Discussion Forum

I am finding that if my mana curve ends at three CC spells i can indeed lower my land total in the deck to eighteen and its still effective. could be the rest of the mana source mix in the deck but its working.

i make low cmc decks, but i find that you still want a few more land then you actually need, this is not only because there is variation in the no. of land you get but it means that you can put you men on the field faster; if i get only 3 land in the first 5 turns i can play a 1, a 2, and three 3s, but if i get 5 land, then i can play three more mana worth of spells, and have more versatility for instants, and can play the few cards with average cmc in my deck.

so, as a general rule, i run 23 land, less if my deck is especially low cmc, or if im running ponders/alchemy/that sort of thing.

my ideal mana curve/base is 22 land, 12 cmc1, 10 cmc2, 8 cmc3, 6 cmc4, 2 cmc5. of corse this gets ruined by flashback, lands that cost mana and so forth, but if i keep that ratio, it still works.

FFS L thanks for your feedback. I like your thoughts around CC and up until recently i have been doing builds by a similar format. However recently i have been building two duel color decks, one elf, one burn, that are using very low casting cost cards. In fact the burn deck, is only using cards with CC of three or less, furthermore at the 3CC mark, there are really only two cards as technically the other four are for mana acceleration. With this being said, do you think you could go to lets say something like 18 land and still always be effective (keep in mind this deck would also incorporate such things as dark rituals and simian spirit guides for quick mana boosts, as well as fetchland) instead of lets say the standard 20-23 land most decks incorporate? Reason i ask, is i would like to add two howling mines, (or if the budget permits, two dark confidants) and go to 18 land, as im finding im having a bigger time running out of gas ie cards to cast in my hand than i am with mana.

Here are the deck Links

North Pole's Nite Shift - Dude's First Path to Pain (G/B Tribal)
http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=341460

Lightning DOES Strike Twice!!! - Dude's Third Path to Pain (R/B Burn)
http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=341420

i have never played legacy but that seems OK, although i think you may be helped by a few more land in each, maybe put them up to 20 each... idk

I wouldn't ever go below 20 lands... the lower you go, the more chances of a mulligan starting hand...which sucks...techniquely there is always a chance of drawing a no land starting hand, but I find that it's my biggest fear. I try not to play free first mulligan for 7 cards, which you can't do in a tourny anywho, so it's a good habbit to play -1 each mulligan. Once you get below 5, it's pretty much a scrap game from there.

Also, this site has the wonderful function of randomizing a 7 card draw from your deck. For my main deck atm, I did this and modified mana untill I had a 75-85% chance of good starting hands that wouldn't have been muligans. I LOVE THAT THING!

Hey guys


This is a heavy and very complex topic and I'm not going to go into it to deep because I know myself and I'll be writing at least 10 pages of theory if I do. So I'm just going to respond to some of the things you guys said.

Zakuryu: I can understand your motivation of not cutting into your landbase below 20 because you don't want to mulligan but the fact is that loosing a game because you had to mulligan to 4 or loosing because you draw into land turn after turn or have a starting 7 with 4 lands in it is loosing all the same. Stick to the nature of your deck, if your deck needs 1 land in your starting 7, 14-18 land might do, if you need a minimum of 2 lands and you would like to get to 5 land you need to start thinking of 21 land and more depending on mana accelerators and cantrips.

As for the random hand tool, don't put to much faith in that, computer randomization algorithms aren't all that. True randomness can't be achieved by a computer.


jdudes: Your first question: There are no real rules although pro players do do the math on their land base. You can calculate the probability of the number of lands you'll have in each turn of the game based on how much land you play etc...
In a mono colored deck that's pretty much all that's to it. Once multiple colors come into it and cantrips and mana acceleration it becomes far more complex.
Legacy decks right now run less land in favor of more cantrips. RUG Tempo and Sneak and Show run 19 land and 8 cantrips or more (4 Brainstorm/4ponder). It works out 90% of the games. They used to run 18 land and that proved to be to much of a risk and now 19 seems correct. Most games playing RUG Tempo I start with only 1 land which is fine since the decks mana curve is mostly CC1 and max CC2. But it's still a risk becaus ethe deck doesn't run basic land and is very vulnerable to wasteland. That and it runs 4 wasteland itself that should actually not be concidered land in this deck because you almost never use them for mana. It's pretty much a 15 land deck with 8 cantrips and a curve of CC 1 to 2.

Now control decks in legacy traditionally ran 24 land (not all of them ofcourse but the number is a good average). Now I see the same decks that do pack spells of CC4 and even more play 22 or even 21 lands in favor of 4 ponder on top of 4 brainstorm where brainstorm used to be the only cantrip they ran. There's all sorts of reasons ofcourse. Snapcaster mage is one, the synergy between fetchland and cantrips is a huge factor, Lingering souls is a huge factor (I hate how unfair that spell is) etc...
Spells like Timely Reinforcements and Lingering Souls are pure aggro killers, they buy so much time that a deck can play less land and just wait longer for it to come.
This is a big deal because most games I used to loose when playing control is when I had my 5 lands on the field and kept drawing into more land while my opponent did not.

bottom line rule: look at how much land your deck needs at turn 1 to 5, this will determice how much land you need to run. More cantrips means less land. Mana Dorks and Green Sun's Zenith lans means you need less land. Dark Ritual and Spirit guide and petal and the likes doesn't mean you need less land. They just give you a one time boost, they bring tempo at the cost of card advantage. It's a different factor that doen't have that much of an impact on your mana base.
The second factor is which colors you need in which turns of the game. This determines the amount of fetchland you need, the duals you need (or not) etc...
If your deck needs to open with green mana and needs blue mana by turn 5 you might not have to play duals at all but you need to play mostly forests.

Your second question: there is no optimal mana curve. Playing a very agressive mana curve (1 to 3 drops) has benefits early on but is weak mid game. Playing a very slow mana curve over powers fast decks in the mid game but has trouble surviving early on. It's a matter of making it work not sticking to some absurt general rule.
What is important is the shape of your curve. An erratic curve means unpredictable play. Spending all your mana each turn is another important factor of playing magic. Wasting mana by not using it is like having your opponent time walk. This theory is again not an exact sience but it holds up pretty well. Mana has to be optimally spend each turn and mana curve is an important tool to factor this in when building.

hope this helps :)

Seth not only did you shed light on my R/B deck, i think you may have hinted on how to improve my Tribal G/B and U Control as well. Thanks Brotha!

Hi Seth,

Although you said there is no "one shoe fits all" rule for land, you did allude to a correlation between a land mix and a decks Mana curve (Correlation - a relationship between two different variables, ive been studying for midterms!). Could you ellaborate a bit more on what rules you may use for decks lets say if their mana curve stops at CC3 and then lets say what rule you might use for a deck that goes up to a CC5? Curious how they differ, even though its probably goin to be a rhetorical question on my part.

Seth, I could agree with all that(the nature of the deck is a big factor as you said.) But even if your deck is based on 1 drops all day, having one land in a starting hand could never be good...could it? My friend tried so numurous times with his burn deck 'cause he had one Mountain and a vexing devil or two...he lost those games...lol. Jus' sayin'

Good advice though, for sure.

And I still like the random generator...better then a complete shuffle on my deck every time to figure it out...lol.

Zakuryu: Depending on the kind of Burn deck it needs a minimum of 2 land. On of the fastest possible kills with burn would be

T1 Mountain, Goblin Guide (2 damage)
T2 Mountain, Rift Bolt (suspend), Chain Lightning, attack with Goblin Guide (7 damage in)
T3 Lava Spike, Lightning Bolt, sac two mountains to play Fireblast = 20 damage

This is very risky because if your Fireblast gets countered you still loose the 2 land and you're pretty much screwed. These types of fast burn decks play 20 land because of fireblast and because they need to fire multiple CC1 spells in the same turn.
Type 2 (standard) burn decks need more land because they play more creatures and their curve often goes up to CC3 or more. So yes starting with 1 land in this type of deck is keepable but far from optimal. There are however a few types of decks where a one lander starting 7 is acceptable. There are even decks that don't play land to give an extreme example (the deck called Belcher plays 1 or 0 lands).

jdudes: It's very much meta based (=what other decks are being played and how fast to these decks overwhelm you) and color based. Take that UB Control deck that did well in Standard a while back, it played 26-27 land which was pretty absurt but then again the deck could not affort to miss any mana drops in the first 6 turns so there was no choice but to play so much land.

to sum it up:

step 1: Either do the raw math yourself or look up a table on google that gives you the average number of land you'll see each turn versus the number of land in your deck.

step 2: If you don't play any kind of mana acceleration and you play nothing to filter through your deck (like ponder and simular spells) or you do play them but you can't affort to waste time playing such spells early on due to the aggressive nature of the decks you'll play against stick to the table. If the table says you need 25 land to have 5 land turn 5 you'll need 25 land if your goal is to have 5 land turn 5.

However if the meta isn't that fast (or you have means to recover from initial damage you take in the first few turns) and you can affort to play deck manipulation spells like cantrips and/or you have a deck that plays mana accelerators the land you need is far less.

Bant and GW aggro decks these days play 4 Noble Hierarch/4 Green Sun's Zenith/1 Dryad Arbor and 21-22 land. This enables them to play CC3 spell turn 2 almost every game and a CC4 spell turn 3 (Like Jace2 or Elspeth) which gives them a huge advantage over their opponent.

In general I think you need to play either a fast deck with spells of CC1 to CC3 and around 20 land or you play a Big spells deck and you need ways to accelerate your mana base or you loose to fast decks. Playing 1 land a turn and trying to get to 5 or 6 mana just isn't competitive.

In my typical 'overpower your opponent with big overpowered spells' casual decks I usually play only 20 land but I also dedicate 10 to 12 spell slots to mana acceleration them being usually Sakura Tribe Elder, Solemn Simulacrum and Cultivate.
That enables me to play Crazy stuff lile Avenger of Zendikar, Time Stretch, Genesis Wave, 5 color broken stuff on a basics only landbase that cosists out of mostly forests, etc...

Like I said it depends on the meta. How fast do I need to be to survive and what is my strategy/attack plan to gain an advatage over what everyone else plays.