Salt Miner (Rule of Law cEDH)
Commander / EDH*
SCORE: 24 | 3 COMMENTS | 5898 VIEWS | IN 5 FOLDERS
Gah, Lands? —Nov. 22, 2020
I know I run 8 more lands than many cEDH Zur builds, but they don't usually care about casting Zur, and I do, so I'm actually thinking about 4 more lands, putting me at 40. It's a lot, but I don't feel like land/ramp heavy hands are usually that bad, since I can recast Zur on board, something I often will have to do. 40 leaves me pretty likely to have 3 or more lands, but 36 leaves a lot of 'probably mulligan' hands, where I only have 3 mana. TBH I usually do keep 3 good mana hands (especially if I have fixing for all 3 colors), but I don't like them much, because this deck risks durdling if it can't cast Zur. This deck can win without casting Zur, but it generally will need to get to 4 mana, and be able to cast tutors before hand, so it'll be telegraphed really badly what I'm trying to do.
Obviously Mana Crypt would be better, but lands are generally cheaper, and a bit more reliable tbh. I have some ideas of what could go, including Oppression and Confounding Conundrum, but I really hate the idea of running 12(!) more lands than most of my competition, while running similar amounts of ramp, if a tad less. Still, if we have different game plans, and different key mana costs (I kinda need to get to 4, they probably care more about 2 or 3), we should have different looking decks, it just feels very weird. Still, if I'm getting stuck with 2 mana hands, it's probably a 'sign' I need more.
Edit: I could remove my Stasis cards, which are Stasis, Smothering Tithe, and Reconnaissance, and then I'd only need 1 more card to make space for 4 more lands. Now, this would remove 1 win-con, but having added Dovescape, which is usually a better win con than Stasis I suspect. So, that might be worth thinking about, and Idyllic Tutor will still have a win con to find in Dovescape, if a weird one. If I run 40 lands, getting Dovescape out is a lot easier too, being a likely turn 5 play, which is probably just soon enough to be relevant. I find Stasis is right on the borderline of locks, since it's soft enough that people are likely still doing things, just very, very slowly. I'm not sure it's enough to win a game, and it makes it hard for me to do anything else after I've played it, so maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to see go? Tough call.