[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - North Star

[Mookie]

I won't say Soul Separator is totally unplayable, but you have to be reanimating something pretty absurd to justify its inclusion. Eight mana to reanimate a single creature is a lot, even if it does give you two bodies. It may be worth it if you're cheating out an Eldrazi or something else massive, but I'm skeptical. If you're playing black or white, you have better reanimation effects, so this is largely limited to Temur colors... and even then, I'd prefer to use something like Body Double or Feldon of the Third Path if I wanted to recur some fatties. Artisan of Kozilek and God-Pharaoh's Gift are other options if you want to stick to colorless, and there are plenty of others.

....anyway, cool card, but extremely inefficient. I could maybe see using it if it only cost to get a body, or if it could be used multiple times, but as-is, I think there are better ways to do what it does.

[DirkGently]

Okay. Off the top of my head, the simplest path is just fetching these first to get them out of the path of drawing them, in those early turns where you conventionally might not have a play each turn to perfectly curve out (we've all seen that game). A typed dual, even a EBT typed dual, is still superior to an untyped dual a la a checkland. Consider, then, if it weren't superior then why would uw players in modern play Spara's Headquarters when they could play Glacial Fortress? By your previously pushed logic, these players should be playing the checkland first no? Because it's just two colour, uw isn't splashing optimally speaking. In this case it's just an EBT dual you can fetch. What this tells me is you're under-valuing the ability to fix your colours solely within the manabase slots, leaving your business slots to be, well, business. Surely every single uw player isn't wrong, just so Dirk can be right, correct? Why, that'd just be the most arrogant conceited point of view to maintain...surely that can't be right.

Of course it makes sense to fetch a tapped dual when you don't need the mana this turn, but (1) if you only have untapped duals, that's not a problem since "waste" doesn't matter and you won't draw an etbt dual later, and (2) there are other, better tapped duals that can be run before this cycle. If I don't need the mana this turn, first I'd fetch my triome, and after that I would instead fetch my shockland so that I don't need to pay 2 life if I draw it later (and ofc that's a very typical play pattern).

As far as modern, it's not a format I play but I did my best to figure out what you're talking about, and from what I can see the reason is because those decks are running Prismatic Ending, Engineered Explosives, and/or Leyline Binding. Obviously we don't have the luxury of running off-color triomes to increase our domain/sunburst count so that's not relevant to us. And, of course, those decks do also run plenty of untyped duals and do not run the DMU duals. Because the DMU duals are bad.

Even if you are running leyline binding in commander, that's still little reason to run the etbt duals, because you can fetch a superior shock/triome/etc instead, and you'll still receive the same discount. Having redundancy doesn't change the total discount.

If you were running some card that cared about the number of a specific land type you had (i.e. Cabal Coffers), then having extra redundancy could theoretically be beneficial, but I'm dubious of running those sorts of effects in 2-color decks, let alone 3-color. I'd really need a concrete example that tried to justify it.

I think you really need to consider the information you're absorbing more carefully. Simply looking at a modern deck, noticing that it's running etbt lands that provide colors it "doesn't use" and leaping to the conclusion that there is inherent value to land types, and further leaping to the conclusion that this justifies running deeply-redundant dual-typed lands in a different format that typically isn't playing the cards that make those land types relevant, indicates to me that you're either failing to properly understand what's happening within those decks, or you're so biased that you're not interested in that understanding.

Let go of that bias and your decks will improve, I promise you.

Second example, and maybe it's just me because outside of Kaalia I tend to curve my decks out at 5mv, and so maybe I can afford to fix my colours this way. I don't need to try and hit sixes and sevens on curve because I don't run sixes and sevens conventionally speaking. Perhaps this is where the clash of opinions comes from? Are you still trying to slam Avenger of Zendikars and Recurring Insights? Maybe it's the play patterns, because I don't fetch my cyclables first as I can try to leverage the cycling to maybe turn it into a fresh card latre - something you've seemed to downplay, presumably because you're trying scrambling to hit every land drop while I don't need to. Which, side note, also makes you sawft to that Ruination you scream is unfair...and that wouldn't happen if you weren't pressing yourself to hit your land drops. It's okay to sandbag lands in hand, really, because MLD is a fair and reasonable strategy one should generally and reasonably expect to face, rather than crying about "resetting the game" and playing for another two hours. Which, yeah there's some measure of irresponsibility in how some people use it, but that's not the fault of the strategy - that's a discussion for outside the game with those players.

I don't want to get sidetracked on ruination or MLD because it's really not relevant to this discussion. If you want to say that I should run more basics to counter ruination, that's a different discussion we could have, but you're arguing on behalf of lands that also die to ruination, so it's not relevant.

No offense, but I think it's pretty cringy to presume someone's argument is based on them playing cards you think are bad unless you're actually going to look at their decks. My last 3 decks all have an average nonland mv of less than 3, and only one of them is running any 7 or 8 drops (and it has a lot of ramp, and it only has 1 of each: karn and ugin respectively). Slicer doesn't even have any 5 or 6 drops and its average nonland mv is less than 2. Not sure when I last played avenger, but I don't think I've played recurring insight in my life. Of course, properly supported, both of those cards are completely fine. Not that any of this is relevant either. Even if you have no 6+ drops, an etbt land can prevent you from double-spelling with 2 3-drops on 6.

As far as cycleables, I'd say it depends on the deck. Because it runs and relies on loam engine, Phelddagrif has some motivation not to fetch bicycle lands for example, even if they're very slow to use with loam engine (though of course there are plenty of other targets to be hit first without running dominaria duals, and ofc phelddagrif is a deck that typically "wastes" a lot of mana so the inefficiency is of lesser importance). Not fetching a triome early, which gives an entire additional color of mana, just for the chance you'll draw it later and have the opportunity to pay 3 mana to cycle it, is simply a mistake imo. If you think it's a bad idea to play 6 drops, I can't imagine why you'd be so excited to pay 3 to cycle at some hypothetical future point that you'd restrict your own mana fixing right here right now. Of course the cycling is sometimes relevant in a dire situation, but it's not something I value very highly, especially when I'm unlikely to even draw it, and especially when weighed against having better fixing immediately.

More pressingly, though, absolutely none of what you've said is an actual example. I want to see cards in hand, cards in deck, budget level, power level of opponents, etc. And then explain why, in that situation, running dominaria duals would improve the deck. Saying "well, my deck's mana values are [...]" and then just handwaving why that would make these lands viable is not an argument. I want real, concrete examples.

Obviously now, you can't leverage these kinds of duals in 4c+ because you don't have near enough slots and have many more colour combinations to hit. So, 2c-3c is the sweet spot to be able to push these the most.

I'll agree that, if these have any role, it's in 2-3 color decks, as those run the deepest on dual-typed lands. But I don't think there's any good reason to go that deep.

In summary, I think we're finding you're downplaying just how important being able to fetch-dual your colours onto the board in a myriad of ways, whether that be a gross under-estimation of how many fetches you expect to see or activate, the relative ineffectiveness of hoping to fix colours with a random untyped dual off the top (you can't fetch a checkland, leaving you to hope and pray to draw it when you need it), and a mana curve that forces you to to be unable to afford tapped, searchable fixing because you're crunched to hit all the benchmarks in your curve. Not to mention an unwillingness to consider cycling duals as late priority hits because the cycling can and is a relevant line of text.

9 fetches that can hit typed nonbasics in 3c.
99 cards in deck
11 cards drawn on turn 4 (assuming no extra draw by that point)
9* (11/99) = 1
The expected number of fetches you'll see by turn 4 is 1.
Explain how I'm "grossly underestimating" here? Even if you're looking a few turns farther, and drawing some extra cards, you're not getting beyond 2.

Having more dual-typed lands in deck does not increase your chances of drawing a fetch. We're both hoping to draw a fetch off the top when we need fixing, and (barring a circumstance that I'm still waiting for you to tell me) we get the exact same value from it. The difference is that, if you draw your dominaria dual, you've got a tapped land, whereas if I draw a checkland it's likely untapped (and ofc checklands are pretty mid as far as untyped duals go, I often don't run them in 3c - a BBD would be a better example).

I'm not sure what you mean about "a mana curve that forces [me] to be unable to afford tapped fixing because [I'm] crunched to hit all the benchmarks in [my] curve". Yes, I often build my decks to have a tight curve that utilizes my mana as efficiently as possible. Are you saying that's a bad thing? I think you'll find yourself at odds with everyone who's ever played magic, with a take that smoking hot.

I already talked about cycling above, but if cycling is more valuable to your deck than an untapped land later, you can of course fetch your shock, abu, or (yuck) tango before it without resorting to a DMU dual. Though I really struggle to imagine a situation where fetching your triome wouldn't be the correct call if you can afford an etbt land.

A last note, I think the other disconnect here is you're looking for a definitive line of play where you always play these into that into whatever, but you can't look at it that way. Maybe you have a t1 play - an Esper Sentinel or Arcum's Astrolabe and as such you need to fetch differently. Every game is different, and you have to evaluate and often make changes to the plan on the fly to leverage your deck the most efficiently. Going on autopilot mode is a recipe to plateau as a player.

Of course the circumstances of the game will dictate which move is correct. So describe a circumstances where running a DMU dual is correct. If you want to posit a scenario where you have a 1-drop, great. If you want to posit a scenario where you don't, also great. You can describe literally any situation, as detailed as you like, where running a DMU dual is more beneficial than running something else. Does it depend on what your opponents are doing? Great, tell me what they're doing that makes a DMU dual good. Does it depend on your budget? Great, tell me what your budget is in this hypothetical that makes a DMU dual good. You have unlimited control over this scenario. Just tell me what you think could possibly happen that would make a DMU dual a benefit rather than a detriment. It doesn't need to be a broad, definitive, always-happens-every-game line. Literally any line in any circumstance.

On the RCotD - good flavor bad card.

[Chromaticus]

I like the come into play tapped duals for decks with Emeria, the Sky Ruin - those decks want to have fetches and dual types.

[Avacyn Believer]

The only deck I can think of where I would run Soul Separator is Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer. The combined cost is bit high but if you can generate enough mana to spare (and let's be honest, that ain't hard in Izzet), it could be useful for creatures with Shroud like Inkwell Leviathan. And then at minimum you'll have three small spirits with shroud and islandwalk or three big zombies. So could be worth it?

[3drinks]

Friday, January 6th (happy anniversary to those of us in America 🙄), 2023; Act of Authority

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Has anyone ever passed this thing? Doesn't it just kill itself?

[DirkGently]

Provided you aren't running any important artifacts or enchantments, this can get a 2-for-1, and potentially more if your opponents keep passing it around.

Can't think of much reason they'd want to exile itself unless they think it'll get bounced. Though if you have some valuable artifacts or enchantments it's probably not in your best interest to pass it on, unless there's a really high priority target.

For me, it falls into the similar camp of a lot of sorcery-speed removal. I can see the upside, but at the end of the day I want my removal to be reactive, not proactive.

[Toshi]

As someone who's been playing Brago, King Eternal Enchantments since it got released, this is nothing short of a staple.

I really like the way it works and that it is not on a stick.

Concerning the question, if this ever gets passed around: at least in my meta, where we honor deals and love politics, this has been handed around sooo much!
Likely top 3 used political pieces of the past years, aside from Humble Defector and Wishclaw Talisman.

[3drinks]

Yeah, this looks just like the kind of thing I'd put into this Carthalion deck as I attempt to train myself to be better aligned with multiplayer ideologies.

[Mookie]

+1 for Act of Authority in Brago, King Eternal. It's gone down a little in value now that Loran of the Third Path and several other ETB: Disenchant effects have been printed, but there was a long while where it was the only option. Even now, exiling is a pretty nice upside, and I would still consider it a staple.

Outside blink shenanigans, it still is playable, but I'd lean towards other options. My white decks tend to be somewhat dependent on artifacts and enchantments as value engines, so the odds of getting my own stuff removed is fairly high. Still, if you're light on them and can get your opponents to swap it around, it goes up in value significantly. Otherwise, I'd run something like Dismantling Wave or Heliod's Intervention.

[3drinks]

Saturday, January 7th, 2023; Seedborn Muse

Oh boy.................

[materpillar]

I heard you wanted to check who is currently holding Doom Blade.

[RedCheese]

Not a staple by any means, but incredibly powerful in the right shell, which involves blue most of the time.....

[Jemolk]

A thoroughly ridiculous card in any even slightly reactive deck. Its primary downside is dramatically raising your threat profile. Fortunately, that's an actual downside in multiplayer. Self-regulating game formats FTW!

Re: the as-yet ongoing argument between Dirk and 3drinks about basic-typed taplands -- I think for them to be worthwhile you definitely have to care about land types beyond just fetchlands, but if you do, I will reiterate my previous stance that they are in fact worth it. I have two 3-color decks that care a great deal about basic types, in one case to the point that I have never regretted removing Command Tower for a triome. The basic-typed taplands would go down in value considerably if WotC would ever finish the bicycle and tango land cycles, but for now, as the only options for basic-typed duals in enemy colors beyond the first two, in decks that have any notable desire for basic types, not only are they good, they are good to the point where I think Dirk's underselling of them seems further from the mark than 3drinks' overselling of them.

[Dunharrow]

I play it in Maelstrom Wanderer. The deck is full of must answer threats so sometimes it can stick around long enough to do some damage.

[3drinks]

The basic-typed taplands would go down in value considerably if WotC would ever finish the bicycle and tango land cycles, but for now, as the only options for basic-typed duals in enemy colors beyond the first two, in decks that have any notable desire for basic types, not only are they good, they are good to the point where I think Dirk's underselling of them seems further from the mark than 3drinks' overselling of them.

I think this is spot on. Because I definitively play much more wedge over shard colours, these have that much more value to me, to say nothing of leveraging Tithe in all my decks to ensure I always have the two targets.

[Avacyn Believer]

I used to be reluctant to add Seedborn Muse to my decks, I saw it as one of those things that will just get removed straight away... and it is, but if people can't deal with it, at least I'll have some fun turns.

[Mookie]

I run Seedborn Muse is both my Tasigur and Samut decks, and it's nuts in both, for entirely different reasons. In Samut, it gives me a bunch of extra activations of my creature's tap abilities, while Tasigur cares more about untapping lands for piles of extra mana. It does tend to be killed a lot, but it can also dominate the game if it sticks around for a single turn cycle, so usually still worth the tradeoff.

More broadly, the baseline of Seedborn Muse is to function as a mana quadrupler(!), assuming you have instant-speed ways to use your extra mana. Given that Nyxbloom Ancient costs seven mana and 'only' triples your mana, that's a pretty strong rate. It goes up further in value if you have additional tap abilities, particularly ones that scale well with additional activations (i.e. Krenko, Mob Boss, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, etc). One of my favorite combos is with Alchemist's Refuge, but it also works well with other flash enablers. Alternatively, just run a mana sink commander like Tasigur or Thrasios, Triton Hero.

Obligatory Prophet of Kruphix shout-out.

[3drinks]

I used to be reluctant to add Seedborn Muse to my decks, I saw it as one of those things that will just get removed straight away... and it is, but if people can't deal with it, at least I'll have some fun turns.

Try resolving Tooth and Nail for this + Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir if you want to feel extra dirty.

[Hermes_]

it dies to removal so it sucks

[DirkGently]

Re: the as-yet ongoing argument between Dirk and 3drinks about basic-typed taplands -- I think for them to be worthwhile you definitely have to care about land types beyond just fetchlands, but if you do, I will reiterate my previous stance that they are in fact worth it. I have two 3-color decks that care a great deal about basic types, in one case to the point that I have never regretted removing Command Tower for a triome. The basic-typed taplands would go down in value considerably if WotC would ever finish the bicycle and tango land cycles, but for now, as the only options for basic-typed duals in enemy colors beyond the first two, in decks that have any notable desire for basic types, not only are they good, they are good to the point where I think Dirk's underselling of them seems further from the mark than 3drinks' overselling of them.

I did say:

If you were running some card that cared about the number of a specific land type you had (i.e. Cabal Coffers), then having extra redundancy could theoretically be beneficial, but I'm dubious of running those sorts of effects in 2-color decks, let alone 3-color. I'd really need a concrete example that tried to justify it.

So come on, let's have some specifics. What do these decklists look like, which cards that care about basic types?

Definitely hard to believe that it'd be worth removing command tower - obviously triomes are good lands, but you must have something else that would be better to remove first? But again, I need specifics.

There are currently 4 options for basic-typed enemy duals - ABU, shocks, snows, and DMUs. Obviously not everyone has the budget for ABUs, but even with just shocks and snows that's typically sufficient for fetch targets, especially since 2-color fixing is pretty trivial unless you're on a very tight budget. Ofc we could argue over whether having a snow or a DMU is better in a deck without snow costs (personally I'd probably take the snow) but it's very hair-splitty. Given that snows came first and have extra value for some decks, I'd say that makes DMUs the more redundant option, but I suppose that's a matter of opinion.

FWIW I agree with you that 2-color enemy decks, since they do have relatively few options for dual-typed lands (especially on a budget), could conceivably want to go as deep as DMU duals, though I would still want to see a decklist for it. Since you only have 7 fetches and fixing is easier, I think the need is lessened, but maybe if you have particularly deep requirements or fetch recursion or something. Specifics, dammit.

That said, 3drinks hasn't been talking about enemy pair decks or even wedge decks (the original RCotD post was about using these in Naya and he's never brought up enemy or wedge decks iirc), or about non-fetch reasons to care about land types (The first thing he said in this argument was "[fetching]'s really what it's for tbh" and the argument has gone from there) - he's been talking about how I'm undervaluing the future possibility of cycling bicycles and triomes, how playing on-curve is bad actually, how modern decks play triomes solely for their on-color types, and how I'm averse to taplands because I must play too many 7-drops. I'm just arguing with what he's giving me.

At this point I'm less interested in identifying the niche cases where DMU duals might have some viability - I've thought of a few myself, though they're pretty silly and I'm not sure if they hold up to real scrutiny - and more with my ongoing, pointless, years-long project of trying to break down the brick wall of justifications that 3drinks erects around himself. Every time we argue he throws out bad argument after bad argument, without ever conceding a point when they get shot down.

I wouldn't make that claim without some evidence. In this argument alone, we've gotten:

In laying out my mana for Naya, it's truly a beautiful, robust environment. Abus, Shocks, Tangos, Bicycles, Triome, Snows, Corres is 19 +11 fetches is 30, command tower, strip mine, wasteland makes 33 and sprinkle the rest with basics. I think it's lovely that you don't need any of the other rando untyped nonbasics now.

Lest you think he's talking about enemy pair or wedge decks - also I'm pretty sure there are only 17 multi-typed nonbasics per shard? Egg on my face (and presumably scryfall's) if I missed two somehow.

An untyped dual doesn't help you fix per say, it's only good if you happen to randomly draw it off the top.

I can't wrap my head around not utilizing the grave [crucible/ramunap excavator] and my lands to effortlessly fix everything for me, so I can then use my spell slots to do my business. It's resource management.

[...]

And even then, if you drew one of these tap lands late before you could fetch it? So what. Flooting fodder, Retrace fodder, pitch to seismic assault/ayula's influence, or any other manner of discard outlet most decks would want to play (i.e. Compulsive Research, which is really, really good, btw).

Asserting that all/most decks should be doing the same things. (also, "you can just discard it" is a pretty weak argument for a card being a bad draw)

Uhm, actually.

There's eleven fetches, not nine. Prismatic Vista|h1r and Fabled Passage|pw21 are cards too, which brings your fetches up to 11% of your deck. Thawing Glaciers|g10 brings that up to 12% of the deck, and Ash Barrens|brc gives us 13%. Higher if you're on a partner deck. Coupled with "rebuying" fetches it's not unreasonable to expect to fetch whenever you want to make a land play. Math, the more you know

bringing up fetches he knows aren't relevant to the discussion, and being pretty condescending about it too

A typed dual, even a EBT typed dual, is still superior to an untyped dual a la a checkland. Consider, then, if it weren't superior then why would uw players in modern play Spara's Headquarters when they could play Glacial Fortress? By your previously pushed logic, these players should be playing the checkland first no? Because it's just two colour, uw isn't splashing optimally speaking. In this case it's just an EBT dual you can fetch. What this tells me is you're under-valuing the ability to fix your colours solely within the manabase slots, leaving your business slots to be, well, business. Surely every single uw player isn't wrong, just so Dirk can be right, correct? Why, that'd just be the most arrogant conceited point of view to maintain...surely that can't be right.

misunderstanding why modern decks are using triomes, incorrectly relating it to commander, and being condescending again

Perhaps this is where the clash of opinions comes from? Are you still trying to slam Avenger of Zendikars and Recurring Insights?

Assuming that my position must be because I'm running "bad cards".

because you're trying scrambling to hit every land drop while I don't need to. Which, side note, also makes you sawft to that Ruination you scream is unfair

Completely diverting the topic while being condescending yet again

whether that be a gross under-estimation of how many fetches you expect to see

disagreeing with probability

the relative ineffectiveness of hoping to fix colours with a random untyped dual off the top (you can't fetch a checkland, leaving you to hope and pray to draw it when you need it)

Doubling down on that one

a mana curve that forces you to to be unable to afford tapped, searchable fixing because you're crunched to hit all the benchmarks in your curve.

Having a mana curve is bad?

And now you're going to ruin it by bringing up some reasonable arguments that might force me to concede some points. Frankly, how dare you?

Sigh, fine. Get it over with. At least I'll be able to demonstrate how to take an L with some small manner of grace.

I think this is spot on. Because I definitively play much more wedge over shard colours, these have that much more value to me, to say nothing of leveraging Tithe in all my decks to ensure I always have the two targets.

Remember when I asked you to give me an example of when you might want to go as deep as DMU duals? That was me asking for you to tell me about how you're playing wedges, or cards that care about types outside of fetches, but instead you started going off about modern decks.

I'll take a look at your kaalia deck, since that's a wedge deck of yours that's running tithe. And taking a look, I also notice Deep Gnome Terramancer, which could easily fetch multiple plains as well, and timeless dragon, angel of the ruins, and knight of the white orchid which each fetch one. And you've got a snow mana requirement on your Arcum's Astrolabe. So you have a perfect example of where you might need to go particularly deep on plains, to the extent that it might justify running etbt snow duals.

Imagine how much more productive of a conversation we could have had, if you'd brought up that as an example instead of saying incorrect things about modern and then insulting me!

I do feel some need to pick apart the example a little bit, though. I don't think running astrolabe is worth it. I'm pretty sure it's the only snow requirement in your deck, which means (1) if you don't draw a snow land, or a fetch for a snow land, it could easily be dead in your hand and (2) if you do have a fetch, it motivates you to fetch a snow land when it will typically be better to fetch a triome first if you can afford a tapped land. And if you are fetching a snow dual on 1, that means you're mostly forfeiting your first 2 turns to play the astrolabe, which is a steep cost for low payout. Almost all your lands are 2-3 colors and you're a 3-color deck. I really don't think you need the fixing that bad. Especially since kaalia is typically a deck that cares greatly about early mana.

The reason astrolabe was strong enough to be banned in other formats doesn't really translate into commander. From what I understand, a lot of the strength of astrolabe is/was in its ability to strengthen a multicolor manabase against nonbasic hate. Given that you only have 5 basics, I think that ship has sailed.

Because of that change, I would definitely cut the Sulfurous Mire. I don't see anything that cares about swamps or mountains in particular besides fetches, and once the snow mana is irrelevant it doesn't provide any advantage in that respect. And it looks to me like you're overbalanced towards red anyway - your Canyon Slough is putting you ahead on red and black sources relative to white, while red is a distant third in terms of your costs. So I'd replace sulfurous mire with either a basic swamp or plains, or maybe even Sunlit Marsh depending on how many hits you're typically getting off terramancer. Probably I think you'd be better off with the basic - and I think personally I'd cut the other snow duals and put in more basics or different fixing lands - but I don't think it's unreasonable that you're running the snow duals and I don't even think it'd be crazy to run the WB DMU dual.

While it's unrelated, I also think you should probably cut the Mishra's Workshop. Obviously an insane card in the right context, but I really don't think there are enough targets for it in your deck. Even if you're putting a signet into play T1 off it, that's kinda just offsetting the fact that your chosen land drop will probably be dead for most turns, unless you draw urborg.

Anyway, I'll concede a point here - I didn't consider cards like Deep Gnome Terramancer, which can fetch multiple - and potentially many - lands of the same type. If you're leaning on that sort of effect, I can imagine that justifying going deep enough on dual-typed lands to end up playing etbt duals, especially when running enemy colors and/or on a budget.

Are there any points you've made that you think maybe weren't sound?

RE Seedborn muse: it's a strong card.

[Jemolk]

Re: the as-yet ongoing argument between Dirk and 3drinks about basic-typed taplands -- I think for them to be worthwhile you definitely have to care about land types beyond just fetchlands, but if you do, I will reiterate my previous stance that they are in fact worth it. I have two 3-color decks that care a great deal about basic types, in one case to the point that I have never regretted removing Command Tower for a triome. The basic-typed taplands would go down in value considerably if WotC would ever finish the bicycle and tango land cycles, but for now, as the only options for basic-typed duals in enemy colors beyond the first two, in decks that have any notable desire for basic types, not only are they good, they are good to the point where I think Dirk's underselling of them seems further from the mark than 3drinks' overselling of them.

I did say:

If you were running some card that cared about the number of a specific land type you had (i.e. Cabal Coffers), then having extra redundancy could theoretically be beneficial, but I'm dubious of running those sorts of effects in 2-color decks, let alone 3-color. I'd really need a concrete example that tried to justify it.

So come on, let's have some specifics. What do these decklists look like, which cards that care about basic types?

Definitely hard to believe that it'd be worth removing command tower - obviously triomes are good lands, but you must have something else that would be better to remove first? But again, I need specifics.

So, I don't have my decklists online or even written down. That's the first obstacle. But the first and more clearly exemplary of the two lists I'm talking about of mine is Doran Treefolk Tribal, which has a large enough number of rather strong on-theme cards that care strongly about basic types to justify adding more and just going with all lands with basic types. This is the one that cut Command Tower. My previous post on the day when these were listed gives several of the treefolk that care, and almost any two would be enough to justify going heavy on the others and running more basic-typed lands. I'm even running Prismatic Omen specifically to get the land types for my creatures' benefit. That deck chooses to run _very_ few lands without basic types -- five total, in fact, and one of them is Krosan Verge, which fetches lands with basic types. (The other four are Bojuka Bog, Hall of the Bandit Lord, Vault of the Archangel, and Homeward Path. Vault's lifegain is important to counteract damage from fliers in my meta, and my meta also has a lot of theft effects.)

The second is Grixis Demon Tribal with Sol'kanar the Swamp King|Legends, which has been referred to as Grixis Mono-black. It's an accurate description, since while some cards include blue and/or red, all are either colorless or black. There's nothing in the deck that's just blue, or just red, or just bue/red. I run Cabal Coffers in that deck, as well as ways to search for it, and a few more things that care about specifically Swamps. Hecatomb, for example. So, I don't go as all-in on everything possible being basic-typed as I do with Treefolk, but at the same time, it's not all that uncommon for me to be happier drawing an ETB tapped Swamp dual than an untapped, untyped dual in that deck.

These are the outliers, of course, but I also, for example, run the Boros ones in my Depala Dwarf Tribal deck, both for use with white catch-up plains ramp, and to benefit Emeria, the Sky Ruin (which is also in the deck). And as a result of how valuable Emeria is, I run all the typed duals that deck can run -- all four, that is.

They also contribute to my Island count for Mystic Sanctuary, which I put in a lot of my blue decks, and my Swamp count for Witch's Cottage. And then there's the Runo Stromkirk // Krothuss, Lord of the Deep Sea Monsters deck that I'm still working on, where one of the best krakens in the game cares about your island count (Scourge of Fleets), meaning that I have at least one very strong reason to prioritize typed duals over untyped. And since the deck is also running both Witch's Cottage and Mystic Sanctuary (because why wouldn't it, especially in the case of Witch's Cottage), that only becomes more relevant and encourages adding more cards that care about basic types.

At this point I'm less interested in identifying the niche cases where DMU duals might have some viability - I've thought of a few myself, though they're pretty silly and I'm not sure if they hold up to real scrutiny - and more with my ongoing, pointless, years-long project of trying to break down the brick wall of justifications that 3drinks erects around himself. Every time we argue he throws out bad argument after bad argument, without ever conceding a point when they get shot down.

This is fair, TBH. Some of his responses have been a bit of a reach, and I don't mean the keyword I try to give my treefolk to deal with opposing dragon tribal decks. I just don't think your responses have been particularly strong either here, and if anything, have ended up seeming much more dismissive of the potential value of typed duals than is warranted, to the point where, as I said, I feel like his position is stronger, despite absolutely having worse arguments.

[DirkGently]

@Jemolk Except for true cEDHers, we're all limiting the power level of our decks in some way. That goes all the way from the guy who says "I want as strong of a deck as possible, but I want to play control" all the way down to the guy who says "I'm building chair tribal - but only within masques block". The degree of specificity, and the severity, with which you're limiting yourself is naturally going to dictate which sorts of cards are viable in your deck.

But that degree of limitation is going to restrict the degree to which card evaluations are relevant to other people. If Pretender's Claim comes up as the RCotD, and someone says "that card is great because it's one of the best cards in my masques chair tribal deck", that might be true, but when most people are evaluating the card's usefulness, its utility within masques chair tribal is not exactly a common metric.

All that to say - I assume we're both in agreement that, whatever the complete list is, any doran deck that's running Treefolk Seedlings is clearly very intentionally restricted in power level (I didn't even realize that card existed, and that's a VERY rare occurrence, especially for an older card). And that's true to greater and lesser degrees for all the other cards you listed as well (Reach of Branches might have some broader utility somewhere, not as sure about that one).

A "mono black" multicolor list running coffers was a hypothetical example that occurred to me (things that pay you off for playing mono-color always has coffers near the top ofc). My difficulty there is, theme aside, if you're so committed to coffers that you're warping your manabase around it, surely you're running a decent number of tutors for it to ensure you get that payoff. And if you're already running tutors for lands, then why not just rely on urborg and then you can build a normal multicolor deck with good fixing, all the advantages of another full color, plus get the benefit of coffers counting itself etc? Of course, if the theme of the deck is committed to doing the pseudo-monocolor thing, then that question is irrelevant - it doesn't matter if it's more effective, it's not what you want the deck to do. Fair and fine. Build what you like, of course. But, again, maybe not so broadly useful in terms of card evaluation.

Btw, are we talking about fetchland manabases for these decks? Because pretty much the entirety of this conversation has been in the context of fetch/shock+ manabases in terms of power/budget. Of course, if you're building on a sufficiently tight budget then pretty much anything can be justified. I ask because a fetch manabase generally won't have any trouble enabling things like Mystic Sanctuary in 2c. It would also be capable of getting a decent number of islands into play for scourge of fleets - having 1 more dual land really wouldn't make much difference considering you already have 4 superior dual fetch targets (3 if we're excluding ABUs, 5 if there's a benefit to snow) and you're unlikely to fetch more than that without recursion. At that point, I'd just run a basic island instead, since fixing really shouldn't be a major issue for a 2c deck with a strong manabase and I'd prefer the untapped mana. Same situation for the Depala deck. And in both situations I'd want to consider how much I was willing to warp my manabase based on how many tutors for that card I was running, and how well I could protect it. Not much sense hurting your mana for a card you'll rarely draw, or that will likely die and undo much of the sacrifice you've made.

It's possible to justify literally any card if you narrow the context of the deck down sufficiently. So you don't need to take my broad pronouncements of the viability of a card to have relevance to your particular niche cases. When I say Pretender's Claim sucks, it doesn't mean you shouldn't run it in your masques chair tribal. But likewise, I think you're overapplying the utility of cards based on extremely niche cases from the limitations you've put onto your own decks, and I don't think that's a particularly useful way to analyze cards in the context of RCotD.

[3drinks]

It had occurred to me the Tithe example was a point to make, and I guess it just is so ingrained in my mind that it's reflexive, or obvious. Or in a similar vein, nature's lore/three visits and skyshroud claim. I'll even concede that it might not be correct to play the full suite of DMUs when just (in my case) r/w and b/w are what need the representation more, but then you get into the OCD territory of having a partial cycle and that rubs me the wrong way. Illogical, sure.

Ultimately, I have been going at this debate all wrong, probably because I'm reading things as though they're attacking, when that certainly (reading back), not the case. Hey, no one said being autistic was easy, but I am trying best as I can at least. Mark this as an opportunity for improvement. I guess this means I do owe you an apology though, so I apologize, Dirk.

It's off topic, so I'll spare you the logic behind arcum's astrolabe. If you go back through many, many Community Build-A-Decks, you can find the reasonings, though. Everyone who ever participated knows

[DirkGently]

Ultimately, I have been going at this debate all wrong, probably because I'm reading things as though they're attacking, when that certainly (reading back), not the case. Hey, no one said being autistic was easy, but I am trying best as I can at least. Mark this as an opportunity for improvement. I guess this means I do owe you an apology though, so I apologize, Dirk.

Hey, no worries, and I appreciate the apology. And I apologize if anything I said was condescending as well. I do have a hard time noticing it in my own writing sometimes