So let's take a look at the comparisons of all of them:
Card | Format | Abilities/Information |
---|---|---|
Vintage, Legacy, Commander |
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Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander |
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Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander |
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Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Standard, Commander |
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Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Standard, Commander |
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Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander |
| |
Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander |
| |
Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander |
| |
Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander |
| |
Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Standard, Commander |
| |
Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander |
| |
Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander |
| |
Vintage, Legacy, Commander |
| |
Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander |
| |
Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Commander |
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I started with White/Blue lands because they covered a majority of lands (enemy dual lands don't fit all the cycles out there) and then I remembered that there are several dual lands not covered like the Tainted cycle in Torment and the other duals in Future Sight. I did skip several, but overall, I think I covered the major ones.
Now, the best lands are always going to be able to provide mana and enter untapped. The original dual lands fit that bill. The next on that list would most likely be the shocklands as they are a one time payment but at the cost of 10% of your starting life total.
Comparing dual lands are pretty subjective to the deck and the format. Let's look at what was my original idea behind this article.
Scenario #1
Imagine you are playing a deck just for fun. Your opening hand has three cards plus four lands. Your four lands are Temple of Enlightenment, Glacial Fortress, Azorius Guildgate, and Azorius Chancery. All four are shown above. As a turn one play, which would you use? Azorius Chancery does nothing for you because once you play it, it comes back to your hand. Glacial Fortress has no basic land type to enter untapped with, so it's just as good as a guildgate in this situation which is to come in tapped and do nothing else. We have the scryland, Temple of Enlightenment left. That would be the play. It comes in tapped but provides an ability and sticks to the board. If you don't draw another land, which do you play next? I personally would choose the Azorius Chancery after using the mana from Temple of Enlightenment, then play it again on turn 3 in order to scry once again. You get your mana one turn behind, but you also trigger the scry ability twice.Scenario #2
Let's take another scenario. This time, you have three cards plus Tundra, Adarkar Wastes, Seachrome Coast, and Nimbus Maze. Once again, what do you play? Tundra has no downsides at all, Adarkar Wastes requires payment of life for colored mana, Seachrome Coast has to be one of your first three lands to be used effectively, and Nimbus Maze needs to play off basic land types. So Tundra goes first. Next, what do you play to be most effective? Really, it would be a toss up between Seachrome Coast and Nimbus Maze. Either can be played turn two or three. Because Adarkar Wastes in the only one to offer a penalty for using colored mana, you want the other three to start you off because together, they offer versatile mana for casting on turn three.I guess the main idea here is that you can take a combination of any of these types of lands and find some are better than others. Scry lands are actually better than your tap/check lands if that's all that shows up in your opening hand. Of course, it also depends on your opening hand and whether or not you have a turn one play. Needless to say, it's easy to say one land is better than another without considering them in scenarios like those above.
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