Why didn't Theros block have an enchantment land?
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on Sept. 16, 2014, 4:15 p.m. by Bsaf
That would have been cool, pretty sure it hasn't been done and it would have been in Theros if any block. They would be bad in standard and likely wouldn't make enchantment prisons modern competitive so why not
Artifact lands became banned as far as i know due to the overpowered boost it gave to affinity. I just read an article on wizards covering some modern banned cards and they addressed artifact lands. However there aren't any cheap enchantment prison cards, there are things like Sphere of Safety but that is a five drop. And Greater Auramancy would do what, give one of your lands shroud? Not overpowered, wouldnt get banned. Wear / Tear and Erase alone would dissuade from seeing play
September 16, 2014 4:32 p.m.
Could've made Serra's Sanctum playable, if nothing else.
September 16, 2014 4:35 p.m.
Yeah i know it wouldnt alter modern and standard at all but legacy when you get into Serra's Sanctum with Idyllic Tutor and Enlightened Tutor you start to get an absurd amount of tutors and ramp from white which would be crazy so it might make a viable legacy deck.
September 16, 2014 4:39 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #6
It seems like it would be hard to conceptualize an enchantment land, or cycle of enchantment lands. One or two legendary enchantment lands like "Nyx" for example would be fine, since in Theros enchantments are the product of belief, and the home of the gods is a natural extension...but how would you have an enchantment Mountain ?
September 16, 2014 4:53 p.m.
Ah i wasn't thinking enchantment forests or mountains, more along the lines of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or another utility land being enchantment lands
September 16, 2014 5:02 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #8
You guys do realize that there's Boggles in Modern right? That would go absolutely bonkers with enchantment lands. Ethereal Armor .dec
September 16, 2014 5:13 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #9
Yeah, it would have to be Legendary to have any chance at not being busted and not be color specific.
Nyx, Realm of the Gods
Legendary Enchantment Land
Tap: Add X mana in any combination of colors to your mana pool, where X is the number of enchantments you control.
If you control no enchantments other than ~, sacrifice ~.
I dunno...still busted. You could just make it make one or two mana...I would feel let down if the power level wasn't high, but it would require Followers to stay around. (belief in the gods or something.)
September 16, 2014 5:18 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #10
MindAblaze! ETB tapped is a pretty good nerf stick.
September 16, 2014 5:31 p.m.
sergiodelrio says... #11
They could have brought back world enchantments... would make a lot of sense combined with the land type.
Sunny Sky
World Enchantment Land
: Add 
to your mana pool. Play this ability only if you control a basic Plains.
If a source would deal damage to a creature with flying, prevent 1 of that damage.
How about that?
September 16, 2014 5:34 p.m.
Energycore says... #13
Because there's cards like "destroy target enchantment" and "destroy all enchantments" and also because constellation would have become too powerful.
It would just have made more stuff busted. Like, ban out of modern level of busted.
September 16, 2014 5:36 p.m.
Energycore says... #14
Sunny Sky
World Enchantment Land
T: Add W to your mana pool. Play this ability only if you control a basic Plains.
If a source would deal damage to a creature with flying, prevent 1 of that damage.
Dat Flavor! Love the design.
I do have a couple non-balance concerns when it comes to enchantment lands:
1) There's a not-so-official rule (trend even) that "enchantments don't tap". There's few exceptions as with every rule, but the most recent iterations are the god-weapons, that can tap because they're artifacts.
2) Lands are places, and Enchantments are things happening in places (mostly intangible while their effect is noticeable). Combining the two makes little sense flavor wise imo.
I still would have loved to see Nyx as a land however. Too bad Elspeth is the only planeswalker who's been there. Maybe if we return to Theros in a couple years.
September 16, 2014 5:46 p.m.
smash10101 says... #15
The artifact lands from mirrodin are so broken that Maro said he didn't even consider making a cycle of enchantment lands in Theros. Would have been pretty cool to see a legendary enchantment land, but w/e. Also, the rule about enchantments not tapping only applies to enchantments with no other types. Artifact enchantments and enchantment creatures are ok to tap. (Also anything from Future Sight.)
September 16, 2014 6:13 p.m.
Yes, running enchantment lands would be bad in most cases because the enchantment prison decks are not something you can make happen quickly, and that type of deck strategy is incredibly weak to direct hate just think about Fracturing Gust . With artifacts its busted because the are so quick and low cmc. Everyone that thinks they would get banned have no conceptualization of how little a single constellation trigger does in the long game. Eidolon of Blossoms is a 4 drop 2/2 for gods sakes it wont live through a light breeze in modern, 2/2's basically die accidentally. And constellation as far as i know is the only mechanic that would benefit from these lands, and once again wouldnt benefit all that much. On a side note Sunny Sky themed cards sound about right, perhaps etb tapped but thats about right
September 16, 2014 10:19 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #17
Bsaf I suggest you check this out.
As I pointed out a little bit ago, Ethereal Armor decks would just wreck everything if there were enchantment lands. Could you imagine T1 enchantment land -> boggle, T2 enchantment land -> Ethereal Armor -> Rancor -> swing for 7 first strike + trample.
Etc.
September 16, 2014 10:26 p.m.
As we said, legendary enchantment lands would be unable to produce such an effect. Second off, lets play this out. T1 i play a land and turn 2 Back to Nature . You now have 0 lands and a 1/1. Game. Affinity can get around that because their creatures allow instant speed sacking of artifacts to not take a loss or push through lethal. There is no such mechanic for enchantments. Hence not imaginarily ban worthy lol.
September 16, 2014 10:39 p.m.
What i did see on mtgtop8 was not a top 5 finish in any of the recent tournaments were boggles. They would be happy for the extra help lol.
September 16, 2014 10:45 p.m.
BlastercoolWeird says... #20
so to summarize above, enchantment basics were never considered because wizards was understandably afraid of another affinity. (really understandably, Affinity Winter was drove TONS of players aware from mtg, right? It was a mass exodus the like of which only seen in the wake of Caw-blade with Jace, the Mind Sculptor ) as such they never even considered an enchantment-typed utility land.
The point I'd like to add is that, honestly, Theros wasn't even that good at being an enchantment block, we got basically zero noteworthy auras, a bunch of not-playable bestows (most of the standard playable ones played mostly because they are just decent as creatures) and a few enchantment creatures. The only enchantment creature I've actually seen played outside of standard is Courser of Kruphix who sees play entirely because she's like an Oracle of Mul Daya that gains you life when you play lands. Her enchantment-ness is largely irrelevant outside of what removal hits her.
So yeah overall Theros was pretty lame, in my opinion.
September 16, 2014 11:24 p.m.
I was wondering if they'd print an enchantment land too. I'm playing around with a Zur modern deck just for fun... oh what could have been.
September 16, 2014 11:28 p.m.
lothshteth says... #22
Artifact lands were made because Mirrordin was a plane of metal artificially created by Karn, so the lands were metal. Theros has no such lands as the plane is not one big enchantment, with the exception of Nyx. WOTC should have made Nyx a legendary enchantment land, but they dropped that ball. MindAblaze!'s example is too op, but something on those lines would have been nice. Maybe...
Add to your mana pool if your devotion to white is 5 or greater. Repeat this process for each other color.
September 17, 2014 1:34 a.m.
Ive seen Thassa, God of the Sea in some decks but yeah not a whole lot outside of Courser of Kruphix made it outside the standard realm which is a shame. Actually i have been seeing Purphoros, God of the Forge in some soul sisters decks but yeah thats about it for awesome enchantments that are modern playable from theros
September 17, 2014 1:40 a.m.
smash10101 says... #24
Um... Keranos, God of Storms is played in Modern and possibly even Legacy.
September 17, 2014 11:58 a.m.
BlastercoolWeird says... #25
Really? huh. Guess that explains why he's 18$ right now. Do you know what he saw play in?
tbh I barely follow those formats, my LGS doesn't have a playgroup for either and the farther back you go in mtg constructed formats the less and less I care about them.
Still, I was under the impression Theros was a pretty underpowered block and generally not the enchantment block I think we were hoping for.
September 17, 2014 12:13 p.m.
smash10101 says... #26
Keranos sees play in a lot of UWR control decks in modern. Not too sure what else, but I have heard he sees legacy play as well, though I haven't seen it myself.
September 17, 2014 2:08 p.m.
Ah i forgot about Keranos, God of Storms he is seeing some play. I personally think that 15 indestructible enchantments in the form of gods were almost all pretty powerful in their own way from theros, and a select few have been seeing play in formats besides standard which is what most sets add to modern so i dont feel theros was bad
September 17, 2014 10:42 p.m.
BlastercoolWeird says... #28
sure but by the same token every set has it's big cool mythics, the problem with theros is that outside of those mythics and a small handful of standout rares the set was pretty weak.
like, Mindreaver ?! Skybind ?! Who thought these were worth putting on paper?! A good reason I'm so excited about Khans is that I finally get another set that isn't full of crud.
September 17, 2014 10:55 p.m.
smash10101 says... #29
Mindreaver was playable in limited. two blue devotion was the main reason I think.
September 18, 2014 2:24 a.m.
Yeah and people like brewing with Skybind for flicker/constellation decks though none competitive. But looking at the least useful cards in a set is like saying return to ravnica was a bad set because it has Search the City . Also had some ridiculously OP cards of course. The good cards from theros were good, more than a few bad and that can be said about any block.
September 18, 2014 5:01 a.m.
BlastercoolWeird says... #31
I do not believe you, smash10101, I have never seen that card played, and I've never seen it evaluated by anyone as anything less than trash. Just because you open one of mythic rares that care about devotion to blue, I don't see how having one-two more devotion is worth running what is basically a harder-to-cast Bronze Sable
, which a card that is mediocre at best.
Bsaf yeah except that theros had way /more/ bad cards than RTR or Inninstrad
You can even see it in the top-end decks of the format. Mono-black and Mono-blue devotion ultimately try to generate devotion for their Theros-native finishers but both of those deck HINGE on the cards from RTR block, the blue-x hybrids, Cloudfin Raptor , Pack Rat , Underworld Connections , Desecration Demon . UW and esper control hinges on Supreme Verdict . Detention Sphere , Sphinx's Revelation
Rabble Red? only theros cards in the pro tour m15 list were Firedrinker Satyr and a single Titan's Strength
The only decklist in the previous standard with a majority of theros cards is Jund Monsters, a decklist that is basically "let's jam all the really good green and red mythic creatures/planeswalkers, 4 courser, 4 caryatid and then all the good jund removal and disruption (with the exception of Thoughtseize mostly from RTR block, huh, fancy that) into a deck"
Why does this matter? Well it indicates to me that something might maybe be wrong with a block's power level when the archetypes it sets up are either ignored (Heroic didn't get anywhere close to a top 8, Tribute, far as I can tell, didn't get a single worthwhile card into standard outside of Fanatic of Xenagos ; the least-tribute-y tribute card) or have to rely largely on the materials provided by superior sets.
September 18, 2014 12:26 p.m.
That does not necessarily mean it was a bad block, but if thats how you wish to interpret the top decks go right ahead
September 18, 2014 12:47 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #33
I have to say I disagree with your assessment of the Standard meta a bit BlastercoolWeird.
Mono-black and Mono-Black devotion both played a significant role in the development of standard. Elspeth, Sun's Champion
gave Esper another win condition, Hero's Downfall
was played everywhere it could be. I imagine with the new format there will be a lot of Theros cards that get picked up, and a lot of cards that get left behind. Soldier of the Pantheon
could probably start seeing a decent amount of play, for example. Mindreaver
is a 2/1 for 2 with some upside...what's bad about that? Blue is more aggressive right now, if you get to counter something with his ability late game...that's just gravy.
Usually what you described is how standard works anyway, the relevant cards from the old block dominate until they rotate out...Abrupt Decay , Sphinx's Revelation , and Supreme Verdict are just examples of the useful tools that people wanted to make the most of their archetypes. I can't deny most of the removal in Theros didn't compare, but for limited play it was a necessity. Hard to play devotion in Limited if you can't get anything to stick. Look back to last year at this time...everyone was tired of Thragtusk and Restoration Angel , Liliana of the Veil , Snapcaster Mage and Olivia Voldaren at the expense of what RTR had to offer. Where was Desecration Demon then?
There were a lot of complaints about Theros's power level as a block. Born of the Gods and Journey to Nyx weren't particularly well received, so again, you're not voicing an unpopular opinion. I just think it will be interesting to see what people actually put together and win with.
September 18, 2014 1:33 p.m.
BlastercoolWeird says... #34
how is it not a bad block when it's newer than RTR and yet the people that play this game the most seriously and analytically are unwilling to consider most of the cards in Theros for competitive play.
September 18, 2014 1:39 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #35
We can't guarantee that "the people that play this game the most seriously and analytically are unwilling to consider most of the cards in Theros" until Khans standard has been around awhile, that's all I'm saying.
You never know what will stick around. Hero's Downfall , Stormbreath Dragon , Elspeth, Sun's Champion are probably all given, but there are a lot of cards that fit well into aggro strategies now that have been overshadowed to this point. Hero of Iroas and some of the other WW heroic guys come to mind, Gnarled Scarhide is another. Anax and Cymede could play into an aggressive Mardu/Jeskai build. Again...until the first events start happening we don't know for sure.
September 18, 2014 1:54 p.m.
Once again you're entitled to your opinion blaster, but between what has been named already and what hasn't i agree with mind; anyone make an argument that Brimaz, King of Oreskos is a bad card. Prophetic Flamespeaker is seeing play outside of standard as well, and of course red players love Eidolon of the Great Revel in any format, and Satyr Firedancer is in some rdw decks which are tier1 for modern. And of course, Thoughtseize !? Reprint or no it is powerful and was printed in theros. This list keeps going, so personal biases aside it is hard to argue that theros didnt have good cards.
September 18, 2014 5:29 p.m.
BlastercoolWeird says... #37
I didn't say Theros didn't have any good cards and that none are seeing play. I said it has fewer constructed worthy cards than the sets preceding it, as evidenced by how few of the decks in standard ran a majority of Theros cards and the points people have made about BNG and JOU being underpowered.
While Mind does give an actual good point that some of the focus on Ravnica comes from players hanging onto the cards they've played so far I will argue that it's no small part of the trend that Ravnica cards are seeing more play because the set was bottom-up rather than top-down, and that outside of the initial excitement of Theros the set Born of the Gods and Journey into Nyx failed to deliver in terms of excellent cards from a standpoint of gameplay.
Ravnica provided a lot of tools to the standard format to a variety of decks, things like the guild charms, various not-always-obviously powerful creatures like Burning-Tree Emissary or Ghor-Clan Rampager at lower rarities, vital control tools like the cards I mentioned for uw control. heck, even had better auras with Madcap Skills and Ethereal Armor
September 18, 2014 6:33 p.m.
Seraphicate says... #38
Land destruction purely based on destroying/exiling enchantment lands would be a thing.
September 20, 2014 9 a.m.
Seraph, we were actually talking about a legendary enchantment land like if Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx was a legendary enchantment land. Basic enchantment lands would be broken haha, no arguments there
September 20, 2014 4:11 p.m.
There seemed to be a lot of enchantment removal in Theros. Would suck to have a land that could be removed so easy
September 24, 2014 3:20 p.m.
Which is why i keep saying it would have been bad in standard, but brewable with in modern. Cant see it happening anytime soon since thematically if there was one printed theros would probably have had it
ItchiUchiha117 says... #2
Because WotC knows not to make the same mistake twice. They already had to ban the artifact lands while they were in standard and had them stay banned in modern. Enchantment lands would have suffered the same fate.
September 16, 2014 4:22 p.m.