Postby iamabadman » Mon Sep 28, 2015 10:38 pm
There was much discussion about what the rare dual land cycle was going to be. Zendikar has always had a land focus, so we knew we wanted them to be impactful. The elephant in the room was the enemy fetch lands from original Zendikar. We had just reprinted the ally fetch lands in Khans of Tarkir, so there was some expectation of the enemy fetches coming back as well.
The problem was having ten fetch lands in Standard was too many. There's a balance you want to create between letting players play their two- and three-color decks without major mana issues, while not making a four- or five-color deck too easy. The color pie does important work keeping all the good cards from being in the same deck, and if we aren't careful with our mana fixing, we risk usurping the safety net of the color pie.
The challenge was this: We wanted good dual lands that helped two- and three-color decks but didn't easily enable four- and five-color decks. We also liked the idea that these lands might play nicely with the ally fetches from Khans of Tarkir. How could we accomplish this?
We started with the idea of basic land subtypes. There have only been two dual land cycles with basic land types (the original dual lands from Alpha/Beta and the "shock" lands from original Ravnica). It was a clean way to make the new duals play with the Khans fetch lands. The rules text took a few more iterations to find.
The solution came by reexamining the intended target. What do two- and three-color decks have more of than four- and five-color decks? The answer was basic lands. By caring about having basic lands, the dual cycle was able to thrive in the types of decks we wanted.
