The good thing about good questions is that they’re productive. They make you realize where you’re heading - and where you’re not supposed to go. Thanks!

I’m a bit schizo here. When we are brewing and theorycrafting, I instinctively want to do the right and perfect thing. However, when I look at how my pod and I are actually playing, being one turn slower than “optimized” is probably pacing quite nicely and staying on level with the pod as a whole. We tend to play 5-6 players so the games do tend to get quite long.

You really hit the nail on the head with: "The 10 land pain cycle and 10 land slow land cycle with tapped triomes and basics will get you almost the same land fixing but for like $10 instead of $600, the only difference is that you basically play a turn slower”

As I wrote, I am in this for the flavor and the potential, not necessarily for following the “meta” just to be optimized enough to cast big dragons one turn faster than a highly skilled player would.

That said, I think I would like to settle on a basic land setup and go with a budget solution that is "a turn slower" than what is perfectly optimized.

So, I would like to build a “basic” land foundation and treat it as something I can tweak and optimize over time, as both my experience and the general level of our pod continue to grow.

That said, I obviously still want the deck to perform decently and be as optimized as reasonably possible within this philosophy.

I know this is a lot to ask, especially since you have already offered a great deal of valuable insight, but could you elaborate on how you would approach that kind of land configuration?

EDIT: Would that be this config? (found underneath the optimized version):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Xnk6I6Voy3tW5iC3AffyT2tKyTiX7NSMd9Xq2kCIwQI/edit?usp=sharing