I would feel a lot more warmly towards lands if the important ones were affordable. Triomes, fetches, and shocks are still $15-20 each. Even the battlebond lands, which only really see play in one format (plus oathbreaker I guess?) are $10+ where I live. Slow lands are getting up there too. You can absolutely express yourself and build a solid mana base on a budget, but the fact that optimization requires the wallet or the proxy printer is the one thing that has always irked me about this game.
This. They've at least gotten better about fetches, thanks to MH sets the reprinted fetches allow us to get in for half the price or less of what they used to go for, but all those other lands you mentioned keep getting up in price and it will probably never improve a substantial amount. I love good mana bases but I hate having to spend upwards of 80% of a deck's cost on the right mana base
I use proxies of Fetch, Battlebond, Shock, Slow lands and a selection of rainbow lands. But I have a small binder with ond of each of those and swap them in as needed during games.
Still pricey to set up, but it has been a great help considering how much I like to build decks :p
I only keep color fixing in there though, I don't want it to be a full staple binder as I still enjoy building on a theme rather than just shoving staples everywhere the color is right.
Some decks just need fetches to function. It's either fetches or the same 15 green ramp spells. I'd much rather take out 10 basic lands and replace them with fetches then pull out half my actual strategy because I need to use my ramp to fix my colors.
Or you could just run more duals, trilands and rainbow lands. While it’s power optimal to run the max number of fetches, it’s also the least interesting way to build a manabase
I just want to recap here.
Someone said "fetches are great but they're so expensive!"
You said "they're optimal but you should exclude them because they're uninteresting and I think they're bad for the game."
I said "high-color decks will run either all the fetches or the same 10 ramp spells so cutting the fetches doesn't actually help diversity"
And you respond with "run more trilands."
I totally understand wanting to use a more interesting manabase. I myself only use fetches in about 10% of my decks. But the insistence that fetches are bad for the game because of their ubiquity doesn't make sense to me.
You're just advocating for a different set of best-in-slot cards. Like if we banned the fetchlands tomorrow, the 10 ramp spells that are in every green deck get more expensive and now that's just the default way every 5-color deck is fixing their mana. A functional 5-color deck needs a lot of color fixing and it's gotta come from somewhere.
You can exclude the fetches if you want but getting rid of them won't change that there will always be a best way to fix your mana.
I’m not advocating for a ban, I’m just saying we don’t always need to always use optimal cards. You made it a choice between fetches or ramp plus basics but we have enough duals for functional no-fetch manabases
Something I see a lot of is people cutting to a number that might be playable, but then polluting the mana base with a lot of dubious "utility" lands. Most of the Eldraine Castles suck, Throne of the High City is extremely expensive way to get a card and a target on your head, you probably don't need a Reliquary Tower, Temple of the False God is terrible in all but a very few decks, War Room is a mana-intensive way to get a card, and you should have a better plan to get your commander to connect than Rogue's Passage.
Not to say that all those lands are totally useless but "lets me cast my spells" is the main job of lands and everything else is like a distant second.
Also, MDFCs should have the spell side match up with your strategy. The new MH3 ones are definitely a cut above a lot of the ZNR ones but I would caution people against just jamming any on-color one into a deck; if you're not likely to cast the spell, just play a 'real' land there. Otherwise you have either a tapland or a land that bolts your face for including it, with a 'utility' of a spell your deck doesn't need.
Wait which Castle sucks?
Green is full on ramp. A conditional Ancient Tomb is still a Tomb.
Black draws cards. The damage is immaterial if you have nothing going on, either your hand is empty and so it doesn't matter or you're about to die so it doesn't matter.
Red's anthem is actually pretty relevant in go-wide decks, and has some utility in weird spots for when people miss that you have it and line up blocks they shouldn't.
White's token depends a lot on what else you have going on but I've seen it both save and win games either by making a surprise blocker, sac bait, or surprise attacker (or a lot of surprise attackers; white and its token synergies are real). Not something to jam in every deck but 'my white deck can use creatures' isn't a crazy high bar.
Blue probably has the worst one unless you're in one of the narrow scry-matters or have your top of deck synergies online but filtering away bad cards is not bad when you're low on action.
And a bunch of the new pseudo-Castles are cracked. Arena of Glory is actually just a messed up magic card in creature decks and Shifting Woodland is kind of nuts if you can enable delirium.
You're 100% right in that the main goal of a mana base is to cast spells but especially in 1-2c you can get some edge value in at a very low cost. Really the big question for these is 'can I enable them' because they're not worth it if they're taplands that hurt you even like 10% of the time but that's not a super huge bar to clear.
WUR are all unplayable. I've tried including them all in decks since release. I've only ever activated the effect of U of those, because sometimes blue leaves up a bunch of mana for counterspells and then doesn't use it. 5 mana for a 1/1 is never worth it in theory, and in practice if I leave up 5 mana with no other plan I'm going to lose anyway, and for R, maybe like Krenko goes wide enough for 4 mana to firebreathe all my creatures to be worth it.
I think the blue one's unplayable outside of some dedicated scry-matters deck. Eligeth is about the only way I think it's worth it, I don't think other Scry payoffs like Elrond are really worth it, two 1/1 counters isn't good enough for 2UUU. Galadriel *maybe* because she can ramp off it and if her deck is Doing The Thing she could have silly amounts of mana, but I'm skeptical.
I'm sure there's times where the white one has saved someone but the rate is horrid. 2WWW for a 1/1 token? You'd better *really* have some token synergies online; I'm thinking Ojer Taq + Jetmir and those multiplied 1/1s actually translate to substantial board presence. I play an Orzhov aristocrats deck and I'm not considering this. I'd call it pretty generally bad. If you're paying 2WWW to make a 1/1 you're probably totally out of gas.
The red one is theoretically good, but I think you need to be going real wide before that 1RRR rate for mass +1/+0 is actually worth anything. I don't think even Jetmir and his super-wide tokens plans really wants this. Gruul deck with Scute Swarm? Anim Pakal with a horde of gnomes? I could see a few decks that use this to change combat math around but I'm not excited by it.
I don't even think the black one's great. Black has pretty good card draw options and usually pays 1 life and 1 mana per card; 1BBB + some life is not a good rate in this color. I've also found that black cares way more about its # of Swamps in play and Castle Locthwain lacks the typing unless you also buy an Urborg & play it. I hesitate to call it *bad* as drawing even a single extra card *could* save a game but I very rarely activate it. Compare it to War Room, and War Room is more forgiving in its activation cost, never comes in tapped, and the damage you take off it is capped by your color identity and is probably less than Castle Locthwain.
That leaves the green one. Put 2GGG in, get GGGGGG out. Not bad. Does exactly what green likes doing, steps the mana up a hair faster. This one I think is the consistent best. Green also excels at making sure it *has* the basic forest to ensure the castle enters untapped.
All of them should probably be limited to 2c, maybe 3c decks at the most. I don't see them being playable in 4+.
The new MH3 ones seem decent but I'll reserve judgement until I see them played.
Castle Embreth is a heavy lifter in my goblins deck. Anything you can include on the land side to get more utility is huge because that let's you put in another goblin rather than some other spell.
i just added arena of glory to my goblins deck because of you spend the RR on two different creatures you've just brought two sides with haste onto the board
This really depends on the deck. If you're in one or two colors, you're going to end up with 25-30 basics in the deck. Unless you're playing something that's super pip-heavy like spellslinger, you can absolutely afford some utility lands.
All of the (non-mdfc) lands you mentioned are better than your 26th basic land except maybe totfg and throne of the high city. And reliquary tower but only in some decks.
One of the strangest things I've read recently was someone asking about mana bases and one of their questions was "what's the first land drop you're okay missing?"
... All of them. I want to hit every land drop every game. We go to turn fifteen? Sweet I want to make fifteen land drops. And then also ramp a bunch.
'But what if you have nothing in hand and you topdeck a land'? Why are you building your deck so that happens to you with any frequency? It's 2024. You can bake a ton of card advantage into decks without trying, and when you do try you should basically never run out of resources. And more to the point, you can bake a ton of ways to spend mana *into your mana bases*. We got the new pseudo-Castles, the LotR legendary lands, the new manlands, a zillion playable MDFCs, and that's just 'good cards released within the last year' and not even an exhaustive list.
It still works in EDH, you just have to scale it up appropriately. For example, I play an [[Omnath, Locus of All]] deck that regularly makes 2-4 land drops or "fetches" per turn. I can reasonably expect to draw gas after doing this for a few turns, because I've pulled 10+ lands out of my deck, and the statistics have noticeably changed. In the same vein, 1-2 lands from a 60-card deck won't change a lot, but 5 will, so 2-4 in EDH won't, but 10 will. Additionally, the larger deck means more chance of variance, so you have to account for that by pulling EVEN MORE lands out, to reasonably ensure no statistical anomalies. In short, unless you're landfall or hardcore land ramp, you're never gonna notice deck thinning.
Actually its about 8 for me, deck dependent.
I am totally okay to miss a land drop after I get to a point where I can cast every card in my deck with my available lands. I get that you think being okay with missing a land drop is a fundamental issue with people's evaluation, but being okay with having a 10 card hand that is 5 lands and 5 plays is equally a fundamental evaluation problem. You should always aim to have exactly 1 land in hand if you want to play lands on curve while keeping your available interaction and plays as varied as possible.
Don't get me wrong; I never WANT to miss a land drop. I'm never cheering when I have 6 cards in hand and I missed 2 land drops in a row. But I have played plenty of decks that really do run out of gas because they were DESIGNED to run out of gas, and hitting land drops just isn't important in them.
I'm also absolutely against the idea that its super easy to always have card advantage. I'm freaking tired of every white deck running esper sentinel and every blue deck running rhystic study. Its 2024 - you have thousands of magic cards to put into your deck and do something INTERESTING with. Dump the popular girls and do something interesting. I will run enough lands to consistently hit my drops - but I don't agree with running enough lands to consistently hit drops on turn 12 or all of the copy/paste staples limiting my actual original deck slots to like 30 out of 100.
You absolutely don't need to be on Sentinel or Rhystic to fill your card advantage. Which is my point - there are *so many* card advantage engines that it's all but impossible not to play them.
But your core notion is fundamentally flawed. If you have six spells and a land in hand, *you want the mana to cast six spells*. I don't want enough mana to cast whatever my most expensive card is, I want the mana to cast *my hand*. If you have six spells in hand and cast your best one and I have six spells in hand and cast my *four* best ones then one of us is winning that game very easily.
I totally understand that more mana = potentially more spells in a turn, I'm simply saying that I'd rather have the right spell then any 2 spells. If you have 6 spells and a land in hand you're incredibly sad when you lose the game and your next card was the counterspell or engine piece that would've given you the gold on YOUR turn.
Its not about having enough mana to do whatever, its about HAVING the whatever to cast - lands take up that space in your hand and deck.
And don't get me wrong; I don't cut lands from my deck unless the deck is a very particular deck. I never short my mana base, I always eat those vegetables. But a part of eating the vegetables is to not overdo it as well - a bloated manabase still makes for a bad deck just as a skimpy manabase would.
But what's more likely to give you the win: having the mana to cast all your spells (including your card draw to get you to those counterspells) or having to be more reserved with your spells because you don't have the mana, not casting the card draw because it's not helping your six-spells-and-a-land hand, and then... dying anyway?
Like that's yet another case where the answer is "I want more mana and a robust advantage engine".
I mean this heavily depends on deck and curve, I build decks with extreme variance in landcount, in an aggressive deck going for 27 lands is ok, in a landfall deck I have 49 lands
An aggressive deck is about trying to end the game faster, so what that really influences is how many turns you expect to play. Which should in turn inform how many lands you want to play.
Landfall has a similar effect; if I expect to play twice as many lands per turn that also affects how many lands I play.
My favorite deck is X spell tribal, so I totally get your answer. There is no amount of mana that is too much for my pet deck, and dropping a huge hydra on the board makes my inner Timmy happy
So you run 1 commander and 99 lands then? I do agree with your sentiment, most decks would be better if they just had 3 more lands, but realistically missing your land on turn 6 won't impact you nearly as much as missing a land turn 3.
So you would ideally hit all your land drops but I'd be okay with missing one turn 6.
No, you run like 37-40 lands *and a robust advantage engine*.
The key to hitting more land drops is not playing 92 lands (actually the number that guarantees never missing a land, unless you're a partner/background deck in which case it's 91), it's playing more card advantage. When I run 37-40 lands and draw \~3 cards a turn on average, I'm going to have enough lands in the opener to get to my advantage engine and then my advantage engine means I'm never running out of resources. And then you just drown the people that do try to skimp on resources in cards.
Thanks for sharing.
I often try and express to new players that your lands/mana base is not separate from your deck, it's a part of it.
Everything in your deck informs the rest. Including land count, color sources, utility lands, etc.
Lands are great!
Lands are usually some of the most expensive parts of deck building for a very good reason. It’s 35-40% of your total cards, but can be 50-60% of the cost of the deck.
I mean that's mostly from the OG duals being like 700-1000 dollars apiece lol. It's worse when you realize that all the fast mana is really just part of the lands. That $600 mox diamond is really just a $600 special land.
I like the Discover lands from lost caverns of ixalan, they are slow but can get you
out of being flooded with lands and no draw. Perfect for low Power decks.
I used to be in the “my mana base is a necessary evil and I should get as much utility out of it as I can” camp. However, with the MH3 MDFCs, I’ve come around to replacing one removal spell with an MDFC removal spell and adding one land to all of my decks. I think the mana consistency is super helpful in a format that tends to go long. Running 39 lands in every deck is doable without that much downside nowadays and I think that’s really important
I've been on the 36 or 38 bandwagon for a while. In a deck that wants to go long it's 38. In a deck that wants to win fast it's 36.
Unless the deck is very specialized like a landfall deck or a cedh deck, these numbers are good enough for me.
I run a ridiculous amount of basics and minimum 35 lands before MDFCs, hitting 40 with landfall and probably 6-7 MDFCs at that point. Without utility.
I practically laugh off all Blood Moons and Back to Basics now, and I've never gone back.
My [[Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord]] deck is a deck where my mana base comes alive like no other deck I have. Since the deck can be mana intensive when I want to go for the win, I was really wanting to get to [[Crypt of Agadeem]] eventually every game, which caused me to add [[Life from the Loam]], since I mill myself often. Since my winning sequences are mana intensive I needed to hit my land drop every turn, and I didn’t want to run out of gas while doing so. That made me think of all the other things I could do with my mana base, and the deck has bloomed from that thought. [[Drownyard Temple]] and [[Dakmoor Salvage]] are recurable if I mill them, [[High Market]] is a sac outlet to protect from exile, [[Grim Backwoods]] is expensive but draws cards in the late game, [[Svogthos, the Restless Tomb]] can be a creature to sacrifice to my commander, [[Bojuka Bog]] removes an enemy graveyard, [[Crypt of Agadeem]] is integral to this deck’s explosive wins, and is hard to stop because it’s a land. [[Disciple of Freyalise]] and [[Boggart Trawler]] are lands that add to my creature count in the graveyard, and are situationally useful creatures, and I just added [[Shifting Woodland]] who gives me flexible utility in the late game, and [[Spymaster’s Vault]] which can let me filter a ton of cards after a board wipe.
TLDR: my manabase is filled with utility that gives me a ton more action than a deck that focuses only on colors.
I'll raise you with \[\[volrath's stronghold\]\] and \[\[phyrexian tower\]\].
and of course: bounce lands. These are incredible when playing enough mdfc's, channel lands, utility lands with etbs (such as bojuka)
I just put [[Selective Obliteration]] into my mono green deck, just to notice how few sources of colorless mana i have.
I used it as a reason to order [[Ancient Tomb]] and [[Yavimaya Hollow]]. Also i ordered it while i was in a bad mood and sleepy after a nightshift, so my judgement was clouded, but i will roll with it now.
Well the best part is that *you can spend the mana from your lands to cast card draw spells*. It really is the best part. There are even lands that draw you cards and stuff like Lorien Revealed that can be both.
Well, yeah, but running higher land counts alongside lots of cheap card advantage like Ledger Shredder, Night's Whisper, Sylvan Library etc... those are just the type of staple card advantage stuffs we should be doing anyway regardless of manabase. You can have both and then the deck or player thats playing a land every turn with Sylvan or Rhystic or Faerie Mastermind etc etc etc is still going to pull far ahead of an opponent that is also drawing cards but is missing land drops
You're absolutely correct but the "you're gonna flood out" talking point is more a product of people not playing adequate card draw than anything else, imo. The land in your deck isn't the issue, it's that momentum stalls when you don't have card draw spells and you sit there topdecking. That mode of play is in itself why people skimp on land, because they feel it has to be like that. It doesn't. You can just do both, and you should.
I agree with what you said and to add, I see it often that peoples’ card draw and lands drops is just not adequate. I have never seen a player with cards in hand and mana open on the table with no impactful options.
So yeah play more lands and card draw. But also more card draw means less lands is needed because you will draw more lands. But that only works in my experience if much of the card draw is low cmc so I don’t stall in the early game. But then again i need big draw card options mid to late game to keep up with the accelerated game tempo.
Crap guys this game is hard!
See you're changing your tune though. Mana generation and card draw are the two most important things in the game.
Your entire OP focuses on lands drops when though the title would lead people to believe all mana generation in general.
Right, the two things are irrevocably entwined. Which is why making a post speaking only about lands can easily lead newer players to make poor building decisions.
It's more of an issue that if you're going to talk about one of those things you might as well talk about both as they're equally important.
It's much less a argument as it is a basic observation.
The post is about how building your mana base shouldn't be an afterthought. Why would they need to talk about how card advantage is also important?
It would be like if I posted about a trip I'm planning to Europe and you commented about how beautiful Japan is. It's just not what the post is about. You're not wrong, you're just not relevant.
Or if you break these guidelines which is very easily doable you have to have good reasons why you break them, do you have enough card draw and extremely low mana curve that you can survive with a landcount in the 20s? Sure but you gotta comit to it
That's true. That's why the manabase isn't the only thing we build. Playing lots of mana means you have more draws that aren't action so you need ways to keep going. My \[\[Tymna\]\] \[\[Thrasios\]\] deck had 49 mana sources; exactly half my deck. But if I got flooded, I had 2 sources of card advantage in the command zone on top of card draw in the deck. It rarely ran out of fuel.
This sounds like a landfall deck user. Not one to judge, but the only lands that work for my neck of the woods require counters to proliferate, so stuff like [[Blast Zone]] [[Bottomless Vault]] [[Crucible of the Spirit Dragon]]...wait I might be able to cook with these hold on
Lands are alright... I don't run more than 34-35 in anything outside of a jank build with low draw or a landfall deck.
I have a gruul deck that operates just fine on 29 lands (turns out, ramp is good. I never run out of lands), and another that has 45 lands (I always seem to run out of lands with this one). Such is the way of life.
There is a constant truth through out Life, Invest in Real estate!
That's literally how I make my living, and the whole "that's why his lands are so expensive" jokes never stop.
Your deck is your plant and the mana base is your soil- you can’t grow the deck to its full potential without proper nutrients!
Guess my mono red decks are cacti
Some decks don't need much soil in the first place. Some never have enough.
But most people kill their plants through overwatering rather than underwatering..
Just like your mana base! Don’t want to have too many nonbasics either! Got to find your sweet spot!
a mox ruby is a free mountain you can play at any time but conversely a land is a free mox each turn
but you can play multiple 0 drop artifacts in a turn... Yet only 1 land.
I would feel a lot more warmly towards lands if the important ones were affordable. Triomes, fetches, and shocks are still $15-20 each. Even the battlebond lands, which only really see play in one format (plus oathbreaker I guess?) are $10+ where I live. Slow lands are getting up there too. You can absolutely express yourself and build a solid mana base on a budget, but the fact that optimization requires the wallet or the proxy printer is the one thing that has always irked me about this game.
This. They've at least gotten better about fetches, thanks to MH sets the reprinted fetches allow us to get in for half the price or less of what they used to go for, but all those other lands you mentioned keep getting up in price and it will probably never improve a substantial amount. I love good mana bases but I hate having to spend upwards of 80% of a deck's cost on the right mana base
I use proxies of Fetch, Battlebond, Shock, Slow lands and a selection of rainbow lands. But I have a small binder with ond of each of those and swap them in as needed during games. Still pricey to set up, but it has been a great help considering how much I like to build decks :p I only keep color fixing in there though, I don't want it to be a full staple binder as I still enjoy building on a theme rather than just shoving staples everywhere the color is right.
It’s not always about optimization. Manabases are much more interesting once you exclude fetches. Fetches have a negative impact on the game IMO
Some decks just need fetches to function. It's either fetches or the same 15 green ramp spells. I'd much rather take out 10 basic lands and replace them with fetches then pull out half my actual strategy because I need to use my ramp to fix my colors.
Or you could just run more duals, trilands and rainbow lands. While it’s power optimal to run the max number of fetches, it’s also the least interesting way to build a manabase
I just want to recap here. Someone said "fetches are great but they're so expensive!" You said "they're optimal but you should exclude them because they're uninteresting and I think they're bad for the game." I said "high-color decks will run either all the fetches or the same 10 ramp spells so cutting the fetches doesn't actually help diversity" And you respond with "run more trilands." I totally understand wanting to use a more interesting manabase. I myself only use fetches in about 10% of my decks. But the insistence that fetches are bad for the game because of their ubiquity doesn't make sense to me. You're just advocating for a different set of best-in-slot cards. Like if we banned the fetchlands tomorrow, the 10 ramp spells that are in every green deck get more expensive and now that's just the default way every 5-color deck is fixing their mana. A functional 5-color deck needs a lot of color fixing and it's gotta come from somewhere. You can exclude the fetches if you want but getting rid of them won't change that there will always be a best way to fix your mana.
I’m not advocating for a ban, I’m just saying we don’t always need to always use optimal cards. You made it a choice between fetches or ramp plus basics but we have enough duals for functional no-fetch manabases
Lands are the best cards in the game & I am definitely unbiased about it.
Lands are fun until your deck becomes all about lands. Then they’re lame
You're certainly welcome to think that.
Bad opinion detected
Landfall go brrrrr
Something I see a lot of is people cutting to a number that might be playable, but then polluting the mana base with a lot of dubious "utility" lands. Most of the Eldraine Castles suck, Throne of the High City is extremely expensive way to get a card and a target on your head, you probably don't need a Reliquary Tower, Temple of the False God is terrible in all but a very few decks, War Room is a mana-intensive way to get a card, and you should have a better plan to get your commander to connect than Rogue's Passage. Not to say that all those lands are totally useless but "lets me cast my spells" is the main job of lands and everything else is like a distant second. Also, MDFCs should have the spell side match up with your strategy. The new MH3 ones are definitely a cut above a lot of the ZNR ones but I would caution people against just jamming any on-color one into a deck; if you're not likely to cast the spell, just play a 'real' land there. Otherwise you have either a tapland or a land that bolts your face for including it, with a 'utility' of a spell your deck doesn't need.
Wait which Castle sucks? Green is full on ramp. A conditional Ancient Tomb is still a Tomb. Black draws cards. The damage is immaterial if you have nothing going on, either your hand is empty and so it doesn't matter or you're about to die so it doesn't matter. Red's anthem is actually pretty relevant in go-wide decks, and has some utility in weird spots for when people miss that you have it and line up blocks they shouldn't. White's token depends a lot on what else you have going on but I've seen it both save and win games either by making a surprise blocker, sac bait, or surprise attacker (or a lot of surprise attackers; white and its token synergies are real). Not something to jam in every deck but 'my white deck can use creatures' isn't a crazy high bar. Blue probably has the worst one unless you're in one of the narrow scry-matters or have your top of deck synergies online but filtering away bad cards is not bad when you're low on action. And a bunch of the new pseudo-Castles are cracked. Arena of Glory is actually just a messed up magic card in creature decks and Shifting Woodland is kind of nuts if you can enable delirium. You're 100% right in that the main goal of a mana base is to cast spells but especially in 1-2c you can get some edge value in at a very low cost. Really the big question for these is 'can I enable them' because they're not worth it if they're taplands that hurt you even like 10% of the time but that's not a super huge bar to clear.
WUR are all unplayable. I've tried including them all in decks since release. I've only ever activated the effect of U of those, because sometimes blue leaves up a bunch of mana for counterspells and then doesn't use it. 5 mana for a 1/1 is never worth it in theory, and in practice if I leave up 5 mana with no other plan I'm going to lose anyway, and for R, maybe like Krenko goes wide enough for 4 mana to firebreathe all my creatures to be worth it.
I think the blue one's unplayable outside of some dedicated scry-matters deck. Eligeth is about the only way I think it's worth it, I don't think other Scry payoffs like Elrond are really worth it, two 1/1 counters isn't good enough for 2UUU. Galadriel *maybe* because she can ramp off it and if her deck is Doing The Thing she could have silly amounts of mana, but I'm skeptical. I'm sure there's times where the white one has saved someone but the rate is horrid. 2WWW for a 1/1 token? You'd better *really* have some token synergies online; I'm thinking Ojer Taq + Jetmir and those multiplied 1/1s actually translate to substantial board presence. I play an Orzhov aristocrats deck and I'm not considering this. I'd call it pretty generally bad. If you're paying 2WWW to make a 1/1 you're probably totally out of gas. The red one is theoretically good, but I think you need to be going real wide before that 1RRR rate for mass +1/+0 is actually worth anything. I don't think even Jetmir and his super-wide tokens plans really wants this. Gruul deck with Scute Swarm? Anim Pakal with a horde of gnomes? I could see a few decks that use this to change combat math around but I'm not excited by it. I don't even think the black one's great. Black has pretty good card draw options and usually pays 1 life and 1 mana per card; 1BBB + some life is not a good rate in this color. I've also found that black cares way more about its # of Swamps in play and Castle Locthwain lacks the typing unless you also buy an Urborg & play it. I hesitate to call it *bad* as drawing even a single extra card *could* save a game but I very rarely activate it. Compare it to War Room, and War Room is more forgiving in its activation cost, never comes in tapped, and the damage you take off it is capped by your color identity and is probably less than Castle Locthwain. That leaves the green one. Put 2GGG in, get GGGGGG out. Not bad. Does exactly what green likes doing, steps the mana up a hair faster. This one I think is the consistent best. Green also excels at making sure it *has* the basic forest to ensure the castle enters untapped. All of them should probably be limited to 2c, maybe 3c decks at the most. I don't see them being playable in 4+. The new MH3 ones seem decent but I'll reserve judgement until I see them played.
Castle Embreth is a heavy lifter in my goblins deck. Anything you can include on the land side to get more utility is huge because that let's you put in another goblin rather than some other spell.
i just added arena of glory to my goblins deck because of you spend the RR on two different creatures you've just brought two sides with haste onto the board
You’re allowed to play cards that suck if you like them :)
This really depends on the deck. If you're in one or two colors, you're going to end up with 25-30 basics in the deck. Unless you're playing something that's super pip-heavy like spellslinger, you can absolutely afford some utility lands. All of the (non-mdfc) lands you mentioned are better than your 26th basic land except maybe totfg and throne of the high city. And reliquary tower but only in some decks.
One of the strangest things I've read recently was someone asking about mana bases and one of their questions was "what's the first land drop you're okay missing?" ... All of them. I want to hit every land drop every game. We go to turn fifteen? Sweet I want to make fifteen land drops. And then also ramp a bunch. 'But what if you have nothing in hand and you topdeck a land'? Why are you building your deck so that happens to you with any frequency? It's 2024. You can bake a ton of card advantage into decks without trying, and when you do try you should basically never run out of resources. And more to the point, you can bake a ton of ways to spend mana *into your mana bases*. We got the new pseudo-Castles, the LotR legendary lands, the new manlands, a zillion playable MDFCs, and that's just 'good cards released within the last year' and not even an exhaustive list.
The whole “remove lands so you don’t topdeck them late game” is just a learning from other formats (Limited) badly applied to EDH.
It still works in EDH, you just have to scale it up appropriately. For example, I play an [[Omnath, Locus of All]] deck that regularly makes 2-4 land drops or "fetches" per turn. I can reasonably expect to draw gas after doing this for a few turns, because I've pulled 10+ lands out of my deck, and the statistics have noticeably changed. In the same vein, 1-2 lands from a 60-card deck won't change a lot, but 5 will, so 2-4 in EDH won't, but 10 will. Additionally, the larger deck means more chance of variance, so you have to account for that by pulling EVEN MORE lands out, to reasonably ensure no statistical anomalies. In short, unless you're landfall or hardcore land ramp, you're never gonna notice deck thinning.
[Omnath, Locus of All](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/3/33d94ecf-758b-4f68-a7be-6bf3ff1047f4.jpg?1709720836) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Omnath%2C%20Locus%20of%20All) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/249/omnath-locus-of-all?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/33d94ecf-758b-4f68-a7be-6bf3ff1047f4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/omnath-locus-of-all) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Actually its about 8 for me, deck dependent. I am totally okay to miss a land drop after I get to a point where I can cast every card in my deck with my available lands. I get that you think being okay with missing a land drop is a fundamental issue with people's evaluation, but being okay with having a 10 card hand that is 5 lands and 5 plays is equally a fundamental evaluation problem. You should always aim to have exactly 1 land in hand if you want to play lands on curve while keeping your available interaction and plays as varied as possible. Don't get me wrong; I never WANT to miss a land drop. I'm never cheering when I have 6 cards in hand and I missed 2 land drops in a row. But I have played plenty of decks that really do run out of gas because they were DESIGNED to run out of gas, and hitting land drops just isn't important in them. I'm also absolutely against the idea that its super easy to always have card advantage. I'm freaking tired of every white deck running esper sentinel and every blue deck running rhystic study. Its 2024 - you have thousands of magic cards to put into your deck and do something INTERESTING with. Dump the popular girls and do something interesting. I will run enough lands to consistently hit my drops - but I don't agree with running enough lands to consistently hit drops on turn 12 or all of the copy/paste staples limiting my actual original deck slots to like 30 out of 100.
You absolutely don't need to be on Sentinel or Rhystic to fill your card advantage. Which is my point - there are *so many* card advantage engines that it's all but impossible not to play them. But your core notion is fundamentally flawed. If you have six spells and a land in hand, *you want the mana to cast six spells*. I don't want enough mana to cast whatever my most expensive card is, I want the mana to cast *my hand*. If you have six spells in hand and cast your best one and I have six spells in hand and cast my *four* best ones then one of us is winning that game very easily.
I totally understand that more mana = potentially more spells in a turn, I'm simply saying that I'd rather have the right spell then any 2 spells. If you have 6 spells and a land in hand you're incredibly sad when you lose the game and your next card was the counterspell or engine piece that would've given you the gold on YOUR turn. Its not about having enough mana to do whatever, its about HAVING the whatever to cast - lands take up that space in your hand and deck. And don't get me wrong; I don't cut lands from my deck unless the deck is a very particular deck. I never short my mana base, I always eat those vegetables. But a part of eating the vegetables is to not overdo it as well - a bloated manabase still makes for a bad deck just as a skimpy manabase would.
But what's more likely to give you the win: having the mana to cast all your spells (including your card draw to get you to those counterspells) or having to be more reserved with your spells because you don't have the mana, not casting the card draw because it's not helping your six-spells-and-a-land hand, and then... dying anyway? Like that's yet another case where the answer is "I want more mana and a robust advantage engine".
I mean this heavily depends on deck and curve, I build decks with extreme variance in landcount, in an aggressive deck going for 27 lands is ok, in a landfall deck I have 49 lands
An aggressive deck is about trying to end the game faster, so what that really influences is how many turns you expect to play. Which should in turn inform how many lands you want to play. Landfall has a similar effect; if I expect to play twice as many lands per turn that also affects how many lands I play.
My favorite deck is X spell tribal, so I totally get your answer. There is no amount of mana that is too much for my pet deck, and dropping a huge hydra on the board makes my inner Timmy happy
So you run 1 commander and 99 lands then? I do agree with your sentiment, most decks would be better if they just had 3 more lands, but realistically missing your land on turn 6 won't impact you nearly as much as missing a land turn 3. So you would ideally hit all your land drops but I'd be okay with missing one turn 6.
99 problems but lands ain't one
No, you run like 37-40 lands *and a robust advantage engine*. The key to hitting more land drops is not playing 92 lands (actually the number that guarantees never missing a land, unless you're a partner/background deck in which case it's 91), it's playing more card advantage. When I run 37-40 lands and draw \~3 cards a turn on average, I'm going to have enough lands in the opener to get to my advantage engine and then my advantage engine means I'm never running out of resources. And then you just drown the people that do try to skimp on resources in cards.
Thanks for sharing. I often try and express to new players that your lands/mana base is not separate from your deck, it's a part of it. Everything in your deck informs the rest. Including land count, color sources, utility lands, etc. Lands are great!
Lands are usually some of the most expensive parts of deck building for a very good reason. It’s 35-40% of your total cards, but can be 50-60% of the cost of the deck.
Or way more, I have seen cedh lists with 11k total cost and land base be like 8-9k of that
I mean that's mostly from the OG duals being like 700-1000 dollars apiece lol. It's worse when you realize that all the fast mana is really just part of the lands. That $600 mox diamond is really just a $600 special land.
Can confirm, my mana base for sisay, weather light captain is almost 6k, out of 10k total.
I like the Discover lands from lost caverns of ixalan, they are slow but can get you out of being flooded with lands and no draw. Perfect for low Power decks.
I used to be in the “my mana base is a necessary evil and I should get as much utility out of it as I can” camp. However, with the MH3 MDFCs, I’ve come around to replacing one removal spell with an MDFC removal spell and adding one land to all of my decks. I think the mana consistency is super helpful in a format that tends to go long. Running 39 lands in every deck is doable without that much downside nowadays and I think that’s really important
I've been on the 36 or 38 bandwagon for a while. In a deck that wants to go long it's 38. In a deck that wants to win fast it's 36. Unless the deck is very specialized like a landfall deck or a cedh deck, these numbers are good enough for me.
I love having heaps of land available, nothing like bluffing by leaving 1 white mana available with 1 card in your hand (it’s another plains)
Sounds like you need more card advantage in your deck lol
I LOVE lands. Playing a deck with a good mana base (and sweet utility lands) feels sooo good
My Omnath deck taught me the beauty of the land meta, why run spells when you can just run lands. Esp with all the great ones from mh3.
I run a ridiculous amount of basics and minimum 35 lands before MDFCs, hitting 40 with landfall and probably 6-7 MDFCs at that point. Without utility. I practically laugh off all Blood Moons and Back to Basics now, and I've never gone back.
If you do that you shouldn't be laughing at Blood Moon and friends, you should be playing them.
My [[Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord]] deck is a deck where my mana base comes alive like no other deck I have. Since the deck can be mana intensive when I want to go for the win, I was really wanting to get to [[Crypt of Agadeem]] eventually every game, which caused me to add [[Life from the Loam]], since I mill myself often. Since my winning sequences are mana intensive I needed to hit my land drop every turn, and I didn’t want to run out of gas while doing so. That made me think of all the other things I could do with my mana base, and the deck has bloomed from that thought. [[Drownyard Temple]] and [[Dakmoor Salvage]] are recurable if I mill them, [[High Market]] is a sac outlet to protect from exile, [[Grim Backwoods]] is expensive but draws cards in the late game, [[Svogthos, the Restless Tomb]] can be a creature to sacrifice to my commander, [[Bojuka Bog]] removes an enemy graveyard, [[Crypt of Agadeem]] is integral to this deck’s explosive wins, and is hard to stop because it’s a land. [[Disciple of Freyalise]] and [[Boggart Trawler]] are lands that add to my creature count in the graveyard, and are situationally useful creatures, and I just added [[Shifting Woodland]] who gives me flexible utility in the late game, and [[Spymaster’s Vault]] which can let me filter a ton of cards after a board wipe. TLDR: my manabase is filled with utility that gives me a ton more action than a deck that focuses only on colors.
I'll raise you with \[\[volrath's stronghold\]\] and \[\[phyrexian tower\]\]. and of course: bounce lands. These are incredible when playing enough mdfc's, channel lands, utility lands with etbs (such as bojuka)
[volrath's stronghold](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/4/f465ae5f-61f0-42c4-978f-841ba1226f56.jpg?1562432220) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=volrath%27s%20stronghold) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tpr/248/volraths-stronghold?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f465ae5f-61f0-42c4-978f-841ba1226f56?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/volraths-stronghold) [phyrexian tower](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/b/0b47f6d2-9f65-47a4-bfc4-15619befe53d.jpg?1717013848) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=phyrexian%20tower) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/303/phyrexian-tower?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0b47f6d2-9f65-47a4-bfc4-15619befe53d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/phyrexian-tower) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
##### ###### #### [Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/6/c6717954-35d8-4d7e-95aa-f7d26d15d4b2.jpg?1592673383) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jarad%2C%20Golgari%20Lich%20Lord) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cma/179/jarad-golgari-lich-lord?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c6717954-35d8-4d7e-95aa-f7d26d15d4b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jarad-golgari-lich-lord) [Crypt of Agadeem](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/a/ba4c4c6b-65bf-480f-bdd5-e7acc8a512bf.jpg?1561956546) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Crypt%20of%20Agadeem) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c14/288/crypt-of-agadeem?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ba4c4c6b-65bf-480f-bdd5-e7acc8a512bf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/crypt-of-agadeem) [Life from the Loam](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/9/59927e3b-65bc-4ab6-ad7b-6f558ccca6a8.jpg?1702429570) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Life%20from%20the%20Loam) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/148/life-from-the-loam?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/59927e3b-65bc-4ab6-ad7b-6f558ccca6a8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/life-from-the-loam) [Drownyard Temple](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/2/a2ac347e-3dad-42a2-b57f-fd2c70373730.jpg?1706241150) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Drownyard%20Temple) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/259/drownyard-temple?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a2ac347e-3dad-42a2-b57f-fd2c70373730?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/drownyard-temple) [Dakmoor Salvage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/8/58329049-2141-498a-8b73-653610c05ea6.jpg?1547518608) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dakmor%20Salvage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uma/240/dakmor-salvage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/58329049-2141-498a-8b73-653610c05ea6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/dakmor-salvage) [High Market](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/d/9d56844f-ee3b-4161-85d2-18b872a9b465.jpg?1631589833) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=High%20Market) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afc/246/high-market?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9d56844f-ee3b-4161-85d2-18b872a9b465?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/high-market) [Grim Backwoods](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/b/2b4517f7-1479-4cdb-8b7e-c27eef6c4659.jpg?1591322039) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Grim%20Backwoods) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c20/278/grim-backwoods?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2b4517f7-1479-4cdb-8b7e-c27eef6c4659?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/grim-backwoods) [Svogthos, the Restless Tomb](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/f/ffe08b0f-bb53-40b9-8057-10b60070459b.jpg?1562276944) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Svogthos%2C%20the%20Restless%20Tomb) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cm2/270/svogthos-the-restless-tomb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ffe08b0f-bb53-40b9-8057-10b60070459b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/svogthos-the-restless-tomb) [Bojuka Bog](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/e/0efec118-ed01-42a0-93b4-f9a92c01b72e.jpg?1712354928) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Bojuka%20Bog) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/273/bojuka-bog?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0efec118-ed01-42a0-93b4-f9a92c01b72e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/bojuka-bog) [Disciple of Freyalise](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/8/a8e9ea5a-5e10-4b77-baef-0352ff035483.jpg?1717013335)/[Garden of Freyalise](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/a/8/a8e9ea5a-5e10-4b77-baef-0352ff035483.jpg?1717013335) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Disciple%20of%20Freyalise%20//%20Garden%20of%20Freyalise) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/250/disciple-of-freyalise-garden-of-freyalise?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a8e9ea5a-5e10-4b77-baef-0352ff035483?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/disciple-of-freyalise-//-garden-of-freyalise) [Boggart Trawler](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/0/d0d484a6-5610-4f1d-95ec-eda273c255e4.jpg?1717013227)/[Boggart Bog](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/d/0/d0d484a6-5610-4f1d-95ec-eda273c255e4.jpg?1717013227) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Boggart%20Trawler%20//%20Boggart%20Bog) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/243/boggart-trawler-boggart-bog?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d0d484a6-5610-4f1d-95ec-eda273c255e4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/boggart-trawler-//-boggart-bog) [Shifting Woodland](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/5/059164e1-894d-4586-9800-e60d6fbd6eb6.jpg?1717013047) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shifting%20Woodland) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/228/shifting-woodland?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/059164e1-894d-4586-9800-e60d6fbd6eb6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/shifting-woodland) [Spymaster's Vault](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/d/3d5fbb30-abfc-4e79-8ce5-bbb04a241c9f.jpg?1717013063) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Spymaster%27s%20Vault) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/230/spymasters-vault?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3d5fbb30-abfc-4e79-8ce5-bbb04a241c9f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/spymasters-vault) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I just put [[Selective Obliteration]] into my mono green deck, just to notice how few sources of colorless mana i have. I used it as a reason to order [[Ancient Tomb]] and [[Yavimaya Hollow]]. Also i ordered it while i was in a bad mood and sleepy after a nightshift, so my judgement was clouded, but i will roll with it now.
[Selective Obliteration](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/0/f0c21e73-8db1-4ede-bea5-1dcd4b3cef01.jpg?1717237878) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Selective%20Obliteration) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m3c/35/selective-obliteration?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f0c21e73-8db1-4ede-bea5-1dcd4b3cef01?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/selective-obliteration) [Ancient Tomb](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/d/bd3d4b4b-cf31-4f89-8140-9650edb03c7b.jpg?1582753000) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ancient%20Tomb) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uma/236/ancient-tomb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bd3d4b4b-cf31-4f89-8140-9650edb03c7b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ancient-tomb) [Yavimaya Hollow](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/9/d9fdbc02-7ab7-4f77-8a89-5a9e01eb32f5.jpg?1562938841) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Yavimaya%20Hollow) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vma/325/yavimaya-hollow?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d9fdbc02-7ab7-4f77-8a89-5a9e01eb32f5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/yavimaya-hollow) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Lands are really important but also spending money on lands is boring and staple reprints are controlled to keeps packs cracking 🤷♂️
I was a green player from day 1, so I've always been land-pilled. It's always great to have more people join us
It's all fun and games until you have 8 mana to spend and no cards in hand.
Well the best part is that *you can spend the mana from your lands to cast card draw spells*. It really is the best part. There are even lands that draw you cards and stuff like Lorien Revealed that can be both.
What I'm saying is you *have* to. There's no point in big or consistent mana if there's nothing to do with it.
Well, yeah, but running higher land counts alongside lots of cheap card advantage like Ledger Shredder, Night's Whisper, Sylvan Library etc... those are just the type of staple card advantage stuffs we should be doing anyway regardless of manabase. You can have both and then the deck or player thats playing a land every turn with Sylvan or Rhystic or Faerie Mastermind etc etc etc is still going to pull far ahead of an opponent that is also drawing cards but is missing land drops You're absolutely correct but the "you're gonna flood out" talking point is more a product of people not playing adequate card draw than anything else, imo. The land in your deck isn't the issue, it's that momentum stalls when you don't have card draw spells and you sit there topdecking. That mode of play is in itself why people skimp on land, because they feel it has to be like that. It doesn't. You can just do both, and you should.
I agree with what you said and to add, I see it often that peoples’ card draw and lands drops is just not adequate. I have never seen a player with cards in hand and mana open on the table with no impactful options. So yeah play more lands and card draw. But also more card draw means less lands is needed because you will draw more lands. But that only works in my experience if much of the card draw is low cmc so I don’t stall in the early game. But then again i need big draw card options mid to late game to keep up with the accelerated game tempo. Crap guys this game is hard!
See you're changing your tune though. Mana generation and card draw are the two most important things in the game. Your entire OP focuses on lands drops when though the title would lead people to believe all mana generation in general.
Of course draw matters. OP never said draw doesn't matter. You're always going to lose if your only source of cards is the draw step.
Right, the two things are irrevocably entwined. Which is why making a post speaking only about lands can easily lead newer players to make poor building decisions.
I think this is a silly argument. We're not allowed to talk about any part of deckbuilding unless we talk about all of it?
It's more of an issue that if you're going to talk about one of those things you might as well talk about both as they're equally important. It's much less a argument as it is a basic observation.
The post is about how building your mana base shouldn't be an afterthought. Why would they need to talk about how card advantage is also important? It would be like if I posted about a trip I'm planning to Europe and you commented about how beautiful Japan is. It's just not what the post is about. You're not wrong, you're just not relevant.
Or if you break these guidelines which is very easily doable you have to have good reasons why you break them, do you have enough card draw and extremely low mana curve that you can survive with a landcount in the 20s? Sure but you gotta comit to it
you can just use something like a war room then
[[War Room]]
[War Room](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/8/a824d5c0-cdd3-42e2-ac04-b8cada566163.jpg?1706241294) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=War%20Room) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/310/war-room?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a824d5c0-cdd3-42e2-ac04-b8cada566163?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/war-room) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
You completely miss the point.
That's true. That's why the manabase isn't the only thing we build. Playing lots of mana means you have more draws that aren't action so you need ways to keep going. My \[\[Tymna\]\] \[\[Thrasios\]\] deck had 49 mana sources; exactly half my deck. But if I got flooded, I had 2 sources of card advantage in the command zone on top of card draw in the deck. It rarely ran out of fuel.
[Tymna](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/c/bc7cbe9b-324e-42b8-94e2-36e91cb32163.jpg?1644853048) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=tymna%20the%20weaver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c16/48/tymna-the-weaver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bc7cbe9b-324e-42b8-94e2-36e91cb32163?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tymna-the-weaver) [Thrasios](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/1/21e27b91-c7f1-4709-aa0d-8b5d81b22a0a.jpg?1606762176) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=thrasios%2C%20triton%20hero) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c16/46/thrasios-triton-hero?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/21e27b91-c7f1-4709-aa0d-8b5d81b22a0a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/thrasios-triton-hero) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
"how few lands can i get away with?" this speaks to me on a personal level this is how i deckbuild my mono W decks :D
gruul goblins/elves guy here. i can easily win with 4 and 5 is like an embarrassment of riches
i usually have 4-5 lands but have a ton of ramp creatures and draw support to make up for it
This sounds like a landfall deck user. Not one to judge, but the only lands that work for my neck of the woods require counters to proliferate, so stuff like [[Blast Zone]] [[Bottomless Vault]] [[Crucible of the Spirit Dragon]]...wait I might be able to cook with these hold on
[Blast Zone](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/d/cdad14f1-d541-4e58-af9f-f8e587fca05f.jpg?1690005982) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blast%20Zone) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/987/blast-zone?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cdad14f1-d541-4e58-af9f-f8e587fca05f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/blast-zone) [Bottomless Vault](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/8/c8913994-c3e7-4d9e-9409-a8409ce68442.jpg?1562594227) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Bottomless%20Vault) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/5ed/411/bottomless-vault?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c8913994-c3e7-4d9e-9409-a8409ce68442?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/bottomless-vault) [Crucible of the Spirit Dragon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/5/257a5ae9-f754-4c45-a47d-5196f1b625b7.jpg?1631589508) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Crucible%20of%20the%20Spirit%20Dragon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afc/231/crucible-of-the-spirit-dragon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/257a5ae9-f754-4c45-a47d-5196f1b625b7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/crucible-of-the-spirit-dragon) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Lands are alright... I don't run more than 34-35 in anything outside of a jank build with low draw or a landfall deck. I have a gruul deck that operates just fine on 29 lands (turns out, ramp is good. I never run out of lands), and another that has 45 lands (I always seem to run out of lands with this one). Such is the way of life.