Pain lands are back in Magic: The Gathering, and fans are pumped up

Wizards of the Coast has announced several new and returning cards. The Gathering is Magic It will be released in a set soon Dominaria UnitedOn Thursday. Among these cards are six returning “pain lands,” a nickname they’ve acquired for doing a point of damage to their controller anytime they are tapped for a color of mana.

These six lands include three of the following: Magic’s Pioneer format for the first time, signaling a new level of balance to the power level of three popular color combinations that have had to manage with a resource disparity since the format’s inception in 2019.

There have been pain lands in the past Magic Since 1995 when five were added to the market, Ice Age set. Five more were printed in 2001’s Apocalypse Set, complete the land cycle of all 10 color pairings. These lands were reprinted several times over the years in different sets. Sometimes they were all at once. Other times, smaller numbers of these lands were compiled in smaller collections. They have remained an invaluable resource, if not a beloved, for those who love two-or more-color decks.

These lands are so old that they’re all legal to be in. Magic’s bigger formats, such as Modern and Commander, that’s not the case for all competitive players. Particularly those who are playing Pioneer or Explorer.

To fully grasp the disparity in Pioneer’s available lands, it helps to understand a concept in the game called the color pie, a design philosophy that dictates what each of the game’s mana colors are able to do in various cards. The five colors form 10 pairs, and these 10 pairs are often separated into two groups — enemy pairs and allied pairs. On the pie are the allied pairings: blue/black and red/green. On the pie, there are still two combinations: the enemy pairs.

In a, pain lands was printed for the last time. Magic In 2015, the standard set was included in this set Magic Origins This only contained the enemy pairs. The remaining allied pairs haven’t seen a Standard reprint since 2007’s Tenth edition — a full five years prior to Pioneer’s available cardpool, which starts with 2012’s Ravnica is back. Pioneer decks built around enemy pairings have an inherent advantage in comparison to allied-colored decks. This is because they are more likely to find mana sources and have more lands.

It is even more complicated because the enemy color pair has more land options than normal due to other differences among Pioneer’s non-basic lands. This resource imbalance is also caused by some older sets, which were not released until Pioneer.

The other big example of this issue is seen in 2016’s Kaladesh, which featured a cycle of five enemy dual lands known as “fast lands,” which earned their nickname because they enter the battlefield untapped if there are fewer than three other lands already under the player’s control. The five allied fast lands do exist, and were introduced in 2010’s Scars from Mirrodin but they haven’t been reprinted in a Standard set since, making them ineligible for Pioneer play. As a result, while most of the other popular dual land cycles that see Pioneer play are available across every color pair, it’s the absence of these 10 allied dual lands that give enemy colors an inherent advantage and can impact the competitive viability of nascent strategies that don’t have access to these crucial resources.

That’s where Dominaria United The new format is here. The format now has three of five of the missing pain lands. This gives the red/black/white and red/green colour pairs new flexibility. It can be used to create new decks or strengthen existing ones that have had to deal with insufficient mana.

One way to predict the implications of these three new lands is comparing their color pairs against specific deck styles that don’t currently exist in the format. Pioneer, for example, has not had a red/green ramp deck. These are sometimes called red/green monstrosities. These types of decks are traditionally defined by cheap green “ramp” spells, including 1-mana green creatures, which produce extra mana early in the game that then accelerates the deck’s ability to cast bigger and more expensive red creatures that outclass an opponent’s strategy.

Since Pioneer has been so limited in red/green dual lands that can tap for both colors early and late in the game, a traditional monster ramp deck hasn’t existed in these colors in the format. However, the introduction of Karplusan Forest has made this a reality. Dominaria United This could be a change, allowing for Llanowar Elves to continue coexisting with modern creatures. Dominaria You can have cards like Squee or Dubious Monarch and Shivan Devastator all in one aggressive deck.

In addition to the lands, there’s one more iconic reprint in Dominaria United that’s likely to make a big splash on Pioneer and to a certain extent, every format where it’s playable — Liliana of the Veil. Over the years, this 3-mana planeswalker has been a dominating presence and staple across a variety of formats, but until now hasn’t been available to Pioneer players.

Liliana has been used historically in disruptive, grindy midrange decks. They prolong games with constant streams of removal spells hand disruption and cheap creatures. She is the glue in Modern midrange decks. This allows the deck to attack from any angle it needs. Her +1 loyalty ability keeps cards out of opponents’ hands, her -2 helps keep the board clear, and if she sticks around long enough, her ultimate -6 ability essentially resets the game, making it near impossible to ever recover.

Her reprint will delight midrange players, as Pioneer has an excellent red/black strategy for midrange that is widely regarded by players to be one of the best decks in the format. Liliana, coupled with the new red/black pain land, are easy additions to the red/black midrange deck that’s currently dominating Pioneer and Explorer play. Of course the classic question that always comes up in these situations is, “What do you take out to make room for Liliana?” But there’s very little room for doubt that she belongs in the deck and will be a new powerhouse in the format.

Dominaria United goes live on The Gathering Arena – MagicAnd Magic: The Gathering Online September 1st, followed by Sept. 9th paper release