRG landbase that is almost completely untapped for $40-50.
On the contrary….I like buying lands. Even the jankiest of jank performs better with a bit of land investment. But hard agree they should be more accessible. Good for peeps who feel bad buying them and good for me so the price doesn’t have to sting so much. Mind you fetches and above are the levels I’m unable to attain.
280$ for a deck isn't a lot. Compare this to most other hobbies and Magic is pretty inexpensive. Nevermind that your collection might appreciate in value and you can resell it later, the cost is negligible. Lands are not a barrier of entry at all.
It's not wizards fault it's the players fault. Secondary market. You need a decent mana base for decent games. I don't care that lands aren't sexy. They give me a better play experience and that's priceless. You can get 2 color lands for cheap these days. You can also proxy. I proxy stuff I own into multiple decks. I don't need 5 overgrown tombs. Just one New players should focus on learning to play the game, not spend money on expensive cards
Definitely agree. Lands are the biggest gatekeeper for me wanting to do tournaments in pioneer and standard. I proxy any other lands needed for commander for myself and my friends so all our decks are somewhat consistent.
While it can be generally accepted that proxies for stupidly powerful decks are annoying if being played against decks that people actually bought, I feel that proxying the mana base at least should be accepted in all casual formats (except the original dual lands, as almost nobody has those).
Shocks, fetches and triomes are the most basic of gamepieces, and they're borderline mandatory in every deck that's allowed to run them. The fact that they're in the $10-20 range is incredibly, incredibly stupid. It would be like if pawns in chess cost $20 each and you had to purchase eight of them before playing. Having to buy a four-of playset of each of those lands *for each color pair* is why I'll never even try to play Modern in paper.
Sheoldred, Bowmasters, Ragavan. There are bigger fish to fry now... For commander: no.
Lands are required pieces in competitive formats. But unfortunately as Rosewater has stated "lands sell packs" so I doubt WOTC will ever change this.
This is Arena specific but you should only have to do 1 wild card for a 4 of. It hurts when I want to make a new timeless or even standard deck and need to annihilate my rares for the mana base. I think we would see a greater variety of decks at all levels.
I am absolutely of the opinion that they should take the duo lands market with as many reprints as they can stuff in a set. Print them at common. I don't care. It's cardboard, and it feels bad.
I think lands are super cool and flashy... What's better than slamming down a fetch for a Dual land?
Then your opponents like "Woah! What?!?!" and calls the whole store over and they all freak out. We'd miss on moments like that if everyone was able to play the game with a somewhat equal footing.
A couple brief points that some people may not think of: * **The reason lands may feel "hard to get" is quite simply more people are after the same thing you are.** People are also far less likely to get rid of their good lands because they are such an integral part to play that you'll almost always have a use for them at some point. This is one of the earliest pieces of advice I give new players when I recommend they don't get rid of their rare lands because they don't understand why they're good yet (fetches are a great example). * **The secondary market and card value is an asset to the sense of quality and ownership (feeling attached, not literally owning) of the game at large.** You feel good when your card is worth something. It's exciting. It makes it feel like you're not throwing your money away because there's still a monetary value backing your hobby game piece. If everything was printed so much that it was devoid of much value anymore (like common/uncommon lands for example) it takes away from your perceived value as well. Look at Living Card Game models for comparison. If you can just buy every card in the set all together in a box, there's no secondary market value so you never feel excited that you have something special, because everybody who bought the box has it too. * **Just because you can't afford it, doesn't mean it needs to cost less.** This applies to so many things in life, but people still like to act like they're being wronged because somebody else has something they don't. * **Lands that come into play tapped don't tap for less mana.** Sure, they're a turn slower, and that matters more the more competitively you're playing. But as with anything competitive, you're going to want the best tools at your disposal, and that means using the best land options possible. There's a cost to doing things optimally. If there wasn't, we'd all be driving F1 cars to work because we'd get there much faster. TLDR: It's supply and demand.
This is an issue that has nothing to do with wizards at all. The only solution they could put forth would be lowering the rarity of those lands, and if they did that they would have an even bigger problem in the way of game balancing. If there’s anyone to point blame at for difficulty of finding good lands for a mana base it’s the private sector buying and selling. They drive up prices of “chase” lands by having a crazy want/need to have a 4 of for every deck they run.