If this has the Island subtype, it already taps for , so tapping for is pointless.

yeah, forgot that, sub-type removed

I worry this is potentially too good. Getting 2 mana from a land on turn 1 reminds me worryingly of Lotus Petal.

How does adding to the sac cost work?

Certainly makes it much less worrying. I think it'd probably be fine to remove the sac from that cost now. It's borderline-worse than Cascade Bluffs even without the sac.

I honestly have no idea what this card would be trying to achieve as it is.

Without the ramp-function of the earlier iteration, you're left with a strange form of CC-fixing, that as Alex points out, is strictly worse than the Shadowmoor/Eventide lands. That wouldn't be so bad in theory, as it's fine to design things that are "strictly worse" than something else, except in this case I don't really know why you wouldn't just play with some Islands.

Does this set have some multicolor-focus that also happens to have a lot of CC-costs?

What purpose are these lands supposed to serve in the design of your set?

This card has changed from being a slightly better version of the fallen empires sac lands (which I quite liked, but what do I know?) to being, well, entirely different.

Just because it came from Fallen Empires doesn't mean that it's a bad card. You'd be thinking of Homelands.

It' a very good guideline, mind you :)

Was just saying that the card seems to have changed completely since its creation.

A 'fair' version of the fallen empires lands might be "ETBs tapped unless you control an island, :, sac:"

So changing the cycle to look like this ?

OK, I think this new version still does what I want it to but deals with concerns. Inspiration from the Scars multi lands.

Well, you've moved it into the territory of being a land I'd never normally use, but can see it being kinda interesting somewhere. Which is where all the recent "Must have" lands have sat too, so it's probably great :)

Lands can be really hard to design, getting the balance of lavour, power and utility right is kinda tricky.

Currently a strictly better Svyelunite Temple. IMO the card doesn't need the upgrade.

How often do you see Svyelunite Temple being played ? honestly? A small upgrade seemed fine.

Used to play these back in the day. Didn't really see other people play with them. Don't know why, because I thought they were the gas. But I don't think people were willing to build their decks around them. Havenwood Battleground was clutch in my Mono-Black Lumbering Satyr group game deck, for example.

For what's it's worth, Wizards returned to these cards with its Geothermal Crevice cycle. And while those lands were crucial in the Terravore deck, that was more of a trick. People really didn't play them. Again, I don't know why, because I still thought they were good. But by this point, I'd guess the answer was because one could only have so many etb tapped lands, and Coastal Tower was more important.

I like 'em; but yeah, they're not popular. ETB tapped and only provides a one-shot boost once and then goes away?

In a set where land-death-matters they'd be a great reprint; but most people mostly won't like 'em.

­Svyelunite Temple had value back in the day, because it meant you could threaten a Counterspell but only have to keep 1 and back for it.

But Oooh! I have such a set! Reprint time!

I loved them in Three Card Blind. A deck of Dwarven Ruins, Slumbering Dragon, Slith Firewalker or Svyelunite Temple, Phantasmal Bear, Boomerang could do quite well. Of course, the Peat Bog cycle were better for that, unless you wanted the one mana repeatedly like for Drifter il-Dal.

But outside extremely constrained formats or circumstances like JMG's forestless forestwalk deck, yeah, they don't get much use. I'd call this a medium upgrade rather than a small upgrade, but it seems fine to me.