I'm relatively new to posting here, but I had a burning question and wanted to know what people thought (also, if this is not the forum for this, I apologize and please move the thread )
So, the title is pretty self explanatory. A few burning questions I have:
How do you know how many total lands to run?
How do you know how many mana producing lands to run (ie, fetchlands vs all other lands)?
How do you determine the ratio of check/shock/fast/man/basic?
Just wondering if anyone has delved a bit into to this to study the maths of it all lol
While I'm not a huge fan of SaffronOlive's Brews on MtGGoldfish, I do think the dude has a good way of explaining things in his articles. This one is exactly up your alley as to what you are asking. Essentially it is figuring out your mana curve, then basing the total off of that.
As far as fast/slow lands go, you're going to want to figure out the type of deck you run. Certain decks will want lands to be untapped upon coming in early, rather than later (aggro/tempo). Other decks like midrange and some control are ok with a land coming in tapped here and there, so long as they have enough open to respond at instant speed for things like kill spells, counters, etc.
Man lands I can't really speak to the when to incorporate part as I'm not a brewer myself, but they are seen more (imho) in midrange and control decks that sometimes need a final jab/damage pushthrough, blocker mid to late game, or for utility purposes (Shambling Vent's lifelink in Abzan, Hissing Quagmire's Deathtouch in B/G, etc.).
If you scroll to the bottom of the article linked, the last image gives a good idea as to how many lands per deck.
Frank Karsten's articles get very mathy, and while there are a great deal of assumptions you need to make, it's a great article for getting into a more detailed look under the hood of how more refined decks are built.
Not only does the land type matter but also what that land can produce and when.
Just a quick iteration of what I do when building a mana base:
1. What is my deck, and what axis do I compete on? Am I fast, am I control, etc. this will dictate what I want from my lands and when I want it.
2. What lands do I have access to use in my collection if I'm not net decking or I don't have a full set of applicable lands.
3. What combination of lands gives me the colors I need on the turn I need them. If I have cards that are UU on turn two and BB on turn three, how can I build to achieve that.
4. How do the drawbacks of each land impact my deck. If my 4 drops are crucial to me winning a game, I probably don't want fast lands. If I don't run four+ drops then I only want fast lands. Deaths shadow takes advantage of the life drawback of fetch/shock mana bases. Green decks with courser of kruphix get to manipulate draws with fetch lands to some degree. Jace the mind sculptor can +0 and stick a bunch of dead cards on top of the library that you can fetch and shuffle away. There are tons of ways to leverage these lands.
5. You always want to hit your land drops. Think about it this way, in a 60 card deck you need to have a path to casting what's in your hands. If you can't cast it, then it may as well not even be in your hand to begin with. What amount of lands gives me the greatest level of consistency to cast my most impactful spells? Reducing the random element of the game and getting your average success rate higher is crucial to strong deck building. Reducing the random element of the game for more consistent performance is almost always the correct answer. (although BR hollow one disagrees lol).
It's funny because players tend to underevaluate cards like courser of kruphix. implications of life gain and revealing your draws aside, think about the power of drawing a land for turn, revealing a land on top and playing that other land on top instead. You've not only put yourself up a card and gone one deeper into your deck, but you've secured the resources for your 5 cmc card one turn sooner if you didn't otherwise have it. That's one less turn your opponent has to execute their plan or react to yours. You take that out over 2-5 turns and that advantage builds up into a huge game changer.
I had a game against modern lantern control with GR ponza (a modern land destruction deck) last night that illustrates this perfectly. I had a fracturing gust in hand and my opponent was actively digging me towards land draws with her mill spells because they were "dead cards." Even threats I didn't have the resources or mana for were flipped into the graveyard and I hit my 5th land on her t4/my t5 and wiped the board. If I was given those 4-5 mana threats when I only had 2 lands that would have never happened and I was have been softlocked out much sooner. I don't think it was a misplay on her part by any means, but it goes to show that without lands you won't play magic. I won that game because I had my out in hand AND the resources to cast it.
I do enjoy the math of things very much, to be honest. So I'll be sure to read those articles tomorrow when I get a chance.
And you both went in a very similar direction talking about fastlands.. And the double cost thing was also very relevant, as the brew I'm making actually plays two colors in double intensity quite a lot, so bringing in the filter lands for those two colors could actually probably help a ton.
And what you said about the courser is also very true. Courser is a great card when you draw a land and play a land from your library, because it saves you a turn where you would've drawn two lands in a row.
Sorry for the extremely late response, but the answer to this question depends exclusive on the CMC and the color requirements of your cards your casting.
If you look closely pretty much every modern deck on mtgtop8 follows the math behind how many lands you need to consistently hit. Modern mana bases are designed with these priorities in mind (in this order):
1) Hit the required Color on the necessary turns (and number of land drops)
2) Take as little damage as possible. (i.e. playing fast lands/ check lands if possible)
3/4) Play around land hate (i.e. Blood Moon/ Field of Ruin) but this is mostly just means playing an extra basic here or there.
3/4) Provide extra utility, i.e. field of ruin/ creature lands if possible to add more value/ answers to the deck.
Roughly the number of lands you play is this:
1) If you need to consistently cast 4 cost spell on turn 4 (i.e. Blood Braid Elf/ Cryptic Command) you want to aim for 24-25
2) If you're an aggro deck that can operate on 2-3 lands, i.e. burn, you play 20.
You can roughly cut a land for every 3 can trips you play etc.
A ratio isn't really the right word. The big thing is in figuring out how much pain you want to take from your manabase, at times a high pain manabase for maximum color availability has been strongest, but right now a painless manabase is where you want to be. If you look at the best performing decks, they pretty much go in order of how much pain they take (unless pain is part of your strategy like GDS).
The other thing you want to look for is if/where you build holes in your mana curve for a land to come in tapped.
Then there's also other meta considerations such as how often you think you'll need basics (and your color curve is going to matter a lot here), and how many basics you want in reserve to get off of Field of Ruin, Ghost Quarter, Path to Exile, and so on.
I can answer for the decks I run. I run 24 lands in all decks I use, which may not be right, but all my decks are midrange/Control decks.
RW Blood Moon I run 4 RW fastlands,4 RW fetchlands, 4 RW shocklands, 4 RW checklands, and 8 plains. I have a high mana curve than my other decks but I also run 4 simian spirit guide.
For GW hatebears I don’t run any fetches because of leonin arbiter. 24 lands is a lot, especially with 4 noble hierarch. However, I’m using my lands up with:
Mana denial is a huge part of the deck and ghost quarter is so good on with Leonin arbiter(especially on turn 2 with a noble), so I run 4 ghost quarter. Because I don’t want to run too many colorless lands, I only runn1 gavony township. I run 4 horizon canopy for the card draw, which can cost me life, but I run 4 kitchen finks, which offsets this.
Any Jund list IMHO should start with 4 blackcleave cliffs for inquisition/TS/fatal push/lightning bolt turn 2. Then I think 8-9 fetches is good for goyf and fatal push, with 4 shocks and 4 basics. With equal amounts of shocks and basics I can fetch aggressively or timidly, depending on the matchup. I only run 3 manlands because I think curving out is important, but pros who are better players than me run more manlands, and most pros run 25 lands to cast BBE on turn 4.
BW tokens is similar to Jund. I need triple white turn 3 for spectral procession, so that limits the amount of non white sources I can run.
. I currently run mire in Jund and Heath in BW tokens but with damping sphere coming out I’ll be running it in the sideboard of both decks and it has horrible synergy with filter lands.
All of my lists curve out at 4 except for RW Blood Moon.
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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
Say a guy wanted to splash in his goblin 8 whack deck. Main board there will be 8 black pips in 8 black spells. I'll have a blue, white and green splash in my sideboard. Black comes out, one other goes in.
If I have 8-10 fetchland that are able to grab mountains, and one each of the shocklands for white black green and blue, would that be feasible? I guess my question is:
How many and of what shocklands should I have in my deck to consistently be able to fetch for the one of land that I'll need to cast my splash cards?
Say a guy wanted to splash in his goblin 8 whack deck. Main board there will be 8 black pips in 8 black spells. I'll have a blue, white and green splash in my sideboard. Black comes out, one other goes in.
If I have 8-10 fetchland that are able to grab mountains, and one each of the shocklands for white black green and blue, would that be feasible? I guess my question is:
How many and of what shocklands should I have in my deck to consistently be able to fetch for the one of land that I'll need to cast my splash cards?
As a rule of thumb I personally use, most of my decks have an average CMC somewhere between 1 and 2 with 4-8 cantrips. With that in mind, I structure most builds with a baseline below:
I'll use Grixis--primary blue-- as an example:
8 fetches (4 UR, 4 UB)
2 UR shocks
1 UB shock
1 BR shock
2 island
1 swamp
1 mountain
This is 16 lands, giving 3-7 extra slots, depending on curve and makeup of deck.
Extra slots will range from checklands (ex: sulfur falls), fastlands (ex: spirebluff canal), creature lands (ex: creeping tar pit), utility lands (ex: field of ruin), or an additional shockland if I have a lot of double colored spells in not-blue. Fetches go up if deck can take advantage (like Grixis Death's Shadow), but rarely below 8.
Not sure how to answer the thread.. but most of my decks are 21-22 land, always have at least 4- 5 fetch, 2-3 shocklands, then a combination of fastlands + basics depending on the kind of strategy that the deck has.
It really comes down to your strategy more than anything else. If you're looking for quick rules of thumb, then here's some of mine:
- When you build a mana base, make sure you've got enough basics so you can cast any of your cards with only basics in play. That means if you're running Liliana of the Veil, make sure you've got at least two basic Swamps in your deck. This is to mitigate Blood Moons and Field of Ruin.
- When you're figuring out what your average CMC is, think about how many spells you're looking to be able to cast in a turn. You may want to skew your lands a little higher if you're looking to play multiple spells.
-Cantrips aren't created equal. Opt is much worse at getting land than Serum Visions, and the cream of the crop is Ancient Stirrings if you can run it. I usually count 4 Opt as a single land, where ares 4 Ancient Stirrings are basically 4 lands.
-Generally, the fewer shocklands you can get away with running, the better. Most two color decks can manage on 2-4 shocks, where as most 3 color decks need 5-6, and 4 color decks will go as high as 6-7.
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I'm relatively new to posting here, but I had a burning question and wanted to know what people thought (also, if this is not the forum for this, I apologize and please move the thread )
So, the title is pretty self explanatory. A few burning questions I have:
Just wondering if anyone has delved a bit into to this to study the maths of it all lol
As far as fast/slow lands go, you're going to want to figure out the type of deck you run. Certain decks will want lands to be untapped upon coming in early, rather than later (aggro/tempo). Other decks like midrange and some control are ok with a land coming in tapped here and there, so long as they have enough open to respond at instant speed for things like kill spells, counters, etc.
Man lands I can't really speak to the when to incorporate part as I'm not a brewer myself, but they are seen more (imho) in midrange and control decks that sometimes need a final jab/damage pushthrough, blocker mid to late game, or for utility purposes (Shambling Vent's lifelink in Abzan, Hissing Quagmire's Deathtouch in B/G, etc.).
If you scroll to the bottom of the article linked, the last image gives a good idea as to how many lands per deck.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/brewer-s-minute-how-many-lands
Decks:
Skred Red, Abzan Midrange, U/B Delver, Mono U Delver, Uril, the Miststalker
Frank Karsten's articles get very mathy, and while there are a great deal of assumptions you need to make, it's a great article for getting into a more detailed look under the hood of how more refined decks are built.
Not only does the land type matter but also what that land can produce and when.
Just a quick iteration of what I do when building a mana base:
1. What is my deck, and what axis do I compete on? Am I fast, am I control, etc. this will dictate what I want from my lands and when I want it.
2. What lands do I have access to use in my collection if I'm not net decking or I don't have a full set of applicable lands.
3. What combination of lands gives me the colors I need on the turn I need them. If I have cards that are UU on turn two and BB on turn three, how can I build to achieve that.
4. How do the drawbacks of each land impact my deck. If my 4 drops are crucial to me winning a game, I probably don't want fast lands. If I don't run four+ drops then I only want fast lands. Deaths shadow takes advantage of the life drawback of fetch/shock mana bases. Green decks with courser of kruphix get to manipulate draws with fetch lands to some degree. Jace the mind sculptor can +0 and stick a bunch of dead cards on top of the library that you can fetch and shuffle away. There are tons of ways to leverage these lands.
5. You always want to hit your land drops. Think about it this way, in a 60 card deck you need to have a path to casting what's in your hands. If you can't cast it, then it may as well not even be in your hand to begin with. What amount of lands gives me the greatest level of consistency to cast my most impactful spells? Reducing the random element of the game and getting your average success rate higher is crucial to strong deck building. Reducing the random element of the game for more consistent performance is almost always the correct answer. (although BR hollow one disagrees lol).
It's funny because players tend to underevaluate cards like courser of kruphix. implications of life gain and revealing your draws aside, think about the power of drawing a land for turn, revealing a land on top and playing that other land on top instead. You've not only put yourself up a card and gone one deeper into your deck, but you've secured the resources for your 5 cmc card one turn sooner if you didn't otherwise have it. That's one less turn your opponent has to execute their plan or react to yours. You take that out over 2-5 turns and that advantage builds up into a huge game changer.
I had a game against modern lantern control with GR ponza (a modern land destruction deck) last night that illustrates this perfectly. I had a fracturing gust in hand and my opponent was actively digging me towards land draws with her mill spells because they were "dead cards." Even threats I didn't have the resources or mana for were flipped into the graveyard and I hit my 5th land on her t4/my t5 and wiped the board. If I was given those 4-5 mana threats when I only had 2 lands that would have never happened and I was have been softlocked out much sooner. I don't think it was a misplay on her part by any means, but it goes to show that without lands you won't play magic. I won that game because I had my out in hand AND the resources to cast it.
I do enjoy the math of things very much, to be honest. So I'll be sure to read those articles tomorrow when I get a chance.
And you both went in a very similar direction talking about fastlands.. And the double cost thing was also very relevant, as the brew I'm making actually plays two colors in double intensity quite a lot, so bringing in the filter lands for those two colors could actually probably help a ton.
And what you said about the courser is also very true. Courser is a great card when you draw a land and play a land from your library, because it saves you a turn where you would've drawn two lands in a row.
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/how-many-lands-do-you-need-to-consistently-hit-your-land-drops/
If you look closely pretty much every modern deck on mtgtop8 follows the math behind how many lands you need to consistently hit. Modern mana bases are designed with these priorities in mind (in this order):
1) Hit the required Color on the necessary turns (and number of land drops)
2) Take as little damage as possible. (i.e. playing fast lands/ check lands if possible)
3/4) Play around land hate (i.e. Blood Moon/ Field of Ruin) but this is mostly just means playing an extra basic here or there.
3/4) Provide extra utility, i.e. field of ruin/ creature lands if possible to add more value/ answers to the deck.
Roughly the number of lands you play is this:
1) If you need to consistently cast 4 cost spell on turn 4 (i.e. Blood Braid Elf/ Cryptic Command) you want to aim for 24-25
2) If you're an aggro deck that can operate on 2-3 lands, i.e. burn, you play 20.
You can roughly cut a land for every 3 can trips you play etc.
The other thing you want to look for is if/where you build holes in your mana curve for a land to come in tapped.
Then there's also other meta considerations such as how often you think you'll need basics (and your color curve is going to matter a lot here), and how many basics you want in reserve to get off of Field of Ruin, Ghost Quarter, Path to Exile, and so on.
RW Blood Moon I run 4 RW fastlands,4 RW fetchlands, 4 RW shocklands, 4 RW checklands, and 8 plains. I have a high mana curve than my other decks but I also run 4 simian spirit guide.
For GW hatebears I don’t run any fetches because of leonin arbiter. 24 lands is a lot, especially with 4 noble hierarch. However, I’m using my lands up with:
Mana denial is a huge part of the deck and ghost quarter is so good on with Leonin arbiter(especially on turn 2 with a noble), so I run 4 ghost quarter. Because I don’t want to run too many colorless lands, I only runn1 gavony township. I run 4 horizon canopy for the card draw, which can cost me life, but I run 4 kitchen finks, which offsets this.
Any Jund list IMHO should start with 4 blackcleave cliffs for inquisition/TS/fatal push/lightning bolt turn 2. Then I think 8-9 fetches is good for goyf and fatal push, with 4 shocks and 4 basics. With equal amounts of shocks and basics I can fetch aggressively or timidly, depending on the matchup. I only run 3 manlands because I think curving out is important, but pros who are better players than me run more manlands, and most pros run 25 lands to cast BBE on turn 4.
BW tokens is similar to Jund. I need triple white turn 3 for spectral procession, so that limits the amount of non white sources I can run.
I was a big fan of
- twilight mire
- Fetid Heath
. I currently run mire in Jund and Heath in BW tokens but with damping sphere coming out I’ll be running it in the sideboard of both decks and it has horrible synergy with filter lands.All of my lists curve out at 4 except for RW Blood Moon.
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
If I have 8-10 fetchland that are able to grab mountains, and one each of the shocklands for white black green and blue, would that be feasible? I guess my question is:
How many and of what shocklands should I have in my deck to consistently be able to fetch for the one of land that I'll need to cast my splash cards?
Will 8 fetches be enough?
8 is a bit on the lower end. (https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells/) you need roughly 14 black sources if you want to consistently turn 1, and 12 if you want to consistently turn 2.
However, I have noticed the standard Mono White human lists that splash reckless bushwhackers have around 8-9 red sources, (http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=13253&d=277759&f=ST)
I'm guessing this is the "best" the deck can do as it really needs to bushwhaker to help fight languished based control decks?
My answer for 8 fetch is that is on the low end, my inclination is I would not recommend it.
I'll use Grixis--primary blue-- as an example:
8 fetches (4 UR, 4 UB)
2 UR shocks
1 UB shock
1 BR shock
2 island
1 swamp
1 mountain
This is 16 lands, giving 3-7 extra slots, depending on curve and makeup of deck.
Extra slots will range from checklands (ex: sulfur falls), fastlands (ex: spirebluff canal), creature lands (ex: creeping tar pit), utility lands (ex: field of ruin), or an additional shockland if I have a lot of double colored spells in not-blue. Fetches go up if deck can take advantage (like Grixis Death's Shadow), but rarely below 8.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
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- When you build a mana base, make sure you've got enough basics so you can cast any of your cards with only basics in play. That means if you're running Liliana of the Veil, make sure you've got at least two basic Swamps in your deck. This is to mitigate Blood Moons and Field of Ruin.
- When you're figuring out what your average CMC is, think about how many spells you're looking to be able to cast in a turn. You may want to skew your lands a little higher if you're looking to play multiple spells.
-Cantrips aren't created equal. Opt is much worse at getting land than Serum Visions, and the cream of the crop is Ancient Stirrings if you can run it. I usually count 4 Opt as a single land, where ares 4 Ancient Stirrings are basically 4 lands.
-Generally, the fewer shocklands you can get away with running, the better. Most two color decks can manage on 2-4 shocks, where as most 3 color decks need 5-6, and 4 color decks will go as high as 6-7.