This article explores pregame actions, Leylines, Chancellors, companions, conspiracies, Serum Powder mulligans, Gemstone Cavern, Flash Hulk history, and other strange cards that affect the game before anyone plays a land
At least until they started to give us one mana options like the contemporary Duress, Thoughtseize, or Inquisition of Kozilek
All of these permanent versions of land animation carry the same pros and cons: we save mana and cards we would spend animating them again in future, but lose our advantage against sweepers
When fetches start settling around $10, [card]Sorin, Solemn Visitor[/card] drops to under $15, [card]Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker[/card] fluctuates to around $20, and [card]Clever Impersonator[/card] (non-foils) tank to around $6, the non-hyped rares sitting at $2-5 will have a chance to see an increase according to how Standard settles
But at the same time, if we banned every lock card tomorrow, the game would almost certainly be worse off swamped by aggressive brute force combo decks abusing the most uninteractive, explosive lines beyond the ability of any fair deck to react
