Hey fimblers and fimblerettes, 2 land questions. Hopefully some maths or science genius can help me out.
1. I play a U/R deck. Turn 5 seems to be my money turn, providing I have the cards in hand. I either want to tap out and drop a Jace, Memory Adept and get my card draw game going, or tap 2 and drop a Young Pyromancer with counterspell, burn, or bounce backup. The correct ratio for turn 5 I've noticed is 3 blue sources and 2 red sources. My question is: How many lands, and in particular, how many of a certain colour should I run to have the best possible chance of hitting this ratio? Currently I run 25. I've played at 26 for a good couple months exclusively and notice I do tend to get mana flooded quite a bit which has costed me some games. I curve out at 5cmc (4 x Jace), with the rest of my deck in the 2cmc and 3cmc spot. Is 25 reasonable, or should I really be on 26 since I run 4 x 5cmc drops? As for my land, I'm running 4 Steam Vents, 4 Mutavault, 10 Island, 7 Mountain. Is this ratio of blue to red correct to attempt to hit that 3 blue/ 2 red mana on turn 5 consistently?
2. Regarding lands that come into play tapped. I have recently removed all lands that come into play tapped aka Izzet Guildgate and replaced them with more basics. My reasoning is, there has been a few games, especially in the early turns, where a tapped land has cost me dearly. These don't happen often, but it has happened enough for me to consider doing this. I figured if I still run the 4 shock lands and up the basics, I'd be good since I run 2 colours. Is this a stupid thing to do and this in turn ties into my original question, what would be the optimal ratio of blue to red?
My U/R deck for reference:
(NOTE: This is not a deck list discussion thread, please do not derail, unless you can back it up with quality trolling material.)
Counting the cards by colour cost, I count a double blue to be a 1.5 blue card, I've come up with:
27 Blue cards
20 Red cards
I've estimated I'd need 10 Island to 7 Mountain in addition to the shock and man lands, to be able to hit the 3 blue/ 2 red ratio by turn 5. That's why I've created this thread. Is there a more scientific approach to determine how much land and how many sources I should run to meet my goals?
I might get a lot of disagreement here. And I might jsut be wrong, so take it for what it is worth. But I actually like the "cluestone" cycle for mana tuning purposes. Count it as a half a land. If 25 seems like to little and 26 seems like too much, try running 25 with 1 cluestone. If the ramp as an end to itself feels good, you could try 2 cluestones, but mostly I use them as one-ofs. And I think 24 is the minimum land that you need to already be running (meaning, if you are using 23 lands, a cluestone is a little too expensive to use as the 23rd and half land.)
26 is a ton of land unless you're a control deck trying to hit its land drops. You don't seem to be playing Izzet Control, more of a CounterBurn variant, so I'd probably go with 24 lands, cutting an Island and a Mountain. I would look into replacing one of each later with the new scry temple if you can afford it, since you need a means of digging for your answers. The biggest issue I see after a quick look over the list is that you have a few specific answers here and there, but you're totally reliant upon drawing into them. The only card manipulation I see is Izzet Charm's dig mode, which usually isn't enough for Izzet lists (I've tried). If you can get a copy or two, I feel like Jace AoT would be better for this deck than Memory Adept. It would definitely help to smooth out your curve. 4 copies seems like overkill unless you're dead set on alt-win condition of mill.
1. I play a U/R deck. Turn 5 seems to be my money turn, providing I have the cards in hand. I either want to tap out and drop a Jace, Memory Adept and get my card draw game going, or tap 2 and drop a Young Pyromancer with counterspell, burn, or bounce backup. The correct ratio for turn 5 I've noticed is 3 blue sources and 2 red sources. My question is: How many lands, and in particular, how many of a certain colour should I run to have the best possible chance of hitting this ratio? Currently I run 25. I've played at 26 for a good couple months exclusively and notice I do tend to get mana flooded quite a bit which has costed me some games. I curve out at 5cmc (4 x Jace), with the rest of my deck in the 2cmc and 3cmc spot. Is 25 reasonable, or should I really be on 26 since I run 4 x 5cmc drops? As for my land, I'm running 4 Steam Vents, 4 Mutavault, 10 Island, 7 Mountain. Is this ratio of blue to red correct to attempt to hit that 3 blue/ 2 red mana on turn 5 consistently?
2. Regarding lands that come into play tapped. I have recently removed all lands that come into play tapped aka Izzet Guildgate and replaced them with more basics. My reasoning is, there has been a few games, especially in the early turns, where a tapped land has cost me dearly. These don't happen often, but it has happened enough for me to consider doing this. I figured if I still run the 4 shock lands and up the basics, I'd be good since I run 2 colours. Is this a stupid thing to do and this in turn ties into my original question, what would be the optimal ratio of blue to red?
My U/R deck for reference:
(NOTE: This is not a deck list discussion thread, please do not derail, unless you can back it up with quality trolling material.)
4 Mutavault
10 Island
7 Mountain
4 Turn//Burn
4 Syncopate
4 Lightning Strike
4 Izzet Charm
4 Magma Jet
3 Cyclonic Rift
4 Dissolve
Counting the cards by colour cost, I count a double blue to be a 1.5 blue card, I've come up with:
27 Blue cards
20 Red cards
I've estimated I'd need 10 Island to 7 Mountain in addition to the shock and man lands, to be able to hit the 3 blue/ 2 red ratio by turn 5. That's why I've created this thread. Is there a more scientific approach to determine how much land and how many sources I should run to meet my goals?
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