These are too messy, too many counters, and just too damn fiddly.

On the flip side; they're aspirational and people do like them in concept.

Time spiral tried to make them good by making them dual coloured; but that's a departure too far for me I think.

So let's go with lands that turn on, instead.

Twiddlable dials now; is 6 mana the right amount of aspiration? It does keep the risk factor there.

I did a version of these that removed the ETB tapped but kept everything else the same and added : Add

This looks kind of ridiculous. Playing this turn 1, and then just using its own mana to add counters while pretending you were actually on the draw can net you 10 mana on turn 5. And the land isn't even that risky; It's obviously meant to go in a mono-coloured deck, so you can easily just use it as a colourless source if you are being pressured. You should have enough mountains that it doesn't matter.

Ah; but this set is all about lands going (and staying) boom. So there is definitely a risk of your opponent making it go away before you get to use it.

Still; sure, this might end up being a bit too good. It's got dials to twiddle to tone it back if needed.

Making overpowered cards and balancing them with overpowered removal just leads to swings in games dependent on whether you have enough removal.

Since the counters come as an instant speed mana sink you'd expect to get less mana out of it than you put in.

You do have a point. I do need there to still be storage lands; and they do need to be more interesting that the originals.

Maybe make it : Add a storage counter?

(Was: : Add . If ~ has more than 5 counters, add 5x instead.)

I always wondered why all the hoops when it came to storage lands. I presume they tested it this way and it was always just a smidge too good. Or the opportunity just never came up to print them. But that seems like an incredible number of missed opportunities.

I guess the problem with them is that the right way to use them is to leave them untapped until the opponents end step every single time (until you actually use it up). Which is fiddly, annoying, and not particularly clever.

Which probably lead to "Ok, so how about we give it one a turn at the start of the turn" which lead to "But then you get both to charge and use it - so make it either one of untap it or charge it" which lead to the original horrible wording.

So yeah, this is probably slightly too good, and slightly annoying to play with. But it does have the advantage of being very simple.

@Vitenka That's how I use my storage lands, although I play the ones from the Dreadship Reef cycle