Is the Build ability templated correctly to fit the standard wording of Magic rules?

It makes sense, but I don't think that's the way it would be done by Wizards. They would probably word it as an ability word, like Landfall, rather than a keyword. So:
Build — When ~ ETBs from your hand, you may pay [mana]. If you do, [stuff].

Long dashes, and everything written before one, don't have in game effects. The purpose of a long dash is to group a bunch of disparate abilities under one keyword, but that keyword doesn't really dictate what that ability does (and there's never been a card that references a keyword before a long dash... so far...). Link mentioned Landfall, which is a good example. Some cards with Landfall say:

Landfall — Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, ~ gets +2/+2 until end of turn.

But Fledgling Griffin, for example, reads:

Landfall — Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, Fledgling Griffin gains flying until end of turn.

In both these cases, the word 'Landfall' has no game relevance. It just helps players tie the mechanics of a set together.

Oh, and while I'm here, I'd suggest cutting the 'from your hand' part. Sometimes there's a good reason to include that line... for example, the card might do something wrong or unexpected if it came into play wrong, or allowing the card to trigger from other zones would ruin the established tournament environment. Otherwise, it just increases the amount of text on the card for no particular reason, and will upset a segment of the audience that likes to find unexpected ways to abuse their cards.

I've templated Build to look more like Kicker now. See Gatekeeper of Malakir for reference. Does this make more sense?

It really is true what Mark Rosewater says, almost all abilities that require an additional mana cost are some form of Kicker. I've simply made Build a Kicker for lands.

Heh, yeah... I almost wish MaRo didn't let that on to the rest of the world. It kind of spoils the magic. I remember when Kicker came out... I didn't understand the need for the keyword. Why not just write it out? I get it now... but now I wish they never keyworded it for the 'every mechanic has kicker' problem.

This works by me, and it would be nice to see this mechanic pop up in real Magic. Well, except for the part where I don't like to obsolete basic lands, but that conversation is a dead end.

@jmgariepy I don't think lands that produce colored mana, have additional abilities and don't ETB tapped will obsolete basic lands, because tutoring lands is a powerful effect that continually pops up in Magic. And 99% of the time, you don't get to tutor just any old land; it has to be a basic land. Just consider Rampant Growth or plainscycling and basic landcycling. I think that for this reason, cards like this will not make basic lands obsolete in formats where they are not already obsolete.

Oh, no, those aren't my problems. My problem is that if a player wants to make a deck, they should be able to put 23 Forests in their deck and not have to apologize for that decision. Sometimes you want to spend time crafting a perfect mana base, and sometimes you just want to play the game. You should have a worse deck because you didn't optimize your mana base, but you shouldn't have an obviously worse deck because you didn't optimize your mana base.

The argument about sub-types is relevant, and I agree that there are plenty of reasons to play basic forest over Arbor. That said, if you're given a choice between running a Goblin Hero because your deck has 4x Goblin Warchief, and running Uthden Troll, you should run the Uthden Troll. Uthden Troll is just that much better a card. You should stop playing Goblin Warchief instead.

In that sense, a Basic Forest can never keep pace with a card like this. Sure, Forest works with Rampant Growth... but Arbor is such a better land card that you shouldn't play Rampant Growth... if this sort of non-basic land was the norm, then all the current cards that interacted with basic lands would become indirectly obsolete.

I'd play with an example or two, but I'm pretty sure I can't prove that without a lot of rigorous play-testing, so I'll leave it at that. It's unfortunate, but this is one of those subjects that you can't prove or disprove without exploring an alternate universe worth of Magic cards. My second argument is more brain candy anyway. It't the first paragraph which I consider important. If Magic is to be a fun game played by the most amount of players, it has to be accessible. Basic lands are accessible, and encourage more players to play, but they can only be accessible if they are always a viable option with or without the sub-types. The more players that play, the more complex the game can get, because the game has more funding to work on more projects.

I think I've finally put my finger on what I find most annoying about Magic--and it's the basic lands. I got around to playtesting my set yesterday and I can't tell you guys how good it feels to be able to get colored mana off of nonbasic lands that don't ETB tapped and have a useful ability. I know I would play more real Magic if Wizards made lands like this. Most of the time these "Build" lands I've made don't do anything, but when I'm stuck late game and I need anything but a vanilla land, it's so good to know that if I hit a land, I'm not screwed.

Mark Rosewater is so wrong. The mana system as it current is constructed is horribly flawed and I've made something brilliant. ^_^

As long as everyone has 25 of each and every one of these funnylands; I'd agree.

Given that's not true; I disagree.

But you're certainly able to outclass basic lands. Doing so moves your set firmly into "You can't play this alongside real mtg" territory, though.

@Alexander: Good. I'm happy to see when someone is able to figure out what they like, and able to design to their tastes. As far as I'm concerned, that trumps any other philosophy of game design I know. :)

Vitenka's not wrong... you are exploring territory both inside and outside the game. May I suggest establishing a new baseline? Personally, I think you should pull the dual-lands forward, call them basic and shoved one in each pack; once players unruffle their petticoats, they wouldn't have any problem accepting the rest of your non-basic design. Arbor looks pretty fair when you could 4x (or more?) Savannah.

I also may want to work with you on a future article for jmgariepy.com on the 'Better than Basic' issue. By the time I got done with my previous response, I knew I had plenty of material to just write an article on the subject... but I'm not a fan of repeating what MaRo says and calling it a day.:-p Nobody learns anything from that type of writing... people just become more entrenched. Since you've got a completely different take on the subject, though, I think it'd be cool if we bounced our opinions off of each other. Not a debate... we'd probably get too petty if we went after the details. More of a point/counterpoint.

I probably won't start working on the article until February, so take your time thinking and designing around it if you want. If you don't want to do a lot of writing, but want your opinion expressed, that's cool. I'm more than happy to do all the writing based on your pointers, then show you the results before posting. I'm a weird guy, because I'm pretty sure either way would be fun for me to do.

@jmgariepy You have a blog? Me too! Ashita no Anime is an anime review blog and I intend to showcase my set there once Gatecrash gets released and I don't have to compete with real Magic for quite as much attention. Also because I want to continue polishing it a bit, so I'll be releasing my set to the greater public sometime in February, too.

But if you want to work with me on a "better than basic" article, sure. Sounds like fun. I'll keep playtesting and see if I can find some of the kinks in the design of my "build" lands so I have a little more to say on the matter. I'm a fairly experienced writer myself so don't worry about carrying my end of the discussion, I can express myself quite well. ^_^

Let me give you a little of my reasoning as to why I even decided to try "better than basic." I currently live in Japan and I play four different, very healthy Japanese TCGs (by healthy, I mean a lot of people currently play them). And the resource systems in those games don't rely on just one card type that serves virtually no other purpose than to provide resources to fill 20% or more of a deck. All the cards have a use for some stage of the game. I'm not suggesting turning Magic into Duelmasters (or Kaijudo as it's now called) where every card is also a land, but giving the lands a purpose outside of producing mana I think, plus with my somewhat limited experience playtesting thus far, will make Magic more fun and more consistent.

Oh, excellent, on both accounts. I have a lot of experience with games, but the Japanese tcg market is something I'm not as familiar with, since that requires more dedication than playing a couple games and writing an article (though, I did give a positive review for Battle Spirits when it came to America).

Out of curiosity... have you ever got your hands on World of Warcraft's CCG? I have... issues... with deck building (it's like playing Magic with 10 colors, but you can only play mono). It's resource system, however, is pretty cool. 'Lands' are put into play face up in front of you. They all have one activated ability, and when you use it, you turn it face down... so you get a mini-sorcery with every land. Man, I wish that game was good... it has a lot of strong points, but it feels like the creators couldn't figure out if they were making a gimmick or a real game.

@jmgariepy I have not played WoW, either the video game or the card game. WoW doesn't interest me. However, while it was still in print, I played the .hack//ENEMY TCG made by Decipher and I liked that game a lot more than Magic as well. I actually was really good at it and by the time the game went kaput, I was ranked 7th overall in the state of Michigan and I think I ranked within the top 100 out of 10,000 registered players worldwide. So I can proudly say that in at least one competitive activity in my lifetime, I was a member of the top 1%.

Heh, I used to play .hack//ENEMY. It was quite fun.

Let's see... as I recall, it didn't have basic lands the way MtG or Pokémon do, but instead it had the simpler play-one-card-per-turn rule, along with "spot" requirements. Which functioned pretty similar to mana cost, but less predictably; it's like every kill spell the opponent has also works like a land-destruction spell.