It's always a tough question, because every playgroup seems to prioritize fixing differently. The idea is to find the sweet spot, where XY decks and XY/z decks have all the fixing they need to meet their minimum mana demand as long as players make disciplined picks. Without having so much fixing that 4/5 color control decks are running rampant with perfect mana in every draft. So there are probably a lot of 360 groups that may not want/need to play any of the 3 lands being discussed here, and there may be groups that play all 3, even in the smallest lists! It's kinda up to each manager to figure out what the perfect number is for their group and tinker accordingly.
It's always a tough question, because every playgroup seems to prioritize fixing differently. The idea is to find the sweet spot, where XY decks and XY/z decks have all the fixing they need to meet their minimum mana demand as long as players make disciplined picks. Without having so much fixing that 4/5 color control decks are running rampant with perfect mana in every draft. So there are probably a lot of 360 groups that may not want/need to play any of the 3 lands being discussed here, and there may be groups that play all 3, even in the smallest lists! It's kinda up to each manager to figure out what the perfect number is for their group and tinker accordingly.
At the very least I think it should be in every manager's binder. I know you are more of the 4 sets of lands for 360 and I run 3 sets. But I also play both of these, and have some manlands in the guild sections, and/or toy with vivids in and out. So you are probably right it is all about tinkering and I these ones are very acceptable at that task. Personally I like them more than reflecting pool, ice bridge, or grand coliseum but I know I am crazy.
wtwlf123, I would be interested to hear what your criteria would be for preferring Barrens in a list over Terramorphic, absent Crucible/Landfall type interactions.
As I see it, the deck would need to be:
Only one primary color
Many CC 2 drops, at least a fair number of 1 drops
Delaying your splashed cards for a turn isn't terrible
Few or no incidental colorless sources, which is more likely given point 2
Points 1 and 2 would drive the decision the most, yes. 1) A deck with a high saturation of 1cc cards that are in one primary color. 2) A deck with CC 2-drops that correlate with the same colors as your 1-drops. And 3) A manabase constructed primarily of untapped sources of the color represented in sections 1 and 2, where Barrens would then be replacing a basic from your secondary color. Those would be the decks that would have the highest concentration of scenarios where the manner in which Barrens fixes your mana can create the most problems.
Decks that meet that description aren't all that uncommon either, since A) when you have a deck with a lot of 1-drops of a given color, your manabase will be built to have the untapped sources be in that color, and B) CC cards are most often included in decks that meet criteria A, because you don't want that many scenarios to arise where you're playing a 1-drop from color X and a CC card of color Y (especially not with ETBT lands).
So when analyzing my mana requirements during the draft, I would take those construction requirements to heart if/when deciding between Wilds/Expanse and Barrens from the same pack. More likely than not I'll take both cards from different packs and play both anyways, but it's not super hard to look at the deck's mana requirements and evaluate how often you could potentially be punished by Barrens' requirement to use early colored mana to fix for a secondary/splash color later.
That's obviously assuming that I'm not looking into other things that can change the evaluation, like Crucible/Loam, need for C, low land-count decks with lots of mana dorks, landfall-matters cards, etc.
Ultimately it's a complex analysis for scenarios that will be uncommon, since the cards will function close to identically in half their resolutions anyways ...but those are the situations I'd be keeping in mind when deciding between the two if they were present in the same pack.
Again, a lot of decks either won't care because mana demand/distribution is relatively even between your colors, and Barrens will be a better generic fixer because of its additional upsides. But that's not always the case.
And of course, I'm not implying that every draw with a deck built as outlined above will always have problems. Most of the time either land will work just fine. But in those decks, the odds of running into issues will be higher, so just keep that in mind, and draft/deckbuild/play accordingly.
@Phitt77: Thank you for the detailed write up. It certainly helps to illustrate the instances where Barrens is equal to or better than Wilds, which I'm certainly not disputing. And thanks for taking the time to help create a detailed and complete analysis of the card. At this point, I'm starting to think we may be debating different things here, so I'll try to summarize my thoughts on why I tried to illustrate Barrens' (albeit narrow) deficiencies that can arise:
In the instances where Wilds is worse, it's usually just because the land enters tapped, and it would share the drawback with every other ETBT land in the cube. In the instances where Barrens is worse, it is literally the worst possible fixing land in the cube I could have. This can be an important distinction to make, because I've seen it happen to me during in-game play already. There are absolutely a lot of cases where Barrens is the better performer, but when it's bad, it's not just bad, it's really a strangling drawback that can cripple particular openings (in the admittedly smaller number of situations where it can show up).
There are instances where Barrens is worse than Wilds. There are decks that are more likely to have those instances occur because of how they're constructed. Players should keep this in mind. Not because Barrens' drawback is super likely to show up, but simply because there are decks that will have a higher rate of occurrence for the drawback than others. Even if the net inclusion of Barrens over Wilds/Expanse is a positive, these instances can be particularly damaging to your early curve. Often much worse than a simple ETBT drawback is.
Barrens has more upsides than drawbacks, so it is the better land in more situations. Thanks for helping the the other posters reading this thread come to that logical and ultimate conclusion.
That being said, the whole purpose of illustrating its shortcomings was to create a comprehensive pros and cons list. People here (and elsewhere) were listing the differences in the way Barrens fixes as a pro for Barrens, but failing to list the ways where it can be worse (no matter how infrequent they can show up). We can't really have it both ways. If it's not better/worse, and it's just "different", than its advantages would also need to be removed from its "pros" list. But why do that? I feel it's important to know the ways in which it can be better, in addition to the ways it can be worse. It's important to know the situations where it's "different", and what that actually means.
We can't rightly list "Barrens can spend mana you don't need now for a color you do need now" as a pro for Barrens if you don't list "Barrens can't spend mana you need now for a color you'll need later" as a con on the flipside of that coin. The evaluation is both incomplete and disingenuous without it. But folks seem to have no problem listing Barrens' upsides to the particular manner in which it fixes in the pro column. I didn't see anyone recommending removing its fixing method from peoples arguments for it being better; only wanting to remove my example as a potential drawback... but I feel that leads to an incomplete evaluation of the cards in question.
I've listed the ways in which Wilds/Expanse can be better as a "pro" in their evaluation, because I feel it needs to be there. We can talk all day long about which scenario is more likely, but in the end, that doesn't matter. The fact is, instances do exist where Barrens is worse. And that's the beginning and the end of my point, and it needs to be factored into the evaluation in order for the evaluation to be comprehensive.
Maybe an odd question that only effects my cube but here goes.
I allow my drafters to take a couple of teramorphic expanses/evolving wilds if they want them to replace some basic lands ( 1 or 2 a person, more often than not they aren't taken), its a holdover from when my mana base was worse but since I usually draft 2 people (8 packs total) it is handy to have access to the fixing since we never see the full cube.
Should I add Ash Barrens to the basic land/teramorphic expanse/evolving wilds box or is it worth a slot in its own right?
I personally enjoy the tension of forcing people to spend actual picks on fixing if they want to get greedy/enable combos/ splash an amazing card. But there are others that give free fixing or so a separate utility land draft. It depends on your motivation. But for me there are always way more picks than I need to make my 23 non land slots so I enjoy trying to score as many lands as possible.
I run ABU duals, Fetches, 2 colour man lands and various 5 colour lands. I guess expanse/wilds just feel weak in comparason to the other lands I'm running.
I think I will add all 3 to the cube and see what happens, to be honest I don't even think my drafters will notice as its most often me taking an expanse/waste.
I do like the sound of a utility land draft more and more as its hard to find spots for the more interesting but niche lands.
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At the very least I think it should be in every manager's binder. I know you are more of the 4 sets of lands for 360 and I run 3 sets. But I also play both of these, and have some manlands in the guild sections, and/or toy with vivids in and out. So you are probably right it is all about tinkering and I these ones are very acceptable at that task. Personally I like them more than reflecting pool, ice bridge, or grand coliseum but I know I am crazy.
You're not crazy at all. I like Coliseum more, but I prefer Wilds/Expanse and Barrens to the other two lands you mentioned.
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As I see it, the deck would need to be:
Decks that meet that description aren't all that uncommon either, since A) when you have a deck with a lot of 1-drops of a given color, your manabase will be built to have the untapped sources be in that color, and B) CC cards are most often included in decks that meet criteria A, because you don't want that many scenarios to arise where you're playing a 1-drop from color X and a CC card of color Y (especially not with ETBT lands).
So when analyzing my mana requirements during the draft, I would take those construction requirements to heart if/when deciding between Wilds/Expanse and Barrens from the same pack. More likely than not I'll take both cards from different packs and play both anyways, but it's not super hard to look at the deck's mana requirements and evaluate how often you could potentially be punished by Barrens' requirement to use early colored mana to fix for a secondary/splash color later.
That's obviously assuming that I'm not looking into other things that can change the evaluation, like Crucible/Loam, need for C, low land-count decks with lots of mana dorks, landfall-matters cards, etc.
Ultimately it's a complex analysis for scenarios that will be uncommon, since the cards will function close to identically in half their resolutions anyways ...but those are the situations I'd be keeping in mind when deciding between the two if they were present in the same pack.
Again, a lot of decks either won't care because mana demand/distribution is relatively even between your colors, and Barrens will be a better generic fixer because of its additional upsides. But that's not always the case.
And of course, I'm not implying that every draw with a deck built as outlined above will always have problems. Most of the time either land will work just fine. But in those decks, the odds of running into issues will be higher, so just keep that in mind, and draft/deckbuild/play accordingly.
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In the instances where Wilds is worse, it's usually just because the land enters tapped, and it would share the drawback with every other ETBT land in the cube. In the instances where Barrens is worse, it is literally the worst possible fixing land in the cube I could have. This can be an important distinction to make, because I've seen it happen to me during in-game play already. There are absolutely a lot of cases where Barrens is the better performer, but when it's bad, it's not just bad, it's really a strangling drawback that can cripple particular openings (in the admittedly smaller number of situations where it can show up).
There are instances where Barrens is worse than Wilds. There are decks that are more likely to have those instances occur because of how they're constructed. Players should keep this in mind. Not because Barrens' drawback is super likely to show up, but simply because there are decks that will have a higher rate of occurrence for the drawback than others. Even if the net inclusion of Barrens over Wilds/Expanse is a positive, these instances can be particularly damaging to your early curve. Often much worse than a simple ETBT drawback is.
Barrens has more upsides than drawbacks, so it is the better land in more situations. Thanks for helping the the other posters reading this thread come to that logical and ultimate conclusion.
That being said, the whole purpose of illustrating its shortcomings was to create a comprehensive pros and cons list. People here (and elsewhere) were listing the differences in the way Barrens fixes as a pro for Barrens, but failing to list the ways where it can be worse (no matter how infrequent they can show up). We can't really have it both ways. If it's not better/worse, and it's just "different", than its advantages would also need to be removed from its "pros" list. But why do that? I feel it's important to know the ways in which it can be better, in addition to the ways it can be worse. It's important to know the situations where it's "different", and what that actually means.
We can't rightly list "Barrens can spend mana you don't need now for a color you do need now" as a pro for Barrens if you don't list "Barrens can't spend mana you need now for a color you'll need later" as a con on the flipside of that coin. The evaluation is both incomplete and disingenuous without it. But folks seem to have no problem listing Barrens' upsides to the particular manner in which it fixes in the pro column. I didn't see anyone recommending removing its fixing method from peoples arguments for it being better; only wanting to remove my example as a potential drawback... but I feel that leads to an incomplete evaluation of the cards in question.
I've listed the ways in which Wilds/Expanse can be better as a "pro" in their evaluation, because I feel it needs to be there. We can talk all day long about which scenario is more likely, but in the end, that doesn't matter. The fact is, instances do exist where Barrens is worse. And that's the beginning and the end of my point, and it needs to be factored into the evaluation in order for the evaluation to be comprehensive.
Cheers, and happy cubing.
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I allow my drafters to take a couple of teramorphic expanses/evolving wilds if they want them to replace some basic lands ( 1 or 2 a person, more often than not they aren't taken), its a holdover from when my mana base was worse but since I usually draft 2 people (8 packs total) it is handy to have access to the fixing since we never see the full cube.
Should I add Ash Barrens to the basic land/teramorphic expanse/evolving wilds box or is it worth a slot in its own right?
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My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
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I think I will add all 3 to the cube and see what happens, to be honest I don't even think my drafters will notice as its most often me taking an expanse/waste.
I do like the sound of a utility land draft more and more as its hard to find spots for the more interesting but niche lands.
Thanks.