G'day all, thanks for clicking in and joining in this (hopeful) discussion!
The question is, as the title says, how do you value a 4 land opening hand?
For me, I play primarily hyper agro so 4 lands get shipped. But what about the rest of the many decks out there? What are the factors that go into YOUR approach?
Thanks all, hope we get some great different opinions!
This is actually an intriguing topic, just because of how wildly this differs across decks. Obviously what makes a good spell to land ratio in the opening hand of a deck is determined by the play style of that deck. Control decks want to continue making land drops. Aggro decks want to jam a bunch of low mana spells and rarely want to draw above 3 lands. Midrange decks akin to BGx (Jund and Abzan) are looking to maximize efficiency by curving out.
Those are all pretty obvious things that help in determining optimal to good hands. In terms of what is just acceptable enough to keep, I think it's largely contextual. For decks like grixis shadow 4 land hands are abysmal. For a deck like classic Gx Tron 4 land hands are fairly normal keeps. Whenever I've played Collected Company Decks I usually keep 4 land hands when there is collected company accompanied by a turn 2 and turn 3 play. In general when evaluating hands I usually approach it as if I mulliganed to 6 and had the same hand minus the worst card in that hand, would I keep it?
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
--> Modern <-- RBUSplinter Twin (RIP)/DelverRBU UUUMono U TronUUU GRGGR TronGRG GWURKnight FallGWUR
In UW Control, I've kept up to five-landers if I had any T1-T2 plays. It's so important to make land drops in that deck becauase you can make bigger plays with more mana, have pricier spells, and need lots of mana to use your Edges, Quarters, and Colonnades. Four-landers with T1-T2 spells are practically ideal. As for other land-heavy hands, I've kept a six-landers against 8Rack and Ponza!
For combo decks, I mull those four-landers if they lack a combo piece. Otherwise, the combo pieces and cantrips dictate the hand, not the lands.
It depends what deck I'm playing and what my opponent is playing, as well as the cards in hand and the lands.
If I'm playing against a blood moon deck and have a lot of basics, I keep. If I'm playing against burn and one of my lands is shambling vents, that makes a difference. If I'm playing against Jund and one of my lands is Horizon canopy, that makes a difference. If I'm playing against hatebears and have a bunch of fastlands, that makes a difference.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
As I'm sure everybody on these forums knows, the answer depends on the following:
- What deck you're on
- Whether you know your opponent's deck and, if so, what it is
- Whether this is game 1 or 2/3 and if any of the other 3 cards are SB cards
- What the other 3 cards are - can you deal with early threats? Are you creating early threats? Do any of those cards allow you to see more than just your next few draw steps? etc.
- and probably a few more
That said, in a general sense in game 1 against an unknown opponent and if my other 3 cards are early plays I'll keep 4 lands in a deck that has 22 or more and mull 4 lands in a deck that has fewer. While from a numbers sense that may sound counter-intuitive, it's because the fewer lands the deck has the fewer it wants to see. That's obviously a very general statement and you could poke any number of holes in it, but it was also a very general question.
Depends on what deck I'm using, and if the opponent's deck is known or unknown.
For example, if 4 land hand in my BG deck has a collective brutality, and I know that my opponent is an Elves deck.. I keep the 4 land hand with Brutality.. of course, that's assuming the other two non-land cards are removal or something useful.
The question is, as the title says, how do you value a 4 land opening hand?
For me, I play primarily hyper agro so 4 lands get shipped. But what about the rest of the many decks out there? What are the factors that go into YOUR approach?
Thanks all, hope we get some great different opinions!
-Raptor
Those are all pretty obvious things that help in determining optimal to good hands. In terms of what is just acceptable enough to keep, I think it's largely contextual. For decks like grixis shadow 4 land hands are abysmal. For a deck like classic Gx Tron 4 land hands are fairly normal keeps. Whenever I've played Collected Company Decks I usually keep 4 land hands when there is collected company accompanied by a turn 2 and turn 3 play. In general when evaluating hands I usually approach it as if I mulliganed to 6 and had the same hand minus the worst card in that hand, would I keep it?
RBU
Splinter Twin (RIP)/DelverRBUUUUMono U TronUUU
GRGGR TronGRG
GWURKnight FallGWUR
Legacy
GWBDark MaverickGWB
--> EDH <--
BWUErtai, the CorruptedBWU
For combo decks, I mull those four-landers if they lack a combo piece. Otherwise, the combo pieces and cantrips dictate the hand, not the lands.
If I'm playing against a blood moon deck and have a lot of basics, I keep. If I'm playing against burn and one of my lands is shambling vents, that makes a difference. If I'm playing against Jund and one of my lands is Horizon canopy, that makes a difference. If I'm playing against hatebears and have a bunch of fastlands, that makes a difference.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
- What deck you're on
- Whether you know your opponent's deck and, if so, what it is
- Whether this is game 1 or 2/3 and if any of the other 3 cards are SB cards
- What the other 3 cards are - can you deal with early threats? Are you creating early threats? Do any of those cards allow you to see more than just your next few draw steps? etc.
- and probably a few more
That said, in a general sense in game 1 against an unknown opponent and if my other 3 cards are early plays I'll keep 4 lands in a deck that has 22 or more and mull 4 lands in a deck that has fewer. While from a numbers sense that may sound counter-intuitive, it's because the fewer lands the deck has the fewer it wants to see. That's obviously a very general statement and you could poke any number of holes in it, but it was also a very general question.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
For example, if 4 land hand in my BG deck has a collective brutality, and I know that my opponent is an Elves deck.. I keep the 4 land hand with Brutality.. of course, that's assuming the other two non-land cards are removal or something useful.
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