General Too Many Lands
- Thread starter Mad Prophet
- Start date
You all don't need to convince me that shock/fetch is sweet. I'm already onboard that train. And there are cases like above where duals are less narrow than gold cards. Fair enough. But I'm still not convinced that 80% of the lands you draft go in your deck. Maybe I'm just not a great drafter though. I think I'm lucky to hit 60% most of the time.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I'm not sure how much of this discussion is even so much that there is too much fixing, as it is general dissatisfaction with shock lands, or the fetch->shock arrangement (which is fine, I like discussions about alternate formats built around synergistic mana bases).
There seems to be a sort of aggregate assumption to the discussion of 360 cube, x2 fetch, x2 shock, and than using something like seven additional slots for fixing purposes (I'm guessing cherry picked Zendikar manlands?) with no density of mana rock based fixing. That sort of basic structure does take up a lot of space, and pretty much necessitates the ULD.
I kind of thought most people were off of that layout; we've had a lot more divergence over the past couple of years, no?
There seems to be a sort of aggregate assumption to the discussion of 360 cube, x2 fetch, x2 shock, and than using something like seven additional slots for fixing purposes (I'm guessing cherry picked Zendikar manlands?) with no density of mana rock based fixing. That sort of basic structure does take up a lot of space, and pretty much necessitates the ULD.
I kind of thought most people were off of that layout; we've had a lot more divergence over the past couple of years, no?
Ever since Avacyn Restored, I knew it was only a matter of time before Mad Prophet went off the deep end.
360 is really rough. This is way easier to figure out at 450, to the point where I don't feel like any sacrifices need to be made. I can run 20% land, run every land I'd even be interested in and still not really be making huge sacrifices with non land cards. And I get stellar fixing during drafts.
At 360 though? All kinds of sacrifices are happening. Too much land and you are just hacking off super good non land cards from the list. Not enough land and you have to drop a cycle or two of really sweet lands. I have no solution at 360 that I like.
At 360 though? All kinds of sacrifices are happening. Too much land and you are just hacking off super good non land cards from the list. Not enough land and you have to drop a cycle or two of really sweet lands. I have no solution at 360 that I like.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
If you run only a select few gold cards, give free mana fixing of a corresponding color when you draft that card. Bam! Problem solved! You make drafting gold cards less burdensome, and you free up space for real cards, for whatever definition of real you like.
For the lands, you can either give every player duals of their choice of a matching color, or you do a mana fixing draft after the main draft, with a number of lands in the middle equal to the number (and colors) of gold cards in you cube. Then you snake draft mana. Starting with the first player, each player may put a gold card from their card pool face up and pick a corresponding land, until no more gold cards are revealed. Box the remaining lands and start building decks!
I shall add links to this article, as well as the previous fixing thread you brought to my attention in my original post.
But then i must get back to work!
So much work to be done!
And so little time....
It's pretty unreasonable to propose that people just get free lands with their gold cards. All you've done then is create a class of super-fixers because they come platooned with a gold card by default. This is some kind of an attempt to reduce the parasitism of lands, but it feels like a pretty abysmal execution. Why wouldn't people just slam every gold card they see so as to have a lot of lands? By doing this you certainly haven't alleviated the problem of people taking "lands" early in the draft.
Your ends are all too shallow!
The promised end is upon us.
There are too many lands! not enough ends! It's all Wrong Wrong Wrong!!
But i must work.
There is always work to be done.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
It's confusing to me as well. If people were complaining about there being too many fixing lands in a draft, than surely they don't need to have a free fixing land given to them.
I also want to plant a flag here and say that the term "parasitism of lands" doesn't feel correct. I agree, that some lands work better than others as broad themeatic enablers, but I don't think they ever rise to the level of being truly parasitic. It seems to me more a question of mechanical engagement.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
You are confusing unreasonable with unorthodox. I am actually doing this in my cube for the 10 three-color cards I run, and it works like a charm! My problem was not that people were taking lands early in the draft, it was that they were complaining there were too many lands. It's not at all about when your drafters pick up mana fixing, it's the bad feeling they get for doing so, because picking mana fixing means you are passing actual, playable, exciting Magic cards. Now imagine that, instead of having to draft unexciting lands, you get to draft an exciting gold card and you get a corresponding land that enables you to play that card. From a player's perspective that's awesome! This might enable players to go wild with four color decks, but if you limit the amount of gold cards, this will still lead to shaky mana bases. It's a risk you can take, but it's not guaranteed to work. If you then add cards (remember we've freed up a lot of slots here!) that reward sticking to few colors, like CC cards and devotion cards, there's also an incentive to stick to less colors. Really, the words you are looking for are unorthodox, out of the box, novel, or even crazy, but unreasonable is a dismissive word that does not give this idea the chance that I think it deserves. It's closing yourself off from a very possible solution to the "problem" the Mad Prophet is adressing!
While I side with StormEntity on that particular argument, I do agree with the message Onderzeeboot is presenting. We should be open to every solution and at least talk it through.
More than most, I'm fully open to changing how Magic plays - draft or actual in-game mechanics. It's not a perfect game and there are things that would improve it. The only obstacle really is getting people to buy into the changes. I've encountered a great deal of resistance in this game in particular, maybe because it's got a competitive scene? Not sure.
More than most, I'm fully open to changing how Magic plays - draft or actual in-game mechanics. It's not a perfect game and there are things that would improve it. The only obstacle really is getting people to buy into the changes. I've encountered a great deal of resistance in this game in particular, maybe because it's got a competitive scene? Not sure.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
It's the nature of the beast, honestly, humankind is conservative by nature. People feel comfortable when maintaining the status quo, when sticking to things they know. Most humans get antsy when confronted with change, with the unknown.
I think it's more than that though. I can play a board game with someone and after a few play throughs, it's not hard to convince most people that tweaking a rule here or there will make it more fun. This is even easier to do in something like D&D (where rules are more guidelines anyway).
So I do think it is at least partly because there is a competitive version of the game and people naturally want to play that version to see how they "stack up" or whatever. It's like basketball. Most people don't have giant hands like professional players. Has anyone played with a smaller ball? So much easier. Find me a group of guys willing to play with a smaller ball to have a better game of basketball. They don't exist.
So I do think it is at least partly because there is a competitive version of the game and people naturally want to play that version to see how they "stack up" or whatever. It's like basketball. Most people don't have giant hands like professional players. Has anyone played with a smaller ball? So much easier. Find me a group of guys willing to play with a smaller ball to have a better game of basketball. They don't exist.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I've really been enjoying having 5 lands per player (40/360, 60/540). I think there is a problem with players taking the lands so aggressively that its hard to get the lands you actually want since the lands are all specific to 2-color pairs. Sometimes we have 1 player at the table who has 15 fixing lands and its gross. I don't want to use 5 color lands to solve this problem though because I want to make sure I never enable 5-colors. I feel like I still want my fixing to be a pile of duals because I want 2-3 color decks, not "the color pie is a lie" Christmas land. Maybe a pile of mana confluence could get there but I don't think I like the loss of variety in the mana base.
I've been thinking of trying out a solution (in a custom cube anyway) where I run 40 duals in a 360 but I make them just good enough to be played while being not nearly powerful enough for someone to just soak them all up. So more like signet lands than shocks. Hypothetically, trying to pick them all up and run 10+ lands will destroy you so nobody will do that, but at the same time they're still workable enough that people will grab the ones relevant to them and will still run a few. The idea is to still run 5 duals per player, but make them be like 8-12th picks, not 1-4th picks, more or less. I think if duals go across the table more, they'll get to the right player who really wants them.
tl;dr my suggestion is to keep running duals but make them suck enough that they get across the table.
I've been thinking of trying out a solution (in a custom cube anyway) where I run 40 duals in a 360 but I make them just good enough to be played while being not nearly powerful enough for someone to just soak them all up. So more like signet lands than shocks. Hypothetically, trying to pick them all up and run 10+ lands will destroy you so nobody will do that, but at the same time they're still workable enough that people will grab the ones relevant to them and will still run a few. The idea is to still run 5 duals per player, but make them be like 8-12th picks, not 1-4th picks, more or less. I think if duals go across the table more, they'll get to the right player who really wants them.
tl;dr my suggestion is to keep running duals but make them suck enough that they get across the table.
That could work. How good is RDW in your cube? Because if the quality of fixing goes down, that deck just gets better and better. On the flip side, you could try and make mono color decks a thing by weakening fixing to the point of incentivizing it. I'm attracted to this idea because a fundamental problem I think every one has faced is feeling compelled to cut your CC 2 drops since they are very splash unfriendly. Well, now you can run a bunch more and with weaker fixing you have a real reason to go all in on mono.
Your post was too long and I haven't read it yet. However, this proposition is abhorrent to me. Duals are poison!
The problem is still that there are too many slots in your packs being devoted to boring picks. I think proposition would probably alleviate a lot of the symptoms of too many lands, but the fact remains: there are cards in your cube that players aren't excited about. I would sooner advocate trimming the pack size down so that each pick is a bigger deal.
But if you are looking for a fix that doesn't involve major surgery, this will do.
For now
For now
For now
I'm not sure I subscribe to a basic premise I think you are operating under Prophet... specifically that fixing lands are boring. If I have a sweet deck and I see a perfect fixing land for it, I'm very excited to take it because I know it will give me consistency.
Where my main objection comes is in the volume of lands and the fact that more times than not, I end up with Watery Grave in my Ux deck (where x is not B). And that is usually because I never even saw the UR land (or I thought UB was the way to go and things changed). Conceptually, I love the idea of fixing being more flexible so if I dedicate an early pick to it I won't be let down later. Other than making proxies with "Shockland of choice", or just running Mana Confluence/Evolving wilds, I don't see a good solution. And neither of those options is super appealing to me sadly.
Where my main objection comes is in the volume of lands and the fact that more times than not, I end up with Watery Grave in my Ux deck (where x is not B). And that is usually because I never even saw the UR land (or I thought UB was the way to go and things changed). Conceptually, I love the idea of fixing being more flexible so if I dedicate an early pick to it I won't be let down later. Other than making proxies with "Shockland of choice", or just running Mana Confluence/Evolving wilds, I don't see a good solution. And neither of those options is super appealing to me sadly.
I think the idea that adding a bunch of Mana Confluence would make your cube into a Utopia-driven paradise where people ignore color entirely is a flawed one. That's a large part of the reason to play with Mana Confluence--it incentivizes consistent and fast two-color decks while shutting out the slow five-color plans. You can only tap Confluence so many times per game, and the very best Confluence decks are the ones that seek to end the game before it becomes relevant--namely, the two color decks.
The unparasitic nature of Mana Confluence, combined with this characteristic, enables abnormal and interesting aggressive decks in peculiar color pairs, while also being open to play by control decks. At the same time though, you certainly can't plan to build your whole mana base out of Confluences, and so it's clear that two color decks (not the dreaded five color monstrosities) are the primary beneficiaries of the Confluence mana base. If you're really concerned about "1 player at the table who has 15 fixing lands and its gross," cut some of those fixing lands for strong, versatile, but internally dis-synergistic lands like Mana Confluence or Aether Hub and watch the mana bases in your format suddenly become an interesting source of tension and play.
The unparasitic nature of Mana Confluence, combined with this characteristic, enables abnormal and interesting aggressive decks in peculiar color pairs, while also being open to play by control decks. At the same time though, you certainly can't plan to build your whole mana base out of Confluences, and so it's clear that two color decks (not the dreaded five color monstrosities) are the primary beneficiaries of the Confluence mana base. If you're really concerned about "1 player at the table who has 15 fixing lands and its gross," cut some of those fixing lands for strong, versatile, but internally dis-synergistic lands like Mana Confluence or Aether Hub and watch the mana bases in your format suddenly become an interesting source of tension and play.
These are hardly the only paths to salvation, friend. We must still Search, Unafraid of what we may find!
This is a compelling argument. I will cede to you that fixing lands need not be boring.
But we Can Do More!!
Lands can be exciting because they fix your mana, AND because weave into your draft in other interesting ways.
Or they need not be present at all.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I can tell from experience that most casual players (not to be confused with players of casual formats) don't subscribe to this enthusiasm. At. All. I wasn't lying when I said people had been complaining about the amount of fixing in my cube. He may be mad, but I totally agree with the Prophet's premise here. A good portion of my players do think that fixing lands are boring.
Can someone present an anectode that motivates this discussion, or is it just an intellectual curiosity?