MTG Salvation

Your opinion is valid. So you are saying that Land Tax is not reliable?

Quote from steve_man »

What I’m saying is that I don’t count Land Tax as X color mana source the same way you would as a fetchland.

I know that’s what you are saying. Look, if it were as simple as a mana source like a fetchland, then I wouldn’t be posting a question about it in the first place, amiright?

Quote from B8R »

Quote from steve_man »

What I’m saying is that I don’t count Land Tax as X color mana source the same way you would as a fetchland.

I know that’s what you are saying. Look, if it were as simple as a mana source like a fetchland, then I wouldn’t be posting a question about it in the first place, amiright?

I guess I'm confused about the question, as it seems like most/all iterations have been answered. It seems like Steve man answered your question, he doesn't count it when deciding on XCC spells vs an XC spell or in terms of determining Mana base.

To answer your question in a simpler way, I would not modify my manabase because my deck includes a Land Tax.

Land Tax can be an absurdly broken card, but it can suffer issues with consistency. Because of that, I wouldn't rely on its activations enough to have it influence how I construct my mana.

Thanks for the opinions guys. I was just curious if anyone considered it reliable enough to use in your color count, but it seems that the verdict is no from experience. Not sure why my question was so hard to answer, but I appreciate the responses nonetheless.

I mean, it wasn't too clear, but hey we got there and that's all that matters.

Quote from Salmo »

I mean, it wasn't too clear, but hey we got there and that's all that matters.

Let me ask you this related question: do you consider card draw spells and cantrips when figuring out colored mana sources for your deck?

Quote from B8R »

Quote from Salmo »

I mean, it wasn't too clear, but hey we got there and that's all that matters.

Let me ask you this related question: do you consider card draw spells and cantrips when figuring out colored mana sources for your deck?

Total mana sources, yes (sometimes). Colored mana sources, no.

Very interesting. It seems that everyone here is fairly conservative when it comes to this, which is totally understandable! Better to play it safe and be able to cast your spells, eh?

Studying the works of Dr. Frank Karsten, I noticed that he puts forth the opinion that a cheap cantrip like Remand would count as roughly .25 colored sources and a scry (like from a Temple) would count as .2 colored sources. Well, ever since then I have been practicing using my hyper geometric calculator (I’m a musician who can only count to 4, so this is a big deal for me!) and trying to discover the rough value of such cards as Brainstorm, Land Tax, and Magma Jet as they pertain to my overall colored sources.

Am I crazy or is this interesting to anyone else?

I use it as a tool all the time. You're not crazy. Understanding the odds makes you a better cube drafter.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

I use it as a tool all the time. You're not crazy. Understanding the odds makes you a better cube drafter.

Cool, can you elaborate on why you would use a hypergeo metric calculator to analyze the impact of cantrips on colored sources and then decide not to count them for anything towards that? Is it just risk management as the primary factor? It has some implications on cube design because if you feel you need to supply your drafters with the tools to have functional decks, then your number of fixing lands you include sort of depends on how you evaluate non mana sources. And of course we don’t want to just add a bunch of fixing to the cube if it’s not needed because that clutters up the packs a bit.

It's because the quantity of 1cc cantrips and scry effects is so low that you can't rely on them as additional sources in this format the same way you can in constructed. Counting 4x Brainstorm and 4x Ponder as ways to help you find sources in a all dual/fetch manabase isn't the same thing as counting 1 preordain as a source of white in a 10/8 limited manabase.

Like even 3-4 cantrip/scry effects adds up to less than 1 source of colored mana. It just doesn't impact cube deckbuilding the same way it can for constructed. I round that down to 0 extra sources rather than rounding it up to 1 extra source to err on the side of caution.

That makes sense. I’ve had many decks where the card draw added up to 1 though and occasionally even 2 (with a combination of draw spells, rocks, dorks). Anyhow, it’s a fascinating subject to me and Land Tax is just one of those cards that makes me wonder.

I have had decks with enough cheap cantrips and selection spells that I've been able to shave a source of my non-blue colors, but those are generally the exception, and not the rule.

Being conservative in cube is generally better IMO since your spells are splashy enough as is. It's more important that you're able to cast your spells than anything else, since so many cube cards are super swingy and it's hard enough as is getting over some plays, nevertheless a few turns worth

Quote from steve_man »

I only count lands and moxen towards my mana sources. I usually won't count mana rocks / elves / etc. Maybe I'll cut a land if I have an abundance of rocks / elves though.

I count Gaea's Cradle / Tolarian Academy as spells while deck building. Just throwing that out there, I'm curious what everybody else counts it as.

I usually count them as lands since that's what they pretty much are. Unless I don't have enough elves or Mana rocks/signets, but in hesitant to play those if they can't be activated by turns 2-3. I'm not sure I fully get the justification, since it seems like that's setting yourself up to get flooded more than not by counting them as spells. There's like nothing worse than getting to turns 5+ and drawing more lands in ramp decks since a number of my spells are virtually lands as is.

Quote from Salmo »

Being conservative in cube is generally better IMO since your spells are splashy enough as is. It's more important that you're able to cast your spells than anything else, since so many cube cards are super swingy and it's hard enough as is getting over some plays, nevertheless a few turns worth

I agree with you Salmo, but again, it trickles into cube design too. If you need X mana sources to make your Rakdos decks function and Y mana sources to make your Simic decks function but you just run cycles of lands that add up to X for both, then you could be polluted your cube with too many fixing lands of certain guilds, or even worse, the opposite—too few. With Blue’s card draw and Green’s dorks/ramp they have different levels of fixing inherent to their color identity. But I wanna make sure my Mardu colors are getting what they need too, otherwise the U based and G based decks just end up being superior because they have more consistency.

Then again, the disruption from those other colors can punish you if you over-design for blue's and green's advantages. If they had less fixing to "compensate", Bolting that Elf or Duressing that Preordain would be even more impactful than they would be otherwise. I think there's enough natural checks and balances to prevent their additional "fixing" from being anything more than just another natural color advantage; just like all the colors have.

Understood, which is why an elf is evaluated at .5 to compensate for the times it is bolted. There is G2 and sideboarding to consider too. Like if I’m playing vs an uninteractive deck my BoP might just be worth a full mana source, and if I’m playing vs Jeskai spells, then maybe I sideboard out some dorks and in some lands because you know they’re getting zapped. So I guess for each card’s evaluation there needs to be a second evaluation that determines how stable the initial evaluation is?

Correct. But the inconsistencies are the reason why it's okay to have them exist in the cube without it creating an imbalance. It's just an aspect of their color identity, not a problem that needs to be addressed by deliberately warping the available fixing in the cube.

I can get behind that.

It does make me think though:
“If the extra consistency due to non-mana fixing (even slightly unstable) is a natural part of blue and green’s color advantage, what is the color advantage of the Mardu wedge colors other than playing spoiler (ala Bolt the Bird). Because if Mardu is just playing the Yang to Simic’s Yin, I’d rather be playing a Yin deck any day of the week, because Yin is trying to have a more consistent (i.e. better) deck and Yang is just trying to stop Yin from doing its thing.”

Every color has things it can do that the other colors don't have. Blue's lack of reach, removal, disruption, etc. doesn't put it at a disadvantage in comparison to the other 4 colors. Green's access to better mana is one advantage it has to compensate for the lack of reactive gameplay. Black's disruption is a good balance to its lack of artifact/enchantment removal. It all balances out in the end.

The fact that blue has Preordains and green has Birds doesn't mean that those colors deserve or need to have fixing taken away from them.