Real talk, I've always wanted to include a land slot in my boosters to draft really sick basics. However, the problem is that you're throwing away equity by doing so, and the only solution I've been able to find is to make it a desert cube, i.e. one in which you have to draft your basics, and I'm not quite sure I'm ready for that. If anyone else has other ideas I'm all ears!
Here's my solution: you make all your basics in the land box less desirable and/or identical boring lands, and then give players literal raffle tickets to get the best basics. You can make the default lands all white bordered as an extra incentive. Give every something like 10 raffle tickets to start, and you can even include some cards that represent additional raffle tickets as cards included in the draft.
Then you need to be able to have an easy system for your players to trade in raffle tickets themselves without someone having to arbitrate the system, or else it's just a blocker for deck construction.
Version 1: You make it really obvious, i.e. 1 ticket = standard black bordered land of your choosing, 2 tickets = full art land, 3 tickets = specialty land (making them all foil or something is an easy way to communicate the difference between a 3-ticket Godzilla Mountain and a 2-ticket full art Zendikar one, for example).
Version 2: You have multiple copies of only very specific lands (maybe 10 varieties per basic?) that are each featured on a print-out per land type with their corresponding ticket costs.
I kept trying to think of a bidding or drafting system that could be fun, but bidding would take
way too long and drafting just basic lands would feel tedious and provide more feelbad than sick moments. Fundamentally, these are all ways to complicate an already-complicated format, but I broadly do like the idea of making Basics something to compete over somehow.
I think a
lot about basic lands and think they're an essential part of my group's cubing experience. The method my cube uses is
dramatically simpler but achieves a similar goal: singleton basics, first-come-first-serve. I maintain my land box just as religiously as my main cube (which yes, I promised here I'd share it and its corresponding write-up like...a week ago). I try to be vocal about how the coolest lands go fast as incentive to get people to get through deck construction in a reasonable amount of time, which does actually work when players start remarking out loud on how cool the new additions are in front of the rest of the table(s)
