Pattern Recognition #67 - Mana Curves

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

10 May 2018

2000 views

Hello everyone! I am berryjon, your resident Old Fogey. Welcome back to Pattern Recognition, Tappedout.net's most regular article series - barring the occasional week off for work or just because I'm out of energy. I endeavor to provide insightful, thought provoking and educational material for you all. Or at least a convenient target for all of you to aim your Mizzium Mortars at.

Today, I promised pictures, and I shall deliver! Or at least I hope.

But in reality, I want to look at something that I felt needed to be addressed after going to the Dominaria pre-release with my sister-in-law. And no, it's not the way the packs were sorted. Seriously, Three Kazarov, Sengir Pureblood and two Jodah, Archmage Eternal in one pre-release box? Something was screwy there, and I'm not talking about Mana Screw.

No, what I want to talk to you guys today about is the subject of the Mana Curve.

This isn't exactly an easy subject to write about as there is a lot of nuance involved, but let me first break it down into two over-reaching themes and from there I can move into some of the details.

But first, a definition for all of us to be on the same page over. The Mana Curve is, for the purposes of this article, defined as the confluence of the distribution of mana costs for spells in a deck when compared to the expected amount of mana available to the deck on each turn.

That's a whole lotta words, and trust me, it isn't going to get much better for a while. But for the first part, let's look at the latter half of that definition, namely, just how much mana can you expect to have on a given turn.

To answer that question, we need to look at two things. Both of which go into the nature of deck construction and how mana comes into play.

First of all, take a look at the following graphic. It shows the available mana to a given deck on each turn, assuming that they play a land each turn.

Behold, the mighty power of MS PAINT! But regardless of you see my presentation, what you see here is what is called linear growth. That is, for each turn, you have exactly that amount of mana available for you to spend. Turn 1, 1 mana. Turn 2, two mana. Turn 12, twelve mana.

But what happens when you miss a land drop? Well then, your available mana looks more like this:

That little stagger in the line represents such a turn, where you missed out, and your available mana becomes equal to your turn number minus one. But what happens to your available mana when this happens multiple times in a game? Well, you start to look like this:

And if your upward slope starts to look less like stairs and more like a floor, well then, you've hit the magical land of Mana Screw.

Now, on the opposite end of this is the idea of Ramp. This is a term used most often in conjunction with Green cards that allows you to have more mana on any given turn than than that turns number. Cards like Llanowar Elves, or Kodama's Reach or the ever-used-in-Commander Sol Ring. Or Cloudpost, which provides exponential growth, same as Powerstone Shard. When that happens, your available mana starts to look more like this:

Huzzuh!

Now, I could spend multiple articles talking nuance about the nature of ramp and mana acceleration, but that's not here and now. What I do need to impart is that what happens in theory, and what happens when cards hit the table can be quite different.

Now, onto the first half of my definition, and one far more complicated. I want all of you to break out a random deck of yours, and start sorting the cards out by their converted mana costs. Line then all up like you're playing solitaire, with "Zero" for cards like Mox Amber on the left, and with each new column being the next number up. Ones, Twos, Threes, and keep going until you have all your cards in order, leaving spaces where you have no cards that cost that amount, and remember that counts for nothing.

What you have here before you, is your deck's Mana Curve in a visual format.

And guess what! TappedOut.Net's deck building engine actually has this as part of its basic functions! Just look at your deck on the site, or any old deck for that matter, and look on the right hand side of the page. You'll see a pie chart showing off where you get your mana from, as well as the total proportion of colours in your sources and required by your deck. Then you'll see another pie chart which shows off how much of your deck is each card type, and then you'll see a bar graph showing off how much each card in your deck costs, sorted by colour.

Oh, and the best part is? It's interactive. Clicking on any of these sections will highlight the relevant cards in the card list in the middle of the page. Want to see how many cards you have in your deck cost three, and are in white? It's just a single click on the bar graph away!

Now that you know what you're looking for, it's time to break down how some decks handle their mana curves. Let's start with a couple of examples from previous decks I've built for Pattern Recognition.

The Aggro Archetype is very easy to plot out, thanks to the intent behind it. Because the deck tries to end the game as soon as possible, an Aggro deck will focus mainly on low-cost cards with the expectation that your hand will be full of cards that you can cast each turn, and that you will need to cast them each turn to make maximal use of your available resources.

Generic RW Aggro

Modern berryjon

905 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

This deck, from when I talked about the differences between Aggro, Combo and Control, shows off this theme quite directly. 18 cards with a cost of 1, 17 with a cost of 2. That's 35 cards in the deck that can be played on Turn 1 and Turn 2. There are only four cards with a cost of 3 in the deck, and three with a cost of 4. After that, there is nothing.

Here's the thing about this deck. The mana 'Curve' is more like a mana 'Cliff'. You hit your sweet spot - in this case it's Two mana sources, one each of Red and White, and you're set to win the game. Everything after that is just "Win Harder".

And Aggro Decks all follow this paradigm. They chose a certain cut off point for the cost of their cards - usually for their deck, and fit everything they can under that line due to the theory that everything after that point won't matter.

On the other hand, this can be flexible. Look at this deck back from when I first started:

Cheese it, It's the CoPs!

Modern berryjon

SCORE: 34 | 24 COMMENTS | 3044 VIEWS | IN 15 FOLDERS

Hrm, need to consider putting Knight of Grace into this now, but that's for a different time. Instead, have a look at the mana curve of this deck. It's a bit more gentle, having more cards that cost 4, 5 and even 7! But this deck also recognizes that the biggest effects, the majority and meat of the deck occurs at a cost of and .

This is the core of Aggro decks. Lots of cheap cards, and fewer and fewer cards that cost more.

Moving on to the next archtype, it isn't Control but it does share many similar effects. The Midrange deck is one that yields in the early game in order to establish a firm grasp of options later on.

The Lumbermill

Modern berryjon

SCORE: 9 | 1223 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS

This deck is a deck that I like to think of as mid-range in practice, despite having a more Aggro-approach to its mana curve. It works the long game, keeping plenty of mana open to react to the opponent, rather than taking a more active approach.

Keeping it Simple, Silly

Modern berryjon

SCORE: 27 | 14 COMMENTS | 2147 VIEWS | IN 9 FOLDERS

On the other hand, I do think that this card is more representative of the Midrange philosophy as the key card in the deck is Muraganda Petroglyphs, costing , which means that this deck is ready to roll just as the typical Aggro Deck is winding down.

You know, I'm going to borrow zandl's decks for a moment here, and show two of his that are better mid-range and Control in style. Because I'm an Aggro Player, and he isn't!

Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

Standard Brawl* zandl

SCORE: 1 | 56 VIEWS

These two decks show off the more traditional bell-curve of control styled decks, with a weak start, a strong selection of spells in the middle of the deck (cost wise, not in that range 20-40 cards down) and a few end-game bombs of closing out the game.

And now for the last major archetype. Combo.

Well now, this is actually interesting. Let's look at a curve for Combo now, shall we?

To Infinity and Beyond

Modern berryjon

SCORE: 12 | 6 COMMENTS | 1592 VIEWS | IN 5 FOLDERS

Now, before you complain that this is another Aggro Deck curve (I'm sorry! I have a bias!), I want to point out the difference between the two. That being that in a Combo Deck, the core components to the combo itself go into the deck first (in this case, the Ornithopter and Grinding Station or the Wild Cantor and Grapeshot, both of which require Enduring Renewal to work properly. Now, the deck only looks aggro in function simply because the key components are all quite cheap. But you'll also notice the conspicuous gap in the mana costs at 3, because nothing in the deck serves the combo that fits there.

That's the difference. In a Combo deck, the costs of the pieces come first, while in other decks, the cost of the cards are judged relative to each other and not to some objective standard. In a Combo deck, a mana curve can fluctuate wildly just so long as the deck performs reliably rather than performing the same actions every turn, every game.

So, what do these two sides have to do with each other?

Well, the Mana Curve to a deck is more than just the costs of the cards. I think I've already said that, but it bears repeating. It is also about having the right amount of mana to do the job you want it to do. What is the point of having 7 available mana on turn 3 when you run out of cards to play, or you have nothing in hand or your deck that requires that much to bring out.

Unless, of course, you're playing Commander and it's already gone back to the Command Zone once or twice. Somehow in the first couple turns. What are you doing, playing Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter as your Commander, and losing her so often?

Never mind. Don't answer that.

A deck's mana curve is about making sure that your available resources match what you want to play at any given time. Aggro decks don't need a lot of mana, so they can settle for less in the deck with more cheap cards to help fill in the gaps. Midrange can utilize a certain degree of reliability through the game, but can equally do without any for of acceleration. And if you're going to ramp, ramp with a purpose and not just because you like the bigger numbers on your Omnath, Locus of Mana.

And yet, there's more still! If you play a land for your first four turns, how much mana do you have? No, not . You actually have mana. You see, your available resources is slightly cumulative. No, not Cumulative Upkeep. What makes you think that?

This ten mana can change how you look at your hand. Imagine if you could compress your entire first four turns into a single one, how would you spend it if you were limited to a chunk of , , , and ?

You can now look at your deck in a different manner, and that can change everything.

Yet more importantly, will you keep a pace with one card each turn, or will you play more than one? What will your tempo be in this case? Aggro? Control? Midrange? Combo?

So, let me know what you think a good mana curve for your deck looks like. Are you the kind of person who runs it lean, and tight to the cost of the cards? Or do you prefer to have a bit of leeway, if only to bluff your opponent into thinking you have a Cancel in your hand and not a Negate?

Join me next time, when I talk about something. I'll come up with a subject, I'm sure.

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!