Howdy All,

I'm a long time Miracles and UWr Stoneblade player finally making my way into esper.

I'm trying to figure out my manabase given some budget concerns as well as the benefit I gain from being able to run back to basics as my meta is chock full of greedy manabases with decks like shardless BUG and Bant, and Deathblade.

For now the set-in-stone lands are:

4 strand
4 delta
2 flats
2 tundra
1 underground
1 scrubland
1 karakas
3 island
1 plains
1 swamp

putting me at 20. Ive been running basically this manabase for UWr (swapping the black sources with red) but that deck is a little be more in the midrange role also playing 4 ponders.

I think 22 total is where I want to be for more pure control deck such as esper. But what do I fill these 2 slots with?

Academy Ruins
Tarpit?
More basics?

I can see benefits to running tarpit and ruins, but that also pulls me farther out of the strong basic land manabase.

The black splash in the MD involves 3 thoughtseize, 1 IoK, and 3 Lingering souls. I can go up to 6 discard post board with 2 cabal therapy.


Thoughts?