If Alpha's dual lands were the most influential
land design in history, Invasion's dual lands
were the most influential iteration on the
formula. Every single cycle we're reviewing this
week uses their template as its basic design.
Zendikar gave us the Refuges, which play exactly
the same plus the one life bonus; these in turn
were the basis for the functionally identical
cycle of ten in Khans of Tarkir. (For anybody
out there who knows, does having those sorts of
cards randomly inserted in boosters really help
limited? Every time I play limited, I never get
any dual lands relevant to my card pool.) As I
mentioned last week, I'm bemused by the need for
a bonus - generating two colors of mana is
already a bonus - but there's nothing really
wrong with these cards other than that. Making
you gain life even fits the flavor of Zendikar's
dangerous and dynamic setting, representing a
place to rest and recover from almost being
eaten by a tsunami elemental.
Today's cards of the day are the tapped life
gain dual lands from Zendikar which are
generally superior to the typical enters play
tapped lands from Coldsnap or Ravnica, barring
guild gate support. While costing a land drop
with no mana and thus some potential tempo these
are above average choices and excel in decks
where life gain matters. In Commander or a
Limited format these are quite strong, otherwise
using similar options like the shard lands,
become a creature, or have/reveal to play
untapped are comparable choices depending on the
design.
Oh man. Were we going somewhere with this? I
think we're going somewhere with this. Something
something something new BFZ lands... nyah nyah,
no BFZ enemy fetches, super-entitled players...
oh yeah, refuge lands. Well, everybody should be
able to fix mana, and these are more or less
what you play if you're playing casual or
limited. These aren't something you'd ever see
in standard, and certainly not in any other
competitive format, save drafts, etc.
