Now that we're again entering a format with cycling after it's been a while, I thought it would be a good idea to think about how cycling can impact your land count. Obviously it wouldn't have as major of an impact as something like karoo lands, but it should have an impact. Would you adjust land counts in your decks in light of cycling being a thing? If so, how would you assess how many lands to run by examining the number and cost of cycling cards you have?
The amount of mana sinks in the format would normally encourage you to play 18 lands, but given how you can play less lands with cycling, I expect the average land count to be 17 like most formats. In the event that a deck doesn't have mana sinks (which is unlikely to happen since each color has 1 huge common creature with cycling), that's where your question comes into play, but I'm too lazy to do the math.
Interesting question. I think 17 lands is still going to be the usual rate, but I'd be a lot more willing to play 16 if I had several cards that cycled cheaply, and was playing a sufficiently low-curve. It also makes it easier to splash a color, especially if you have cycling cards in your splashed color. This does seem to me to be a grindier format than some, which suggests a higher curve, so I don't think 16 lands will be that common. I would be quite willing to run 18 lands in a normal deck if I had two cycling lands.
I have a hunch that Cycle-heavy decks will run 17 like always, but will go 3+ colors way more often than in other non-multicolor sets. This is not only supported by the colorless costs on Cycling cards, but by all the 2-color aftermath cards going around. There are some parallels to original Innistrad in that regards, where many decks would splash a 3rd color to cast off color flashback cards.
If we're comparing land counts to that of a Kaladesh/Aether Revolt limited deck, keep in mind that the previous block allowed exceedingly low land counts do to the prevalence of fixing it had. Amonkhet's fixing at common is extremely weak, so that fact alone makes decks with lower land counts harder to justify. I'd say that going lower than the 17 land baseline is going to be uncommon in Amonkhet. Without landcycling, cycling is unlikely to push that number much lower.
The opposite is more likely because, between hardcasting cycling cards and embalm, Amonkhet offers lots of ways to occupy manabases in the lategame. Running more lands with the cycling lands is a given, though the cycling lands being at rare does make it less significant. The format seems to be slower and more synergy-dependent, with most of its best limited cards concentrated at the CMC 3-4 slot and valuable 2 drops not being evenly distributed across colors.
Isn't having cycling on lands a reason to play *more* of them? I don't see the reasoning why you'd want to play fewer because you have the option to pitch some of them. 18 land format for sure.
Isn't having cycling on lands a reason to play *more* of them? I don't see the reasoning why you'd want to play fewer because you have the option to pitch some of them. 18 land format for sure.
It's not just cycling lands, though, since we only have 5 rares that do that. OP is asking about how land counts could be adjusted based on running any number of kinds of cycling cards.
I think cycling heavy decks could easily get away with running 16 lands. I'd be surprised if 15 was the right number. But personally I'm gonna play it safe and still run 17 unless I'm doing the "cycling matters" deck then I'll go 16.
What do you guys think about deck size with respect to cycling? In a deck with 10 cycling cards do you ever go up to 42 cards? What about in 2 headed giant?
I agree with the general concensus that this feels like an 18 land format but having 4+ cyclers makes me want to cut a land and go back down to 17. I haven't actually played with cycling in limited before though so this will be enlightening.
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Don't run 41+ cards, the chances of decking yourself are extremely remote with no good mill in the format. I suspect that this is a default to 18 lands format because we have a lot of mana sinks and more high cost creatures than normal. I was red/black at the prerelease and was a bit thirsty for mana because of all the activated and triggered abilities I was using to kill off my opponents' creatures with cycle/discard synergies.
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The opposite is more likely because, between hardcasting cycling cards and embalm, Amonkhet offers lots of ways to occupy manabases in the lategame. Running more lands with the cycling lands is a given, though the cycling lands being at rare does make it less significant. The format seems to be slower and more synergy-dependent, with most of its best limited cards concentrated at the CMC 3-4 slot and valuable 2 drops not being evenly distributed across colors.
It's not just cycling lands, though, since we only have 5 rares that do that. OP is asking about how land counts could be adjusted based on running any number of kinds of cycling cards.
I agree with the general concensus that this feels like an 18 land format but having 4+ cyclers makes me want to cut a land and go back down to 17. I haven't actually played with cycling in limited before though so this will be enlightening.
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