The Proxy Vault: Dual-Lands
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miinor_threat
15 July 2010
26503 views
The Proxy Vault: Dual Lands
15 July 2010
26503 views
The Proxy Vault: Dual Lands
Dual lands.
Just even saying those words in that order made five dollars disappear from my wallet. Dual lands are the absolute BANE of any Legacy or EDH player's build budget. Here are some fun facts about dual lands that you probably already know:
1) They are so powerful that they probably never should have been printed. That may sound like heresy to some, but they give two kinds of mana, are a double land-type, and have absolutely no drawback whatsoever. They were the first major impact on what is one of the most essential balancing elements in the game of Magic, the color balance.
2) Just last summer, the majority of these babies were selling in the range of 20-30 dollars. Now, at my very reasonably priced local shop, the average price of a dual land is more like 60+. That, my friends, is crazy. Magic the Gathering is a game sold by Wizards of the Coast for profit. We can live with that. What I take offense to, is that cards like these become economic barriers for people to build decks in certain formats. As someone who plays quite a bit of casual legacy, when local players can't build legacy decks because it's too expensive, that's a problem. Wizards should either ban these lands, or re-print them. They are not directly profiting from the secondary market, and an ever growing army of ravenous Magic players is fighting over an ever dwindling supply. That said...
3) I decided to mock up some modern remixes of these Magic classics and post them for you.
 | ## BADLANDS I loved this bleak, desolate, yet volcanic landscape to represent the Badlands. RB is the junkyard dog of magic color combos, it's nasty, vicious, and aggressive. You don't wanna go to the Badlands, this captures that idea nicely... |
 | ## BAYOU "Hey Cajun Man, what creature type is Genesis?" "Incarna-TION." "That's great. What's your favorite board wiper?" "Damna-TION." "A lot of people like that one. Excited about any new M11 cards?" "Leyline of Anticipa-TION." And so on. Google Cajun Man if you don't get it. Green and Black are the duality of life and death. This pic captures the darkness of the swamp, but still remains very alive. Very Bayou. |
 | ## PLATEAU It's big, it's flat, it's a Plateau 'nuff said. |
 | ## SAVANNAH The Savannah was the most difficult land to find art for. I do think it captures the ultimate good-guy color combo in magic at the end of the day. Now I just have to photoshop in some Savannah Lions for authenticity. |
 | ## SCRUBLAND This digital Scrubland looks like some appropriately harsh terrain. Good contrast between white and black. |
 | ## TAIGA Taiga has a special place in my heart. As a player I am very RG, and as KrazyCaley can attest, mana from this land has finished more enemies for me than any other. It was important to me to get this one right. I think the art has just the right mix. |
 | ## TROPICAL ISLAND I think the lushness of this land really kills it. I always thought Tropical Island was one of the cooler of the original duals. I think this one does it justice. |
 | ## TUNDRA Tundra. I can almost smell the permafrost... |
 | ## UNDERGROUND SEA The mack-daddy of dual lands. This bad boy will set you back a smooth 80ish bucks for one in even decent condition. Underground Sea powers some wickedly powerful legacy decks. The art on this remix has an eerie, subterranean UB feel. |
 | ## VOLCANIC ISLAND With all due respect to Taiga, this one is my hands down favorite. Volcanic Island was pretty basic in the old days. This one has an amazing, draconic, savage coastline. Very RB. |
Next Up: Back to Tokens
When we come back I will pick up where I left off with the Token series. Keep the requests up if there are tokens you want to see. Same with expensive/hard to find cards you'd like to see proxied. Peace!
sweet. I love the art for both badlands and underground sea. these are awesome.
July 15, 2010 3:35 a.m.
YES! I love Cajun Man haha. Sweet images!
suggestion for token: Nuisance Engine
July 15, 2010 11:25 a.m.
Cheers to that, mate! I wish i had been able to afford dual lands back in the day. Hell, 15 years later i still can't.
I say, print them in a Core edition so they're only around for about a year. In and out with minimal disturbance to the game but it would massively help the aftermarket prices. While they're at it, bring back Strip Mine and Stone Rain in the same set to introduce some dual land hate.
Kudos on the artwork. I'm a big fan of your volcanic island.
July 15, 2010 4:28 p.m.
miinor_threat says... #7
Island is better than Taiga , Caley? Tell that to Scryb Ranger ...
July 15, 2010 10:43 p.m.
luckyfirefox16 says... #8
Scryb Ranger Clearly wants to be blue- When's the last time we saw a faery in green, Mirage?
July 16, 2010 8:27 a.m.
miinor_threat says... #10
How dare you, sir!? Scryb Ranger is like an anti-blue secret agent. She is very happy being green and points and laughs at the bug legs of all the Lorwyn faeries like a character from "Mean Girls."
When Quirion Ranger had girl on girl sex with Scryb Sprites they had a baby Scryb Ranger and the world became way more awesome...
July 16, 2010 5:08 p.m.
OMG.. okay, THESE ARE PERFECT!
..thanks for not making them Textless or Japanese Dave..
July 16, 2010 7:14 p.m.
Much better than my thirty-second pen and ink proxies. Hazaa, sir. Hazaa! Volcanic Island is by far my fave... excellent job on that one!
July 17, 2010 3:34 p.m.
KrazyCaley says... #14
card:Baki's Curse. Evacuation . Inundate . Clone , etc. These are some of the many blue cards that deal with Scryb Ranger .
But of course, the best is still Counterspell .
July 19, 2010 7:39 p.m.
SocialistElite says... #15
This was really cool. Could you do more Proxies? Like of the Power Nine and other expensive vintage cards?
July 20, 2010 9:08 a.m.
I want a playset of those hyper-pretty Tropical Islands. Natural-but-strange-and/or-mysterious, just like any U/G dual land should be.
Great choices all around!
July 24, 2010 11:54 p.m.
Beautiful.
Since there are exactly five players in my casual group, this might be the cheapest Christmas ever.
Anyone with a good printer want to make a few bucks, or is that like, uproariously illegal?
October 12, 2010 11:45 p.m.
KC getting killed by red-green. Now THAT'S something I gotta see a video of. Nice to see blue has weaknesses. Artifacts, however...
November 1, 2010 5:01 p.m.
Hi there, where can I get the original JPG of the arts for MSE?
March 14, 2013 4:57 p.m.
Being of Russian descent, I'm a bit disappointed in your art for Taiga. Not that it's bad, all of this art is spectacular, I simply find your representation of Taiga as more of a scene from Peter Jackson's King Kong than of pine forested wilderness.
November 29, 2013 12:19 a.m.
Great work!!! not too fan of Volcanic though (the spikes I guess...I recall a preview from the first videogame Crysis that made me think back then of the original MTG volcanic island...), and then, I'm not sure there are real taigas with waterfalls?
The rest are excellent though, and I fully agree they should be reprinted, with different art, whatever might be needed...
July 31, 2014 9:42 a.m.
Great work!!! not too fan of Volcanic though (the spikes I guess...I recall a preview from the first videogame Crysis that made me think back then of the original volcanic island...), and then, I'm not sure there are real taigas with waterfalls? Remaining are excellent though, and I fully agree they should be reprinted, with different art, whatever might be needed...
omgyoav says... #1
Honestly the art you choose is beyond perfect. Personally i like tropical forest the best!
July 15, 2010 12:19 a.m.