Going beyond 40 lands if opening hands are still mana starved?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Oct. 19, 2024, 6:42 p.m. by Baron777
So I have tended to notice some of my decks, particularly my Jund (non-landfall) decks, seem to always start lacking in lands whenever I play. I have upped the lands from 36, to 38, to 40 now and still a majority of my games I need to go down to 5 or 4 cards to get a starting hand of a minimum of 3 or even 2 lands. Even then I'll also not typically see a land draw until turn 3 or 4.
There are also a healthy number of mana rocks/dorks as well as some ramp, and my curves for these decks tend to put around 40-60% in the 2-4 CMC range (more of a general trend, as this isn't the place for a deck by deck analysis)
So what would be the advice here?
-Run more lands? 42-45, or should I go higher? -Add more ramp options? -Add more mana dorks? Something I'm missing here?
TypicalTimmy says... #3
I should clarify. I was on break when I wrote that so it does leave an open ended question.
- "Wait, why not just shuffle normally and flip the deck over when you're finished? That is the exact same result?"
Functionally, yes it is the same result.
However, there is one very large key difference. By shuffling artwork-up, you IMMEDIATELY see results. You instantly see clumps forming.
Otherwise you can shuffle a deck a dozen times and not understand how or why it "keeps happening".
By shuffling artwork-up, you see the effects in real time as they occur. That's why you do it this way.
October 20, 2024 2:04 a.m.
I generally advice against running over 36 lands.
My trick I've learned in commander (which i assume is the format you're speaking of) is not to run more lands but to run card draw
It took me many years to figure this only after experimentation.
If you have to up to 36, improve the rest with draw. The cycling cards, cycling lands, etc. will eventually get you the lands you need.
Since you have enough ramp, it seems to be the early game which is your problem.
The idea is that if you have two lands, the draw will get you cards you need immediately and provide functional value late game.
Besides that, if your curve is high, I personally think 2 (3 if it's really bad) bouncelands aren't as bad aren't as bad as people think. These tap for two mana but force you to return a land in place of like Simic Growth Chamber and Guildless Commons. You essentially pay an opportunity cost of 1 to guarantee 2 mana next turn. Bouncing a bounceland does suck, but the alternative of having less mana in your land pool is far worse.
October 20, 2024 6:50 a.m.
I think I largely agree with lukecwolf, you need a very good reason to want to run more than about 35 lands, depending on your colour you almost certainly have SOME options for cheap card draw effects, and in most games you'd rather see these than extra lands later, stuff like Sign in Blood and Spirited Companion/Elvish Visionary/Humble Defector help grease hands where you drew either a bit fewer or a bit more land than is ideal, these will make sure you're not stuck when drawing another land in it's place would only help when you have too few lands (and would be brutal if you had extra).
If the Jund deck you're talking about is your Mr Orfeo deck, I think you have too many lands for your average MV, I'd definitely run more land ramp spells (to generate faster/more consistent hands, land ramp can fix too), there are even some janky options like Dire-Strain Rampage and Road / Ruin that offer you combination ramp and removal, there are others that provide blockers (like Wood Elves and Farhaven Elf), just running this many lands makes me fear land floods. For the record, if you've got access to Green you probably shouldn't bother with most of the artifact ramp, Nature's Lore and Three Visits are much better than any of those, especially since they can find non-Basics. The other thing your deck should look at is stuff like Night's Whisper, Sign in Blood, Humble Defector, and Llanowar Visionary/Elvish Visionary, these often play better than more lands. I guess the final thought would be you can sneak some MDFCs in to replace generic lands, the new Stump Stomp Flip would probably be handy in your list for example, and I think most decks that can run Bala Ged Recovery Flip and Valakut Awakening Flip should do so, ymmv on others. At 40 lands I'd straight up shave lands for MDFCs.
I like Bounce Lands in decks that have shaved a few lands, they give you another land drop, but they do make you VERY vulnerable to anyone crazy enough to run Dwarven Miner/Dwarven Blastminer, so keep that in mind I guess? Most people don't use stuff like that in Commander, it's considered anti-social by a plurality of the format, but you might see a Strip Mine, but most people would rather keep their Strip Mine for something like Gaea's Cradle than spend it on a Guildless Commons. I would say with some confidence that you can probably shave a land for every 2 Bounce Lands you replace normal lands with, but I doubt I'd go over 4 or 5 in a deck.
October 20, 2024 10:16 a.m.
Mana weaving could work, just remember to stop if anybody has a problem with it.
October 20, 2024 8:45 p.m.
wallisface says... #7
I would suggest against “mana weaving” - it’s a bad practice and is pretty cheating-adjacent.
This site can help you work out whether you have the right ratio of lands-to-nonlands in your decks, as far as helping to show you draw-odds.
Other things to consider/evaluate:
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I have no idea whether this applies to you, but could this more a case of your mana curve being too high? You might be thinking you’re lacking mana, when the reality could be that the deck is too clumsy/slow to perform on a reasonable land-count.
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I also have no idea whether this applies to you, but could it be the case you’re shuffling in a way where the deck is not being properly randomised? I’ve witnessed some atrocious attempts at shuffling, with those players not understanding why their deck consistently has all their lands clumped together (note, random means sometimes this will happen - but it happening every game is indicative something more is afoot!). It may sound stupid, but it’s worth verifying you’re shuffling in a way that properly randomises your cards - this video covers it pretty perfectly.
October 20, 2024 9:45 p.m. Edited.
My playgroup has a rule 0 we use to help games start better. Conditions you have to meet:
- You have not taken a mulligan yet
- Your hand has 0, 1, 6, or 7 lands in it
If you meet those, instead of taking a normal mulligan, you:
- Fan out your hand faceup for everyone to see
- Draw 7
You can do this as many times as you want, as long as you meet the conditions. If your deck runs out of cards, shuffle up and start over. This happened once, when the Krenko player shuffled all his mountains to the bottom of his deck.
October 21, 2024 11:26 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #9
A 100-card deck is a lot more difficult to manipulate than a "normal" one, so it may be a physical issue with how effectively you're able to shuffle between games.
First suggestion: after a game ends, shuffle your hand, battlefield, graveyard and exile together a few times BEFORE adding them back to your library. Everything you play during a game is going to end up "sorted" in some way that would look really clumpy if it appeared that way in the library, so randomizing them more before recombining might help.
Second suggestion: after recombining everything and giving a few shuffles, grab about half of the deck and shuffle the two halves separately a few times before recombining again, then do that one or two more times. It will be easier to handle the smaller piles for a "proper" shuffle.
October 21, 2024 12:22 p.m.
wallisface The only time I mana weave is the very first time when I get a new deck, especially a precon. If you just got your deck, you’re likely to have huge land pockets. Rhadamanthus for your no land mulligan rule, I would suggest saying that your deck has to have at least 25 lands and no more than fifty to make sure people can’t abuse it.
October 21, 2024 8:38 p.m.
wallisface says... #11
Bookrook a bug takeaway is that if your mana-weaving has actually mattered, then its indicative your shuffling isn’t properly randomising cards (and needs practice). And, if this mana-weaving didn’t matter (because you shuffled properly), then it was a pointless exercise.
October 21, 2024 9:07 p.m.
I’m saying that it helps you shuffle more randomly because it is very difficult to get a purely random shuffle. Doing it before you shuffle means that your hands have a bigger chance of each individual card being random. Several times before I did this, my first game was always either completely mana flooded or completely mana screwed.
October 21, 2024 9:16 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #13
Random=/=uniform distribution. If weaving in any way changes the make-up of your hand then you are not properly randomizing. Using 1 or less land/spell for the definition of screw/flood. With 40 lands you are going to have 1 or less lands in your opening 7 14.4% of the time and 6 or more lands 1.6% of the time. This means that you are getting screwed or flooded 16% of the time, or about 1 in 6 hands. If you expand screw/flood to 2 or less lands/spells then you are getting screwed a full 40.6% of the time and flooded 9.2% so almost half of all hands will be screw/flood.
This is why you need card selection and a relatively low curve to be able to have any consistency in EDH.
October 21, 2024 9:44 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #14
On topic of the thread:
Assuming that The Boulder Feels Conflicted... is the deck you are talking about the curve seems fine for a casual deck and your land+ramp total is about where I would run it. It seems that the major breakpoint you are trying to hit is 4 mana by turn 4 and with your current count you will have a mixture of at least 4 ramp/lands 88% of the time on turn 4. Some of the time that fourth source is going to be ramp drawn on turn 4 and you won't actually have the 4 mana available, so call it 75% success. With proper mulliganing you can bring that above 90%.
Personally I would actually cut back a few lands since I don't like running over 36, but replace them with ramp and it will keep the land+ramp total the same. Some of your lands are slow I would probably remove 4-5 lands replace them with 2 mana ramp. I would probably cut Game Trail, Riveteers Overlook, Rugged Highlands, Savage Lands, and Twisted Landscape. They would be replaced with Talismans (Talisman of Indulgence etc.) Three Visits and Nature's Lore. If you didn't want to go to 35 lands pick any 4 of the suggestions and put a Cinder Glade in would be my suggestion.
October 21, 2024 10:17 p.m.
wallisface says... #15
Bookrook what you’re describing is that your own shuffling technique is inadequate to properly randomise a deck, but ALSO as Gidgetimer points out, you’re reducing the randomness of the deck by creating uniformity. Whatever you’re doing would most-certainly be considered cheating in any kind of structured/tournament play, and should be heavily frowned-upon/discouraged even in the most casual of settings.
October 21, 2024 10:17 p.m.
I never weave before I play a game, only when I first get a deck and all of the lands are on the bottom.
October 21, 2024 10:32 p.m.
wallisface says... #17
And as I keep saying, if your shuffling is properly randomizing the cards, it shouldn't matter how clumped the lands are initially
October 21, 2024 11:17 p.m.
Bookrook I think you meant to tag me about the homebrew mulligan rule haha. To respond to your concern: that is not something that has ever been considered. If you don't trust the people you play with, then just don't do mulligans this way. This is why you talk about stuff like this before you play. If I sat down at a table and tried this without discussing it, I would expect to be called out for it immediately.
For context, I have two playgroups, each having a pod of 4-6 players (depending on who shows up to my place/the LGS), and we use this rule. The only deck that isn't allowed to do this is the No Land Narset combo deck lol. Similarly, when we play our more tuned decks, we don't do this.
October 22, 2024 11:25 a.m.
hyalopterouslemur says... #19
We'd need to know your curve. Like, my mode for nonland cards tends to be at 3 mana.
I would suggest you goldfish a few times and record on which round you reach 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on up to the top of your curve. Since you're in green, I would recommend Sakura-Tribe Elder, Rampant Growth (strictly worse than STE, but still good), Nature's Lore, Three Visits (a Portal: Three Kingdoms card, but it has been reprinted in Commmander precons), and Farseek.
And remember, there's no shame in a mulligan. If this is a serious problem, you can partial Paris mulligan away all your nonland cards and see if you get one or two more.
October 25, 2024 6:02 p.m.
So here's how i typically start with a build. 40% of the deck is lands. Thats 40 in a 100 card deck and 24 in a 60 card deck. I never raise it higher. If I feel starved that usually either means I need more draw or my average CMC is too high. If I have alternative sources of mana, like rocks, OR if my average CMC is really low, thats when I'll take some out. Commander decks pretty much always have numerous mana rocks and sometimes ramp in them so thats why a lot of decks will sit at 30-36 lands. It sounds to me like you need to figure out a good way to draw or cycle cards. If youre not getting lands with 40 in there you're just unlucky.
October 26, 2024 4:11 a.m.
hyalopterouslemur says... #21
A good ratio is 40 lands, and then 10 for mana accel, 10 for instant answers, 10 for card draw, and one boardwipe which will favor you. But it's just a guideline.
In green, you have five mana ramp spells for . All green decks should presumably use all five if possible. (Monogreen gains nothing from Farseek, and Three Visits is a very rare card because Portal: Three Kingdoms. Hermit Druid decks are advised to just use mana rocks.) Toss in Sol Ring and Arcane Signet and we're at 7. The rest can be diamonds, signets, Mind Stone, Thought Vessel (if you're drawing a ton of cards), or Coldsteel Heart (which is strictly better than diamonds because you get to choose your color).
At three mana, you get Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, and Chromatic Lantern. Wood Elves and Farhaven Elf can be good, if you have ways to sacrifice them or otherwise abuse the 1/1 body.
At four, Skyshroud Claim and Migration Path are my favorites. I also like Hedron Archive.
November 3, 2024 8:15 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #22
Bruh, Three Visits has had 8 printings in the last 4 years. It isn't rare because of P3K anymore. It is still >$5 because it is good and the printings weren't large, but it isn't the chase card it once was.
TypicalTimmy says... #2
Generally when I build, I put in 8 to 10 mana rocks and 32 to 36 lands.
That means 40 to 46 sources of mana, which seems to be approximately your volume.
At that rate, I would suggest you may accidentally be clump shuffling. By this I mean you may be "shuffling" but you are blocking cards together which means they aren't actually filtering throughout your deck evenly.
Try to practice shuffling. Shuffle your cards face up, so the artwork is on top and the clear part of the sleeves are facing toward you.
Shuffle like normal, then fan the deck out to see how lands and rocks are being distributed.
Repeat this 10, 20, 30 times. The more you do it, the more you'll notice patterns to confirm or deny if you are, indeed, clump shuffling.
Just remember that when doing this, your deck is "upside down". So the "top" card is actually at the bottom of your library. This is important because it'll tell you if the clumps fall toward the top third, middle or bottom third of your deck.
So if all of your lands drift to the "top" while practicing with artwork face up, that's actually the bottom of your library. Just something to remember.
October 19, 2024 7:07 p.m. Edited.