Quote Originally Posted by Humphrey View Post
no but i think field is actually an upgrade and makes legendary duals much more reasonable. which would also fit perfectly into some sort of commander masters
Field is better in some situations and worse in others. Field can be forced to sacrifice it to itself and ETB tapped (slows down your curve), but it can sacrifice lands you've already used and also has hexproof.

also shocks happened long ago, before they tightened the reserved iirc
Shocks were printed in Ravnica block (2005-2006). The Reserved List was created in 1996 (after Chronicles annoyed collectors) and ended with Masques block, with the list finalized in 2002. Long before shocks.

Shocks were designed as a way to reintroduce basic land-typed duals into Extended in a way that was functionally different enough to respect the Reserved List and also powered down enough to be fairer. They only promised no functional reprints or new cards that completely invalidate the old ones. They have printed other cards that are functionally similar but fit into a different niche (e.g. Hypergenesis vs Eureka, despite the fact that Hypergenesis was more competitively viable).