I do better in sealed tournaments when i play 42 cards instead of the usual 40
but intead of 17 lands in 40 cards (0.425), I play 18 / 42 (0.42857142857) {for refrence 24 lands in a 60 card deck is .4 or 40% lands)
so i can see why people would prefer to play 61 cards in a deck
The more posts I see about it the more I feel that there are lots of reasons to justify running 61 cards in your deck. To balancing your mana curve or gaining some extra silver bullets. Most of the naysayers are on the "it makes your deck 2% less consistent" bandwagon which is only half true when you think about it. You are 2% less likely to draw any specific card in the early game but this number is constantly changing throughout the game and is affected by a myriad of things. What card are you trying to draw? How many do you run? How many have you already drawn? How much draw do you have? There are just so many more factors than and I think the pros can outweigh the cons.
Unfortunately every try hard from Sacramento to Shanghai preaches from the top of their 27 lands + Mana Reflection that Tooth and Nail and Time Stretch are fine to play in the same turn but Armageddon is unfair.
I don't think it is reasonable to say never run 61 though. If you look at the old Type2 Valakut lists with Primeval Titan, the optimal version may have actually been to run 64-65 cards simply because cramming the mountains in there for valakut wasn't really reasonable otherwise.
I didn't play Standard at the time, but I found this quote from someone who did:
Most often you actually only need 8 mountains. If you have 2 Forests and 4 Mountains in order to cast a Titan, then you search up two Valakuts with his enters the battlefield trigger and then Mountains 5 and 6 with his first attacking trigger (or a second Titan). That is twelve damage plus the six from his attack. Mountains seven and eight are lethal in this situation even if they manage to kill a Valakut.
The more posts I see about it the more I feel that there are lots of reasons to justify running 61 cards in your deck. To balancing your mana curve or gaining some extra silver bullets. Most of the naysayers are on the "it makes your deck 2% less consistent" bandwagon which is only half true when you think about it. You are 2% less likely to draw any specific card in the early game but this number is constantly changing throughout the game and is affected by a myriad of things. What card are you trying to draw? How many do you run? How many have you already drawn? How much draw do you have? There are just so many more factors than and I think the pros can outweigh the cons.
The extra card has a bigger effect later in the game. Originally you have 61/60 which is 1.67% less consistent. Once you see half your deck you now have 31/30 which is 3.33% less consistent. When you're down to 21/20 cards your deck is now 5% less consistent. Certain decks could get away with it, like a Rev/Elixir deck because it would recycle the cards and keep the inconsistency low, and draw a bunch. Others like Nic Fit benefit hugely from having another tutor option. Pod in Modern however wasn't worth going over 60 (unlike Nic Fit pod which wants to) because you were relying on the consistency of your topdeck to get your engine running.
61 and 62 over 60 was acceptable in Dralnu du Louvre, where it allowed you to run more Mystical Teachings targets without skimping on lands. Outside of extremely controlling toolbox decks (which don't exist in Modern), I would not recommend it.
yes, what I was blatantly disagreeing with was the idea that adding a 61st card to balance mana is a reason to do it--it almost never is. The reason to add a 61st (or 62nd or 63rd) card to your list is if doing so substantially increases your chances of winning games that would otherwise be lost, has a low opportunity cost when drawn outside of expected matchups, and in which you are not dependent upon the consistency of your topdecks for your power. Rev/Elixir UW control last season didn't care much about its topdecks past turn 7 or 8. Once you start casting sphinx's revelation for five or more cards, what matters is not the quality of the cards you draw, but whether you have access to the correct tools in your 75 AT ALL. You could grind out 10 or 12 turns of eating keranos bolts to the face, but eventually it would overwhelm you if you didn't have a way to deal with it permanently. Same thing for beating Erebos, or the black/white god. You can deal with slowing them down for a while if you're drawing cards, but you can't do it indefinitely unless you have a way to deal with the problem. Those are the types of situations where your 61st card shines. In loam-based decks, it works because your engine (loam) wants you to play a lot of cards (cycling lands, gamble, intuition, seismic assault, raven's crime) that let you take advantage of your engine, but serve to help bring the engine online when you don't have it. That's why loam decks are the other big candidate for extra cards in the decklist, because they are inherently constructed in a way that takes advantage of the extra bullets you run, since most of the time the bullets are accessible to you at any point that you "find" them (by loaming or drawing). That difference is why, say, abzan midrange should always avoid 61 cards.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
in a toolbox deck running 4 enlightened tutors and 4 land tax(4 tutors and 4 deck-thinners)..would the 61st card be justifiable?
It would probably be a much better idea to ask this question via a new thread rather than necro an almost 2 year old one. And also not in the Modern Forum, since the cards you specifically mentioned are not Modern legal.
There is only one (non battle wits) reason for playing 61 card decks. If you have a deck with a lot of tutor effects and you need a big diversaty of tutor targets. In modern this could be a deck with more then 4 tutors like traverse the ulvewalden, chord of calling, Nahiri the Harbinger, Eldict Evolution. The deck should then be brimming with so many tools you are prepeared for anything.
I would not recomend playing a 61 card deck even then, because you draws are less consistent.
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On-topic, Jeff Hoogland has run 61-card specials fairly often, usually in Kiki Chord, a toolbox deck.
I'd like to second this. Jeff Hoogland played a fair bit of 61-cards Kiki Chord decks. He said that he "gains more win percentages by adding the 61st card than he loses because of it." We can argue whether he is correct about this, but he seemed quite convinced ^^
Similarly, I sometimes play 61 cards in my Legacy Lands deck, since, in an unknown meta, I'm not confident enough to decide which silver bullets to put in the sideboard and which to put in the main.
Not having Bojuka Bog against BR Reanimator G1 IS a huge disadvantage, and not having Boseiju, Who Shelters All against Miracles is huge too.
And maybe I want Barbarian Ring against those annoying Sanctum Prelates from DnT G1, because I lose a LOT of percentages when I don't have it.
On the other hand, it feels terrible to cut "real" business-spells for those silver bullets, which I can get with 4 Crop Rotations and 4 Gambles ...
This is a necro and in the wrong section at that. If you want to continue the discussion then make a new topic, although it seems this one has been discussed.
but intead of 17 lands in 40 cards (0.425), I play 18 / 42 (0.42857142857) {for refrence 24 lands in a 60 card deck is .4 or 40% lands)
so i can see why people would prefer to play 61 cards in a deck
That sounds like Battle of Wits on a smaller scale.
I didn't play Standard at the time, but I found this quote from someone who did:
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
The extra card has a bigger effect later in the game. Originally you have 61/60 which is 1.67% less consistent. Once you see half your deck you now have 31/30 which is 3.33% less consistent. When you're down to 21/20 cards your deck is now 5% less consistent. Certain decks could get away with it, like a Rev/Elixir deck because it would recycle the cards and keep the inconsistency low, and draw a bunch. Others like Nic Fit benefit hugely from having another tutor option. Pod in Modern however wasn't worth going over 60 (unlike Nic Fit pod which wants to) because you were relying on the consistency of your topdeck to get your engine running.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
—Seal inscription
Not sure what deck is running that as both Enlightened Tutor and Land Tax are not Modern legal.
On-topic, Jeff Hoogland has run 61-card specials fairly often, usually in Kiki Chord, a toolbox deck.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
It would probably be a much better idea to ask this question via a new thread rather than necro an almost 2 year old one. And also not in the Modern Forum, since the cards you specifically mentioned are not Modern legal.
I would not recomend playing a 61 card deck even then, because you draws are less consistent.
I'd like to second this. Jeff Hoogland played a fair bit of 61-cards Kiki Chord decks. He said that he "gains more win percentages by adding the 61st card than he loses because of it." We can argue whether he is correct about this, but he seemed quite convinced ^^
Similarly, I sometimes play 61 cards in my Legacy Lands deck, since, in an unknown meta, I'm not confident enough to decide which silver bullets to put in the sideboard and which to put in the main.
Not having Bojuka Bog against BR Reanimator G1 IS a huge disadvantage, and not having Boseiju, Who Shelters All against Miracles is huge too.
And maybe I want Barbarian Ring against those annoying Sanctum Prelates from DnT G1, because I lose a LOT of percentages when I don't have it.
On the other hand, it feels terrible to cut "real" business-spells for those silver bullets, which I can get with 4 Crop Rotations and 4 Gambles ...
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge