I'm not going to repeat my "people don't play enough lands" speech again, but let me just encourage you to compare the mana-to-spell ratios of good 60-card decks with those described by the EDH posters here. In most cases, 42 land is probably better than 37 land, and even 40 land is probably too little for multiplayer EDH.
Really I only run 33 lands in Sharuum and I think I run 5 too many. Then again, I play ramp into land destruction/death cloud!
Generally I think 38 is a good starting point and it depends on number of ramp spells/mana rocks. Usually I do 2 ramp spells = 1 land, 2 expensive mana rocks = 1 land, fact accel rocks = 1 land.
When I started out in EDH, a Judge friend said nonland/land was 60/40, but I thought that was a little too much (coming from 40/20 in my casual decks, where I usually don't get mana screwed), so I started putting 36 in every deck, thinking it would be enough.
In my experience, 36 wasn't bad, but I did find myself missing land drops occasionally. So, I took his advice and upped my first deck to 40 lands and haven't looked back since. Now when I build new EDH decks, I always go with 40 lands to start, then maybe knock out a land or two if I see too many lands during the course of a few games. (I also now use 22 lands in 60-card decks)
My Grand Arbiter build currently only runs 38, but that's with 4 rocks and land tax, and two-color decks can afford to run less.
It also helps that I have a lot of card draw.
I'm not going to repeat my "people don't play enough lands" speech again, but let me just encourage you to compare the mana-to-spell ratios of good 60-card decks with those described by the EDH posters here. In most cases, 42 land is probably better than 37 land, and even 40 land is probably too little for multiplayer EDH.
Oh i am sure its a magnificent speech but i just don't agree with you. This format is very different from 60 card ones, as im sure you have noticed. One of the biggest reasons is we have access to things like Sol Ring, Mana Crypt and Mana Vault along with various signets/stones and this artifact mana greatly impacts land counts in this format. I cannot see the justification for non-green decks running 40+ land (As you can see my response was to a black deck using 42). Sure, some standard decks run 40% land but they dont use Sol Rings and Ancient Ruins.
I'm actually lacking on drawing spells and tutoring. All I have right now is Diabolic Tutor, and Bloodgift Demon. I can't afford Demonic Tutor at the moment, and I'm not trying to be extremely competitive with this deck. I probably need to get Phyrexian Arena and look into some low-cost draw cards like Sign in Blood.
Yeah, right on. There are three 2 CMC Black Draw 2's that come to mind. SiB is one at BB, bit there are 2 at 1B, if I'm not mistaken. They're so powerful that they're mentioned in the top 50 cards of each color thread, check it out. One thing to remember though is that your curve should be low to run these the reason is that you start with 7 cards, always draw your first turn, and so if that's your first play you go to 8 and have to discard to max hand size. A black cantrip like See Beyond/Preordain isn't bad, but these cards can do better. To remedy that, run sone good-all-the-time 1cc spells like skullclamp, sensei's divining top, mana vault, grave hate artifacts, even Dark Ritual is good. That down, and you're well on your way to smooth as silk draws.
Phyrexian Arena is boss. None of the overdraw problems above, and you get sick volume with it if you hit it early. Don't go proxying up a Necropotence. That card is on my crap list of those I refuse to play. It makes me nauseous when I see it, and I want to quit. Just like a cheesy combo, everything to that point in the game was meaningless, and it turns out we were just yanking each other's chains.
Otherwise, the rest of you need to understand how poor of a comparison Standard is. We aren't playing Sphere of the Suns here. We also don't have premium draw like Phyrexian Arena, Brainstorm, Ancestral Vision. If Standatd did have that, they'd all be running 20 land decks. Unless you have Exploration or Burgeoning or something, too much land is bad. You can actually make land drops MORE often with draw volume than you can with land count.
Yeah, right on. There are three 2 CMC Black Draw 2's that come to mind. SiB is one at BB, bit there are 2 at 1B, if I'm not mistaken. They're so powerful that they're mentioned in the top 50 cards of each color thread, check it out. One thing to remember though is that your curve should be low to run these the reason is that you start with 7 cards, always draw your first turn, and so if that's your first play you go to 8 and have to discard to max hand size. A black cantrip like See Beyond/Preordain isn't bad, but these cards can do better. To remedy that, run sone good-all-the-time 1cc spells like skullclamp, sensei's divining top, mana vault, grave hate artifacts, even Dark Ritual is good. That down, and you're well on your way to smooth as silk draws.
Phyrexian Arena is boss. None of the overdraw problems above, and you get sick volume with it if you hit it early. Don't go proxying up a Necropotence. That card is on my crap list of those I refuse to play. It makes me nauseous when I see it, and I want to quit. Just like a cheesy combo, everything to that point in the game was meaningless, and it turns out we were just yanking each other's chains.
Otherwise, the rest of you need to understand how poor of a comparison Standard is. We aren't playing Sphere of the Suns here. We also don't have premium draw like Phyrexian Arena, Brainstorm, Ancestral Vision. If Standatd did have that, they'd all be running 20 land decks. Unless you have Exploration or Burgeoning or something, too much land is bad. You can actually make land drops MORE often with draw volume than you can with land count.
Thanks for the suggestion at the top 50 thread. I didn't know that was there, so I will go look. Since Kaalia is BRW, I'm probably going to be most of my card draw or filtering from black and artifact sources. I know Dark Confidant is a powerful card draw creature, but that would kill me in a Kaalia deck. (i.e. draw too many 6+ CMC creatures with it)
I'm going to echo Gosu here, people don't play enough lands. Yeah you can cut your mana base down to 37 or less to splash more awesome cards and then be up a creek when your five or six mana rocks you use get blown up by a sweeper. I run 43 or more regularly, it's actually become more important now days a one of the newer players to my playgroup favorite card is cataclysm. Being able to hit every land drop is paramount in EDH as most decks are very mana hungry and even the low curve decks tend to be able to use most if not all of their available mana every turn.
I know that I was extremely pissed in a game with my wort deck (runs 42ish lands) when I had an oracle of muldaya down and missed a land drop for two turns.
tl:dr Because you have so much to do with extra mana in EDH flood is a very rare occurrence and even if it happens you are still in the game instead of discarding four drops sitting on three lands.
Since mana rocks and ramp spells are influencing a lot of people's answers, I pose a new question - how do you weight said mana rocks and ramp spells?
That is, does adding one rock mean you can drop one land, or do you have to add three rocks before you consider dropping a land? Personally I'm fairly conservative - I weight 4 rocks/ramp spells versus one land.
I'm going to echo Gosu here, people don't play enough lands. Yeah you can cut your mana base down to 37 or less to splash more awesome cards and then be up a creek when your five or six mana rocks you use get blown up by a sweeper. I run 43 or more regularly, it's actually become more important now days a one of the newer players to my playgroup favorite card is cataclysm. Being able to hit every land drop is paramount in EDH as most decks are very mana hungry and even the low curve decks tend to be able to use most if not all of their available mana every turn.
I know that I was extremely pissed in a game with my wort deck (runs 42ish lands) when I had an oracle of muldaya down and missed a land drop for two turns.
tl:dr Because you have so much to do with extra mana in EDH flood is a very rare occurrence and even if it happens you are still in the game instead of discarding four drops sitting on three lands.
I think this misses the point again.
Sure, you want to make land drops every turn. But once you get to a certain average land count per opening hanf of 7, there are better ways to make land drops. Example - having a 3 land opening hand with Cultivate as one of thr non-land cards is strictly better than a 4 land opening hand where you have no play turn 3. Basically the same deal with a 3 land hand where you have other small draw like SiB/Brainstorm.
On mana rock to land count ratios, I find it best not to think about it in those terms. Reason being that you still want to make your land drops. Play T1 Sol Ring and miss your T3 land drop and you lose half the value of playing Sol Ring. So, it depends on what you do with that extra mana T1, T3, or whatever turn it is after you get the artifact out. If you have a lot of 4cc spells, you will want 1-2 CMC artys that tap for at least 1, and then have a land ratio that gives you at least 3/10 cards land at least, something around... 80% of the time or so. If you have a dozen or so clutch 6cmc spells, you can think about 3cmc and 4cmc cards that give 1 or two points accel, while still maintaining a land ratio that gives you 5 land of your opening 12 (7 starting and 5 for each of your turns). Small draw helps this by making it so you see more card volume by that turn.
So as you can see, there is no hard and fast time. Look at the nuances of your curve, average CMC of course, but also any frequently occurring CMC (modes in statistics lingo), and also any very important spells, such as your Commander or a Primeval Titan or something.
For example, my Damia deck wants to plant the commander ASAP, so I load up on two point mana accel for 3cmc or less, small draw at 3cmr or less, and enough land to make 5 drops in 4 turns (11 cards) roughly 80% of the time. That puts me at 7 mana.
My Rule of thumb is
36 mana producingfor mono-coloured
37 mana producingfor two-coloured
38 mana producingfor tri-coloured
40 mana producingfor five-coloured
lands that can't produce mana on their own don't count i'm looking at you Cabal Coffers
I always start at 40. I adjust from there depending on the mana rocks.
Then I change the number based on my curve. I don't know that I've ever dropped below 36 though. Even that was with a butt load of mana rocks and Moxes.
This is before I even consider adding lands that don't actually give me mana or lands that are more than likely to be used as utility like strip mine and co.
I always feel like I need more land though. You can never have enough.
Sure, you want to make land drops every turn. But once you get to a certain average land count per opening hanf of 7, there are better ways to make land drops. Example - having a 3 land opening hand with Cultivate as one of thr non-land cards is strictly better than a 4 land opening hand where you have no play turn 3. Basically the same deal with a 3 land hand where you have other small draw like SiB/Brainstorm.
You're positing that ramp is the same as land which it isn't. Having ramp available, which isn't always the case in say a non green deck, doesn't change the fact you will need more than the lands in your opening hand over the course of the game. So yes casting a cultivate on turn three makes it better than casting nothing. But cultivate isn't free so having a cultivate and two land hand leaves you needing that top deck. Likewise needed to top deck one land for whatever you need and you hit cultivate, might as well have time-walked yourself.
I'm not arguing that ramp is bad but by ramping and removing land from your deck your lowering the chances of seeing a land. Sixty card decks run 24 land because 40% land to spell ratios insure they will see four land by turn four statically speaking. EDH decks often want to run all the way up to 6 or more mana by turn six so to insure that many lands are seen a higher land to spell ratio is required. When you skimp on lands and use inexpensive, and some times not inexpensive, ramp spells to make up the difference you are less likely to draw land when you need it.
As stated several times the mana % is different. I personally use a base count of 35 lands for a dual coloured deck. I'd say 40 for five colour. But that again is pure preference.
Wow, this thread would have helped me a lot if I had found it a while ago when I was trying to build my Intet deck. I had to start with the same land count as the precons (37, I think) then tinker and playtest until I was satisfied.
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You're positing that ramp is the same as land which it isn't. Having ramp available, which isn't always the case in say a non green deck, doesn't change the fact you will need more than the lands in your opening hand over the course of the game. So yes casting a cultivate on turn three makes it better than casting nothing. But cultivate isn't free so having a cultivate and two land hand leaves you needing that top deck. Likewise needed to top deck one land for whatever you need and you hit cultivate, might as well have time-walked yourself.
I'm not arguing that ramp is bad but by ramping and removing land from your deck your lowering the chances of seeing a land. Sixty card decks run 24 land because 40% land to spell ratios insure they will see four land by turn four statically speaking. EDH decks often want to run all the way up to 6 or more mana by turn six so to insure that many lands are seen a higher land to spell ratio is required. When you skimp on lands and use inexpensive, and some times not inexpensive, ramp spells to make up the difference you are less likely to draw land when you need it.
My fault. I was meaning to talk about draw there, not ramp, but Cultivate is confusingly both.
Since this is about the third time I'm talking about why draw volume is related to land count, I'll take it slow. Let's consider two numbers. The first number is the number of turns you take, which is therefore the amount of land you can play, which is also the ideal amount of land you want to draw in order to not miss a drop. Let's call this "X". The second number is how many cards you've drawn from your deck. Let's call this number "Y".
Ok, so the ratio of land drawn/turns taken to the amount of cards you've seen is X:Y. Let's say you're talking about turn 3. X = 3 and Y = 7 (from your starting hand) + 3 (from your draws)
, or 10 total. So your ideal land:card ratio on turn 3 is 3:10, on turn 4, 4:11, 5:12, and so on. Compare this to your land:card count in your deck. 3:10 is 30:100, 4:11 is about 36:100, 5:12 is about 42, 6:12 is 48. OMG, 48 land in a deck to hit 6 land by turn 6 on average?? That's excessive by most people's estimates, right?? And what's up with the number going up so fast?
Here's the thing people should understand. The above ratio expressed as a fraction is getting bigger. The numerator is growing at the same rate as the denominator. So this fraction will eventually grow to larger than the ratio of lands to cards in our deck, be it 34 to 99, 40 to 99, or even 50 to 99. Eventually at this rate, you will miss a land drop. You will eventually run out of the slots in your deck to put actual cards.
So, we can't make a land drop every turn by land density alone. We have to change the ratio of lands drawn to turns taken. And we can't do it by changing the first number. So, we have to change the last number. We have to see more cards from our deck than the ones we are getting from our draw step each turn. We have to increase the denominator of this ratio.
So, drawing more cards helps you draw more land??? Obvious conclusion obvious, I'm afraid.
So let's take a card like Cultivate, except it doesn't ramp. An un-entwined Journey of Discovery, a Krosan Tusker, or a Sign in Blood. They allow us to see more cards out of our decks than the ones our draw step is giving us. Some of those cards guarantee that they are land, increasing "X". Others don't, and they increase "Y" instead. At any rate, including a fair number of the good ones will let us keep ahead of our land drops.
So I say once again, a hand with 3 land and a Krosan Tusker/Journey of Discovery is better than a 4 land hand in that they give us one extra card. If you are in no danger of discarding it due to maximum hand size and you wouldn't have otherwise spent the 3 mana casting cost on something else, it's clearly better.
Which is why I say that there is such a thing as including too much land. In formats like Standard where the card draw and land fetch is much, much poorer than it is in EDH, land to card ratio is going to be higher. But in EDH where things like Brainstorm, Sign In Blood, Explore are available in a lot of colors, the land to card ratio should really be a lot lower.
But instead of this stuff, I see a lot of cards like Promise of Power, Recurring Insight, under the auspices that they are grease. I mean, they are and they have their place, but they don't fulfill the same function. The two concerns of mana spent and maximum hand size weigh in. You probably have something else to do on turn 5-6 with mana. You also can't bide your time, tapping your toes until you draw enough mana for them so you can start playing land again.
But instead of this stuff, I see a lot of cards like Promise of Power, Recurring Insight, under the auspices that they are grease. I mean, they are and they have their place, but they don't fulfill the same function. The two concerns of mana spent and maximum hand size weigh in. You probably have something else to do on turn 5-6 with mana. You also can't bide your time, tapping your toes until you draw enough mana for them so you can start playing land again.
So card drawing cards are only good if you are able to cast them? If you can't make the land drops or get mana to reach 5 to cast Promise of Power, it's worthless. Is that right?
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I didn't expect the conversation to go as far as it did, but the discussion of card draw is interesting. I have to look at my Kaalia deck a bit more carefully. Griselbrand is cool for card draw, but if I don't have Kaalia or 8 mana, it's a dead card.
So card drawing cards are only good if you are able to cast them? If you can't make the land drops or get mana to reach 5 to cast Promise of Power, it's worthless. Is that right?
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I didn't expect the conversation to go as far as it did, but the discussion of card draw is interesting. I have to look at my Kaalia deck a bit more carefully. Griselbrand is cool for card draw, but if I don't have Kaalia or 8 mana, it's a dead card.
Well, in the very section that you quoted I said "they have their place". So don't get me wrong, the cards mentioned are strong cards. But their place is not to help you make your T4 land drop.
Kaalia specific advice: Every white deck should run Land Tax, and probably Tithe as well, if you have them. Likewise, every black deck should have Necropotence, even if the color requirements don't usually let you play it till later. That is, if you have it and if your group isn't morally opposed to the card like ours is. Enlightened Tutor for necropotence, etc.
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Really I only run 33 lands in Sharuum and I think I run 5 too many. Then again, I play ramp into land destruction/death cloud!
Generally I think 38 is a good starting point and it depends on number of ramp spells/mana rocks. Usually I do 2 ramp spells = 1 land, 2 expensive mana rocks = 1 land, fact accel rocks = 1 land.
This is the rule of thumb I like to use. I use this as my cheat sheet to start and then adjust from there:
Draft: 40% * 40 cards = 16 lands
Constructed: 24 lands
EDH: 40 lands
stuff
In my experience, 36 wasn't bad, but I did find myself missing land drops occasionally. So, I took his advice and upped my first deck to 40 lands and haven't looked back since. Now when I build new EDH decks, I always go with 40 lands to start, then maybe knock out a land or two if I see too many lands during the course of a few games. (I also now use 22 lands in 60-card decks)
WUBR Breya, Thopter Sculptor
WBR Kaalia, Harbinger of the Apocalypse
WBR Edgar Markov, Bloodline Progenitor
BGW Karador, Reanimator King
GWU Jenara, Asuran Enchantress
URG Riku, Omniscient Wizard
UBG Tasigur, Mind Grinder
UB Grimgrin, Combo-Stitched
GW Rhys, Gilt-Leaf Warrior
B Drana, Defiant Bloodchief
U Baral, Lord of Counterspells
G Azusa, Seeking the Horizon
W Kemba, Kha of the White Sun
C Ulamog, the Mana Glutton
It also helps that I have a lot of card draw.
GWB Junk Stax Ghave BWG
WUBRGReaper KingGRBUW 5c Blink [Less Competitive]
WBEvershrikeBW Orzhov Enchantments [Less Competitive]
GIwamori of the Open FistG Green Smash [Less Competitive]
RGWUInk-Treader NephilimUWGR Draw Too Many Cards [More Competitive]
URJhoira of the GhituRU Izzet Stax [More Competitive]
URGRiku of Two ReflectionsGRU Ceta Dredge [More Competitive]
Modern
RUGBNightshiftBGUR Like Scapeshift but bad
Oh i am sure its a magnificent speech but i just don't agree with you. This format is very different from 60 card ones, as im sure you have noticed. One of the biggest reasons is we have access to things like Sol Ring, Mana Crypt and Mana Vault along with various signets/stones and this artifact mana greatly impacts land counts in this format. I cannot see the justification for non-green decks running 40+ land (As you can see my response was to a black deck using 42). Sure, some standard decks run 40% land but they dont use Sol Rings and Ancient Ruins.
Yeah, right on. There are three 2 CMC Black Draw 2's that come to mind. SiB is one at BB, bit there are 2 at 1B, if I'm not mistaken. They're so powerful that they're mentioned in the top 50 cards of each color thread, check it out. One thing to remember though is that your curve should be low to run these the reason is that you start with 7 cards, always draw your first turn, and so if that's your first play you go to 8 and have to discard to max hand size. A black cantrip like See Beyond/Preordain isn't bad, but these cards can do better. To remedy that, run sone good-all-the-time 1cc spells like skullclamp, sensei's divining top, mana vault, grave hate artifacts, even Dark Ritual is good. That down, and you're well on your way to smooth as silk draws.
Phyrexian Arena is boss. None of the overdraw problems above, and you get sick volume with it if you hit it early. Don't go proxying up a Necropotence. That card is on my crap list of those I refuse to play. It makes me nauseous when I see it, and I want to quit. Just like a cheesy combo, everything to that point in the game was meaningless, and it turns out we were just yanking each other's chains.
Otherwise, the rest of you need to understand how poor of a comparison Standard is. We aren't playing Sphere of the Suns here. We also don't have premium draw like Phyrexian Arena, Brainstorm, Ancestral Vision. If Standatd did have that, they'd all be running 20 land decks. Unless you have Exploration or Burgeoning or something, too much land is bad. You can actually make land drops MORE often with draw volume than you can with land count.
Thanks for the suggestion at the top 50 thread. I didn't know that was there, so I will go look. Since Kaalia is BRW, I'm probably going to be most of my card draw or filtering from black and artifact sources. I know Dark Confidant is a powerful card draw creature, but that would kill me in a Kaalia deck. (i.e. draw too many 6+ CMC creatures with it)
I know that I was extremely pissed in a game with my wort deck (runs 42ish lands) when I had an oracle of muldaya down and missed a land drop for two turns.
tl:dr Because you have so much to do with extra mana in EDH flood is a very rare occurrence and even if it happens you are still in the game instead of discarding four drops sitting on three lands.
That is, does adding one rock mean you can drop one land, or do you have to add three rocks before you consider dropping a land? Personally I'm fairly conservative - I weight 4 rocks/ramp spells versus one land.
stuff
I think this misses the point again.
Sure, you want to make land drops every turn. But once you get to a certain average land count per opening hanf of 7, there are better ways to make land drops. Example - having a 3 land opening hand with Cultivate as one of thr non-land cards is strictly better than a 4 land opening hand where you have no play turn 3. Basically the same deal with a 3 land hand where you have other small draw like SiB/Brainstorm.
On mana rock to land count ratios, I find it best not to think about it in those terms. Reason being that you still want to make your land drops. Play T1 Sol Ring and miss your T3 land drop and you lose half the value of playing Sol Ring. So, it depends on what you do with that extra mana T1, T3, or whatever turn it is after you get the artifact out. If you have a lot of 4cc spells, you will want 1-2 CMC artys that tap for at least 1, and then have a land ratio that gives you at least 3/10 cards land at least, something around... 80% of the time or so. If you have a dozen or so clutch 6cmc spells, you can think about 3cmc and 4cmc cards that give 1 or two points accel, while still maintaining a land ratio that gives you 5 land of your opening 12 (7 starting and 5 for each of your turns). Small draw helps this by making it so you see more card volume by that turn.
So as you can see, there is no hard and fast time. Look at the nuances of your curve, average CMC of course, but also any frequently occurring CMC (modes in statistics lingo), and also any very important spells, such as your Commander or a Primeval Titan or something.
For example, my Damia deck wants to plant the commander ASAP, so I load up on two point mana accel for 3cmc or less, small draw at 3cmr or less, and enough land to make 5 drops in 4 turns (11 cards) roughly 80% of the time. That puts me at 7 mana.
36 mana producingfor mono-coloured
37 mana producingfor two-coloured
38 mana producingfor tri-coloured
40 mana producingfor five-coloured
lands that can't produce mana on their own don't count i'm looking at you Cabal Coffers
CommanderEDH Decks:CommanderEDH DecksWULavinia of the Blinking TenthUW RGURiku the Epic Experimenter’s StormUGR UBRThrax and his Super FriendsRBU RWUZedruu the Hard HeartedUWR
WBU Zur the UnstoppableUBW
/Shrug. Hey, Drana and Olivia want mana to work lol. Doesn't exactly help I'm running vamp tribal in both, so that there's some 7 costing stuff etc.
--- Meren of Clan Nel Toth --- Jhoira of the Ghitu --- Prime Speaker Zegana ---
--- Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief --- Ghoulcaller Gisa --- Akroma, Angel of Fury --- Titania, Protector of Argoth ---
Then I change the number based on my curve. I don't know that I've ever dropped below 36 though. Even that was with a butt load of mana rocks and Moxes.
This is before I even consider adding lands that don't actually give me mana or lands that are more than likely to be used as utility like strip mine and co.
I always feel like I need more land though. You can never have enough.
RBUThraximundarUBRRUNiv-Mizzet, the FiremindUR
BWGhost Council of OrzhovaWBWUBRGChild of AlaraGRBUW
WBRKaalia of the VastRBWGBSapling of ColfenorGB
i typically run 37-38 in my others though.
How much is that? Give or take.
You're positing that ramp is the same as land which it isn't. Having ramp available, which isn't always the case in say a non green deck, doesn't change the fact you will need more than the lands in your opening hand over the course of the game. So yes casting a cultivate on turn three makes it better than casting nothing. But cultivate isn't free so having a cultivate and two land hand leaves you needing that top deck. Likewise needed to top deck one land for whatever you need and you hit cultivate, might as well have time-walked yourself.
I'm not arguing that ramp is bad but by ramping and removing land from your deck your lowering the chances of seeing a land. Sixty card decks run 24 land because 40% land to spell ratios insure they will see four land by turn four statically speaking. EDH decks often want to run all the way up to 6 or more mana by turn six so to insure that many lands are seen a higher land to spell ratio is required. When you skimp on lands and use inexpensive, and some times not inexpensive, ramp spells to make up the difference you are less likely to draw land when you need it.
I collect pre-release Stone-Tongue Basilisk
Pauper: UR some horrible homebrew izzet deck
My fault. I was meaning to talk about draw there, not ramp, but Cultivate is confusingly both.
Since this is about the third time I'm talking about why draw volume is related to land count, I'll take it slow. Let's consider two numbers. The first number is the number of turns you take, which is therefore the amount of land you can play, which is also the ideal amount of land you want to draw in order to not miss a drop. Let's call this "X". The second number is how many cards you've drawn from your deck. Let's call this number "Y".
Ok, so the ratio of land drawn/turns taken to the amount of cards you've seen is X:Y. Let's say you're talking about turn 3. X = 3 and Y = 7 (from your starting hand) + 3 (from your draws)
, or 10 total. So your ideal land:card ratio on turn 3 is 3:10, on turn 4, 4:11, 5:12, and so on. Compare this to your land:card count in your deck. 3:10 is 30:100, 4:11 is about 36:100, 5:12 is about 42, 6:12 is 48. OMG, 48 land in a deck to hit 6 land by turn 6 on average?? That's excessive by most people's estimates, right?? And what's up with the number going up so fast?
Here's the thing people should understand. The above ratio expressed as a fraction is getting bigger. The numerator is growing at the same rate as the denominator. So this fraction will eventually grow to larger than the ratio of lands to cards in our deck, be it 34 to 99, 40 to 99, or even 50 to 99. Eventually at this rate, you will miss a land drop. You will eventually run out of the slots in your deck to put actual cards.
So, we can't make a land drop every turn by land density alone. We have to change the ratio of lands drawn to turns taken. And we can't do it by changing the first number. So, we have to change the last number. We have to see more cards from our deck than the ones we are getting from our draw step each turn. We have to increase the denominator of this ratio.
So, drawing more cards helps you draw more land??? Obvious conclusion obvious, I'm afraid.
So let's take a card like Cultivate, except it doesn't ramp. An un-entwined Journey of Discovery, a Krosan Tusker, or a Sign in Blood. They allow us to see more cards out of our decks than the ones our draw step is giving us. Some of those cards guarantee that they are land, increasing "X". Others don't, and they increase "Y" instead. At any rate, including a fair number of the good ones will let us keep ahead of our land drops.
So I say once again, a hand with 3 land and a Krosan Tusker/Journey of Discovery is better than a 4 land hand in that they give us one extra card. If you are in no danger of discarding it due to maximum hand size and you wouldn't have otherwise spent the 3 mana casting cost on something else, it's clearly better.
Which is why I say that there is such a thing as including too much land. In formats like Standard where the card draw and land fetch is much, much poorer than it is in EDH, land to card ratio is going to be higher. But in EDH where things like Brainstorm, Sign In Blood, Explore are available in a lot of colors, the land to card ratio should really be a lot lower.
But instead of this stuff, I see a lot of cards like Promise of Power, Recurring Insight, under the auspices that they are grease. I mean, they are and they have their place, but they don't fulfill the same function. The two concerns of mana spent and maximum hand size weigh in. You probably have something else to do on turn 5-6 with mana. You also can't bide your time, tapping your toes until you draw enough mana for them so you can start playing land again.
To answer your question, a metric buttload. No, a full on metric crap-ton.
That was incredibly helpful.
So card drawing cards are only good if you are able to cast them? If you can't make the land drops or get mana to reach 5 to cast Promise of Power, it's worthless. Is that right?
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I didn't expect the conversation to go as far as it did, but the discussion of card draw is interesting. I have to look at my Kaalia deck a bit more carefully. Griselbrand is cool for card draw, but if I don't have Kaalia or 8 mana, it's a dead card.
Well, in the very section that you quoted I said "they have their place". So don't get me wrong, the cards mentioned are strong cards. But their place is not to help you make your T4 land drop.
Kaalia specific advice: Every white deck should run Land Tax, and probably Tithe as well, if you have them. Likewise, every black deck should have Necropotence, even if the color requirements don't usually let you play it till later. That is, if you have it and if your group isn't morally opposed to the card like ours is. Enlightened Tutor for necropotence, etc.