Curves: How often do you want a turn one play?

[BaronCappuccino]

I find, when putting Commander decks together, that, if I selected cards blind to CMC, I end up with a tower of CMC3s and 4s. The blind curve is something like 2-8 1 drops, 6-12 2 drops, 15-20 3 drops, 15-20 4 drops, 6-12 5 drops, and a sprinkle of assorted high end closers. Color identity doesn't matter. I always end up with a bell curve. A friend of mine will only build decks that slope downward from turn one plays towards game enders. I find I can mitigate the disadvantage of how my decks always end up by packing my earliest plays with board wipes and other planned around game resets (nonbasic land hate in monocolor, for example). Ideally, the game doesn't really start till I do. That's how I ended up working my new Chandra superfriends deck - any effort to stuff a bunch of obligatory extra 1 drops would only dilute the strategy. Other takes on the matter would be interesting to me.

[PrimevalCommander]

Usually I don't put much emphasis on a turn 1 play because my meta is usually 75% power. Though if your not doing anything by turn 3, you are definitely behind. Recently I started lowering the curve, not so I can get turn 1 value, but so I can play more things when I get an engine going. Having one thing to answer is easy for an opponent to handle, but having a variety of small threats that combine to a greater sum of it's parts is a larger obstacle to overcome.

If I have a turn 1 play 50% of the time, I'm happy. Would like to have a turn 2 play at least 80% of the time.

I just did a CMC analysis of my current active decks. My decks have become much more cognizant of the mana curve as they evolve. My 1 drops are surprisingly high, though many include Sol Ring, Expedition Map, Everflowing Chalice, various Tutors or Mana dorks. Daretti still needs work since it is so top heavy. That deck is basically ramp, draw, and bombs. The decks that care about tempo seem to average about 20 cards in the 0-2 cmc slot, which seems pretty good.

Karador reanimator
cmc 1 6
cmc 2 13
cmc 3 15
cmc 4 7
cmc 5 8
cmc 6 6
cmc 7+ 6

Titania Lands
0-1 9
2 10
3 15
4 11
5 3
6 7
7+ 5
X 1

Yawgmoth Aristocrats
0-1 11
2 11
3 14
4 12
5 6
6 6
7+ 2
X 1

Daretti Artifact Ramp
0-1 8
2 5
3 11
4 8
5 8
6 11
7+ 11
X 2

Edit: Came back to edit that these numbers to include spells not intended to cast turn 1, as mentioned below.

[Sharpened]

Efficiency is important. Curving out and out-tempoing my opponents is not necessarily. In a 1v1 setting, that's something you can do. In multiplayer, it's much harder.

A large number of the 1-drops in my decks are not turn 1 plays.
Swords to Plowshares
Path to Exile
Swan Song
Nihil Spellbomb - can be played turn 1, but often is better to sandbag it for later, even with the mana going unspent and tempo lost

Tempo has value, but so do cards, and cards have unequal value. A 1 drop often has less value than more expensive cards. Is the value generated by the tempo of the turn 1 play enough to outweigh the value of a card with a lesser effect? Sometimes, but not inherently.

My Brago deck has a specific gameplan:
Turn 2 - Mana Rock
Turn 3 - Brago
Turn 4 - Something with an ETB effect to flicker with the King

I have turn 1 free so 1 drops would be great, but most don't contribute to the gameplan. The number of 1 drops that speed the deck up, provide evasion/protection for Brago, or are worth flickering (since I don't want to mill) is very small. The gain in tempo from adding 1 drops would not be worth it in most cases, even though I rarely do anything on Turn 1.

My Kumena deck, loves 1 drops: As it's gameplan is to get 2 merfolk in play then the commander, so it can immediately begin drawing cards. 1 drops speed that up by a full turn. That said, is it worth running merfolk that do nothing simply to improve my draw engine by a single turn? Oftentimes not.

If your turn 1 develops your gameplan, particularly with a card that is not a dead draw or meaningless after turn 5, that's fantastic. If not, a Turn 1 play of "land, go" is hardly problematic, particularly in multiplayer.

[Inkeyes22]

[card][/card]I have fewer than 4-5 one drops in all my decks, and as was stated earlier they are usually cards such as StP that I don't plan on playing until turn 4 or so. Brainstorm on t1-3 is usually a mistake as you don't really have enough information, but if you need to make a land drop it is acceptable I guess. I do put in Temple of Malice et. al. in most of my decks as this is a pretty good t1-2 drop and I often find holes in my curve so dropping a land that comes into play tapped but helps with selection now and color fixing after is usually worth more than a 1 cmc mana dork that is gonna die to the first board wipe.

I short, unless it is Edgar Markov tribal aggro or some other tempo based deck I don't worry too much about 1 drops. It is kinda a feel bad when you are hellbent and top deck a Llanowar Elves.

[DirkGently]

Depends on what the deck is doing.

A lot of my control decks have a lot of one-drops in the form of counters and removal. I hope not to have to use them T1 though.

Decks which rely heavily on ramp will usually lean into proactive T1 plays with as many mana rocks and tutors as I can find. Besides the obvious fast mana, this includes cards like gamble(for mana crypt or sol ring), exploration, jeweled amulet etc, with some variance depending on what the critical CMC is for the deck. If, for example, my commander costs 3 and is green, I'll probably have quite a few 1-mana mana dorks to speed it out a turn earlier. If it costs 4, though, I'm a lot less likely to include dorks, and prefer 2-mana ramp spells.

Finally, for true aggro decks, I like having a hearty helping of 1-drops...but generally only those with significant late-game usefulness. I'll call them "growers". Stuff like scute mob and grim lavamancer can fit into this category. My Gallia of the Endless Dance aggro deck includes a lot of these, so I can trigger Gallia T3 as often as possible.

Basically: depends a lot on what your plan is for the deck.

[pokken]

I generally build at two power levels that in my head are mid and high.

My mid powered decks like golos decks (blue white black green) and alela tend to have a focus on turn 2 plays and have 15 plus 2 drops. These decks want to be doing something meaningful by turn 4 or 5 which necessitates some setup on turn 2 or 3.

My high powered decks (ephara, maelstrom wanderer) want to be always doing serious stuff by turn 4 and so have 15 or so on curve turn 1 plays even if those are playing a tapped land. At 15 you are very likely doing something on turn 1 every game even if it's just fetching a tapped land worst case.

I don't usually curve my decks that intentionally any more and just approach it fairly intuitively but I usually have a set of things I want the deck to be about that guide those early turns. Mostly I'm thinking about ramping and how much ramp at what points on the curve, then trying to slot in the right early plays be they cantrips, tutors, ramp spells, or card draw effects.

For instance cantrips go very very well with cultivate effects. If you can ponder on one then see all the cards you pondered (if you didnt shuffle), hit your land drops, and cultivate on 3 you're very likely set up for a good game even if you need to sweep on 4.

I always look for the opportunity to jam cards like tithe and expedition map and elvish reclaimer and weathered wayfarer and phyrexian reclamation too...powerhouse 1cmc cards that play well with ramping on 2 and 3.

I don't tend to play a lot of mana dorks these days. Most of it is that I over value hitting my land drops and find dork heavy decks tend to be fairly inconsistent, very dependent on power house card draw effects to refuel and kinda streaky. Also susceptible to sweepers.

[toctheyounger]

To me it's really dependent on the build.

My Nissa build ideally has a few t1 plays and spins things out from there quite quickly. Getting to the 7 land mark ASAP is important. Similarly, Bruna and Varina both need early plays too - the former because it's mono white and I won't keep a hand that doesn't have something to get land drops and draw early, the latter because by the time I drop Varina (as early as t2, but t3 is fine) I want at least 1-2 zombies to swing with to start digging and hand-sculpting.

On the other side of the table my Vial Smasher/Kraum build has a relatively high curve, and there isn't a lot to drop early. Signets and such, sure, but it's not the end of the world so long as I get colours. I'm also building Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded at present; currently it seems like a curve just doesn't even matter for him at all. I want him out early as possible, but otherwise most of what you're doing is sneak attacking anyway, so you just need open mana and you can do what you need to do.

My Glissa is a Birthing Pod build so it's different again in that respect, the chain is important. It has a number of one-drops in spellbombs and such, but otherwise follows a relatively strict curve for actual creatures, and I don't think I actually have any creatures that would drop that early.

So I guess, yeah, it's pretty dependent on the context of your build. Having presence first turn isn't the be all and end all if you don't need it, but that need depends primarily on your build, and to some degree on your meta too.

[RxPhantom]

I'll add to the chorus of "depends on the deck." Most of the time, I'm not too worried about T1 plays, but my mono-green stompy deck has greatly benefitted from the addition of three one-mana ramp spells in addition to the omnipresent Sol Ring. Them fatties aren't going to ramp themselves out!

[Henlock]

As already been said, it's very dependant on what you can do within your build. My Asmira, Holy Avenger needs some quick creatures to have ready for sacrifice and recursion, Diligent Farmhand or some mana dork make good T1 plays. I have some quick human ttibal support as well so I sometimes focus on dealing early damage (sppecially to monoblue players) so the quick bodies do the job. On the other hand, Decks like Brion Stoutarm and Elsha don't really have anything worthy of casting on turn one except maybe Sol Ring and Sword of the Animist for later use or Faithless Looting. In Lin Sivvi, I'd always cast a Ramosian Saegeant from my opening hand but I don't run anything else I would want on the table right from the beginning. In Muldrotha and Estrid I might end up casting some ramp but the first turn is a good moment to drop your ETBtapped lands and plan your mana ahead. I think that in 3 colors first rurn srops are often ignored.

I'm building a Bwcket Brass deck and I'm sure 1 deops can be veey valuable to get the ability online. Siren Stormtamer and Spwctral Sailor are nice ones, but I'm inclined to.include Cloud Pirates, Fanatical Firebrand and even Rigging Runners as to maximize my chances of having three pirates ready to attack as early as possible.

[Kelzam]

Most of the time I don't pay attention to 1-drops in my curve because the majority of the time they either 1.) won't have impact after the first few turns, or 2.) are cards I would rather play later in the game; that is, with the exception of the fast mana rocks, and mana dorks if I'm playing a big mana deck, although even then I don't really care much about how they're impacting my curve as much as how they impact my curve in later turns. When I look at other common one drops that I play, I look at cards like Viscera Seer which is isn't going to do anything for me on Turn 1, so I don't even register it as a 1-drop because it's just sitting there waiting to be removed or a casualty of board wipes, anyway. Heck, most of the time I don't even want to Faithless Looting, Ponder or Preordain on T1 because I have effects that benefit me from casting spells later on and I have a full grip.

[NZB2323]

My Edric, spymaster of trest and Edgar Markov decks are mainly 1 drops, so I definitely want a turn 1 drop with those decks.

In general I'd say the 2 drops that are "staples" are:

• Sol ring
• Sensei's divining top
• Vampiric tutor
• Enlightened tutor
• Worldly tutor
• Mystical tutor
• Gamble
• Birds of paradise
• Deathrite shaman
• Carpet of flowers
• Mirri's guile
• Mother of runes
• Giver of runes
• Path to exile
• Swords to plowshares
• Serra Ascendant
• Swan Song
• Opt
• Ponder
• Preordain
• Brainstorm

I put "staples" in quotes because depending on the deck you
might not want to run them. And then something like Changeling Outcast is really good in my cleric deck because of the synergy with Tymna, the weaver.

[Mimicvat]

"Depends on the Deck" etc.

Generally, my more aggressive decks or my green based decks are more interested in one drops. Mana Elves are hard to pass up...

Rest of the time its the usual mix of later-game removal and overpowered artifacts (looking at you Sol Ring and Skullclamp!). If I ran them, the legacy tutors would fit in this slot too.

But I think the question isn't as much "should I run the low cost autoincludes" and more "should I run general 1 drop cards", and I would say typically you shouldn't unless they serve a very important function for your deck. One of my mates plays a very potent Iroas Aggro deck, and he doesn't have many 1 drops even in that.

[Toshi]

I went full retard and did an in-depth analysis of my 16 decks.
Note: I refuse to run Mana Crypt and Sol Ring in my decks.

Excluding what i would call "nonfunctional" 1-drops (Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Vandalblast, ...) that are only played on turn 1 when i absolutely need to - which i very seldom do - these are the numbers:

28 cards | Edric, Spymaster of Trest
18 cards | Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle (including 5 drops)
13 cards | Traxos, Scourge of Kroog (including 6 drops)
11 cards | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
11 cards | Talrand, Sky Summoner
10 cards | Lazav, the Multifarious (including 1 drop)
6 cards | Kambal, Consul of Allocation
5 cards | Slimefoot, the Stowaway
3 cards | Brago, King Eternal
3 cards | Gonti, Lord of Luxury
2 cards | Archangel Avacyn // Avacyn, the Purifier
2 cards | Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
2 cards | Keranos, God of Storms
2 cards | Mirri, Weatherlight Captain
1 card | Omnath, Locus of Rage
1 card | Zada, Hedron Grinder

Unsurprisingly Edric, Spymaster of Trest leads the chart by far and only a third of my decks appear to have 10 cards they could reasonably play on turn 1.

Once i go up a number and add 2 drops the numbers look a lot different:

38 cards | Edric, Spymaster of Trest
36 cards | Traxos, Scourge of Kroog
33 cards | Lazav, the Multifarious (including the Commander)
28 cards | Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
25 cards | Talrand, Sky Summoner
24 cards | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
21 cards | Kambal, Consul of Allocation
20 cards | Slimefoot, the Stowaway
17 cards | Grenzo, Dungeon Warden (including the Commander)
16 cards | Brago, King Eternal
15 cards | Archangel Avacyn // Avacyn, the Purifier
14 cards | Zada, Hedron Grinder
11 cards | Keranos, God of Storms
11 cards | Omnath, Locus of Rage
9 cards | Gonti, Lord of Luxury
7 cards | Mirri, Weatherlight Captain

The same 6 decks still top the charts, but only 1/4 of my decks limit themselves to mostly ramp plays by turn 2.

My first look metric doesn't to justice to reactive decks like Keranos, God of Storms, because what might be "nonfunctional" early plays in other decks are viable plays if you have an extensive control suite available. But you get the idea.
Other than that it's quite apparent, that i enjoy influencing the board early in the game with most of my decks.