General Too Many Lands

[Mad Prophet]

Your cube probably has too many lands in it. An upsettingly unscientific survey of cubes on this site has revealed a shocking average of 47 slots are spent on lands in a 360 list. That's two lands per pack of 15 cards.​

47 slots constitutes an enormous investment of cube real estate primarily based on a single interaction:​

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Spoiler

I don't want to oversimplify things. There are some great ways of spicing up the land section of your cube. Bouncelands or Theros temples, etc offer new mechanical threads that your cube can utilize. Bouncelands are great with landfall and the like, and the temples interact in fun ways with brainstorm. Nevertheless it seems pretty clear that fetch->shock is the backbone of riptide cube theory when it comes to lands.

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Multiple copies of fetchlands and shocklands seems to be the new standard.​

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Marsh Flats is a great card. It interacts with any number of fun cards and themes like landfall, crucible of worlds, delve, threshold, and delirium. Furthermore Marsh Flats is capable of fixing in any black deck, or any white deck. It is like a Black-White hybrid card.​

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Godless Shrine is a terrible card. It interacts with.... Fateful hour and Death's shadow?? It fixes in any deck that contains Black AND White. Godless Shrine is like a Black-White gold card.​

Unfortunately, I've left out an important caveat. That Wooded Foothills only fixes your Green-Black decck if you managed to pick up an Overgrown Tomb, or less ideally, an otherwise useless Blood Crypt. You're happy to play Overgrown Tomb in your Green-Black deck though, since it's much better than a basic forest or swamp here. The problem is that you had to spend a pick on that Overgrown Tomb and, more to the point:

Your draft contained somewhere in the region of 25 to 30 lands that your deck is completely incapable of utilizing. 18+ of those are shocklands.

Shocklands are incredibly parasitic. So are all gold cards for that matter; the sad part is that our much beloved marsh flats has its fate inextricably linked to the that of the unbearable Overgrown Tomb.

How can we possibly resolve this dilemma? I'm glad you asked.

Cut ALL your fixing lands and all but the most essential gold cards. Add the following:

along with 54 new spells.​

Your cube now focuses primarily on two color pairs with the occasional splash and has 50 extra slots to weave in new themes and support new plans. Sideboard cards and conspiracies become much more important as you will be playing more basic lands and less total draft picks. Going deep is heavily rewarded as it becomes more difficult for your opponents to dip into your colors during the draft and deprive you of a powerful reward. Furthermore, there is now more room in your cube for sideways strategies like spider spawning, and who doesn't love those.​

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Your cube probably has too many lands in it.​

I know mine does​

Further reading:​

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Math about fixing: http://www.channelfireball.com/arti...do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells/ ​

old fixing thread: http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/when-is-fixing-too-good.437/​

 

[ahadabans]

There were some lengthy discussions on fixing in another thread. If you haven't already, I'd find that and read through it. There's good stuff there on both sides of the argument.

I've been a big proponent of running a super high amount of fixing (even more than you are suggesting - my main list has 20% non-basics it it).

Fixing is a problem. Too much and too little. You key into another important part of all this - and that's WRONG fixing. Happens all the time it seems where you end up with a bunch of fixing lands you can't actually use in your deck.

Flip side to this argument is that prioritizing your fixing is part of drafting. And it shouldn't be something you can sleepwalk through anymore than getting 23 playables is. To some extent this is a dial you can turn as the cube manager. Maybe you want a really cutthroat draft where playable and fixing are scarce (so you run a bunch of heavy mana requirement cards and narrow enablers with dicey fixing). Or maybe you want just one of those (or neither)? I don't think there is a right or wrong here.

The easier it is to draft, the better the average deck will be. Which is not necessary pure net positive contrary to popular opinion. If decks are better, fringe archetypes get pushed out. There is less incentive to be creative with deck building if you can just draft nut-supported-archetype.dec every draft.

All that said, I like the message here. Fixing has always been something I found to be clunky no matter how you design it. Vivids in particular are elegant because they go in so many decks. You don't usually want more than one or two at most though because they sort of suck in multiples. But the design is solid and I'd be a fan of more of those types of fixing lands.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

This advice so does not work for my cube

 

[sigh]

I'm a big fan of good fixing in cube. I have a slightly different take on it, because of singleton. The brutally efficient dual+shock mana base probably does encourage the "better decks" more, but I think fringe archetypes and wonky ideas also get pushed out by insufficient fixing. Somebodies wonky RUG self-mill control deck (or whatever) probably wont run nearly as smoothly if their fragile mana base crumbles under the intense splashing they needed to make to execute their plan.

And maybe that's a way to police "looseness" or what have you, but I for one want people to be able to explore the depths of their imagination a little. Maybe they go 2-2 or something, but not because of nongames from bleh fixing.

IF I cut my fixing amount, I think it'd be on the back of something like 1x Evolving Wilds per person

 

[StormEntity]

What are your thoughts on utility lands? It would seem that they avoid the issue you're talking about with parasitism while also allowing drafters to play a greater total percentage of their draft picks. You could begin playing cards like Kher Keep or even Sea Gate Wreckage (though with fewer fixing lands it's very difficult to enable a card like that). Hanweir Battlements are another good one, as are cards like Halimar Depths. It seems that your problem isn't with lands, it's specifically with uncreative design, and lands would seem, at first glance, to necessitate that. On that note, what about Secluded Glen? It doesn't seem strictly impossible to build a manabase that jives with the synergistic plans of the cube such that fixing is much more narrowly tailored to your deck rather than just being the vegetables you need to make your deck work.

 

[sigh]

This is a great thread, btw. I know there's been talk before, but it's given me pause to step back and think "could there be a better number of lands I can run?"

One thought I had was to use test data, basically. How many lands have my cube's previous decks ran/wanted? Then I could tweak the numbers down or up towards that number somewhat. Just a thought.

 

[ahadabans]

Yeah. I love this thread.

Fixing is one of those things that never really works great but it's not completely broken either. So it's like 5 places down on your ongoing issues list. Low enough to where it gets very little attention most of the time. It's like this nagging injury that isn't preventing you from doing your normal activities but clearly should be looked at by a doctor because you are very clearly fucked up.

 

[Chriskool]

I like dual color lands that decks will play if they only have one of the colors:



These lands have subtle spell-like qualities that warrant inclusion for non manafix reasons. There is no reason for them to go toooo late and provide free or useless fixing.

 

[Mad Prophet]

This advice so does not work for my cube

You have already seen the light. You shall be spared.

The brutally efficient dual+shock mana base probably does encourage the "better decks" more, but I think fringe archetypes and wonky ideas also get pushed put by insufficient fixing. Somebodies wonky RUG self-mill control deck (or whatever) probably run nearly as smoothly if their fragile mana base crumbles under the intense splashing they needed to make to execute their plan.

In my experience, the wonky decks are less stressed by their mana than two color aggro decks or greedy control decks. I agree that abandonning a fetch-shock landbase will weaken the relative power of splashing a color. But this is only because a fetch-shock manabase is incredibly hard on two color decks. Cultivating a splash often leads to a last second pivot, where your primary pair shockland never made it to you, and now that splash is one of your primary colors.
Suppose instead, that everyone's fixing is pretty bad, and color splashes are rare. The lands that were removed from the cube were replaced by build-around-me cards and extra layering of your supported archetypes. Now, instead of considering splashing blue for an ojutai's command in your BW token deck, instead you consider "splashing" for a Dread return , because it goes well with your tokens, and maybe you can pick up a Griselbrand later.

The decision to splash can still occur, it just doesn't rely on drafting these detestable Watery Graves anymore. Instead you get to keep picking Spells.
The real problem with shocklands isn't actually that they're parasitic. Parasitism is a great thing in limited quantities. But too much parasitism in a draft format is a bad thing. And if you cut all your fixing lands you suddenly have a huge surplus in your parasitism budget. That means more Birthing Pods, more Living Deaths, and more empty the warrens
The real problem with shocklands isn't that they're parasitic. The problem is that they're boring.
You will see.
You will all see.

 

[RavebornMuse]

Excellent food for thought!

This thread really speaks to me. I had recently went up to 50 lands at 360. I wasn't happy about it, though, and had already committed to cutting 10 of them and moving half of what I cut into alternative fixing tools. Considering this, I may cut down to 30 fixing lands, with around 10 alternative fixing tools. It's definitely worth thinking about, anyway.

The biggest problem, I think, is how so much fixing makes the draft a bit "muddy". I feel a bit too often drawn to that shockland mid-pack because I'm not seeing anything really spicy for my deck, or maybe I'm thinking of how much X-color I see wheeling, and I think I could splash for it; so I get to pick them up speculatively when I'm not gripped by anything else. This matters more for my cube than most probably, because I'm always drafting with two other people, instead of a full 8, so there's invariably always going to be a few color pairs that aren't really being picked into at all, or only dipped into for speculative picks. Then, with a few extra shocks/fetches under my belt than I really wanted, towards the last 2/3rds of a draft, I generally figure out what color(s) I'm splashing, and can just mosey around and scoop up some easy-to-cast goodies there. It's been fun, but I originally went from 40 -> 50 because I wanted to encounter the fixing I needed more than feeling bullied into picking up any fixing that's at least half in my colours. I like my 3c/4c monstrosities, sure, but they can feel a bit un-focused. Of course, full disclosure: I give each player 1 free triland of their choice at the end of drafting. So I probably need more fixing even less than most around here.

The proposed solution is a novel approach, and well-worth building an entire format around. I think I might implement it a little differently, though, especially if I'm borrowing ideas into my current list.

I could probably cut to 30 fixing lands; I'm seeing, scrylands/fetchlands/something else. The first two I like a lot; I can see arguments for either shocks or a second run of fetches after that. Then, for the rest of my fixing, I'd do something like this:



I could see throwing the vivids in here, too, but those given above are the fixing tools I'm currently cubing, and aside from Mana Confluence (which has always seemed weird to me), I like it. Chromatic Star plays really well, and players are always happy to put them into decks; they cycle easily, fix in a pinch, trigger prowess, and offer synergies for (the soon-to-be quite supported) artifact decks.. They're the best, really. Terrarion enters tapped, which is a bummer, but fixes better and helps those pesky Cruel Control decks "get there". From there, Corrupted Grafstone serves as a nice fixer for graveyard/control strategies, Prophetic Prism helps feed your more ambitious multicolor decks, and Cultivator's Caravan looks like lots of fun as both a mana rock and a cool body (and 3cmc is just perfect here, since my "critical cmc" tends to be at 3 and 5, so this lets you untap T4 throw down that 5-mana bomb ahead of schedule). For some fixing lands, Aether Hub gives aggressive decks some help splashing, as does Mana Confluence, while Reflecting Pool plays interestingly in those more ambitious decks (the sort that want Prophetic Prism the most). I think this fixing base could certainly be expanded on or explored, but it's what I'm running currently, and I'm excited for Kaladesh to come out so I can explore it a little further.

 

[Mad Prophet]

It's like this nagging injury that isn't preventing you from doing your normal activities but clearly should be looked at by a doctor because you are very clearly fucked up.

And then one day, all your negligence starts to catch up with you.
One day soon.

 

[Mad Prophet]

Then, with a few extra shocks/fetches under my belt than I really wanted, towards the last 2/3rds of a draft, I generally figure out what color(s) I'm splashing, and can just mosey around and scoop up some easy-to-cast goodies there. It's been fun

A deplorable sin that I know only too well.....



These are beautiful visions of things to come. I am particularly enamoured with Prohetic prism for some reason.
But is artifact based fixing the only path to salvation?

 

[StormEntity]

I think this maddest of prophets and the others who are interested in trying out this idea are missing a huge thing here, and that's gameplay. You know, the reason we play Magic (roughly speaking). Yes, when you open up a draft to have extra playables and extra crazy fun draft cards you make the draft experience bundles of fun for everyone. Until they sit down to play the games and discover a mess of variance because their decks can't fix mana. Was anyone having trouble with their current cubes having too many lands? Had anyone noticed this issue? It seems to me that all these strategies and all this technology being developed in this thread for getting less parasitism out of your lands section could be put to a much better use--increasing land counts without adding to their current parasitism levels.

To take measures like this is to sacrifice gameplay value on the altar of cute and fun draft interactions--a problem we at Riptide have to be especially wary of, particularly since we spend a great deal of time discussing cubes and archetypes and draft plans and not nearly so much playing games of Magic. Why does WotC even print lands at all? Why not fill those slots with sweet tribal plans and Johnny rares and interesting flavor includes? Because color diversity matters, but so does "chromatic diversity," a made-up term for different decks having different numbers of colors. 50 or even 60 land slots are a small price to pay for a wider range of decks being played and a broader set of interactions in the cube, as well as an overall more interesting and fun play experience by way of reduced variance in the form of mana screw.

 

[shamizy]

The only problem I had with my land base was that splashing was too easy and double fetch/double shock made it so that you could play 3-4C decks without many real issues. Sure, you might stumble here and there trying to curve out with double CC costs at times, but the raw power of being able to play just about anything more than made up for it. I tried to implement some more punishing cards for those who were too greedy, but it wasn't working well enough. The solution was to just cut the 2nd cycle of shocks and replace them with different pieces of fixing. I love the shock/fetch interaction, but not to the point where you can wheel premium fixing and slide into a 4C pile with ease. There has to be some cost in place to dissuade them. It could be harder color requirements higher up the curve, CIPT lands, or a loss of tempo by having to sequence your spells a certain way to work with your mana. In any case, it's up to you as a designer to figure out how to adapt to it. I swapped out 2nd cycle of shocks with the BFZ lands + complementary Painlands for the other color pairs. It's worked out very well, I see more more 2C decks than before, fewer 3C, and very rarely does 4C come together unless someone prioritized the fixing early.

50ish lands at 360 is a wee bit too much, could probably look into cutting down to 40 (40/360 = .1111, which looks decent enough), but I don't believe making such drastic changes to the land base (in terms of actual fixing available) will fix your typical issues. Personally, my cube isn't designed to focus upon two color pairs specifically, but to play with certain archetypes and ideas that I've implemented. Abundant fixing makes it such that drafters are capable of crafting what they want (assuming they read the correct signals) without having to worry about the fact that they missed picking up a specific land earlier. I'm a firm believer in good fixing leading to good environments, it's been true in pretty much every format I've ever played. There is a limit to how good fixing should be though, and that's up to whatever environment you're trying to craft.

 

[ahadabans]

I like the BFZ lands too and am testing exactly what you did shamizy (replaced 2nd shock with the BFZ's). I also really like temples and bouncelands as they add more than just fixing (someone brought this up already - I agree wholeheartedly).

How do people feel about getting cute with breaking cycles? Like running aggro friendly lands for certain color pairs and slower stuff for more controlling color pairs? It feels forced to me, but then again there are very clearly certain lands that just end up wheeling. I've never seen anyone actually put Gruul Turf in a deck. Like ever.

 

[sigh]

I like the BFZ lands too and am testing exactly what you did shamizy (replaced 2nd shock with the BFZ's). I also really like temples and bouncelands as they add more than just fixing (someone brought this up already - I agree wholeheartedly).



How do people feel about getting cute with breaking cycles? Like running aggro friendly lands for certain color pairs and slower stuff for more controlling color pairs? It feels forced to me, but then again there are very clearly certain lands that just end up wheeling. I've never seen anyone actually put Gruul Turf in a deck. Like ever.

I do this, mostly inside my painland cycle, and it's 100% fine. I think I've slotted in

And maybe at one point a bounceland, probably Dimir.

I also have a bunch of half cycles. Dunno what sort of effect it might be having, but ????

I also do believe one could have too much fixing in their cube. There's gotta be a point of diminishing returns, right? Like, its sounds about the point where 'finely tuned but tight and focused decks' turns into 'rampaging do whatever I want' decks. Maybe? It's just, if you have bundles of lands, maybe deck 1281 will have 2% less variance, but maybe you are missing 10 spell slots that could be creative pieces to enrich your format in other ways.

 

[Mad Prophet]

Was anyone having trouble with their current cubes having too many lands? Had anyone noticed this issue?

If you just felt that dark temptation to take Steam Vents over Talrand, then you have too many lands in your cube, and the diversity of your environment will suffer.
However, you make an excellent point about the importance of chromatic diversity.
Chromatic diversity is like a mana curve. It's desirable to have the possiblity for decks to fall at different points on this curve. Chromatic diversity gives your drafters Control by affording them the opportunity to add or drop colors. Giving drafters more control over their VISION is most always a good thing.

But by reducing the land count, we actually open the door for a larger degree of chromatic diversity. Mono color and "1.5" color decks become a realistic option, as do all the different flavors of pure two color decks, that seem quickly to disappear when the fixing land count goes up.
But it's even better than that. There is still fixing available, it just no longer takes the form of the shockland: an incredibly narrow but powerful fixer. Cards like Chromatic Lantern and green fixers like BoP and Sakura Tribe Elder will take on a new life, giving drafters the option of playing more than two colors. However, now that playing so many colors comes at a real cost, it will also come with a hefty reward, as there will be fewer competitors in any given color. And thus more opportunities to be shipped a sweet splashable card.

Reducing the number of fixing lands in your cube in a responsible manner will both increase the potency of the fixing you have available and reduce the centrality of drafting fixers. If you increase the number of fixing lands in your cube, the chromatic diversity will go down, not up.

 

[ahadabans]

I still think decks rampaging doing whatever they want because of abundant fixing is more a sign of a problem with an over abundance of splashable good stuff in your cube. Constructed has access to 4 copies of every fixing land you can think of. Fixing there is better than any cube list that exists. And somehow colors still matter in constructed, right?

Mana screw is bad. The worst possible way a game can be decided IMHO. So if I'm going to error on any side, it's too much fixing.

I do want to say that this idea is not contrary to the original post though. Which some people might not be fully tracking with. The fundamental problem with something like Watery Grave is that it only goes in a handful of decks. A UWR deck is not going to run Watery Grave because it's a super bad island. So a great deal of fixing is ultimately narrow. In exactly the same way we limit the number of narrow non-land cards because they are parasitic, the same is true for fixing. And it's a problem we generally sweep under the rug because there isn't a great solution.

I've thought about proxying cards that read "shock land of your choice", etc. And then cutting fixing way down. So you still have to prioritize, but you don't get stuck preemptively picking Watery Grave and ending up Izzet.

FWIW, my favorite land (that I'm not running) is probably Terramorphic Expanse. It's just generically good in everything except hard aggro.

 

[StormEntity]

If you just felt that dark temptation to take Steam Vents over Talrand, then you have too many lands in your cube, and the diversity of your environment will suffer.

The symptom of too many lands is people taking lands too highly? This would seem to violate the idea of supply and demand.

 

[ahadabans]

I'm with StormEntity on that one. If I'm torn between those two cards, it's because I'm building a sweet Izzet spells matter deck and the land is exactly what I want but so is the creature. If this is an early pick moment, I might go with the land and see if I can wheel Talrand. If I won't see the pack again, it's harder and depends on how my mana looks and what I've got at the 4 spot. And having tension like that in draft feels appropriate to me.

 

[sigh]

I still think decks rampaging doing whatever they want because of abundant fixing is more a sign of a problem with an over abundance of splashable good stuff in your cube. Constructed has access to 4 copies of every fixing land you can think of. Fixing there is better than any cube list that exists. And somehow colors still matter in constructed, right?

Mana screw is bad. The worst possible way a game can be decided IMHO. So if I'm going to error on any side, it's too much fixing.

I do want to say that this idea is not contrary to the original post though. Which some people might not be fully tracking with. The fundamental problem with something like Watery Grave is that it only goes in a handful of decks. A UWR deck is not going to run Watery Grave because it's a super bad island. So a great deal of fixing is ultimately narrow. In exactly the same way we limit the number of narrow non-land cards because they are parasitic, the same is true for fixing. And it's a problem we generally sweep under the rug because there isn't a great solution.

I've thought about proxying cards that read "shock land of your choice", etc. And then cutting fixing way down. So you still have to prioritize, but you don't get stuck preemptively picking Watery Grave and ending up Izzet.

FWIW, my favorite land (that I'm not running) is probably Terramorphic Expanse. It's just generically good in everything except hard aggro.

Multicolor goodstuff might be based on the right (wrong) cards, but it still needs lands to function and thrive, ay least in a semi-balanced format. Just look at BFZ standard. 4C, 5C, was fine there.

I run 55 fixing lands, I think? Should I be running 50? 45? 60? At what point am I just tossing slots, and games won't be any worse for wear? I could toss 150 extra lands in, and I don't think many would hesitate to call that crazy, so there's gotta be a tipping point....

 

[japahn]

I've felt as some point that fixing in my cube was too good, but cube quality is so high that out of 45 cards, ~5 picks need to be dedicated to lands to have some level of sanity when cutting cards. If not, the power band will be exacerbated too much - nobody will have to play the bottom 20% of cards, ever.

I'm moving in the direction of still dedicating ~1/9 of the cube to lands, but mixing duals/fixing with utility lands. You know, that tech for 2-color decks without a stretched mana to have a slight edge, where they'd typically hate draft near the end of the pack.

Many of these are only acceptable in lower power level, which is where I'm taking my cube. The lands I currently run that do not fix:

 

[Mad Prophet]

there isn't a great solution.

Perhaps The Great Solution just hasn't been found yet. Or perhaps it has been found before and lost.

Constructed has access to 4 copies of every fixing land you can think of. Fixing there is better than any cube list that exists. And somehow colors still matter in constructed, right

That analogy doesn't really hold up. Limited and Constructed are pretty different beasts when it comes to mana. The only formats with truly lavish mana are vintage and legacy, and wasteland/strip mine is a pretty important player at regulating that stuff. Limited is simply governed by different principles when it comes to fixing. You have to worry about things like as-fan of fixing, and inefficient distribution of fixing (the watery grave doesn't always go to the blue black player).

I think it's very telling that the Wizards don't put two fixing lands in every pack of magic cards. They've been working on making limited play good for almost as long as myself. I think there's a good reason for this. There are a lot of kinds of two color decks. The two color deck asks for sacrifice in versatility, but offers Great Rewards.

Shocklands are DRBS


I can accept a few bad games due to mana screw. Don't presume to tell me that those are miraculously eliminated by abundant fixing, because I think we both know that they aren't. What I can't accept, are few bad Drafts due to Shocklands. I get a lot of games, and not a lot of drafts.

 

[ahadabans]

Limited and constructed are different beasts when it comes to mana because the format is different not because mana works differently. A lot of limited drafting environments suck. And at least some of them suck specifically because fixing is bad. I don't see how this doesn't not only extend to cube but is magnified in cube because of how much higher power the format is.

I fail to see how shocklands ruin drafts. They are cards which are narrow, sure. But they are powerful and not nearly as narrow as some non-land cards we are running in our lists. Wildfire goes in one deck. It's 10 times more narrow than Watery Grave.

The problem with running a thousand Mana Confluences is that not every deck can just take 1 every time they need a color. Evolving Wilds has a similar problem. Most decks can't afford to just have every fixing land ETB tapped. IMO, this is not a replacement for traditional dual color lands in a traditional cube list.

Shocklands are a nice design honestly. They are fetchable. They can ETB untapped at a (very real) cost or avoid life loss at a very real cost. Having drafts where the Dimir guy didn't get Watery Grave is not a good reason to not run them. IMO anyway. Of all the dual lands, I think these are the best (assuming you are running fetches along side them).

 

[Mad Prophet]

~5 picks need to be dedicated to lands to have some level of sanity when cutting cards. If not, the power band will be exacerbated too much - nobody will have to play the bottom 20% of cards, ever.

This is an excellent argument, and I agree in principle. I know the exquisite pain of that last cut. I simply disagree with the conclusion that ~5 picks need to be dedicated to LANDS. There are plenty of other things that those picks can do:

• Conspiracies (something I know a great deal about)
• Other draft actions?
• Dedicated sideboard cards
• Speculative picks that don't pan out.
• Defensive drafting, like taking the sweepers to protect your green aggro deck.

nobody will have to play the bottom 20% of cards, ever.

This is a fundamental problem when drafting more cards than you are required to play. I The only reason that fixing lands alleviate this concern is that they are picks that do not contribute to your starting 23. I think there are better ways that we can spend those picks. Or perhaps they shouldn't be there at all. Maybe the packs should be 20% smaller.