General Too Many Lands

[RavebornMuse]

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.

What formats suck, specifically because of fixing issues? Is this a reflection on the importance of fixing specifically as something needed in abundance, or is it perhaps related more to poor limited design in general, wherein multicolor decks are made mandatory by poor set design, but unsupported by poor fixing options? At which point do we blame a limited environment being bad on exactly one aspect of it? In my experience, bad environments do not score 10s across the board, with one singular failing that brings the whole beast down. It's a constellation of bad, weird, or nonfunctional deployments in set design, extended to, not because of, the fixing base. There's a limit to how much we can learn from bad environments, and I don't think mana fixing is often their lesson, inasmuch as bad/boring/weak themes tend to be, at the very least.

Furthermore, I think it's useful to point out that there is only so much we can draw from Constructed and Limited as formats, because Cube is an entirely different beast. Most of us in no way curate a retail set limited environment, and that's a huge distinction that should be at the forefront of all of our minds. Retail set limited environments use a rarity hierarchy for the distribution of cards and have a great deal more room for weak draft chaff, while all of us typically strive for a tighter power band. So even if the claim that there have been limited drafting environments that sucked specifically because of bad fixing was true (which for the record I'm deeply skeptical of), it wouldn't necessarily have any bearing on cube, especially if said cube was built with those format constraints (less fixing) in mind.

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.

Very few among us run a "traditional cube list". Yes, Mana Confluence has downsides, as does Evolving Wilds. They introduce format constraints. I think that's kind of the whole point of their suggestion. After all, format constraints via manabase tinkering has proven to be a very cool space to explore (see: Grillo & Bouncelands, for one glowing example within our own community among many), so even if the idea does not slot cleanly into every list (see: Bouncelands), it at least provides an interesting new angle to take on cube development for those of us looking to shake things up.

For the record, I don't agree with the idea that adding in a bunch more narrow cards is necessarily the best way to capitalize on the space made by running less fixing, but I do think there's an interesting format just waiting to be cracked by pursuing this concept. I won't be cracking it anytime soon myself, but I do intend to heavily consider this as I continue to toy with my fixing base, though, and I think this posting was pretty timely, for me at least, as I was just thinking of how I wanted less fixing lands, and this has helped point out that there is an alternative space than the traditional double fetch, double shock, scryland model that's dominated Riptide for a while now.

edit: clarity

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

To re-frame this somewhat.

The fetch-shock framework is kind of boring and very good stuffy. There are some interesting micro-interactions, but not enough to really warp a format around, and policing tech is hard to come by. For the most part they are just there to ensure smooth mana development for formats with lots of fireworks turns 1-4.

All of this is fine, but I really dislike when it causes the fixing section to bloat out to the point where utility land picks are being handled in a second draft.

I know there are giant format differences, but the nice thing about running bouncelands is that they are utility lands carrying a spell effect. The card advantage they grant means you can slim down on the mana requirements of your deck, and run a higher percentage of your cube's cards that actually do interesting things for deck design as well as gameplay.

Fetchlands (as much as I hate shuffling) at least have some theoretical utility applications to them: delve, landfall, delirium, gy cards that care about land count. Shock lands (practically speaking) offer no utility. Unfortunately, so much space is devoted to enabling this fixing patchwork, that actual utility lands end up getting pushed out, and to reach that artificial density of spell effects (which basically have to be tied to the mana base, since you're already cutting cards at 23) to eat up mana expenditures on your do-nothing turns, you get this entire second draft of spell-lands. Its just very inelegant.

Its not bad, but it certainly looks funny.

I'm not against high amounts of fixing, but it would be nice for it to go further in providing the internal integrity of a format. Due to the way mana sequencing is supposed to work in riptetide formats, turns 1-4, fetch-shock kind of does sync with what those formats are supposed to be doing, so its popularity makes sense. I know the development of those mana bases were kind of messy (and I think the focus on the ULD holds back their development) but it was a semi-natural development, and that much probably should be respected.

If you had to toss out your ULD tomorrow, how would you have to adjust your format to make up for the spell effect deficit?

That might be a better starting thought-experiment than land as-fan (which is just settled upon by feel anyways, so real numbers should be being presented).

 

[vennythekid]

Okay thought experiment here: I run a fairly "standard" Riptide Cube. If I replaced, 1-for-1, my double shocks for double bounce-lands, would that work? Are there other environmental factors that I would need to consider heavily?

I honestly think bounce-lands are super interesting and maybe something worth exploring at higher power levels.

 

[ahadabans]

The fetch-shock framework is kind of boring and very good stuffy.

Man, is it though? You can't just slam an endless number of fetches/shocks in your deck and eat 3 life every turn. How many games are you going to win if you give your opponent a free lava spike each turn? I don't think this type of mana base is good stuffy or boring. It's dynamic and there are costs associated with running too much of it. There are also interesting in game decisions about whether eating 2 life to have mana now is worth it over playing something for one less mana and saving the 2 life.

If you had to toss out your ULD tomorrow, how would you have to adjust your format to make up for the spell effect deficit?

I kind of already did that awhile ago. ULD never worked here (I'm like the only person whose group rejected it I guess). Temples are the coolest spell lands I've added. Bouncelands are great too. I'm not convinced any other lands are truly vital. They add to decks but they don't really make them. I like nonbasics as much of the next guy, I just don't think the opportunity cost is worth it without ULD. And rethinking fixing wouldn't change that for me I don't think. I'd rather run another non-land card (of which I'm already making really painful cuts now).

 

[Onderzeeboot]

To add something more than a one-liner, I have actually had complaints from my drafters in the past that they felt there were too many mana fixing lands in the cube. I cut back on fixing in the main cube for that very reason. The way I solved the problem is twofold. First, I only support five two-color combinations, and thus was able to cut half of the lands in the cube. I used some of that space to better support the color combinations that are supported, and a lot of it to add interesting cards to the cube. Second, I do run three-color cards, but no mana support for three color decks in the main cube. Instead, when you draft a three-color card, you get a CIPT fixer for free. So, for example, drafting Cruel Ultimatum will give you a Crumbling Necropolis for free. This makes sure that the people who draft a three-color card can actually play it, because it's less likely they will have to abandon the pick because they failed to later draft the right mana base to support it.

These two measures mean I only run 45 actual fixing lands in my 450 cube and still am able to support good mana bases.

 

[ahadabans]

Okay thought experiment here: I run a fairly "standard" Riptide Cube. If I replaced, 1-for-1, my double shocks for double bounce-lands, would that work? Are there other environmental factors that I would need to consider heavily?

I honestly think bounce-lands are super interesting and maybe something worth exploring at higher power levels.

It slows things down a bit. It also makes land destruction and bounce/tap effects even better. And you lose the basic land type interactions. If your list can handle those changes, you will probably be a fan. The bouncelands are super good. You could also split the difference and run one set of each.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Man, is it though? You can't just slam an endless number of fetches/shocks in your deck and eat 3 life every turn. How many games are you going to win if you give your opponent a free lava spike each turn? I don't think this type of mana base is good stuffy or boring. It's dynamic and there are costs associated with running too much of it. There are also interesting in game decisions about whether eating 2 life to have mana now is worth it over playing something for one less mana and saving the 2 life.

I kind of would like it to feel more like modern, if we're going down that line, and it never quite achieved that. Once you get your format to the point where everyone is effectively starting at circa 15 life, its a huge boost to aggressive strategies.

That was kind of the idea behind that crazy painland format I was playing with about a year ago, and even there I had people telling me that there probably wouldn't be enough density of painlands. Probably should have tested it.

Though to stay more on topic, what I was actually thinking about (for these fetch-shock formats) was something like -10 shock lands, +10 signets. That way you have the same total fixing, but its diversified away from the mana section. Signets already have a proven track record in higher power formats, your control decks (finally) get a reasonable mana superiority tool, and if you sprinkle some of these kaladesh cards that make or are colored artifacts around your main cube, you get a nice artifact sub theme, while your artifact destruction becomes much better.

I suppose you could just cut 10 artifacts as well and go +10 signets, than still go -10 shocks, +10 utility lands.

Or maybe rune those key runes, that turn into artifact creatures instead. I don't know how reasonable those cards are at rather than (it sound super awkward).

The issue is probably at least partially just moving away from putting so much pressure on your land section to fix (on the premise aggro needs it, which it only truly does if you lack an aggressive B/W or G/U deck, since if you don't, it forces people into a third color aka splash red).

 

[ahadabans]

I like revisiting signets/talismans. It's a big boost to control decks though, especially for those running the stronger top end finishers. So you have to adjust your balancing a bit IMO (aggressive strategies upgraded or top end finishers downgraded).

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I like revisiting signets/talismans. It's a big boost to control decks though, especially for those running the stronger top end finishers. So you have to adjust your balancing a bit IMO (aggressive strategies upgraded or top end finishers downgraded).

Pushing all your wrath effect up to 5+ mana should help a lot. In my cube I just pushed all mana rocks to 3+ and all wrath effects to 5+. This makes the mana rocks more of a tool for control decks that want to reach the end game quicker, and less of a tool for midrange to just start pumping out threats a turn earlier. There's mana elves (and Wild Growths) if you want to go that route, making green the ultimate midrange color, I suppose

 

[Mad Prophet]

I suppose you could just cut 10 artifacts as well and go +10 signets, than still go -10 shocks, +10 utility lands.

That's it! Shocklands are poison!

I like revisiting signets/talismans. It's a big boost to control decks though, especially for those running the stronger top end finishers. So you have to adjust your balancing a bit IMO (aggressive strategies upgraded or top end finishers downgraded).

This is something I can get behind. Give the control decks signets, cut the fixing lands, and add a big pile of aggro cards to give the 1 and 2 color aggressive strategies the consistency they need to compete.

 

[StormEntity]

Note that, like fetchlands, signets have positive synergy with a number of different cube archetypes. They help enable Wildfire and other artifact strategies, ad one overlooked synergy with signets is their ability to work with Sunburst or Converge. It's easy to imagine a number of cubes that use their mana base to make a statement to drafters and to support a theme or set of interactions that are central to the cube. You could make a cube with a huge number of Mana Confluence effects and a number of life gain effects that are interwoven into utility spells (Lightning Helix, Survival Cache, Nissa's Renewal) such that the mana bases were synergistic with the content of the cube.

There are a huge variety of such archetypes that can have their mana woven in as synergy. Kaladesh offers us the opportunity to try another "exotic" mana base in the form of Aether Hub and a number of powerful Energy generators (the better creatures, Dynavolt Tower, Glimmer of Genius etc). I'm certain there are people on this forum (myself included) that would like to experiment with energy subthemes but are concerned with parasitism. By building into the mana base cards that synergize with the supposedly parasitic mechanic, you save a large amount of the parasitism space that our mad prophet has envisioned.

This design space feels exceptionally rich and the Signet-heavy mana base is another representation. By building a large number of Signets into the mana base, you've allowed for very "inexpensive" artifact interactions (which might include Welder, Wildfire, or any of a number of plans that rely on a medium density of artifacts. Even the fabled Value Tinker plan might become viable). In addition you open up a very cheap angle of depth to your format, so that by adding a small converge and sunburst package in the form of Painful Truths, Etched Oracle, Woodland Wanderer, Exert Influence, even Prism Array and Fist of Suns might become viable. All of these cards can combine very simply with a commonly available form of mana fixing/acceleration to create an interesting interaction that drafters appreciate.

I really think this is an incredibly rich design space that was opened up with Brainstorm in the Waddell-style Brainstorm-fetchland cubes but has a great deal of meat left on the bones. I think there are a huge number of designs here; it's also the Secluded Glen design space. In my opinion one of the best possible things to be doing as a cube designer is increasing intrigue in both draft and gameplay with as few slots as possible. Alternate mana bases open a ton of possibilities down that row that is largely untapped (notably Grillo has an excellent adaptation of this idea, but still more exist to be explored).

 

[Aston]

In a typical cube draft deck, you'll play 23 spells and 17 lands. That means your deck is going to be 42.5% land. Therefore if you're not playing at least 42.5% lands in your cube total, you're not running enough lands.

That's just maths!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

In a typical cube draft deck, you'll play 23 spells and 17 lands. That means your deck is going to be 42.5% land. Therefore if you're not playing at least 42.5% lands in your cube total, you're not running enough lands.

That's just maths!

You are talking about the Desert Cube? I swear that shit was invented by some BTP junkie!

 

[Mad Prophet]

In a typical cube draft deck, you'll play 23 spells and 17 lands. That means your deck is going to be 42.5% land. Therefore if you're not playing at least 42.5% lands in your cube total, you're not running enough lands.

That's just maths!

This chills me to the bone....
There is no basic spells box. Perhaps there should be?
There is a basic lands box. Perhaps there shouldn't be?

The desert cube is a monstrosity, but an innovative one

 

[Chriskool]

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 have a noncyclic manabase in a grid that has seemed to work out well. Maybe Kirblinx can add to it as he had suffered the design on a few occasions.

http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/59149
Auntie's Hovel to support gobbos better than control. WB painland to support Cabal Therapy into Med Mage and UW aggro and pain control. UW karoo to support reanimator/control. UR scry temples to tempt goblins but slow them down turns 2-5 while giving control painless mana. Mana confluence as necessary evil in 3-4c while giving 2c aggro better options for card inclusion. Evolving Wilds as the alternative to confluence.

Grid, though, is entirely a different beast than draft. Lands need to be junked for real cards often.

 

[sigh]

Honestly, I really like the deeper concept of Land Cycle breaking. I've done it to a degree, but why not more? Like, if my UB section is very controlling, card advantage based, etc., why have the UB painland? Why not cater lands to better match archetypes that are pushed in the format? If we really want to push archetype support, why put the E-Brake on at lands?

Some individual thoughts:
RW temple -> RW filter land
GR battle land -> GR karoo (for my GR land control)
UB pain -> UB karoo

I dunno. Cycles do give everyone a consistent axis to be drafting around, but we could probably go deeper

 

[Diakonov]

I want a high diversity of decks for my cube. You can add more narrow spells all day to support more strategies with fewer colors, but you won't ever be able to produce the same diversity as cross-color options.

Retail formats--due to less fixing--tend to have fewer deck types, but they make up for that by finely tuning the interactions between these decks in gameplay. This is much easier to do with different rarities, and shitloads of playtesting resources that most of us will never have.

The only major problem that I see with strong fixing is the tendency for players to attempt to build "goodstuff" decks, sweeping up the best options that each color has to offer. You can combat this by maintaining a mostly flat power level and ensuring that the weaker individual cards synergize well enough to outpace goodstuff decks on average. Drafters should be reaching across colors for synergy, not individually strong cards.

I want 2-color decks to have access to enough fixing to prevent stumbling, if they so desire. In my experience, if the drafters are all valuing fixing as much as they should, building a consistent 3-color-heavy deck with my current fixing suite is not easy. Including strong aggro archetypes helps to keep this in check as well.

 

[Aston]

This chills me to the bone....
There is no basic spells box. Perhaps there should be?
There is a basic lands box. Perhaps there shouldn't be?

The desert cube is a monstrosity, but an innovative one

For a less facetious answer, I like having drafts with lots of fixing for a few reasons.

Number 1: I think better fixing leads to better games. Mana screw or flood is difficult to control without making fairly drastic changes, but colour screw can be worked around by providing the tools to allow decks to find their second (or third, or fourth...) colour more easily. In my experience, this has not led to too many 4 or 5 colour goodstuff piles, but raise the barrier for off colour splashes and make 2 colour decks very consistent. Admittedly this is anecdotal but when you think about it, if someone is snapping up all the fixing early to make 5 colour goodstuff, they're spending the picks where they should be getting good stuff for their deck. It's difficult to get both. Conversely, when this 5 colour deck is trying to get itself set up it's being run over by the one or two colour aggro deck that isn't stumbling because its mana is good enough.

Number 2: Related to what I said above, you're only going to put 23 spells in your deck. If you guess you'll use maybe 5 cards out of your sideboard, that means that in the theoretical no fixing cube, you're wasting something like 17 picks on cards you're never going to play. With high fixing more of your picks are live and provides decisions all the way through the packs.

Number 3: As you say, cutting fixing lands provides more slots for spells, but really what spells are going to be included? Presumably they're all worse than the spells that are already included in the cube otherwise they'd already be in. I strongly suspect that cutting 30 lands and adding 30 spells is going to lead to 30 more spells that rarely make it into the main deck.

Number 4: Poor fixing makes gold cards a lot worse. If the fixing is good, I can for example take a Maelstrom Pulse in my UB control deck and splash it off a Polluted Delta and an Overgrown Tomb. In a cube without Overgrown Tomb, that Pulse probably only ends up in a G/B deck and a reasonable proportion of the time there won't even be a G/B player. In other words, there will be cards in the pool which are completely useless to every player, which is something I think should be avoided.

Number 5: In the example given of Steam Vents vs Talrand, in a high fixing cube you could pick Talrand with the knowledge that you're going to get a lot more chances at fixing lands later on. In a low fixing cube, that Steam Vents (or Mana Confluence if you're cutting out shocklands) might be the only one you see so you're forced to take it more aggressively if you think you need it.

Finally, I don't agree with the idea that the utility land draft is caused by fixing lands "pushing out" utility lands from the main cube. The ULD is (in my eyes, at least) for lands which are too narrow to be included in the main cube, but are very powerful when given the right context. My favourite example is Riptide Laboratory - in the main cube, unless there's a heavy tribal component, I'm guessing that's a 15th pick like 95% of the time. However, the one time somebody assembles the supporting cast of Snapcaster Mage, Venser, Shaper Savant and Vendilion Clique, it's amazing. The ULD allows you to still let people draft that deck the 1 out of 20 times it comes together without clogging up the packs with useless cards in the other 19 drafts.

The other hidden bonus is that decks like this can come together more often, as if you know Riptide Laboratory is in the ULD, you know you will have access to it and can draft towards it. The problem with having it in the main draft is if on that 1 chance out of 20 that the deck happens, Riptide Laboratory wasn't even in the pool.

Too many lands? I'd say you're probably not playing enough!

 

[Chriskool]

You Are Trying To Support Too Many Color Combinations And That Is Why You Are Playing Too Many Lands

 

[ahadabans]

In a typical cube draft deck, you'll play 23 spells and 17 lands. That means your deck is going to be 42.5% land. Therefore if you're not playing at least 42.5% lands in your cube total, you're not running enough lands.

That's just maths!

I know you are being facetious here, but that is actually how I arrived at my 20% land count.

The average deck plays 2-3 colors with 23 playables, right? How many fixing lands does that deck want ideally? 5-6 I figure. So, if you wanted that to be something everyone could draft, you would want 5/28 (17.9%) or 6/29 (20.6%). In my 450 list, I just went with an even 20%.

That's more than the average cube runs. And I think fixing is at a premium in most cubes during drafting. I hear that all the time. Well, if you are only running 13% fixing, here is why it's a premium.

Now, Prophet is suggesting making fixing more universally usable. If you could make every single piece of fixing work in every single deck, you could go as low as 5/45 (11%) and still have 5 fixing lands for your 23 playables.

That is also just maths.

EDIT: Also worth mentioning... if you can make mono colored decks a thing, you reduce the average amount of fixing needed since those decks will run zero in theory. Which can lower your fixing requirements even further. But the decks have to actually be draftable and not just theoretically draftable. People have to actually want to draft mono black or true white weenie, etc.

 

[sigh]

Yeah, that certainly is maths... aren't we caring about number of lands each person drafts? So, we have to know the success rate of a land in order to get an accurate estimate. Say 80% of the lands you draft are 'useable'. That makes 7.2 lands per person out of all 45 cards drafted. That's 7.2/45 =16%. Obviously assumptions, but I think a better general calculation method.

Now I think that that figure is too high, especially for 2 color decks in a lower consistency format like cube. I've linked an article before that takes into account # of cards that require the heavy fixing, mobile won't let me link it again. Take away is that we don't need constructed level fixing, or even close to that, because we aren't relying on a carefully constructed plan that wants to be able to follow the same path every game. Cube decks are slightly looser.

So based on my thoughts on that, I'll say that an average deck wants 4.5 lands. Just a wild guess for the sake of this post, based on average of 2 and 7. That leads to a mana base percentage of 12% using my above estimations. About what RTL runs.

Point is we can all spout our guesses. Each format has to have an actual, testable, recordable, history of how many lands the decks need and want. Maths could then be based on that. The easiest one I can think of is recording for a few drafts how many lands actually make it into the final decks. This would provide the "Success Rate" I postulate above. From that a model could be built

 

[ahadabans]

80% usable seems high to me. Dual lands are basically gold cards. Those are very narrow. Fetches are like hybrids.

What percentage of your picks are playables? 80% feels optimistic to me. And that includes mono colored and artifact cards. Dual lands go in far fewer decks, which is the premise of the original post.

EDIT:
And there are numbers for mana requirements. At the risk of just rehashing all that was discussed in the last land thread, read this:

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

It suggests a much higher need for fixing based on real math.

 

[sigh]

You've linked that article before. The article I mention uses real math too, and takes more variables into account. You can use whatever basis you want, but I tend to go towards the more complete one.

All personal preference.

No need for the discussion again

The point of real world testing would be to get an accurate # in place of "80%"

 

[ahadabans]

Fair enough. We should link that original discussion in this thread because it's very relevant to the conversation and it was a really good exchange with different view points. Worth reading I feel.

 

[Aston]

Dual lands are not gold cards when you pair them with the appropriate fetches. Plateau in a W/B deck makes your Blood Crypt into a W/B land, and I'd play it 100% of the time even if I had no red unless I knew my opponent was on mono-wastelands.