General Too Many Lands

[shamizy]

There is definitely a point of oversaturation of fixing, but if you're clocking in around 40/360 or 50/450 then you're right on the money. You don't want anyone to every draft a really cool archetype but unable to play it due to a lack of fixing being available throughout the draft. Sure, if a particular drafter focuses on gobbling up premier fixing early (one of my friends did this and made creaturelands.dec which was dope), it will lead to complications across the rest of the table. But, you curtail this by having that many slots for fixing in the first place.

Pretty much if someone wants to draft a two color deck in my cube, they should be able to do so comfortably knowing that SOME kind of fixing will eventually head their way that they can make use of. Three color you need to pick the fixing a pick or two earlier, but that's reasonable if you're going to be more greedy. Just flipping the mana bases into being more restrictive and calling it a day is just not going to work in many of our environments. I firmly believe that good fixing leads to more interesting environments. I'd have to make sweeping changes across the board to accomodate the new lack of fixing, tinker with archetypes, figure out CC costs and curves throughout archetypes, etc. It's just more convenient for me to not have to worry about that aspect when designing the finer points of a cube.

 

[Mad Prophet]

I honestly don't understand why there's such an opposition to fixing? Is this really actually a problem that's arisen when you've sat down and played and people have complained "dude! you're cube is just all lands and not enough cool cards"?

I assure you, there are other reasons to explore new ideas.

 

[Jason Waddell]

It's mostly that "worse mana in cube" is very much an old idea.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

In all fairness, if your format is lower power, than its easier to cut down on total fixing space, since presumably you're not going to get rocked if you go two colors and have sequencing hiccups in game.

Its when you have powerful cards/plays and have to hit your early turn sequencing to avoid falling behind, that small fixing bases can become a problem.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It's mostly that "worse mana in cube" is very much an old idea.

Except, are we necessarily talking about *worse* mana? Or are we talking about _different_ mana? I have the feeling it's not about the inherent power of the mana fixing, no one's going to argue that fetches and shocks are some of the best fixing lands available in a vacuum, rather it's about how to get enough adequate fixing to every player without having to resort to the nonbasic densities we normally run in our cubes.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Except, are we necessarily talking about *worse* mana? Or are we talking about _different_ mana? I have the feeling it's not about the inherent power of the mana fixing, no one's going to argue that fetches and shocks are some of the best fixing lands available in a vacuum, rather it's about how to get enough adequate fixing to every player without having to resort to the nonbasic densities we normally run in our cubes.

Right, and I appreciate the argument. In my original article about double-fetch, I talked about how fetches have increased competing demand among drafters (as opposed to regular duals, which are frequently only wanted by a single player).

It was after tons of playtesting at different densities that I realized I wanted more than 20 fetches. I don't think this is the only way by any means, but I think the density of your fixing is likely more important than the quality. The quality mostly affects the speed of your format (and, depending on what you run, will affect things like aggro vs control balance).

 

[Chriskool]

Haven't finished thinking out the following ramble, so take it in as a rough draft.

I'd be interested in seeing fetches/shocks/other land base for a RT cube designed to be played with five primary color pairs, like RTR/GTC/kTK draft environments. For example, in 360, the cube could have 15 shocks (3 for each of the 5 primary color pairs) and 20-25 fetches (mostly secondary color pairs, with 1-2 each of primary color pair). The secondary color pair decks in 3xKTK would still occasionally come together as a special experience; I could see it also occurring in cubes.

The above distills to this hypothesis:

Explicitly supporting 10 color pairs is bad for the average cube.

Unpickable lands, unpickable multicolor cards (especially in lower CMCs), and less tension between picks seems to occur when their are so many color combinations to chase. Less color pairs also means more room to have differing strategies/synergies in any given color pair. {Insert more reasons for ...and against 5 color pairs only here}

Side conv @Jason: the variable cubing that you've explored via R code could have an interesting tie-in.... what if you selected 5 color pairs to be supported each draft "at random", with the caveat that a color could only be present in two of the pairs, and then slotted in multicolor cards, lands and even some mono colored cards based on the pairs selected? Sounds like an undergrad project to me, but... how do you think it would play out?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Haven't finished thinking out the following ramble, so take it in as a rough draft.

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/cube-design-tri-color-cards/

This is basically the idea behind my cube. I only support five color pairs, and thus my duals are on average playable in more than one player's deck (considering that most players don't stick to one color, especially not in a cube with a multicolor bent).

 

[Chriskool]

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/cube-design-tri-color-cards/

This is basically the idea behind my cube. I only support five color pairs, and thus my duals are on average playable in more than one player's deck (considering that most players don't stick to one color, especially not in a cube with a multicolor bent).

For some reason, I always think you're running a lower-powered design because of the 'ktk of alara' moniker. D'oh! How would your lands look like w/o customs?

 

[Jason Waddell]

Chris: that solution would be fairly easy to implement (randomly sampling different guilds to support each time). I don't know that I want to, but, code-wise it wouldn't be difficult. I'd take a look at the article Onderzeeboot and see if you have any different questions.

By and large my being curmudgeony (sorry Prophet!) is that I quite like the way the color / land dynamics work in my cube, and it's one I've reached iteratively, not accidentally.

The main benefit I saw of the "random shards / wedges" thing was the ability to run more tri-color cards (and two-color cards), but there aren't really than many tricolor ones that I'm interested in.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

fwiw, I counted up Onderzeeboot's land based fixing sources, and I have it at 45 out of a 429 card cube, which makes mana fixing 10.5% of the format. Assuming he is given out a tri land for each tri-color card, thats 20 additional fixing sources hidden in the format, pushing fixing up to 13% (which I believe was a target percentage from ahada's karsten article).

By way of comparison, a typical 360 format may have 40/50 mana based fixing, before anything available from any ULD that might be being run, which comes to 11% fixing.

So, this really isn't that surprising. His total physical land density is within margins of a RTL cube running shock->fetch, so this particular cube isn't a good rallying point for arguing the virtues of going down on traditional mana fixing density (specifically, the 10% density number), and supports the opposite.

Its also not surprising that a multi-color format would want greater total fixing lands than 10%. Whether the total 13% number is the sweet spot for such a format, I don't know, but I'm not surprised at all to see a number resting between 13-15%.

What is interesting is that it suggests that players may begin to have issues with land color fixing density past 11%, which is something none of us would have normally encountered, and which adds an interesting twist to Karsten's analysis when applied to cube. This could be a unique challenge for these multi-color formats, and also suggests the point where fixing should begin to be heavily diluted into other areas of the cube (e.g. artifacts, or in this case, stapled to tri-color cards).

Also of interest, I looked at this bottom picks, wondering if there would be any color fixing lands there, which there were: temple of plenty, temple of malady, and dimir guildgate. The guildgate is a custom. Thats not too bad of a number, and suggests that mana sources are still being taken aggressively at 10% physical density, 13% virtual density, which seems about right for a multi-color format, but suggests fixing is maybe just sufficient for what the format is doing.

I'm kind of curious what the setup was before, and how many lands were cut or redistributed.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

fwiw, I counted up Onderzeeboot's land based fixing sources, and I have it at 45 out of a 429 card cube, which makes mana fixing 10.5% of the format. Assuming he is given out a tri land for each tri-color card, thats 20 additional fixing sources hidden in the format, pushing fixing up to 13% (which I believe was a target percentage from ahada's karsten article).

It's supposed to be a 450 cube, but I've been busy with other things since I was about halfway through updating my cube Also, you don't get a triland for the tribrids, so it's only 10 additional fixing sources (indeed hidden in the format). This makes for just above 12% fixing. The important thing though is that the land fixing only takes up 10% of the cards in boosters, because the huge amount of lands was bugging my players. Incidentally, it wasn't just one player complaining about their pet peeve, multiple drafters gave feedback that the land density felt too high. If I remember correctly, at the time of these complaints I ran 7 fixers per guild plus 4 fixers per shard, for 55/450. In essence I shifted half of the shard fixers to guild fixing, because for some reason some drafters have problem with recognizing an fixer as appropriate fixing for their or even deck. I then stapled the remaining 10 shard fixing to 10 non-hybrid tricolor cards and filled up the 10 slots with monocolored cards (2 in each color). It's weird, but I think you're right about this hidden barrier just above 10%.

Fwiw, the Temples are a fairly recent addition. They replaced a cycle of colorless producing lands when I cut the colorless theme after quite some deliberation.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

So, the 55/450 is 12% fixing, and 45/450 is 10% physical fixing with 12% virtual fixing. Players were complaining at 12% fixing. Traditional RTL format is 11% fixing.

With most of us running 11% physical fixing, compared to your 12% fixing, that allows for a pretty definitive cross-comparison, and doesn't really support the notion that we should be going below 11% physical fixing. Your playgroup evidently falling into a minority of people that have a problem with a 11-12% fixing density, which suggests it being more of a local issue than reflective of a broader issue of circa 11-12% representing too high of a fixing density percentage.

As an aside, I'm kind of surprised that your format would be fine with 12% fixing, but when I was eyeballing your draft decks, there was also a much higher % of two color decks than I was expecting.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

So, the 55/450 is 12% fixing, and 45/450 is 10% physical fixing with 12% virtual fixing. Players were complaining at 12% fixing. Traditional RTL format is 11% fixing.

With most of us running 11% physical fixing, compared to your 12% fixing, that allows for a pretty definitive cross-comparison, and doesn't really support the notion that we should be going below 11% physical fixing. Your playgroup evidently falling into a minority of people that have a problem with a 11-12% fixing density, which suggests it being more of a local issue than reflective of a broader issue of circa 11-12% representing too high of a fixing density percentage.

There's a wide gap between RTL levels of fixing and MTGO or even retail draft fixing though. Our ratio of fixing would seem way up there to anyone who hasn't thought about how to adequately support multicolor decks in limited. I mean, who expects to see more than one land in a booster, let alone three (which definitely happens at 11% fixing)? I've also got some old time players who are used to running 14 lands in their 40 card (despite repeated advice to run 17, or at least 16) decks and hail from a time when good fixing was limited to the original duals and Ice Age painlands (which weren't considered good anyway), so my player's expectations may differ from the average.

Also, do note that I run 7 (!) fixing for each guild plus 4 virtual trilands that also fix for that guild. That's a lot*. If you want fixing, it's very unlikely you won't get some. In traditional cubes with 10 guilds, and, say, 3 to 5 fixing per guild, depending on the size of the cube, it's very possible that you won't be able to pick up the land you want. Higher levels of fixing might seem desirable, if only to ensure that your Azorius drafter will see a land, but it might be a trap! At various times in this whole discussion, people have noted that fixing needs to be high because, well (emphasis mine)...

45 lands among 8 players comes to 5.5 lands per drafter. Scale that to a 60-card deck and you're looking at the equivalent of like, 8 non-basics for a constructed deck. Fewer if any of those lands end up in sideboards.

What if we invert this? If we make sure fewer lands, by necessity, wind up in sideboards, we can dial down the amount of fixing. And that is what the Mad Prophet's suggestion is all about. Saving space by reducing waste, and thus making room for more interesting cards.

As an aside, I'm kind of surprised that your format would be fine with 12% fixing, but when I was eyeballing your draft decks, there was also a much higher % of two color decks than I was expecting.

Were you expecting more three color decks or more mono color decks?

*Edit: Do note that in a 450 cube, only 80% of those 11 lands will show up in the draft, on average. But that goes for traditional mana bases as well.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Genuinely curious: what percentage of lands do you think end up in sideboards? It's gotta be under 10% right?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Genuinely curious: what percentage of lands do you think end up in sideboards? It's gotta be under 10% right?

Hmm... It depends on how much value your drafters put on fixing and on the power band of your cube. In a group with experienced players it's probably low, because certainly on the wheel fixing has to better than pretty much anything else you can pick up. Less experienced players, however, will often undervalue fixing, and often pick up "actual cards" over lands.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I've also got some old time players who are used to running 14 lands in their 40 card (despite repeated advice to run 17, or at least 16) decks and hail from a time when good fixing was limited to the original duals and Ice Age painlands (which weren't considered good anyway), so my player's expectations may differ from the average.

Ok, that makes a lot of sense than. I knew there was some factor unique to the player base that was missing. Its a little frustrating because I wanted to get a better idea how tri-color mana bases should look. I was expecting tri-lands as mandatory fixing pieces (at least one row), with a slightly higher density (say 13-15%?). Fetch-shocks are pretty good at enabling 3 color decks, but sort of the dream is always to open things up to 3cc or 4cc tri-cards on curve.

Do you have any commentary on the grokability of tri-lands as modal duals? Are they just not suitable for casual players?

Hmm... It depends on how much value your drafters put on fixing and on the power band of your cube. In a group with experienced players it's probably low, because certainly on the wheel fixing has to better than pretty much anything else you can pick up. Less experienced players, however, will often undervalue fixing, and often pick up "actual cards" over lands.

This is pretty much what I expected. My casual players will often get caught up chasing the dream, and with no stakes on the line in draft, try to make something cool happen, usually at the expense of the competitiveness of their deck or consistency of their mana bases.

Thats fine, but sometimes they completely externalize their issues, and they become stubborn, rather than growing as drafters or players. That type of feedback I tend to ignore.

 

[sigh]

The MTGO cubes run basically the same proportions of lands as here at RTL, about 46/360 once the draft pool is selected. Take out the 'utility' lands and its about 40/360 per pod.

I think the only way to know how many lands are 'wasted' in any particular environment is to test and record data.

 

[StormEntity]

Fetch-shocks are pretty good at enabling 3 color decks, but sort of the dream is always to open things up to 3cc or 4cc tri-cards on curve.

Why is this the dream? I understand that 3 color cards are sweet, but I think it's peculiar that this is what people are going for and I'm downright puzzled by the implication that this is how we should be building mana bases by default. Why isn't the dream Life from the Loam to go with your Forbid, or Whirler Rogue to go with your Nantuko Husk? Everybody has different dreams, including all of your drafters, and by opening up cube space and using it to enable whole other kinds of dreams, you up the likelihood that somebody drafts a deck they'll never forget. I'd even go so far as to say casting Mantis Rider on T3 or Siege Rhino T4 is pretty unlikely to produce that kind of a deck. If your goal is creating memorable decks, and memorable plays, there are much better ways than putting in lots of lands and multicolored cards.

Traditional RTL format is 11% fixing.

It also strikes me as peculiar that a traditional RTL mana base exists. It seems to me that this is the place where people push the edges of cube design and try new things. We have people here running custom cards and bizarre Squadron Hawk configurations and all manner of assorted experimentation and individuality. How did we arrive at a "standard" mana base, and why does it persist? Is it because mana bases aren't sexy, and designing them is boring, and it's easy to slot in 40x fetch/shock lands? Regardless of whether you agree with the (quite) Mad Prophet, I think the lesson that needs to be taken from this is that the traditional Riptide mana base isn't inviolate--it's a huge untapped reservoir of design space.

Note that I'm not really calling out Grillo here, his bounceland usage is an excellent example of what I'm talking about. I've also been impressed by Raveborn's implementation of Aether Hub. There's more space. There's more to play with.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Why is this the dream? I understand that 3 color cards are sweet, but I think it's peculiar that this is what people are going for and I'm downright puzzled by the implication that this is how we should be building mana bases by default. Why isn't the dream Life from the Loam to go with your Forbid, or Whirler Rogue to go with your Nantuko Husk? Everybody has different dreams, including all of your drafters, and by opening up cube space and using it to enable whole other kinds of dreams, you up the likelihood that somebody drafts a deck they'll never forget. I'd even go so far as to say casting Mantis Rider on T3 or Siege Rhino T4 is pretty unlikely to produce that kind of a deck. If your goal is creating memorable decks, and memorable plays, there are much better ways than putting in lots of lands and multicolored cards.

I was referencing a wedge/shard based format. The types of formats that might want to focus on three color relationships, and traditionally awkward cards like Rhox War Monk.

It wasn't a negation of all forms of mana base design; the implication you're suggesting isn't an implication I was making.

It also strikes me as peculiar that a traditional RTL mana base exists. It seems to me that this is the place where people push the edges of cube design and try new things. We have people here running custom cards and bizarre Squadron Hawk configurations and all manner of assorted experimentation and individuality. How did we arrive at a "standard" mana base, and why does it persist? Is it because mana bases aren't sexy, and designing them is boring, and it's easy to slot in 40x fetch/shock lands? Regardless of whether you agree with the (quite) Mad Prophet, I think the lesson that needs to be taken from this is that the traditional Riptide mana base isn't inviolate--it's a huge untapped reservoir of design space.

Note that I'm not really calling out Grillo here, his bounceland usage is an excellent example of what I'm talking about. I've also been impressed by Raveborn's implementation of Aether Hub. There's more space. There's more to play with.

Again, this isn't a negation of a forms of mana base design that are or may exist. Its just a reflection that when Jason created the forum, his fetch-shock mana base was tremendously influential, and most people copied/still copy it. This is reflected in mad prophet's OP, which focuses on the fetch-shock dynamic. In fact to quote him:

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.

He wasn't talking about all the mana bases that you find on RTL, he was talking about a specific mana base that is very common here because the forum's owner popularized it.

This is the frame the conversation evolved out of, and which I am holding here.

 

[StormEntity]

Cool, thanks for clarifying. I get now that you were talking specifically in reference to Onder's setup.

Another point, though, this one just for the record and not directed at anyone in particular: Jason's fetch-shock setup was and is indeed highly influential, but I think it's time for an update. It's a great mana base. People will get to cast their spells, and they'll know how to evaluate all their lands when they sit down to draft. They'll be able to combo their lands with Brainstorm, too. Fetchlands create a number of lovely interactions. But they're interactions that have played out in nearly every cube since the dawn of the format. (going all the way back to Tom LaPille's cube) Besides, lots of people aren't even working in the framework Jason designed the mana base for. He plays five Brainstorm, for God's sake. Nobody else, to my knowledge, is going to those extremes to enable the fetch-shock mana base. This mana base evolved from the principle of creating interesting interactions with your mana base--if you're not going to use all or many of the interactions this mana base enables, maybe it's best to try inventing something that your cube environment can and will take advantage of. I don't think there ought to be a default mana base, not when they have such power to drive a format.

A short list of interesting interactions with alternate mana bases:
+


+


+


+


+


+


+

+

If you have something wild you want your cube to be doing, and you have been having difficulty supporting it, take a good long look at your lands. I bet there's a way to make it work if you slaughter a sacred cow or two.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Ok, that makes a lot of sense than. I knew there was some factor unique to the player base that was missing. Its a little frustrating because I wanted to get a better idea how tri-color mana bases should look. I was expecting tri-lands as mandatory fixing pieces (at least one row), with a slightly higher density (say 13-15%?). Fetch-shocks are pretty good at enabling 3 color decks, but sort of the dream is always to open things up to 3cc or 4cc tri-cards on curve.

I'll say that it's very hard to correctly support ten shards/wedges in one cube. If you want to support a tricolor theme, I really think restricting your cube to five color pairs and the corresponding five shards/wedges is the way to go. The mana base in my cube plays really solid, precisely because there is so much overlapping demand from drafters. I cannot recommend the free triland with the tricolor cards highly enough. It makes sure the triland ends up with someone who actually wants it, experienced players can just pick it for the fixing, or may be tempted to go three colors anyway now that they have a good fixer and a card worth splashing for, and there's more space in the cube for actual cards to flesh out themes, strengthen mono colored sections, etc. Make sure you don't give this land for free with hybrid cards though, as those are actually easier to cast than normal two color cards.

All in all I think my cube offers good insight into what a good tricolor mana base could look like, but it's best at supporting a five guild environment that occasionally branches into three color decks. That is what my drafters gravitated to in the early days of my cube, despite it being full on three color support, so I've gradually dialed back the three color focus a bit to accomodate natural draft preferences. It's still very much possible to go three colors though, and there's certainly some rewards waiting for a player who chooses to do so, in the form of powerful three color card and, more importantly, cross guild synergies.

Do you have any commentary on the grokability of tri-lands as modal duals? Are they just not suitable for casual players?

I sometimes think trilands short-circuit my player's brains. I don't know why, but some players will look at a pack with, say, a Crumbling Necropolis, a Frostburn Weird and a bunch of green, white, and black cards, think "I'm in , let's pick up the only on-color card", and completely ignore the Necropolis. I guess the brain categorizes Crumbling Necropolis as a Grixis card for convenience, and players only reevaluate that categorization if they're forced to think on the card because there's nothing else apparent in the pack that they want?

This is pretty much what I expected. My casual players will often get caught up chasing the dream, and with no stakes on the line in draft, try to make something cool happen, usually at the expense of the competitiveness of their deck or consistency of their mana bases.

Thats fine, but sometimes they completely externalize their issues, and they become stubborn, rather than growing as drafters or players. That type of feedback I tend to ignore.

And rightly so. Somehow the player who's most adamant about running so few lands always manages to win enough games where the mana flows just right that he isn't forced to learn the hard way. I'm convinced someday karma will find a way to punish him

 

[Jason Waddell]

StormEntity's list of land interactions is cool and thought provoking. Largely, it makes me think about building a new environment from the ground up with a different mana base.

For context, one of the main benefits to switching to a double-fetch environment was that it immediately improved the balance of aggro in my cube, at a time when half the cube articles you saw were attempts to "make aggro viable". Moreover, a higher fetch density meant there were more fixers for a streamlined two-color deck to play, whereas traditional cubes might have only had, say, 3 or 4 lands such a deck could use.

 

[Mad Prophet]

StormEntity's list of land interactions is cool and thought provoking. Largely, it makes me think about building a new environment from the ground up with a different mana base.

My cube is largely an attempt to do just this. After some feedback from you folks on the potential problems with cutting duals out of the equation, I decided to see if I could design a dynamic and fun environment with a minimum of fixing lands.

I'll be the first to admit that color screw has been a problem in some of the games, but it's been fun designing weird decks that still need to function off mostly basics.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Question for the prophet, somewhat serious: if the primary argument is that you want more spells, why not run 16-card packs?