Mana Requirements?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on May 7, 2020, 3:09 p.m. by Tacovine
Does anyone have a formula when using the mana pie chart to determine which and how many mana of each color to include in a multi-color deck? Ex: 1 red mana for every 2 red mana requirements? thanks
griffstick says... #3
Like LordBlackblade said you want to match it. You might want to look at your deck close and see what color the early spells are to determine what color you'll need to lean into harder.
May 7, 2020 4:45 p.m.
GhostChieftain says... #4
At this point I throw fetchlands at my problems and dont worry about percentages. That said, I used to find the percentage of each mana pip I use and get my lands relatively close to that percentage. As far as number of lands I shoot around 33 atm, but 35-38 is pretty common
May 7, 2020 4:47 p.m.
It also comes down to how much land fetching you're running. If you run land tutoring cards like Nature's Lore, Farseek, etc. then you can lean slightly more heavily into green than the other colours with the assumption that you can tutor for the other colours.
The fetches/shock/OG duals will also change the numbers a bit, since even in a 4 colour deck, (eg. sans blue), hitting a Misty Rainforest will give you a lot of choices as to what it ends up being.
If you're splashing a colour in a deck, you will generally want a slightly higher ratio of lands to symbols so that you have the mana to play the few spells wghhen you need them, though this mana often comes in the form of dual mana soruces.
May 7, 2020 7:24 p.m.
Great info, thanks.. I probably should have been more specific. I'm brewing a 3 color (Jeskai) deck, Sevinne.
May 7, 2020 10:42 p.m.
Without access to green, you will probably look at a more even distribution of mana (in that it will more closely match the costs). It's also worth taking note of the "hardness of costs" as well across your spells. This is basically how many times a mana symbol appears in the cost of a spell, eg. Mindbreak Trap and Cryptic Command both cost 4, but cryptic is a harder costed spell since you need more blue. The more hard costs you have, the more you need to lean into that colour.
This also affects the nubmer of utility lands you can run (i.e. ones with abilities but which typically produce colourless). This is why the more competitive decks (typically) run next to zero utility lands and more lands purely focused on better fixing, especially when it comes to 3+ colour decks.
LordBlackblade says... #2
Not a formula per se, I but I usually shoot to have the ratios be pretty close, e.g. i the deck is 60% white, my mana base should be around 60% white mana-producing.
On the other hand, if my decks are less color-rich, I'll just go with a simple 50/50, 33/33/33, etc. split.
Either method works well enough, I personally rarely find myself color-screwed while playing EDH.
May 7, 2020 4:09 p.m.