…Batman? Nevermind. As it turns out there was another subject I haven’t dealt with this year, and not that much since the beginning of this blog either: it’s making mana. At large, mana producing isn’t the biggest space in magic cards design – you don’t want to get too fancy with it and instead rely on good old basic lands – but it’s definitely an interesting area to explore.
Lucky you, this week you are getting an artifact – what we call a mana rock – and a full cycle of 10 two-color lands! Let’s check those out right away.
As you can see Eye of Kerath is the mana stone.
I was wondering what kind of card could be made, using for downside that producing mana of any color would let an opponent draw a card. I believe a free artifact might be it!
Now to keep this card in check, there are a couple things to look at: would the modern deck Affinity play it? What about Storm? Lastly, how does it impact Legacy? Commander?
I think we are mostly safe on all fronts, but just in case I wanted to experiment with making it legendary. I wonder why it was hardly ever done.
Nw for the big cycle. Citadel Ruins is the first land I created.
My main idea was to make a cycle of dual lands with a color making you lose life, but the other one gaining you some back.
My biggest worry was that the downside wouldn’t be great enough, and soon that you would find yourself with a bunch of lands gaining you life every turn.
You are looking at my second iteration. It would still need work and testing, as we need a strong incentive to not just play 12 of those is every deck!
Do tell me what you think of those. Now I’ll be leaving you with the full cycle of those beautiful lands, hope you will enjoy them. It’s been tons of fun working on their flavor; I wasn’t really set to make a cycle but I could help myself in the end.
I’ll be talking to you next week, until then have a good one!
Ominous Designs 
The main issue I see with the lands is that in a mono-colored deck, you can just play the 8 on-color ones and go bananas with the lifegain. I would suggest making this a 5 card cycle, with the second ability being “T, pay 2 life: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.” That way, you can play the one in your color, instead of two.
Right… Guess I didn’t see it that way. Kinda makes even having 4 only pretty good. I was focusing too much on compensating that I didn’t realize the other mode could also not be used AT ALL. A tapped land that makes you gain life every time is indeed busted xD