Outlook on Lands

[Komatteru]

So the other day I was playing DeathLong between rounds at an extended tournament, and someone asked how many lands I run.  When I answered "eleven," nearly everyone who was watching was a bit shocked.  They were amazed that a deck could run so little land.  They admitted that it seems to make sense not to include a large number of lands in a deck that plans to win the game in the first few turns, but the low number was still a bit distrubing to many of them, even though I mentioned that I run 11 artifact mana sources.  Some of them mentioned that they would not be comfortable playing a deck with such a low land count.

I commented that I get upset when I have to run 20 lands (like in my T2 deck), and reading Flores' latest article about RDW in extended about how each successful RDW build runs 24 lands.  Even though I'm sure it's necessary, that seemed a bit high to me because that deck has a low mana curve.  Then, I thought about how playing Vintage has changed my outlook on land.  Every deck I build in every format (including draft) pushes the boundary of an acceptable amount of lands.  I play as few as I possibly can.  When I test, I keep taking them out until I find the minimum number I can run and draw what I need to win.  I focus on drawing the exact amount of lands I need instead of just "enough."  I learned this from Vintage, where, right now more than ever, you can't just throw a bunch of lands in a deck and have it win.  In the olden days, you threw in a bunch of dual lands and you were good to go.  In every other format, you played 20 lands and that was about as much thought as you put into it.  Today, you have to run the absolute minimum if you want to win.  In general, the adage has been that it's better to have a few too more lands than you need than a few too little, but that's not really true in our format.  I absolutely hate drawing land when I don't need it, and would rather be aggressive in my land count because the odds are that I will win more games because of that than I will lose to mana screw.  When I lose to mana screw (which is not much more often than normal), I accept it as part of the game and a result of my aggressiveness.

Surely every competitive player makes sure he's playing a proper amount of land, but in our format especially drawing one more land than necessary can cost you a game.  Absolutely every spot in a Vintage deck is critical--there cannot be one card wasted to an unnecessary card, especially a land, something the other formats are a little more forgiving of.  We have Moxes to take the place of some land, but those are much more vulnerable (something Null Rod taught us), and many decks in other formats still play a full set of Chrome Mox, which is only one Mox fewer than Vintage decks run, in addition to a large number of land.  Even T2 Ravager traditionally runs 19 lands, despite having nothing in the deck that costs more than 2 (barring Affinity cards), with lots of 0 cost cards, while Fish ran a grand total of 6 colored mana producing lands (+2 Faerie Conclave, but those are a bit slow for mana), 4 of which were nonbasic in an environment with plenty of Wastelands to go around, and nearly as many fetchlands as "real lands."  Unpowered Madness even runs scant on lands, usually topping at 16-18 or so.

Has Vintage caused you to change your outlook on your land count and type you play (in all formats, including limited)?  Do you throttle the boundary, or do you err on the side of caution and play a couple more than you need to?  Are you more aggressive in some formats than others (e.g., always play at least 15 lands in a draft deck)?  Do you place as much importance on the landbase as you do on the spells you include, and if you do, how much did Vintage contribute to your making that distinction?

Rephrase: Has Vintage caused you to realize things about the land base that you might not have considered if you only played the other formats?

[Vegeta2711]

Obviously you want to hit a sweet spot for the amount of mana you can run w/o getting consistently screwed.

Absolutely every spot in a Vintage deck is critical--there cannot be one card wasted to an unnecessary card,

The fact that we're using more powerful cards than other formats means, if anything, we can run more useless cards than in other formats and it won't matter. Since it only takes 1-2 really strong ones to win the game.

Vintage has stressed 'put everything you can to accelerate the deck', but since that only really matters in this format, it hasn't helped squat about othe formats mana.

[Komatteru]

The fact that we're using more powerful cards than other formats means, if anything, we can run more useless cards than in other formats and it won't matter. Since it only takes 1-2 really strong ones to win the game.

The counterintutitive truth is that when you have more power available to you, each card spot becomes more important.  Case in point, computing.  Computers grow more powerful each day, so you think we could use slightly inefficient algorithms and still get away with it.  In reality, the opposite is true.  The more powerful computers get, the more efficient algorithms we need.  It's worse to put a terrible program on a great computer than it is to put that terrible program on a terrible computer.  Same concept applies in our format.  Playing one more land in T2 isn't as bad because the card you replace it with is not going to be horribly broken.  The larger the card pool is, the more important each spot becomes.  In Vintage, that extra land spot could be used for some restricted bomb that's going to win games by itself.  Other formats don't have that level of power to consider for each spot.

[Anders Noer]

mana bases aren't based on numbers only. While I agree that you should always strive to keep your landcount at a reasonable (low) level, I think it is much more important to consider the composition of your manabase.

Your local metagame has a lot to say in this as well. In a control meta, you'd want lots of basics, in an aggro/combo you'd want more consistancy (being able to go Prismatic without fearing too much denial is sweet) and against prisondecks you'd probably just want a combination of basics and MORE lands in general (since smokestack really doesn't discriminate between basics,fetchies or duals.

A manabase's composition is a lot more important than the actual number of lands in contains.

Also. Some cards are hard to dub "powerful". A maindeck Naturalize or Root Maze or even Blood Moon can be game breaking, but in some matchups it is chaff... Teched out metagame cards can be awesome in some matchups and miserable in others. I wouldn't cut them just because they might suck in one or two matchups. Even If I draw my Blood Moon against FCG, i still know that it will be worthwihile, when I face 4cC in the next round.

(I'll edit this later, since I'm in a hurry... sorry for bad grammar etc.)

[doomhed]

The General Idea I have drawn from vintage is that each archetype has its own basic mana sources/spells ratio, based on the speed needed for the deck to operate. the decks with the lower ratios (mostly budget decks) run the higher amounts of lands. most combo decks run 28-30 mana sources, very few of which are lands because thier fundemental turn is sooner than that of say, u/g madness which , fully powered, runs 21 lands, 3 power artifacts and has a much higher fundemental turn. Vintage has given me a greater understanding of tempo in the form of Deck constuction for direct tempo advantage, E.I. smaller manabases just to maximize the threats/mana to cast them ratio.

[Harlequin]

The question "how many lands do you run" doesnt really give you any information about your mana structure, nor does it give you a clear distribution of mana:cards.  
Remeber that each fetch land you play effectively lowers the number of cards you have in your deck.  If you think about it a pure probablilistic sense: playing with 60 cards 6 of wich ar fetch lands, would be almost exactly the same as playing with 54 cards none of wich are fetchlands.  This holds true even if you play a single color with only basics and fetches.  This point is somewhat tangent to the point at hand... but a deck that runs 6 fetch, 9 dual lands, and say 3 basics, would be missleading to say "I play with 18 lands" It would be more acurate from a pobability stand point to say i play 12:54's land... to be very techincal about it.

[Vegeta2711]

The counterintutitive truth is that when you have more power available to you, each card spot becomes more important.

In Vintage, that extra land spot could be used for some restricted bomb that's going to win games by itself. Other formats don't have that level of power to consider for each spot.

This comparision is wrong purely on the basis that no deck consists of that many powerful cards. There is no deck that is completely full of buisness spells and mana only (Some are close), everything always has some filler.

There is a reason some people joke about running certain bases of cards and then 'X other cards'. Mana and 3sphere, are going to win X amount of games by themselves. Having 4 Drains in a deck will automatically let you cast Y amount of crap.

I've tried TPS, Belcher and even certain older MWS decks before with literal 'dead' cards, in the place of certain broken cards.  Even with higher numbers (up to 5-6), as long as the base of cards is the same, the decks still worked reasonably well. You simply need less resources to win in this format compared to others (Otherwise our restricted list would be considerably shorter).

Anyways, either one of our assesments is only partially correct anyways, as a one card change will not affect a decks win / loss % by a noticeable amount anyways.

[VGB]

Anyways, either one of our assesments is only partially correct anyways, as a one card change will not affect a decks win / loss % by a noticeable amount anyways.

Barring it doesn't serve up Tinker/Will.

[Gothmog]

The question "how many lands do you run" doesnt really give you any information about your mana structure, nor does it give you a clear distribution of mana:cards.  
Remeber that each fetch land you play effectively lowers the number of cards you have in your deck.  If you think about it a pure probablilistic sense: playing with 60 cards 6 of wich ar fetch lands, would be almost exactly the same as playing with 54 cards none of wich are fetchlands.  This holds true even if you play a single color with only basics and fetches.  This point is somewhat tangent to the point at hand... but a deck that runs 6 fetch, 9 dual lands, and say 3 basics, would be missleading to say "I play with 18 lands" It would be more acurate from a pobability stand point to say i play 12:54's land... to be very techincal about it.

This seems like really bad math to me.  As a matter of fact, in the scenario you described, the first card you draw 18 of 60 of them are land.  Over time, each fetch land you use slightly changes the percentage in favor of drawing more spells, but it is certainly more correct to say you are playing 18 land in the scenario you describe than 12/54 because the time frame in which most Vintage games are decided isn't enough turns to have the "thinning" matter much.  Fetchlands are great for color consistency, but "thinning" in Vintage is a pretty overrated concept except in archtypes that ted to play very drawn out games.

[Methuselahn]

When I answered "eleven," nearly everyone who was watching was a bit shocked.

oh my. your meta sucks huh?  


Re: lands. I just estimate the number of land drops I think I will need to fit my mana curve, add the acceleration, then adjust as necessary.  

It's hard for me to really compare Vintage, the broken format, to other formats.  Land drops in Vintage are slow in comparison to other formats, but the effects are more powerful. Strips, Workshops, Bazaars, Fetches, and Restricted goodies all severly define your deck because land drops are so very crucial in your opening hand.

I guess I don't do any other format deckbuilding.  I just netdeck everything non-vintage.

Re: Rephrase.  
no.

[jpmeyer]

I've always thought that the biggest reason why you can get away with running less land is because you can see a tremendous number of cards so you can easily draw into the right amount of land.  That can help to smooth over less-than-optimal construction of your mana base.

[Mixing Mike]

JP, the problem with that is being forced to mulligan more than once in any tournament due to a lack of mana in your opening hand sucks.

Towards the deck thining comment, it's actually very important.  Even Brainstorm gives your deck -1 card.  This is the reason why the AK-Intuition engine is so very strong.

[jpmeyer]

JP, the problem with that is being forced to mulligan more than once in any tournament due to a lack of mana in your opening hand sucks.

Towards the deck thining comment, it's actually very important.  Even Brainstorm gives your deck -1 card.  This is the reason why the AK-Intuition engine is so very strong.

Oh, that's very true, but like you also said, the fact that you can dig and thin so easily makes it easier to keep shakier mana draws.

[Harlequin]

This seems like really bad math to me.  As a matter of fact, in the scenario you described, the first card you draw 18 of 60 of them are land.  Over time, each fetch land you use slightly changes the percentage in favor of drawing more spells, but it is certainly more correct to say you are playing 18 land in the scenario you describe than 12/54 because the time frame in which most Vintage games are decided isn't enough turns to have the "thinning" matter much.  Fetchlands are great for color consistency, but "thinning" in Vintage is a pretty overrated concept except in archtypes that ted to play very drawn out games.

Actually, your right... its not exactly 12/54's  but its definitaly not 18/60s either.  although the "thinning" is not nessisarrily as underrated as you would suggest.  Think of this: if you had a deck that was 30 magic cards, and 30 pokemon cards you would have a 60 card deck.  Lets say that every time you drew a pokemon card you just set it aside and drew a new card.   It would be (for all practical purposes) exactly like you were playing with a 30 card deck.  Now lets say every time you drew a pokemon card, you swapped it for a any other card in the deck... now it would be like play a 30 card deck, where you had selection of 1/2 of the cards... that is how fetch lands work.  They give you selection and let you effectivly play with less cards.

[Matt]

I've always thought that the biggest reason why you can get away with running less land is because you can see a tremendous number of cards so you can easily draw into the right amount of land.  That can help to smooth over less-than-optimal construction of your mana base.

In other words, in Type One every deck is Turbo-Xerox.

There used to be (c. 1997 Type Two) an informal rule: For every two cantrips, count that as one land.

So look at a typical T1 deck. 15 lands, plus 4 Brainstorm, plus 1 Ancestral, plus 1 Time Walk, plus 7 free artifact mana, plus Sol Ring which is almost free...the deck is almost half mana sources, and we haven't even considered stuff like Workshops and Rituals that count as more than just one land. Seemingly low land counts aren't really representative of little mana.

[Gothmog]

Actually, your right... its not exactly 12/54's  but its definitaly not 18/60s either.  although the "thinning" is not nessisarrily as underrated as you would suggest.  Think of this: if you had a deck that was 30 magic cards, and 30 pokemon cards you would have a 60 card deck.  Lets say that every time you drew a pokemon card you just set it aside and drew a new card.   It would be (for all practical purposes) exactly like you were playing with a 30 card deck.  Now lets say every time you drew a pokemon card, you swapped it for a any other card in the deck... now it would be like play a 30 card deck, where you had selection of 1/2 of the cards... that is how fetch lands work.  They give you selection and let you effectivly play with less cards.

The chance of you drawing the first land is 18/60.  Presume the first card is a normal land, the chance of drawing the second land is 17/59, 28.81%.   Presume the first card you draw is a fetch land, which you use immediately, the chance of drawing a second land with the next draw is 16/58, 27.59%.  It only significantly matters after many fetches have been used.  Presume the first 4 cards you draw are normal land, the chance to draw a 5th land would be 14/56, 25%.  If the first 4 cards were all fetch lands that you immediately used, the chance to draw a 5th land are 10/52, 19.23%.

This is an under-developed topic in my opinion though.  How do you guys go about determining how many mana sources to put in a new deck?  I usually see if it resembles previously successful decks and use that as a starting point, but I'd be interested to hear other's techniques.

For example, I am working on a two-color deck who's curve is

1cc 17
2cc 15
3cc 4

that has a lot of specific color reqirements.  I'd originally planned to have 24 mana sources, now I wonder if that is a few too many.  Sligh and White Weenie decks traditionally played fewer than 24 mana sources for example.  Also, do Wastelands and off-color Moxen skew your decisions?  I'm going to play the full set of Strips, to me that skews up my mana needs by a little because of that many fewer colored mana sources.

Of course, the best way to determine mana requirements is testing, but where do you start from?  I usually just go by feel and looking at established decks, but does anyone else have other tools they use that seem useful?

[Fominian]

In me experience, if the average casting cost of the deck is approximately 1.7 (ish) and lower, all I require is 9-15 lands with artifact sources (or proper land grabbing tech).

Anything higher then that and I limit my self to a 17-20 base, with the highest I ever did being 36 (It was a deck based around CoW + Fastbond, using Cephalid Coliseum, and Barbarian Ring as the win  :shock: )

[Komatteru]

Anyways, either one of our assesments is only partially correct anyways, as a one card change will not affect a decks win / loss % by a noticeable amount anyways.

I'm going to have to disagree here.  Here we go with my favorite story.  It was the Monday before Gencon and we were playing our weekly Type 1 at Pandemonium.  In round 1 of T4, I was paired against Mark Biller.  Although we talked every week, we hadn't played a match since the first week I started playing T1 at Pandemonium (when I showed up with an extended deck with power because my real T1 deck wasn't finished yet).  I was playing Fish, and he was playing Control Slaver.  He hadn't really had a chance to play against an experienced Fish player, but still remained confident going into the match. He hated Fish more than any other deck ever and was convinced it was terrible.  I picked him apart in 2 games straight.  He has been convinced that Blood Moon was enough to wreck me, but I won game 2 in the face of turn 2 Blood Moon (following basic island with Null Rod, taking out his Sapphire).  He was rather upset after the match and resolved never to lose to Fish again.  This match was what inspired him to include Old Man of the Sea in his board (Juntu Stakes was "good until it was $3").  More importantly, he decided to include Mystical Tutor as an additional way to go get Tinker.  So we all went to Ram's Horn for some more testing afterwards and he destroyed me in about 5 games straight after the addition of Mystical Tutor, after Ben Perry (EITD) suggested it.  I'd say about half the games he beat me in ended by Mystical for Tinker, Plats, gg.  I believe the one card he cut was a land (I saw him take out whatever it was, it wasn't very good, and an easy call to make, I think I remember thinking "why was that in there in the first place").  If you ask him, he will tell you that it was Mystical Tutor was the one card that put his deck over the edge and allowed him to win the World Championship 5 days later.  He said on the forums here:

Oh, and by the way, Tinker is one of the most busted cards in the format, and Mystical Tutor is very close behind for this deck. You can find the list I played in multiple spots. Notice Mystical Tutor. Try it. Win with it.

In this format, one card can make all the difference.

When I answered "eleven," nearly everyone who was watching was a bit shocked.

oh my. your meta sucks huh?  

Yes, it's not very good.  I mentioned that this was an extended tournament, but apparently there's some interest in Vintage which I'm trying to mould into something good.  Down at school, there isn't any Vintage (although I might have just found a place).  I've only played sanctioned Vintage once since Gencon, and unsanctioned twice (SCG III and Columbus) then. All this playing of other formats has given me lots of opportunities to discover how different our format really is and what makes it superior.

So look at a typical T1 deck. 15 lands, plus 4 Brainstorm, plus 1 Ancestral, plus 1 Time Walk, plus 7 free artifact mana, plus Sol Ring which is almost free...the deck is almost half mana sources, and we haven't even considered stuff like Workshops and Rituals that count as more than just one land. Seemingly low land counts aren't really representative of little mana.

Little mana is not what I look at.  Vintage decks tend to run the most mana sources of all formats, but remember that artifact mana is not nearly as reliable as good old fashioned basic land.  Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, Null Rod, Energy Flux, and a host of other played cards can really put a damper on fast artifact mana.  Decks right now are less reliant on artifact mana than ever before, since Null Rod's rise to power forced everyone to adapt to it (to the point that Null Rod isn't very good in the current meta).  Yet, the overall land-count remains less than ever, despite an attitude of "I have the artifact mana, and it's really good, but I can still win without it."  I think you can find tons of T2 and Extended decks that can really say, "I have X lands, and I don't need to have more than 5 in play for the entire game, and I could probably get along just as well with X-2 or X-1 lands instead."  However, this doesn't really seem to happen (more in T2 than in Extended, more on that below).

Let's look at some other decks from other formats:
Psychatog (Extended): ~20 lands, 3 Chrome Mox, 4 Brainstorm
Scepter-Chant (Extended): ~20 lands, 4 Chrome Mox, 4 Brainstorm (with Exalted Angel the only thing in the deck costing more than 3, and this is arguable)
Goblins (Extended): 17-20 lands, 2-4 Chrome Mox, with a very low mana curve (These vary wildely)
Desire (Extended): 17-18 lands, 4 Chrome Mox, 4 Brainstorm, 6 Medallions (2 with legs), looks to generate 5-10 spells and 5 mana on the 4th or 5th turn.

B/G Control (Standard): 21-25 lands.  Pretty much all builds run 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder, and many include Sylvan Scrying, Birds of Paradise, Chrome Mox, Sensei's Diving Top, and Solemn Simulacrum in addition.  This is a mana intensive deck (what with Kokusho and Death Cloud, but this is a lot of mana).

Red (the agressive version, not Ponza): 20-24 lands, 4 Chrome Mox, Seething Song (in many builds), with Magma Jet and often Sensei's Diving Top.  Builds with Seething Song function well with three mana, since they can still power out an 3rd turn Arc-Slogger (2nd turn with Mox), and cast pretty much everything else in the deck once Slogger hits the table.

Ironworks ran around 18 lands, but tons and tons of accelerant (Chrome Mox, Pentad Prism, Talismans). This is a deck that needs to keep its artifacts in play, since it wants to generate 16 mana all in one turn, 12 of which can come off 6 artifacts (in addition to Ironworks).  This deck runs tons and tons of card draw an library manipulation.  Despite wanting a significant amount of mana on the 4-5th turn, it is more aggressive in its land count than the other decks.

We won't get into Tooth and Nail, since it needs to ramp up 9 mana to cast its signature spell.  It runs 25-28 lands with Elders, Diving Tops, Sylvan Scrying, Reap and Sow, etc.

These are just a few examples, but you'll note that Extended's land counts are much lower than Standard's, while acceleration remains about the same in most cases.  I attribute this to the larger, more-powerful card pool that forces players to cut a couple of unnecessary lands to include a more useful card.  In Type 2, Affinity is capable of winning on the 4th turn regularly, Tooth and Nail can cast Tooth and Nail on the 4th or 5th turn, Ironworks combos around turn 4-5, and red decks power out an Arc Slogger on the 4th turn regularly, in addition to other threats already on the table.  Thus, the other formats are not terribly much slower than Vintage is.  Threats are alltogether different, but a deck's bomb (whether it be Cranial Plating, Arc Slogger, Kokusho, Spiritmonger, Goblin Warchief, Chant/Scepter, or Kiki-Jikki/Darksteel Colossus) comes out pretty early, and they cause just as much of a mess as any bomb in Vintage.  Affinity in T2 has forced other decks to keep place and Extended has no shortage of fast decks (basically everything but control).  You're looking at the critical turn in those formats being only 1 or 2 turns behind Vintage's outrageously fast turn 2.  Furthermore, the decks in the other formats don't need tons of mana in the late game, really.  Take a look at them closely.  If they don't get a land drop past 5 in a 10 turn game, they can still do everything they need to do.

[Vegeta2711]

And I could regail you with stories about how I've seen people take decks, not have all there Intuition / a DT / etc. and still do well.

Obviously some decks gain more from the loss of one important card than others, also if you cut one of the 'filler' cards like I've mentioned before, that really won't affect squat.

[E Face]

i'd have to say that while starting off as a pure type two player and slowly tuning myslef into a vintage player, that i have seen drastic changes in the way that i make land ratios in my decks. after playing vintage with its relatively lower land count, but its superior mana sources, i've found myself only playing decks in type two in which i could accelerate strong into more gamebreaking effects and spells as vintage more commonly does. i dont generally play competitive type two anymore because of this, and its simply because my current fave in type two is a deck which uses the full complement of urza's lands, talismans and seething songs to power out such winers as sundering titan, razormane masticore, and the underappreciatted juggernaught. (one card i brought to type two with me from vintage).

current cards in type two like sakura tribe elder, kodama's reach, serum visions, and sensei's divining top (one of my faves) allow players to run lower land counts, but that does not neccesarily mean the player is running lower mana sources.

[Mr. Channel-Fireball]

I'll never forget Pat Chapin's reply to my question of why he ran so few mana sources in his T1 decks.

"My god man, I've got brainstorm, sleight of hand, opt, fetches, and tutors galore...the question is: why am I running so MUCH land?"

I still don't feel safe unless I'm running one more land than I should be...that way I can side it out if I'm frustrated later.  :shock:

[Bram]

Harlequin, Gothmog: the only thing that really matters is that you have a higher (93%) chance of drawing land in a 7 card hand off an '18/60' card deck than of drawing a land in a '12/54' card deck (85%). (the difference is even more startling when you look at the odds of drawing a 2 land hand: 69% vs. 49%)

You need to be sure enough you draw into land on the first turn. What fetchlands effectively do is make your mana base more wasteland-proof as well as thin out your deck when you don't really need the mana anymore. Your mana count needs to be high enough to assure your draw into it early on an not so high that it interferes withdrawing business spells too much. This is the primary function of fetchland. The wasteland-proof thing and the shffle thing are just icing on the cake.