Geez. Let me tell you... I had to brainstorm quite a bit to find a way to make Boros Garrison come into play untapped and have it not be broken or unfun. It wasn't until I was tinkering with this alternate to 5 lands in the uncommon slot:

­
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant Land You Control
When ~ enters the battlefield, return a land you control to its owner's hand.
Enchanted land is a Swamp and a Mountain and gains ": Add to your mana pool."

That I realized that I could make untapped Karoos fair by asking for a one mana down payment to let them come into play untapped.

There's a good chance this has too many doodads. Hexproof is here because it sucks to have your karoo destroyed. It seems to solve that problem 97% of the time. You could have all Karoos in play... but I'm not very sympathetic to the LD deck that let that happen. This also happens to be a dual land, which I was just railing about last week. But I was railing about it because the Ravnica lands let you get two basic land types on one card. Since this required you to sacrifice a card, it's like getting two land types on two cards. Eh... I'm probably just going to remove it anyway. The card's busy enough as it is, and it just leads to a bunch of people saying "Did you know you could tap this land for only one mana if you wanted to?"

Mmm. I can see each step of what you're trying to do, but I agree this is much too busy. (Why bother even having the dual land types when 95% of the time you won't be tapping the land using either of those abilities?)

Yeah, that's got to be the worst offender. Really, I just want this card to be usable with all the "As long as you control no Swamps, sacrifice this card" cards... but I do need a number of cards that intentionally allow you to kill your own creatures for the leaves play effect... so I guess this gets slotted in that group.

Part of this desire to cram as much in these cards as I can is the desire to make them as good as Boros Garrison and company. Pushing extra words on a card doesn't make it a better card, though.

I'm still split on the 'Hexproof' line. Four different things is a bit much. But, man, it feels like all lands that produce two mana should get 'Hexproof' as an automatic. Hmpf.

As a counter to that, I keep wanting to make cards "If this is in your deck at the start of the game, reveal it and exile all non-basic lands from opponents deck"

Dual lands are far too good and must be destroyed.

­Blood Moon!

Vitenka, why the heck do you think that?

Indeedy; I love Blood Moon.

My basic problem with nonbasic lands, at least the "Hey, these, run these; why would you ever not?" sort is that they really emphasise Mister Suitcase play. Don't have a full set of the lands from this expansion? Well, you'd better buy more cards then! Because they're just plain better than running basic land.

This goes all the way back to the true duals.

Hehe, I know what you mean. During Kamigawa/Ravnica Type 2 I played a VERY cheap WB deck with no rares at all that stopped all the rarepacked Aggrodecks (most were Boros with fitting duals, Umezuwas Jitte and so on...). Had a lot of fun these days!

Well, that's certainly the reason why I don't ever want to see lands that are officially better than basic lands in any way. As far as the "I open packs to get new cards to put in my deck to make my deck better" phenomenon... I'm kind of cool with that. Magic isn't a game that you go out and buy and you're done. It's a game with a built-in upkeep. That's what makes it fun. There are thousands of good games that are non-collectible. I'm okay with having to spend some money every now and then to keep up with the new hotness in Magic.

That being said, I hate rare dual-lands that cost $15. I don't mind having to keep up with the new cards, but shelling out $15x4x10=$600 every block is ludicrous. Obviously, I don't. I don't know many people who do, because that isn't cool. I know why there's chase rare lands, since that's what gives sets value (Onslaught boosters are still worth money. Legions are $2 a pack.), so I understand why this is happening, but I don't like it.

But this does present an interesting conundrum. In New Mirrodin, for example, I want to have 15 'dual-lands' (or signets, or whatever.) Let's say I wanted to avoid 'money dual land rares'. If I didn't put 5 in the rare slot, then there would be an odd bulge... like 10 uncommons that care about fixing colors. Wouldn't that come with it's own frustrating experience? That I'm wasting good uncommon card slots on mana fixers?

You could always have rare lands that weren't money cards for whatever reason. Sunpetal Grove is $2 now. Mossfire Valley is $0.80! (Huh, I should pick me up some of them.) Have them tie into specific strategies that'll be easy to get in Limited but somewhat constraining in Constructed: Ancient Amphitheater is $0.40, and it's shortly to have a common version printed in Gatecrash... but for limited decks with Changelings or Giants, it's great.