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I posted a longer article on my blog about why I don't think Magic needs land. I'll summarize:

1. I think any card should be able to be played as a land. The card would "transform" into a land similar to the VS game system.

2. If the card had only one color in its mana cost, it could only become that one land. If the card had 2 colors in its mana cost, it could become either basic land.

3. Having land cards is old-fashioned and causes mana screwing and flooding.

4. You could still use cards that fetch a land because you could still put regular land cards into your deck.

Maybe I could make this an option in Forge (being able to play any card as a land).

I read your blog about that.

Don't you think that would lead towards a higher number of "Timmy" players? That is, if you were guaranteed at least one mana every turn no matter how you built your deck, wouldn't that encourage you to put in higher casting cost things?

It bears further thought.

There are unofficial Magic variants that have a similar rule. If you want to play that way there are at least some other people out there that would be interested in it. I assume your idea was inspired by "Mental Magic"?

If you are having mana problems then a good way to reduce the problem is to play more man-lands or lands that have spell-type effects (such as Tectonic Edge). Another solution is to find a way to draw cards with whatever color(s) you are playing. Blue is traditionally strongest at doing this, but those draws / cantrips will help you see more land drops.

Last but not least you should check out a game by the name of Spoils. A friend introduced it to me once and literally described it as "Magic with no mana screw." I didn't play it much afterwards (I can only afford one TCG hobby ) although it might be your cup of tea.

I think the biggest damage it would do to the game would be to hurt the metaphor.

If you didn't need resources, RTS games would seem weird when you were using soldiers for supplies. The feeling that you've built something is a simple joy that MTG cashes in on I think.

Check out Astral Masters, it has a similar idea - discard cards to increase your mana pool.

http://www.astralmasters.com/
http://www.impulsedriven.com/am

It's an interesting game - kinda like a basic version of Magic.

Just today I played magic for the first time in a long time.
My opponent played Raven's Crime in his first turn, I had three lands in my hand but nothing to play for two mana. I the end, I still decided to discard a land hoping to draw one by turn three.

well, I didn't, but the point is that the strategy of choosing whether to discard a land or a spell would be gone with this change.


my conclusion is that you could change magic to not have lands, and it would work. it would just be a completely different game. think of green's theme of mana acceleration. it's possible without lands, but it has very different design space.

Thanks for mentioning the Spoils TCG. I read about it a long time ago. It looks interesting, I plan to play through a few games. (They should have a demo deck and walk-through but they don't.)

I think the main problems with removing lands is multicolor play. The current system is that if you want to play more than one color, you must give thought to your land base, you must make compromises, and you must accept that you might get colorscrewed. This balances the fact that multicolored decks are inherently stronger because they have access to larger selection of effects.

Without lands, imagine you'd play deck comprised, say, of nothing but red/green cards. Each of them could be played as a land that gives G or that gives R, and there would be no real penalty of using multicolored deck.

That being said, Magic actually DOES contain a card that removes the need for land:

Dakkon Blackblade Avatar
Vanguard
Hand modifier: +1
Life modifier: +0
You may play any colored card from your hand as a copy of a basic land card chosen at random that can produce mana of one of the card's colors.
VGO - Master's Edition Release Events (Participation), September 2007

It's not exactly the same as your idea, but very similar. The differences are:

You cannot use colorless cards as lands (with your system, you could presumably use them for colorless mana).

A multicolored card becomes a random land - that is the big change, which preserves the more risky situation with multicolored decks. If you use multicolored card as land, you risk that you won't actually get the color you need.

Maybe more interesting than just removing lands would be to add Vanguard? Not only it would allow you to use this effect, among many others, but you could also make new game modes in this form.

I love the idea of addding Vanguard. I've always wanted to play with the small changes the Vanguard cards bring about... Just a little bit of extra strategy depending on which card you get.

I strongly agree with this sentiment. LD and mana screw are by far the biggest deterrents for me from playing this game competitively.