Oh yeah, we will need these. They're in every set.

And especially with a heavy multicolour theme, we'll need something at non-rare. I think the desirable attributes are:

• Be printable at common. Failing that, uncommon.
• Help you cast two-colour gold spells.
• Possibly help you cast heavy-monocolour spells (like or ), if we're doing that.
• Be a cycle of five (not just a single fixer like Shimmering Grotto or Terramorphic Expanse)

It'd be awesome if we found something that fit all those criteria, but failing that we want most of them.

What about "ETBs tapped unless you reveal a [color] card and a [color] card from your hand"? Something like the Lorwyn duals, I think.
Or perhaps:
~ ETBs tapped.
­: Add [color] to your mana pool. ­, reveal a {color] card from your hand: Add {color} to your mana pool.
I'm not really sure about this, I'm just brainstorming.

Helps both decks? Perhaps something like:

­, : Add or to your mana pool.

Which is a bit restrictive on the player, but gets them there. Although, it may be a little too close to the signet.

Alternative idea:

­: Add to your mana pool. Use this ability if you have in your mana pool.
Basic Landcycling

Or, maybe

­: If you control a Mountain or a Swamp, add or to your mana pool.

I like the first one and the last one a lot. The second one reads to much like it was made for monocolor and the cycling seems tacked on.

I don't care for the first or second, but I like the third well enough.

What about something like the Graven Cairns cycle from Shadowmoor ? We could differentiate them from the originals by having them add enemy colours rather that allied colours (but only if we are doing enemy multicolour cards - otherwise they would need to be allied colour). Helps both Monocolour and Multicolour decks. Have them ETBT or some other drawback/slowdown to drop them to uncommon. OR
Dual Land
Land
Dual Land ETBs tapped.
­: Add or to your mana pool.
(or , or something else), : Add to your mana pool.
Just another idea that popped into my head. As always, not all of my ideas are great/work but hopefully they may spark an idea in someone else that does.

That seems like a sensible suggestion, particularly the part about making enemy-color versions.

Hmm... we seem to be having a little problem here. cards that add are bad for multicolor, and cards that add are bad for mono.

We could partially solve this by making no 2cc multicolor cards. Therefore, if you have or , you can cast something with . Most people wouldn't even notice their absence. Of course, that's a pretty healthy restriction we'd be putting on ourselves.

Also, I don't know about you guys, but I hate ETB tapped. I know why there are so many of them in existence... but there are so many of them in existence! I'm not saying I'm unwilling to see them... just that by the time I read the first line of text on those things, I start off by frowning.

How about ETB tapped unless you control 2 or more lands? kinda opposite of the Scars Block dual lands. Means they aren't as useful in the early turns (but you can still play them if you have no T1 play in hand) but aren't quite so restrictive in later turns when you need to be hitting your mlticolour spells.

ANOTHER option is to have them add a single colour of mana with no drawback or 2 colours with limitation. eg:
Uncommon Dual-Land
Uncommon Dual-land ETBs tapped unless you control 2 or more lands.
: Add to your mana pool.
, : Add to your mana pool.

makes a fine land for both mono and multi
Mono because you can just tap it for .
Multi because you can use it to filter mana if you need to.

I do appreciate lands with drawbacks other than ETBT, but there are a lot of points in favour of ETBT. It's incredibly simple, it doesn't need any counters or other tracking of state, and it doesn't cost anyone any life.

"ETBT Unless" is quite powerful and flexible. I do like it, although it's not really suitable for common.

I like ": If you control a Swamp or a Mountain, add or to your mana pool." I also like the idea of a modified version of the Graven Cairns cycle. I'd propose:

ETBT
­: Add
­, : Add , or .

Camruth's idea isn't particularly appealing for monocolour: why would a monoblack deck ever choose that over a Swamp? It's only useful if your deck contains some cards that want . But I do think there's potential in having them asymmetrical between the two colours.

A few other ideas: how about a version of the Krosan Verge idea? Something like:

­: Add .
­, , Sac: Search your library for up to two Swamp and/or Mountain cards and put them onto the battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library.

Out of interest, are we aiming for a tribal theme within this block? Because Alex's random card generator just gave me this:

Tribal Land - Vampire
~this~ enters the battlefield tapped.
2, T: add three mana of any one colour to your mana pool
Tap an untapped permanent you control, T: add 2 to your manapool.

Obviously just a mismatch of abilities, but I don't think Tribal Lands have been done :)

Not to distract too badly, but I'm pretty sure a good uncommon or rare land would be:

­: Untap target land.

or,

­ Add .

­, , Sacrifice an untapped land: Search through your library for two basic lands, and put them onto the battlefield. Then, shuffle your library.

But these are one shot ideas... not full cycles. That is, unless we think that two common non-basic lands and a Chromatic Sphere are an acceptable alternative.

But back to the thing at hand... I like the Krosan Verge idea. It gets us there in both mono and multi. As written, though, it is very, very powerful. I think that one of the reasons why that card was acceptable is because you could only pack 4 of them in the worst color combination in Magic at the time. Letting players play 9 in a deck means a lot of land on that side of the table (given elbow room)... and may get people to make decks with large casting costs and very little color requirements. A bit of the opposite of what we're trying to do. I'm focusing a bit too much on this one suggestion, but that's because I like it... I'm just not sure what to do with it.

One more try:

­, Sacrifice ~: Add or to your mana pool. Search through your library for a Mountain and put it on the battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library.

Wizards talked about tribal lands before. Cards like Auntie's Hovel almost were tribal lands. The reason why they didn't do it? They were too afraid that it would create a new Great Furnace, or would, at least, be compared to affinity.

I've played quite a bit with Krosan Verge. I like it, but it has a hefty cost to it. It only taps for colourless until you get to three land, and then you need to spend basically an entire turn digging out the land. I guess it'd be good for control decks, but really bad for aggro decks.

The ETBT always felt like an unnecessary kick while you're down, given the restrictions I mention above, which is why I thought to remove it; but we could leave it in. I guess that further discourages aggro decks from using it.

Perhaps as an alternative we could find a middle ground between Krosan Verge and Bant Panorama:

­: Add .
­, , Sac ~: Search a Forest or Plains card onto the battlefield tapped.
­, , Sac ~: Search up to two Forest and/or Plains cards onto the battlefield tapped.

This is an ever so weird idea, but for ideas what about:

Mountain of the Paruns
­: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Use this mana only to play costs with in.

That makes it automatic to splash multicolor cards in a red deck, but doesn't facilitate splashing other monocolor cards. And in a BR / RG multicolor deck it gives you any color you need with no drawback, but doesn't help you play a 2- or 3- color deck made up of mono cards at all.

I really like that idea. It fills 3/4 of Alex's points, and doesn't go counter to monocolor, even if it doesn't help.

Thanks.

Something else to think of is I just remembered Alara Reborn's Jhessian Zombies (and maybe other cycling cycles), in addition to its borderposts. I didn't like the creatures much, as they felt like a mediocre creature with a good rampant growth mode tacked on, rather than a good mana fixing spell with a creature tacked on, which would have felt a lot better. But it was a way to get extra mana fixing into the set without using two common cycles solely for mana-fixing.

But two cycles (or even more) of mana-fixing at common is probably good if people want to habitually draft multicolor.

I'm not sure if we want fixing for heavily mono-color or not. On the one hand, it will help people cast those spells. On the other hand, the price for playing multicolor is you have to spend draft and deck slots on mana fixing. But if you want to play heavy color commitment monocolor you always can play lots of mountains, and the price you pay is finding it a lot harder to splash other colored cards, or in playing more mediocre creatures which fit your mana base. If we provide lands which help you get RRRRR, that helps by providing another way of doing it (by splashing a color, and having a mono-color mana-fixer). That's probably good, but as it's not needed to play that archetype, perhaps have mono-color-fixing lands at uncommon (combined with, or instread as, the tribe-mechanic lands). If the same lands provide multi- and mono- fixing, that makes more options, but it also means that whichever side they're more useful for may end up drafting all of them and leave the other side left out (?)

Edit: although, come to think of it, a land that lets you cast G spells in a RRRRRR deck and a land that lets you cast RRRRRR spells in a RRRRRG deck perform much the same function, so maybe either is fine.

I like your suggestion Jack, but it reads a little weird. I figure it's because you wanted to be able to use the land to activate abilities... but I would think that this would do the trick as well:

­: Add to your mana pool.
­: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Use this mana only to cast red spells.

Which also make the land more universally useful.

Yeah, I originally had "to play red spells", but I thought it was unfair that an otherwise red land couldn't let you pay firebreathing. (It could say "or activated abilities of red permanents") But maybe you're right, and that overcomplicated it.

I'm not sure if this wants to tap for as well -- that basically removes the drawback, since you can get to pay for red or to pay for and also get any color to play red multicolor cards.

I love the idea. Either implementation is good. I think I prefer jmgariepy's, because it's always painful to have lands which you can't tap at all; Ancient Ziggurat hit that occasionally, but was good enough to be worth it.

I do worry if jmgariepy's version is superior to Mountain in almost every case. The only place it isn't as good as Mountain is in activated abilities: you can't activate Firebreathing or cycle Forgotten Cave with either version.

It may be that jmgariepy's version would need ETBT adding, which would be a pity. I'd be up for playtesting without ETBT and seeing how they go.

Perhaps it is too strong. But, ironically, many players will read this version and think it is worse in every way than a Mountain, forgetting about Multi-color.

Personally, I think it is kind of balanced. It is better if you have Multicolor spells, and worse if you have activated abilities. The real problem to me is a type of power creep, not because the card is more powerful, but because cards of this nature provide people with exactly the resources they need for the decks they are playing. Of course, to some extent, the same could be said of just about any card. This is a custom set, after all, we shouldn't restrict ourselves too much on 'vision of the future of the game'.

After thinking about it, I think we probably want dual lands which do help play a multicolor strategy a lot, but don't help mono color, and help splashing only a bit.

If so, these lands still look like a good choice...

": Add to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast multicolor spells or activate abilities of multicolored permanents" ?

­: Add a mana to your mana pool of a color not currently in your mana pool?

I don't like cmeister's idea - it's extremely insular. I fear jmg's might lead to rules confusion: "Can I spend R on a spell from one of these, then tap another one for the other R?" (The answer's no.) But apart from cases involving multiples, it's just a Utopia, because you can always tap it first before any other lands.

Mm. I had forgot that you could always activate that land first for , then activate your Mountain for . That wasn't the point. I thought I hit on something that forced you to play only splashable spells, but clearly I whiffed.

Dual/Strange Mono Land
Land
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
­: Add or to your mana pool.
­: Untap ~.

Whoops. Forgot about the fortifications. Change that to:
­: Add or to your mana pool.
­: Add to your mana pool could instead be interesting, if we want the lands to help multicolor more than mono-color.

Designing dual lands is surprisingly hard, I think because it's very hard to get a view of what you want limited mana fixing to be like. Although I think we're nearly right.

What do we want this cycle to do?

• It should tap for (or otherwise not be entirely useless when paying for 2RR spells). I wasn't sure about this at first, but now I am.
• It (probably?) shouldn't help color-fix to RRR spells, since then there's less incentive to deliberately draft a monocolor deck.
• It may or may not help splashing multicolored cards?
• The lands should not all be the same (ie. not five common copies of Pillar of the Paruns! :))
• I think (do you agree?) it should come into play untapped if possible since drafting a multicolor deck is already quite risky without needing a temp hit as well. A multicolor heavy deck is likley to have lots of 2 and 3 drops, and would really like to play them on turns 2 and 3.

Does that sound right?

If so, it sounds like the effect of the land (even if we can template it with only one ability) will be something like:

­: Add to your mana pool. ­: Add [some mana] to your mana pool. [This is explicitly or implicitly only useful for multicolor spells]

The "any color, only to play red spells" version would lend itself to playing a three-color multi deck (perhaps with a splash for 4th and 5th), since it will combine with a mountain to pay for any BR or RG cost, so you could make a mana base out of half mountains, and enough forests, swamps and these.

Alternatively, it could be ", : Add to your mana pool." That would pay for BR spells. The "not working on turn 1" doesn't matter as all multicolor spells cost >=2. If your mana base has other colors of basic land, it will help you pay for UB or RG.

What makes most sense?

The last suggestion is the Sungrass Prairie cycle. That was quite weak; I always thought it would have been fine with ": Add " as well. That would then be similar to the Graven Cairns cycle.

I agree it'd be good to ETB untapped. I don't have a problem with it helping with monocolour decks.

I was looking at jmg's suggestion of a land with ": Add or " and also ": Add or ". I think the latter would feel somewhat undesirable. It's bumping up the costs of all your spells you need to use that ability on.

How about a land with ETBT, ": Add " and ": Add "? I always liked the Skyshroud Elf's manawash ability. It might not be quite what we want - if anything it facilitates splashing a card into a blue-black deck, which may not be quite what we want. But it's an idea.

I'm tempted to suggest "You know what? That 'be no better than a basic land' limit? Forget that limit."

Having said that, if you do want a limit - how abut triggering off of flyers in play, rather than off of other lands?

Actually, I'm not sure the "no better than a basic land" is a problem here, even though we usually run up against it when designing dual lands. I think most of the suggestions could be limited somehow without significantly impairing them.

I think ": . : Any color to play red spells" or the similar ": . : Add C or D (or E?), only to play multicolor spells" are still my favourite.

Although the ":" variants also make sense, if a multicolor deck is struggling to play multiple different color combinations at a lower cost, and a monocolor deck is struggling to assemble as much R as possible, then they will help multicolor more, while not being completely useless in mono.

I like the Skyshroud Elf variant, but it isn't helping multicolor. Or, at least, I would choose to play Mountain over it in a multicolor deck. Certainly spectacular in mono, though.

What if we got closer to Skyshroud Elf? I'm no fan of ETBT, but I can't dodge it here.
~ Enters the battlefield tapped.
­: Add to your mana pool.
­: Add or to your mana pool.

Oooh. Hmm. It's definitely a great card. It is unfortunately better than Jungle Shrine, which is a bit power-creep-y. Elfhame Palace is obsoleted ten times over, but Jungle Shrine is a pretty good card (a $1 uncommon, last time I checked).

We could just reprint the Alara trilands, all with Aer flavour...?

I like the mana washing idea, but I still tend to think the right trade off is to (a) enter untapped and (b) do everything to help people get two colors of mana on turn two, at the expense of being useful for getting multiples of the same mana. Perhaps save the mana washing idea for a set where there's supposed to be more mono/multi overlap (either if we rejig things so that set is the first one after all, or find a reason for it later)?

Likewise, I like the flavour of the tri-lands, but I think coming into play untapped and having a restiction on using the mana for multicolor is better for this set.

Mana-washing was just a random idea trying to meet the goals of the set. I'm very happy to drop it if we find a better solution :) And in fact, I rather like the manawash ability as dude1818 proposed on Senate Jurist, and it'd be a bit odd having that kind of effect on both a cycle of big creatures and on a cycle of dual lands. So I'd say ditch the manawash lands idea :P