I know that there have been plenty of discussion around manabase construction in these forums, but I am curious about a particular area and want to see what others are doing. Generally I run 35-40 (mana producing) lands backed by 4-20 ramp cards in my builds, but I am curious about how many "comes into play tapped" lands people run as a portion of your mana base. I realize it will almost certainly be a range for each of us, but if you can give a general sense (ie. 0-10%, 10-20%, 20-30%, etc.) of your mana base that would be great.
For the purposes of this discussion I am going to break things into three categories:
1. Lands that always come into play untapped and are essentially fully active immediately (ie. basics, original duals, things like High Market, etc.).
2. Pseudo-active lands (ie. Glacial Fortress, Ravnica Shocks, and friends), basically those that will often be active the turn the come into play but are not guaranteed. (Tainted Peak and Graven Cairns like cards I will count as active since they can tap for a colorless if nothing else).
3. Tapped lands. Everything from Terramorphic Expanse, to cycling lands, to manlands, trilands, whatever. If they are not active the turn they come into play as a mana producing land they fall into this category (I would count Temple of the False God here as well).
No need to do a close statistical analysis here, but I am just curious to see what others mana construction philosophies look like.
I fully expect to see 1-2 color decks running not that many CITP lands, 3 colors running a fairly large amount of them, and 5 color decks running either a lot or a little based on their budget. The simple reasoning is that there aren't many individual non-CITP lands for each color combination but once you get into 5 colors its easier to simply run 10x fetch, 10x shock, 10x dual, 8x utilities/special.
20 of those cards are always untapped.
7 are situationally tapped.
11 are always tapped.
That means that almost 50% of my mana base comes into play tapped.
If I really wanted to get expensive, I could convert 9 of those lands into always untapped (3x painlands, 3x fetches, 3x original duals) but it's hard to justify the price.
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I didn't necessarily know this would be the case, but apparently by mana base construction is pretty consistent across all of my main decks. I run between 15-18% come into play tapped lands in my decks including shock lands. This percentage will increase in my "wedge" decks once Khans of Tarkir comes out since every deck will have a tri-land.
Generally speaking, I'll build the mana base first with two goals in mind: consistency and functionality.
Consistency - Do I have the needed color fixing to meet the demands of my deck? If I have the duals available, am I running them? Does my deck care about basics and if so am I running enough?
Functionality - Do I really need every colorless land I want to put in? Is there a critical turn where I want to ensure I have X of a specific color available? Does my deck lean one color or another? Do my colorless lands hurt this? How fast is my deck?
That last question is really the important one. The faster and more competitive I want my deck to be, the less I rely on CIPT lands because I don't want to be behind a turn. So in practice, I never run CIPT lands unless there is a specific purpose, such as the scrylands, karoos or manlands (I'm even trying to get away from checklands).
In my Prossh deck that is my most competitive deck, I have a 27/6/4 split. Taplands slow a deck down so much. The only tappers I have are Bajuka Bog, a triland, and evolving wilds and terramorphic expanse. The last two I would replace with Zendikar fetches if I had the resources. My Oloro deck is 25/6/6. I would reduce the number of tappers if I had different lands, but it isn't quite as critical in a slower grindy deck.
Edit: Also, I don't think this is worth discussing in less than three color decks since you can run so many basics and still have a very dependable mana base.
Away from cards ATM, but my Glissa deck runs a 1/3 ratio for taplands, including all of the GB cycling lands (so in play mileage varies). I can say with a fair amount of certainty that my mono-U deck runs far fewer (probably no more than 1/8), and I try to make sure that none of my tri-color decks ever hit 1/2. Manabases are something my group tends not to optimize (at least not for speed), so I can get away with some budget cards and non-basic shenanigans.
In Grixis I'm also running the new alara Borderposts to help turn on Mox Opal, and I include them in my manabase as if they were taplands, rather than manarocks (cause they're terrible as rocks, but reasonable as lands). Reminds me that I still need to pick up some proper artifact lands as well for that deck...
How worrisome CIPT lands are depends in part on how competitive your metagame is. If you are in your typical EDH group, running a few of them won't hurt you too badly, but if you are in a group full of decks that frequently win before turn six, drawing into even one of those lands early on can cost you the game.
My meta is at most semi-competitive, though some players are much higher on the competitive end of the competitive/casual axis, and I do fine running a fair number of CIPT lands. Pretty much all decks with black should run Bojuka Bog. I run scrylands in all of my multi-color EDH decks except my 5-color deck (Allies tribal). I run shocks, and let them come in tapped probably a little less than 1/2 of the time. I run a few utility lands that have high synergy with the deck (for example, Mosswort Bridge in Mayael), and occasionally I run a bounce land or a triland. Other than mono-colored decks, I usually run checklands, and I have almost never found this problematic, because I run lots of lands with basic land types.
I should note that I do own playsets (and in some cases more than four copies) of each of the original duals, so this does put my manabase ahead of that of a lot of players, but I also run lots of decks (currently 36) and don't proxy, which means a large number of my decks - including two- and three-color decks - don't contain any of those duals. I own only a few fetchlands, with most of my decks running none.
It really depends on what your deck is doing. It is always better to have the untapped lands, but if you are running a reactive deck that goes for the long game, then tapped lands are ok. I try to run as many basics as possible even if I own all the ABUs, because we have a lot of "SnobLandDestruction" going on. But some of my decks run 50% citpt lands and they work fine.
I want to add one more thing to this discussion. I think that pretty much every deck can freeroll up to roughly 1/3 EtB tapped lands. Definitely 1/4, but probably up to 1/3. You can generally sequence your land drops such that one out of three lands entering the battlefield tapped is no drawback or only a slight drawback. This is especially true when you can just play your EtB tapped land on turns one and two and hold the rest for much later in the game. Additionally, I think that very few decks would be able to run more than 1/2 EtB tapped lands without playing a turn behind a lot of games. Your fourth land drop coming into play tapped is going to cause a problem more often than not.
Usually I would say I run about 5%-10% etbt lands. Honestly there's not a lot of them I think are worth it. There's the zen cycle, the cycle cycle (and the more expensive cycle cycle), a bunch mostly bad common lands from zen...some mostly bad manlands (2-color ones are ok for 2 color usually I guess)...vesuva...that really bad cycle of sackable trilands from invasion...god-awful storage lands...a bunch of mostly budget duals like gates and invasion duals and whatnot...bounce lands are ok I guess...
Anyway so yeah, usually a pretty low count for me. At absolute max maybe 15% of my lands, but frequently 0%. I think there's a lot more powerful colorless producing utility lands than etbt utility lands - those tend to be a much higher percentage of my mana, especially in mono-color decks.
I would not consider shocks to be conditional. If you have something worth doing with the mana, and you don't have another non-etbt land that would work, you should almost always pay the 2 life. They're basically etb untapped lands that cost 2 life. you'll basically never be in a position where you're thinking "crap, I really wish I could have another mana this turn, but I have to play this shock tapped". Which might happen with glacial fortress for example. So they don't ever really limit your mana development.
As a general rule, Tapped Lands better do something impressive if they want to be in my decks; too much bounce (Boomerang + Scepter) in my meta for me to risk it.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
While I run Glacial Fortress and friends, and shocklands when I have them, I try to avoid ETBT lands, opting for more basics for immediate use.
Sometimes you may see the Ravnica bouncelands, T Expanse, or a triland like Arcane Sanctum, but that is it. I have even been pulling the cycling lands out, and dismissed the vivid lands a year or more ago. The added versatilty just doesn't make up for loss of tempo, even in a meta that is not bounce happy.
Still, budget concerns force them into decks, so I understand their continued use.
Cheers!
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While it does affect the sequence of plays I can make, it almost never affects the outcome of the game. My meta is semi-competitive; someone will generally demand an answer by turn 5 or 6 or they will probably win. It will probably lose when people start throwing around Mana Vortex and Smokestack on turn 3, but a slow pauper control deck would not be the best choice for that meta anyway, so I'll squeeze the extra value out of my manabase in the meantime.
I don't know if this is the place to discuss this, but for me, I get a lot more value out of Terramorphic Expanse or even Vivid Grove compared to Rupture Spire and such.
It can't be played turn 1 and basically costs you 2 mana anyways. Are these lands even worth playing?
Whoops, I forgot Terramorphic Expanse and evolving wilds, so that's 15 out of 42.
Rupture Spire is passable, even good in pauper or budget EDH. In a normal deck I wouldn't touch them... They are pretty awful.
I'm surprised how many people mentioned the trilands. Personally I've never run them in EDH. But I guess I'm not sure if everyone else is running full fetches and whatnot.
my rule is 33% lands, or 1/3rd (Thus 33 lands in the deck)
In a multicolored, given that i do not have the money for duels, i run all possible shocks, checks and filter of the available colors. Reflecting pool and Command tower, I then add in some utility (Reliquary tower, High market) and finish off by filling the rest with basics.)
Fetches are useful when you use Crucible of Worlds. Otherwise, I don't worry about what lands I play with as long as I get a certain number in. My Child deck uses 79 lands for example, and there's a reason for that... Other than that, I tend to play 36-40 lands and with various fetches. Even my Norin deck uses 3 panoramas to dig for mountains.
Fetches are useful when you use Crucible of Worlds. Otherwise, I don't worry about what lands I play with as long as I get a certain number in. My Child deck uses 79 lands for example, and there's a reason for that... Other than that, I tend to play 36-40 lands and with various fetches. Even my Norin deck uses 3 panoramas to dig for mountains.
79 lands? how does that? you run a 5 color deck and nearly 80% is lands.
Fetches are useful when you use Crucible of Worlds. Otherwise, I don't worry about what lands I play with as long as I get a certain number in. My Child deck uses 79 lands for example, and there's a reason for that... Other than that, I tend to play 36-40 lands and with various fetches. Even my Norin deck uses 3 panoramas to dig for mountains.
79 lands? how does that? you run a 5 color deck and nearly 80% is lands.
Fetches are useful when you use Crucible of Worlds. Otherwise, I don't worry about what lands I play with as long as I get a certain number in. My Child deck uses 79 lands for example, and there's a reason for that... Other than that, I tend to play 36-40 lands and with various fetches. Even my Norin deck uses 3 panoramas to dig for mountains.
79 lands? how does that? you run a 5 color deck and nearly 80% is lands.
Child of Alara, Ad Nauseum, Seismic Assault
and when you are drawing nothing but lands for thirty turns. I doubt those will help. if you can;t get them in your hand you are not playing them. If you play against my group, you also need to be able to bait the counterspells that at any given time two players will have at least three in their hand with open mana.
and when you are drawing nothing but lands for thirty turns. I doubt those will help. if you can;t get them in your hand you are not playing them. If you play against my group, you also need to be able to bait the counterspells that at any given time two players will have at least three in their hand with open mana.
Very true, but you can't counter lands, and I welcome land destruction. When the 79 lands include manlands, and recursion, sac outlets, and tutors...
I do know the deck's weaknesses, but there's a point to a land.dec. And if I've got 11 lands in play I scapeshift as an instant to a land and scapeshift can't be countered due to Boseiju to get gates and maze's end to win. In the meantime you deal with Child blowing the board up every other turn and Perilous vault exiling everything in play that doesn't affect me and I'm playing Armaggeddon and Life from the Loam to recur all my lands what do you do? Dark Depths and Inkmoth Nexus are other win conditions while I play Glacial Chasm to protect myself until it's my turn, sac it and play it again from the grave. With Exploration and Azusa to make things more fun.
This did get me thinking... I tend to avoid CiPT lands as a rule unless the card does something amazing or the deck otherwise abuse the cards (Ravnica karoos for instance look slightly better if you have reliable, repeatable untap ability). But let's take a look-see to a few decks for curiosity's sake. Picking a deck at random from each monocolor, two-color and tricolor decks.
Norin the Wary/Lovisa Coldeyes:
37 lands, 1 of which comes into play tapped (Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, of course)
I could probably add a cycler or utility land here or there, but be careful as this is rather 'Mountains matter' deck as one theme.
Wrexial, the Risen Deep
35 lands, 18 of which come into play tapped. So half the deck, which is okay for a slow, grindy mill deck BUT holy cookiemonster how is the land count that low? Kinda shows that this has not been touched since our meta changed to stricter mulligan rules...
Intet, the Dreamer
38 lands, 5 comes into play tapped, 6 'pseudo tapped' lands. Probably my most pimped landbase and it shows.
For me it kind of depends just how actively I have felt the need to build utility to my landbase. For some decks I've just gone to 'make it a functioning manabase' and skip anything not giving me the mana the turn I land it. Much of this is of course also depend on the raw draw/ramp power of the deck and the curve: how quickly/with how few mana can you generally reach a situation where you don't mind that 5th/6th/14th land coming into play tapped?
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my meta got more competitive, i had to cut almost every single comes into play tapped land. it was much too great of a loss in tempo to play something like temple of whatever and time walk myself because i couldn't stick that wood elves on turn 3, or because it got bounced, or destroyed, or any number of things that make me stall for a turn. even late game i find basics are better than the majority of comes into play tapped lands. like someone else said, they better do something spectacular to get a spot.
in a slower less competitive meta though? absolutely fantastic. gate that ***** up.
and when you are drawing nothing but lands for thirty turns. I doubt those will help. if you can;t get them in your hand you are not playing them. If you play against my group, you also need to be able to bait the counterspells that at any given time two players will have at least three in their hand with open mana.
Very true, but you can't counter lands, and I welcome land destruction. When the 79 lands include manlands, and recursion, sac outlets, and tutors...
I do know the deck's weaknesses, but there's a point to a land.dec. And if I've got 11 lands in play I scapeshift as an instant to a land and scapeshift can't be countered due to Boseiju to get gates and maze's end to win. In the meantime you deal with Child blowing the board up every other turn and Perilous vault exiling everything in play that doesn't affect me and I'm playing Armaggeddon and Life from the Loam to recur all my lands what do you do? Dark Depths and Inkmoth Nexus are other win conditions while I play Glacial Chasm to protect myself until it's my turn, sac it and play it again from the grave. With Exploration and Azusa to make things more fun.
isn't there only like 9 manlands in the game?
And child has to go into the grave to ***. So unless you have ways to recur him, he has one *** in him. You can't put him in command zone and get the ***.
"When Child of Alara is put into a graveyard from play, destroy all nonland permanents. They can't be regenerated."
Putting in command zone is INSTEAD of putting into the graveyard.
For the purposes of this discussion I am going to break things into three categories:
1. Lands that always come into play untapped and are essentially fully active immediately (ie. basics, original duals, things like High Market, etc.).
2. Pseudo-active lands (ie. Glacial Fortress, Ravnica Shocks, and friends), basically those that will often be active the turn the come into play but are not guaranteed. (Tainted Peak and Graven Cairns like cards I will count as active since they can tap for a colorless if nothing else).
3. Tapped lands. Everything from Terramorphic Expanse, to cycling lands, to manlands, trilands, whatever. If they are not active the turn they come into play as a mana producing land they fall into this category (I would count Temple of the False God here as well).
No need to do a close statistical analysis here, but I am just curious to see what others mana construction philosophies look like.
Here's my list for my Ruhan planeswalkers deck:
20 of those cards are always untapped.
7 are situationally tapped.
11 are always tapped.
That means that almost 50% of my mana base comes into play tapped.
If I really wanted to get expensive, I could convert 9 of those lands into always untapped (3x painlands, 3x fetches, 3x original duals) but it's hard to justify the price.
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Consistency - Do I have the needed color fixing to meet the demands of my deck? If I have the duals available, am I running them? Does my deck care about basics and if so am I running enough?
Functionality - Do I really need every colorless land I want to put in? Is there a critical turn where I want to ensure I have X of a specific color available? Does my deck lean one color or another? Do my colorless lands hurt this? How fast is my deck?
That last question is really the important one. The faster and more competitive I want my deck to be, the less I rely on CIPT lands because I don't want to be behind a turn. So in practice, I never run CIPT lands unless there is a specific purpose, such as the scrylands, karoos or manlands (I'm even trying to get away from checklands).
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Edit: Also, I don't think this is worth discussing in less than three color decks since you can run so many basics and still have a very dependable mana base.
In Grixis I'm also running the new alara Borderposts to help turn on Mox Opal, and I include them in my manabase as if they were taplands, rather than manarocks (cause they're terrible as rocks, but reasonable as lands). Reminds me that I still need to pick up some proper artifact lands as well for that deck...
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My meta is at most semi-competitive, though some players are much higher on the competitive end of the competitive/casual axis, and I do fine running a fair number of CIPT lands. Pretty much all decks with black should run Bojuka Bog. I run scrylands in all of my multi-color EDH decks except my 5-color deck (Allies tribal). I run shocks, and let them come in tapped probably a little less than 1/2 of the time. I run a few utility lands that have high synergy with the deck (for example, Mosswort Bridge in Mayael), and occasionally I run a bounce land or a triland. Other than mono-colored decks, I usually run checklands, and I have almost never found this problematic, because I run lots of lands with basic land types.
I should note that I do own playsets (and in some cases more than four copies) of each of the original duals, so this does put my manabase ahead of that of a lot of players, but I also run lots of decks (currently 36) and don't proxy, which means a large number of my decks - including two- and three-color decks - don't contain any of those duals. I own only a few fetchlands, with most of my decks running none.
Anyway so yeah, usually a pretty low count for me. At absolute max maybe 15% of my lands, but frequently 0%. I think there's a lot more powerful colorless producing utility lands than etbt utility lands - those tend to be a much higher percentage of my mana, especially in mono-color decks.
I would not consider shocks to be conditional. If you have something worth doing with the mana, and you don't have another non-etbt land that would work, you should almost always pay the 2 life. They're basically etb untapped lands that cost 2 life. you'll basically never be in a position where you're thinking "crap, I really wish I could have another mana this turn, but I have to play this shock tapped". Which might happen with glacial fortress for example. So they don't ever really limit your mana development.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Sometimes you may see the Ravnica bouncelands, T Expanse, or a triland like Arcane Sanctum, but that is it. I have even been pulling the cycling lands out, and dismissed the vivid lands a year or more ago. The added versatilty just doesn't make up for loss of tempo, even in a meta that is not bounce happy.
Still, budget concerns force them into decks, so I understand their continued use.
Cheers!
Krichaiushii on PucaTrade.
While it does affect the sequence of plays I can make, it almost never affects the outcome of the game. My meta is semi-competitive; someone will generally demand an answer by turn 5 or 6 or they will probably win. It will probably lose when people start throwing around Mana Vortex and Smokestack on turn 3, but a slow pauper control deck would not be the best choice for that meta anyway, so I'll squeeze the extra value out of my manabase in the meantime.
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Whoops, I forgot Terramorphic Expanse and evolving wilds, so that's 15 out of 42.
Rupture Spire is passable, even good in pauper or budget EDH. In a normal deck I wouldn't touch them... They are pretty awful.
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EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
In a multicolored, given that i do not have the money for duels, i run all possible shocks, checks and filter of the available colors. Reflecting pool and Command tower, I then add in some utility (Reliquary tower, High market) and finish off by filling the rest with basics.)
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79 lands? how does that? you run a 5 color deck and nearly 80% is lands.
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Child of Alara, Ad Nauseum, Seismic Assault
and when you are drawing nothing but lands for thirty turns. I doubt those will help. if you can;t get them in your hand you are not playing them. If you play against my group, you also need to be able to bait the counterspells that at any given time two players will have at least three in their hand with open mana.
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Very true, but you can't counter lands, and I welcome land destruction. When the 79 lands include manlands, and recursion, sac outlets, and tutors...
I do know the deck's weaknesses, but there's a point to a land.dec. And if I've got 11 lands in play I scapeshift as an instant to a land and scapeshift can't be countered due to Boseiju to get gates and maze's end to win. In the meantime you deal with Child blowing the board up every other turn and Perilous vault exiling everything in play that doesn't affect me and I'm playing Armaggeddon and Life from the Loam to recur all my lands what do you do? Dark Depths and Inkmoth Nexus are other win conditions while I play Glacial Chasm to protect myself until it's my turn, sac it and play it again from the grave. With Exploration and Azusa to make things more fun.
Norin the Wary/Lovisa Coldeyes:
37 lands, 1 of which comes into play tapped (Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, of course)
I could probably add a cycler or utility land here or there, but be careful as this is rather 'Mountains matter' deck as one theme.
Wrexial, the Risen Deep
35 lands, 18 of which come into play tapped. So half the deck, which is okay for a slow, grindy mill deck BUT holy cookiemonster how is the land count that low? Kinda shows that this has not been touched since our meta changed to stricter mulligan rules...
Intet, the Dreamer
38 lands, 5 comes into play tapped, 6 'pseudo tapped' lands. Probably my most pimped landbase and it shows.
For me it kind of depends just how actively I have felt the need to build utility to my landbase. For some decks I've just gone to 'make it a functioning manabase' and skip anything not giving me the mana the turn I land it. Much of this is of course also depend on the raw draw/ramp power of the deck and the curve: how quickly/with how few mana can you generally reach a situation where you don't mind that 5th/6th/14th land coming into play tapped?
in a slower less competitive meta though? absolutely fantastic. gate that ***** up.
And child has to go into the grave to ***. So unless you have ways to recur him, he has one *** in him. You can't put him in command zone and get the ***.
"When Child of Alara is put into a graveyard from play, destroy all nonland permanents. They can't be regenerated."
Putting in command zone is INSTEAD of putting into the graveyard.
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