I've been procrastinating on finishing my big essay about my basic land box for nearly a year now, but since I do want to share it, I'm going to just do so and briefly spell out my philosophy:
My Land Box (CubeCobra)
Goals:
1. Maintain the spirit of my cube experience with the basic lands.
This means that,
like my cube, the land box is
singleton, reflects the
passions and interests of my playgroup, and
prioritizes fun and accessibility...within reason. Capturing singleton is easy enough, and allows the next goal to be more easily achieved as well, but things like focusing on accessibility calls for avoiding basic lands that don't look like the type they say they are like
the very green Lord of the Rings map lands,
the infamous red Kamigawa "swamp", or
most of the black-and-white basics. Even full-arts can be misleading at times if you're not careful with them -- the big mana symbols are quite handy!!
2. Represent the breadth of Magic as a game and its history.
The singleton nature of this land box does the heavy lifting for achieving this goal, but I also want to show off as many eras as possible here, even if I wasn't as much a fan of the art direction of the game at various times. 23% of all basics printed were originally in the classic border, and without consciously letting that affect my picks, my land box is at 24%. Feels good!
Every player has different preferences, and while I'm clearly not a Zendikar Respecter here (nor do I cow-tow to
those people), I have quite a lot of lands that I may not personally prefer because I see many of my drafters go straight for certain types of lands first, like the Tron basics.
Part of this also means staying true to what Magic is, even when the game itself does not do so. While the meme about Islands that aren't Islands is valid, it's also important to recognize that there's only so far that a structuralist approach will take you. However, there are plenty of Islands that don't
evoke the feeling of an Island, and to me, if it doesn't look like a blue mage could legitimately draw power from that coast line, it has little place in my cube.
3. Maximize the volume of high-quality artwork.
Easier said than done when, to make a 300-card land box, you're choosing less than the top 10% of each land type. It shouldn't be a shock here that it's extremely hard to do this if you want to be honest with yourself and I'm constantly changing out cards as a result.
Still have to make a few changes for LotR now that I've got those basics on-hand, but looking at new basics is one of my favorite parts of a new set, and I can't wait to put out the full version of this overview or share my long-form article on "The State of Basic Lands" as part of Magic's 30th anniversary celebration this summer.
As a note, I'm
in love with
@Velrun's basic land box, which has a similar approach to mine but has taken 10x the work, care, and curation.
An old rough draft of my larger article, plus my top 12 basics of each type, are currently sitting with cobwebs on the CubeCobra overview, if you'd like to view that.
