More Basic Lands?

[Hermes_]

using the price that appears when you hover over the card name on here

Marsh Flats 12.17 times 4 is 48.68 USD for a full playset
Scalding Tarn is 20.09 times 4 is 80.36 for a playset
Verdant Catacombs 14.60 4x is 58.40
Arid Mesa 14.24 4x is 56.96
Misty Rainforest 18.00 4x is 72.00

so for a full play set of those fetches is a total of 316.40 USD,

...why are we talking about playsets on a commander subforum?

I can understand people being on a budget. But I will say that they probably aren't going to get any lower than they currently are, and they're probably going to be the best fixing lands to ever be printed, no matter how long the game runs. So idk, seems like a good investment to me.

okay, how many of your decks run fetches? I'm going with play sets because i figure the commander player has more than 1 deck.

[DirkGently]

okay, how many of your decks run fetches? I'm going with play sets because i figure the commander player has more than 1 deck.

So then why pick 4?

All my multicolor decks run fetches, but I disassemble and reassemble so I've been rolling with the same set of 10 I bought in 2012.

[Hermes_]

okay, how many of your decks run fetches? I'm going with play sets because i figure the commander player has more than 1 deck.

So then why pick 4?

All my multicolor decks run fetches, but I disassemble and reassemble so I've been rolling with the same set of 10 I bought in 2012.

why not? I mean not counting the ABU duels, it is pricey to pick up the fetches all at once. But yeah if you spread it out it's not more than one meal out at dinner. Just last month I finally replaced the Arid Mesa that had been stolen from me when it was first printed.

[DirkGently]

@Hermes_ I'm not even really sure what you're saying.

My point is that I don't think it's unreasonable to assume people have access to at least enemy fetches within their colors. ABU duals, yeah, fine, most people aren't going to shell out for those.

If you're on a tight budget and only want to spend $20 total on your manabase, then do whatever you can, but I think it's silly to argue that running tons of basics is a reasonable choice outside of budget considerations.

I think we've drifted a bit far from the original topic tbh. The original topic was about whether running lots of basics FOR THE PURPOSE OF DECK THINNING is a reasonable decision. And the answer to that is absolutely, unequivocally no. If you're running basic-only ramp spells/tutors, then you should make sure you have enough to reasonably cover your needs within a game (though I do think people can go overboard in this regard, do you really need twenty lands to win the game?), but basically the only card I can think of where you'd potentially rip basics out of your deck for the purpose of deck thinning is Land Tax. And no, I don't think it's reasonable to run a bunch of extra basics just so you can discard them eot via land tax in order to increase your spell density. It's only one card in your deck, it's conditional, and it takes quite a few turns before it has an appreciable effect, even as efficient as it is. A good manabase, on the other hand, will have a meaningful impact every game.

[pokken]

suppose your gameplan as a matter of course puts out 5 more lands from your library - the naive example of rampant growth here. If you play 5 lands, cast rampant growth 5 times vs play 5 lands and cast 5 signets, you have traded 5 tempo to in increase your card quality by, on turn 5,

Assuming you removed 5 extra lands and all things being equal (you and opponent have equal rampant growths and signets) - call it 35 lands and 15 ramp spells for the sake of argument.

You now have (25 + 10) 35 duds out of 81 cards and opponent now has (10+30) 40 duds out of 86 cards.

Your dud ratio is 43% and opponents dud ratio is 46.5%.

Feels like by the time you're removing 10 extra lands you'll start seeing actual noticeable improvements?

This math feels silly and probably wrong but right enough to illustrate that you need to chuck a lot of lands. Also drawing rampant growth is usually a lot worse than a mana rock late in the game


----

All that said I do think white and green both have to the tools to pull enough lands to appreciably improve card quality on a regular basis....if you super duper commit to it. At which point you have to be playing a lot of trash cards. But it could be kinda fun . Yeeeah Endless Horizons

[Mookie]

Looking at my decks, I'm currently running...

• Thada: 35 lands, 22 basics - monocolor deck
• Tasigur: 35 lands, 15 basics - high basic count for ramp / fetching
• Samut: 34 lands, 14 basics - high basic count for ramp / fetching
• Mizzix: 34 lands, 14 basics - High Tide
• Teysa: 34 lands, 12 basics - mostly just for Sword of the Animist and Sun Titan recurring fetchlands
• Sharuum: 34 lands, 11 basics - mostly just for Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca
• Animar: 35 lands, 11 basics - mostly for Wood Elves / other ramp
• Kess: 36 lands, 10 basics - mostly for Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca

I suspect some of my decks (particularly the 3-color ones) would be running more nonbasics for fixing purposes if not for budget considerations - I'm running pretty much all the untapped fixing under $2. That said, Tasigur and Samut would be running more basics if I could find the slots for them - they're both very heavy on ramp spells, and I hate running out of fetchables.

[DirkGently]

suppose your gameplan as a matter of course puts out 5 more lands from your library - the naive example of rampant growth here. If you play 5 lands, cast rampant growth 5 times vs play 5 lands and cast 5 signets, you have traded 5 tempo to in increase your card quality by, on turn 5,

Assuming you removed 5 extra lands and all things being equal (you and opponent have equal rampant growths and signets) - call it 35 lands and 15 ramp spells for the sake of argument.

You now have (25 + 10) 35 duds out of 81 cards and opponent now has (10+30) 40 duds out of 86 cards.

Your dud ratio is 43% and opponents dud ratio is 46.5%.

Feels like by the time you're removing 10 extra lands you'll start seeing actual noticeable improvements?[/card]

I mean, 5 rampant growths is a lot of rampant growths. To have that many ramp spells that early in a typical game you'd have to be running like 30% land ramp, even if we're assuming some rampant growths double up. Some decks might want that level of ramp but it's not exactly typical. And even then, as you show, it's barely a detectable improvement in card quality.

Endless horizons does do a good job of deck thinning, true, but personally I'd be too scared to use a card like that to pull most/all of the lands from my deck. If it gets blown up, I'm basically capped on lands for the whole game.

You know what strategy I prefer for reducing dud rate? Run utility lands and mana sinks. Then your lands aren't duds, and you aren't relying on tiny percentage increases. You can even go up on lands to improve consistency.

[Cyberium]

In my case, this is the basic land ratio of my decks:

Mono - About 70% basics, with highest # of fetches. If it's a white deck, first turn Land Tax almost always clear out half of my lands, which I think is rather significant in helping draws.

2c - I keep about 5~10 basics, more if playing green, white, Crucible of Worlds, and/or blue/black/red when I get to steal fetch spells on occasions.

3c - Frequently running only 1~2 basics per color. I find modular spell/land very helpful in reducing basic land count (assuming speed is not an issue for the deck).

You know what strategy I prefer for reducing dud rate? Run utility lands and mana sinks. Then your lands aren't duds, and you aren't relying on tiny percentage increases. You can even go up on lands to improve consistency.

Thus says the Phelddagrif. It truly is a commander that doesn't mind more mana at all times.

[DirkGently]

@Cyberium Okay, those numbers I'd consider pretty reasonable. I was imagining more along the lines of 20 basics in 2c-3c as a proposed "optimal", which I think would be incorrect.

Filtering basics out in mono white is a perk of land tax, that's true, but it probably only means you're drawing a couple more spells per game, and only when you start with it (8%), and it's always on (40%?). Nice when you can get it, but not worth going out of the way for. But there are often better reasons to go heavy on basics in mono-color already (i.e. Emeria, the Sky Ruin).

[kirkusjones]

This thread tears me apart. On one hand, I strongly believe 15 basics per edh deck is a hard and fast minimum for sane deckbuilding, but on the other hand, I've tasted the forbidden fruit of a rock solid nonbasic manabase and I can't deny the allure. All the awesome utility lands in Dirk's Phelddagrif? Delicious, made even better with a loam plan. I was running 6 basics. My current Raffine deck? 3 basics. No joke, and it makes me sweat all the time. But man oh man oh mangoberry, curving out with perfect fixing nearly every game is sweet (even if I am playing some extremely dubious things like Thran quarry and Gemstone Mine to do it).

I think my Sythis deck is the best representative of balance between my philosophy and my desire to hit colors on time. All the on color nonbasics of consequence and 17 basics. Works like a charm.

Ultimately I think it comes down to how fast you need your colors in a multicolor deck. Things at higher MVs with more pips matter less to a control deck that wants to grind out a win on t12 when they have loads of mana, but casting something like Dauthi voidwalker t2 consistently in a hardcore Saskia the Unyielding aggro deck is a hurdle that requires a lot more nonbasics to support. I also think that most 2 color decks could essentially run off basics and be generally fine unless their deck is terribly skewed to one color and only splashing the other.

Got a list somewhere? I tossed together a pretty janky version based around 3 mv or less fliers (except for Archfiend of Ifnir, that card murders boards) to play with the more casual group, but I'm curious what you've knocked together.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

This thread tears me apart. On one hand, I strongly believe 15 basics per edh deck is a hard and fast minimum for sane deckbuilding, but on the other hand, I've tasted the forbidden fruit of a rock solid nonbasic manabase and I can't deny the allure. All the awesome utility lands in Dirk's Phelddagrif? Delicious, made even better with a loam plan. I was running 6 basics. My current Raffine deck? 3 basics. No joke, and it makes me sweat all the time. But man oh man oh mangoberry, curving out with perfect fixing nearly every game is sweet (even if I am playing some extremely dubious things like Thran quarry and Gemstone Mine to do it).

I think my Sythis deck is the best representative of balance between my philosophy and my desire to hit colors on time. All the on color nonbasics of consequence and 17 basics. Works like a charm.

Ultimately I think it comes down to how fast you need your colors in a multicolor deck. Things at higher MVs with more pips matter less to a control deck that wants to grind out a win on t12 when they have loads of mana, but casting something like Dauthi voidwalker t2 consistently in a hardcore Saskia the Unyielding aggro deck is a hurdle that requires a lot more nonbasics to support. I also think that most 2 color decks could essentially run off basics and be generally fine unless their deck is terribly skewed to one color and only splashing the other.

Got a list somewhere? I tossed together a pretty janky version based around 3 mv or less fliers (except for Archfiend of Ifnir, that card murders boards) to play with the more casual group, but I'm curious what you've knocked together.

It would be a pleasure. I have an old version floating around in a thread somewhere, but tonight when I'm off work I will update it and send it your way!

[PrimevalCommander]

Serious question:

What should my basic land count be if I want to play Harrow, Entish Restoration, and Sakura-Tribe Elder in my Kalamax, the Stormsire deck and the main plan is to get a free copy of either instant if I draw it? These would be the only 3 spells in the deck that specifically search basic lands. Other ramp would be artifacts or Nature's Lore and friends.

Currently running 10 basics, but a double shot of the new Entish Restoration searches 6 by itself. If I draw both of the instant ramps, I'll be out of basics if I don't draw a single basic naturally. Now that still means I have ramped +7 lands off 2 instants, which is respectable, but adding more basics hinders my fixing, as I don't have many utility lands that I want to cut. I'm thinking putting in maybe 2 more for 12 total, which would help hedge my bets against drawing basics early and still having plenty to tutor.

[TheGildedGoose]

If you have fetches it's fine to run more basics.

[DirkGently]

@PrimevalCommander personally I'd probably just run 8 or so, and if sometimes I draw both ramp spells and they aren't as good then that's okay. Odds aren't that great of that happening whereas getting your colours on time is presumably critical. If your other fixing is really good maybe you could go higher though.

[PrimevalCommander]

@PrimevalCommander personally I'd probably just run 8 or so, and if sometimes I draw both ramp spells and they aren't as good then that's okay. Odds aren't that great of that happening whereas getting your colours on time is presumably critical. If your other fixing is really good maybe you could go higher though.

I'm definitely not going DOWN in basics. The main point (not explicitly mentioned) is should I use more basics. My fixing is quite good, maybe not "perfect", since I only play on-color fetches (flavor), which limits me to 3 instead of 9+. But otherwise I don't have trouble with colors, fetch, dual, shock, check, filter. I do think your right, that if I tutor all 10 basics to play and have to miss one or two, that would be considered a win since I thinned 10 lands and have probably at least 7 of those in play. Plus my draw suite includes Electric Revelation and others like it, which makes those cards less dead if I run out of basics. I'll just have to see how quickly I tutor them out in practice.

[Mookie]

What should my basic land count be if I want to play Harrow, Entish Restoration, and Sakura-Tribe Elder in my Kalamax, the Stormsire deck and the main plan is to get a free copy of either instant if I draw it?

My default heuristic is 'one basic per land I can fetch'. The math gets more complicated when accounting for repeatable ramp engines (i.e. fetchland + Life from the Loam), but it's not a bad baseline. In this case, somewhere between 6 and 11 basics, depending on how often you expect the instants to be copied (and how often Entish Restoration is active) - probably around half the time, so 8-9 basics sounds reasonable. My other heuristic is 'how much mana can I realistically use in a turn' - if your curve stops at 6, then it matters less if you miss on later fetch effects. On the other hand, if your deck wants to regularly cast 12-drops, then I'd lean towards running at least 12 fetchables.

From a pure mathematical optimization standpoint, I'd say the number of basics you should run is where [the probability of having a problem due bad fixing from drawing basics instead of duals] is exactly equal to [the probability of having a problem due to running out of basics to fetch]. I'll leave the exact formula for those probabilities for someone else to calculate.

[PrimevalCommander]

Alright, I'll stick with 10 and see how things play out. I really like how my land base looks right now. 6 is top of my curve with Electrodominance thrown in as a finisher.

[yeti1069]

Do you really find that a shockland is less protected than a basic? In my experience anyone who's willing to run Ruination is also happy to run Armageddon.

Yes. I've actually run into this exact situation multiple times across different playgroups (Ruination, but no other MLD). The justifications have ranged from "I can't afford an expensive mana-base, so I have to do something to bridge the gap in power level" to "We're often playing pretty low-power, but some people come in that are stronger than others, so this tends to hit the strongest decks without bothering the weaker ones too much."

[yeti1069]

On the topic of basic count...

My baseline is 1 basic of a color for each mana symbol of that color in the most mana-heavy spell of that color. So, for example, if I'm running Cavalier of Dawn, as my most white-heavy card at , I run at least 3 Plains. The reasoning is if I basically always have the option of using a basic land tutor (ie., Terramorphic Expanse, Rampant Growth, etc...) to get the last mana source I need to be able to cast whatever I need.

After that, I look at how many total basic land tutors I'm running (after prioritizing nonbasic versions), and try to aim for at least 75% on tutors:fetchables. That is, if I'm running 4 land tutors, I'll need at least 3 basics that can be tutored. The assumptions are that: a) it's unlikely I draw ALL the land tutors, so I don't need 100% or more, and b) if I DO end up deep on tutors, it's likely I'm in a good spot mana-wise, and have other things to be doing, so simply opting to not cast the spell/activate the ability is reasonable.

Finally, I look at whether or not I have cards that specifically care about land types or basic-ness, and whether I feel like I have enough of that count already. I figure, if something cares about a specific land type, like 'Forest', I want to have 12-15 cards to get me there, in order to have a good chance of getting one early. That includes things like Arbor Elf that cares, and the count to get there can include fetches (so, 2 shocks, 1 triome, 2 bicycles, and 7-10 basics, as an example).

For something like Land Tax, I like to have 9-12 hits, so I can get 3 full activations out of it, or close to that even if I've gotten basics some other ways, such as having drawn them (assuming LT on turn 1).

[DirkGently]

Yes. I've actually run into this exact situation multiple times across different playgroups (Ruination, but no other MLD). The justifications have ranged from "I can't afford an expensive mana-base, so I have to do something to bridge the gap in power level" to "We're often playing pretty low-power, but some people come in that are stronger than others, so this tends to hit the strongest decks without bothering the weaker ones too much."

Taking a look at the most recent batch of commander precons, the first I looked at, the Naya one, has 11 basics and 27 nonbasics. So Ruination blows up more than 2/3 of their lands. Of a precon, essentially the most budget deck possible.

Tell them their excuses are nonsense. Most nonbasics aren't expensive. Ruination is cancer and should not be played in casual games. If Ruination is fair game then Armageddon and co are also fair game.

[yeti1069]

Yes. I've actually run into this exact situation multiple times across different playgroups (Ruination, but no other MLD). The justifications have ranged from "I can't afford an expensive mana-base, so I have to do something to bridge the gap in power level" to "We're often playing pretty low-power, but some people come in that are stronger than others, so this tends to hit the strongest decks without bothering the weaker ones too much."

Taking a look at the most recent batch of commander precons, the first I looked at, the Naya one, has 11 basics and 27 nonbasics. So Ruination blows up more than 2/3 of their lands. Of a precon, essentially the most budget deck possible.

Tell them their excuses are nonsense. Most nonbasics aren't expensive. Ruination is cancer and should not be played in casual games. If Ruination is fair game then Armageddon and co are also fair game.

Well, to quibble, the LotR commander decks are 16, 19, 19, and 26 basics, but this was 2 years ago, and precons have improved quite a bit since then.

Also, I don't agree with either of your assertions. I don't think Ruination (or MLD necessarily) are cancers, and Ruination is a faaar cry from Armageddon. There's a gulf of difference between blowing up some/most of the lands on the field, and blowing up ALL the lands on the field. I don't like MLD, but it has its place. If players (myself included) are going to rely heavily on maximized mana-bases, and players are going to ramp hard, there should be foils to that. I think it's kind of ridiculous that we can play overloaded Vandalblast against the artifact-centric deck, but not touch players' lands, even if that Simic deck has dumped 12 lands out on turn 3.

That said, MLD can be pretty miserable to play against, especially if it isn't used as a psuedo-wincon. If it's just delaying the game without a plan, that's a problem. Personally, I've played both Jokulhaups (in Marchesa, the Black Rose), Cataclysm (in Sigarda, Host of Herons enchantress voltron),and Keldon Firebombers (in Kess, Dissident Mage discard). In the first it was a finisher, but I dropped it after a while, because I had too many games where it backfired in some way. It was great in the second, and I only stopped running it because I changed the deck, and in the last I intend to run the Firebombers again whenever I put the pile back together.

[DirkGently]

Well, to quibble, the LotR commander decks are 16, 19, 19, and 26 basics, but this was 2 years ago, and precons have improved quite a bit since then.

Aura of Courage precon from 2021 had 14 basics out of 37.

Also, I don't agree with either of your assertions. I don't think Ruination (or MLD necessarily) are cancers, and Ruination is a faaar cry from Armageddon. There's a gulf of difference between blowing up some/most of the lands on the field, and blowing up ALL the lands on the field. I don't like MLD, but it has its place. If players (myself included) are going to rely heavily on maximized mana-bases, and players are going to ramp hard, there should be foils to that. I think it's kind of ridiculous that we can play overloaded Vandalblast against the artifact-centric deck, but not touch players' lands, even if that Simic deck has dumped 12 lands out on turn 3.

Most land ramp fetches basics, ruination is much more likely to set back the other players than the one ramping lands. Your argument is more in favor of armageddon than ruination (to be clear, I don't think it's a good argument for geddon either).

That said, MLD can be pretty miserable to play against

Yep.

I have no issue with MLD - ruination, geddon, and the rest - in a high powered game. But it's not appropriate for casual, period. The impact is too large and it's too narrow to play around. You basically have to be playing blue to interact with it.