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CardName: Cradle of Rot Cost: Type: Land - Frontier Pow/Tgh: / Rules Text: {T}: Add {C}. {T}: Add {B} or {G}. Activate this ability only if you have a card named Cradle of Rot in your graveyard. Cycling {2} ({2}, Discard this card: Draw a card.) Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: ![Assorted] Frames Common |
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Experimenting - certainly not for Pyrulea.
added: subtype
Might work better if this cycle didn't depend on seeing an identical match; but any frontier?
Yeah, keeping that option open is why I added the subtype.
Very likable and good use of cycling. This is also the best two-color combination to have the effect in when it comes to lands.
Seems a bit complex for a common, but given that it becomes way too hard to pull of the second ability in limited at any other rarity I guess it's justified.
I can see it creating quite awkward plays for players, which might cause some "feel bad"s. Ie. If you need mana fix and more mana in general, you have to choose between playing this as a Wastes or discarding it in hopes of getting the right color/s. Notably this would also be part of its charm since certain players find that kind of decision making really engaging.
I really like this card too.
But, I wonder. Blasted Landscape was reprinted in two recent Commander expansions (as an uncommon... but it's the Commander sets so I'm not sure the commonality matters.) Does that make a cycle of Frontiers 'Too good'? If you replaced all the basic land with Frontiers in this set, would each player playing with (on average) 3 Frontiers seriously alter the meta-game?
I don't have an answer. Or, to be more precise, I'm pretty sure I could write an entire 3,000 word article trying to answer this question and finishing with a big old shrug.
It's certainly on the stronger side being comparable to Canyon Slough and the like while being indeed strictly better Blasted Landscape.
... How about this?
>
: Add
.
, Exile a land card from your graveyard: Add
or
.
>
> Cycling
It diverges from the original design, but it keeps the main idea while making it weaker (I think?), more flexible, and arguably simpler as well - though it asks you to keep track of the number of land cards in your grave. The OP design is more of a 'threshold' thing.
Hmm, it would still actually be a strictly better Blasted Landscape... +
to cycling cost? Or something like...
> Cycling—
, Pay 1 life.
?
As an overall disclaimer: Land rarities in Magic are whack. Rare dual land cycles often could get downshifted to lower rarities without hurting at at times helping Limited.
I favor not upholding the rarity of rare land cycles in custom card sets - especially in situations like this where the land design asks you to accumulate multiple copies.
Maintaining artificial scarcity is not an issue in a set that essentially gets phantom drafted all the time it is played.
I was aware of Blasted Landscape, but the design with the original wording needed to be pretty pushed.
If I change it to go active with any Frontier or even any land, then adding to the cycling cost seems like an option. Maybe even cycling
or cycling 
- to make it technically not strictly better than Blasted Landscape, but entirely reasonable if you already expect to play multiple Frontiers.
It's important to keep in mind that the converted cycling cost has a strong influence on when this can go active through its own interaction, which is why I tread carefully around increasing the cycling cost to
.
A
cost in cycling is seems a bit hacky unless there are other
costs appearing in the set as well. I agree that cycling
is a bit high since then the whole color fixing vs colorless mana thing becomes less meaningful.
So what do you think about exiling any land instead of the activation requirement of specific land? It doesn't require multiple copies for one thing so doesn't push for a specific rarity.