I'm not keeping up on Standard all that much these days, but I have noticed that a lot of deck lists run Mana Confluences in 2-color decks. That seems weird to me.
They don't exactly need to take pain from their lands to get color-fixing, so what gives?
Confluence is a must for any two color aggro deck or midrange deck because fixing your mana as early as turn 2 can be the deciding factor instead of a scry land
An aggressive deck generally wants to make its drops (especially 1-4) on-curve, meaning that they need to rely on lands that can produce mana without entering the battlefield tapped (meaning limiting the number of Temples used). For any deck that has color-intensive requirements, Basics are insufficient as they can make it difficult to hit those requirements. Shocklands are ideal, but a two-colored deck can only run 4 shocklands. Confluence plays shockland 5-8 for these decks, effectively.
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If you have 24 lands, even with temples and shocks, you're only getting 16 sources of each color. That's generally not enough to make XX or 1XX for both colors. So decks with those color requirements need a third dual land, which means playing either their guild's guildgate, or mana confluence. Aggro decks (which play even fewer lands) or decks which want to use Mutavault have even fewer sources of each color, and thus have even more need for the third dual land.
It all depends if the deck has just a splash or not. The percentage of mana requirement for the two colors will dictate the lands you need. Aggro usually would rather play basics than have to play with lands that come into play tapped . Aggro usually wins turns 4-5 after that it's out of their favor.
It's not the amount of colors you play. It's the amount of colored mana symbols you play.
RW plays many things that are RR but still needs to play lots of mountains to make sure they can cast Chained To the Rocks. This makes plains just worse than having a confluence.
The difference is standard you're forced to shocks, temples/guildgates or mana confluence and in modern you have well...fetches, shocks, checklands, filterlands, painlands...
I love it when my opponent turn 2s one. Or when they have a 2 color deck that is 60/40% weighted that needs them in possibly in bulk.
My modern infect definitely has them on the other hand, but that is cheat codes.
I'm not keeping up on Standard all that much these days, but I have noticed that a lot of deck lists run Mana Confluences in 2-color decks. That seems weird to me.
They don't exactly need to take pain from their lands to get color-fixing, so what gives?
An aggressive deck generally wants to make its drops (especially 1-4) on-curve, meaning that they need to rely on lands that can produce mana without entering the battlefield tapped (meaning limiting the number of Temples used). For any deck that has color-intensive requirements, Basics are insufficient as they can make it difficult to hit those requirements. Shocklands are ideal, but a two-colored deck can only run 4 shocklands. Confluence plays shockland 5-8 for these decks, effectively.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
RW plays many things that are RR but still needs to play lots of mountains to make sure they can cast Chained To the Rocks. This makes plains just worse than having a confluence.
BEEEES!
Rabble Red
Modern
Burn
Infect
The difference is standard you're forced to shocks, temples/guildgates or mana confluence and in modern you have well...fetches, shocks, checklands, filterlands, painlands...
My modern infect definitely has them on the other hand, but that is cheat codes.