If I got Shocks I would legit Rather play Checklands than Pathways, I would call Pathyways the worst Cycle of Untapped Multicolored lands..but the Snarls Exist and I would play a fucking Basic Land over a snarl.
They were Uncommon, Uncommon Land Cycles exist to suck balls like a meth addicted whore behind an arbys.
I ran them as an alt wincon in five color johda fist of sun super friends. Gates are trash but love me some alt win conditions.
No land should be above uncommon. Save maybe something really niche (maze's end) or tribal (sliver hive).
Gond Gate makes them soooooo good it's not even fair. (especially with how many cards can tutor for it)
I mean sure that is how I would prefer it to be, but I am telling it like it is, shit you are bringing up the Lairs and those fucking things got massively power creeped in Tarkir.
Time for the Scooby Doo references.
Nigger Nigger Doo, Consume it too
Eh, I mean. You have Gond Gate, and Spelunking is now a bargain-price Amulet of Vigor. The turtle legend is also one.
Wizards of the Coast, I see you.
Secret Lair Velma because you know damn well they prefer diversity shit.
I dunno, if you're going that far into making a good value gate manabase work the biggest thing you can do to watch your budget is to stop playing 5c commanders. Chances are for almost every degenerate plan you might concoct other than Slivers there's a perfectly good 2 color commander that can do it and let you run a lot more basics and a lot less janky stuff to try to make your manabase not terrible.
Slivers isn't even that Degenerate, The only way slivers become Degenerate is if the other 3 players are absolute retards and don't run any interaction.
Every commander deck is degenerate, no one plays fair cards in commander. That's the appeal of the format, you finally have some place other than limited to put in your 8 mana card that lets you physically move around the table and kick each player in the nuts until they stop moving. If you're playing a fair card in commander you sat down at the wrong table.
WTF are you smoking? There weren't any lairs in tarkir.
If they had any balls they'd make Scooby a demon.
LOL what are you smoking? karoo & friends requires an untapped land AND enter tapped, meaning you have to go down 2 mana that turn to try and use them. Lairs not only enter untapped (meaning you can use them right away) but you can tap the land you bounce losing no mana tempo that turn. How exactly is "entering tapped" a "massive power creep" over that?
Yes, I have played it enough to understand that having a jacked up mana base in your 3 Color Deck so you can do something like "Oh I am gonna bounce a land once every 50 Games to get value out of a MDFC" is a terrible idea.
No?
Because you have 3 Guild colored Bounce Lands, that can bounce themselves and the Guild ones barely pass muster in my Jund Landfall deck because each one you play increases the chances of a really awkward opening hand.
In 3 Colors and above I play very few Utility lands, 3 Colors is the point where keeping your Mana base sensible really starts to matter, It is where I start to count MDFCs as spells rather than lands, and most of them don't even make the cut because in 3 Colors you have enough powerful cards that you really don't need to try to get value out of your lands.