[Discussion, Play More Land] What the Hell is Wrong with you People?

[frogboy]

Why doesn't anyone want to actually make their land drops anymore? Pretty much all the Daze aggro decks are playing like eighteen or nineteen lands and banking on Ponder and Brainstorm to get there. I can see that in the decks that stop at two, but then you've got the control decks like It's the Fear playing like 22 lands; don't you pretty much always want to get your first five land drops or so? You've obviously got to get to three, and if you have to do something to the board instead of Intuition for Loam it's kind of rough when you can't do multiple things per turn. There's that Intuition-Threshold list that's trying to do things with Deed and Intuition and plays like eighteen land or whatever. Mono White Control plays 22 lands? I'm pretty sure my mono white Onslaught Block deck played like 26 plus four Eternal Dragons. Even Vorosh cheats on lands a little.

I can buy that Daze lets you basically rebuy a land drop, but then you've got decks like Dreadstill that have Counterbalance and Trinket Mage but are also running Factories and Wastelands. Do people just not want to use Brainstorm to find real cards? One of the reasons I thought Aggro Loam was so exciting was because it played like 26 lands and had Loams so you always got to make all your drops and it was awesome.

Discuss.

[blacklotus3636]

People tend to view land as dead draws so they try to minimize that as much as possible. I understand the trend but I always liked running a few extra lands than I needed so I didn't have to worry about being land fucked. I have noticed though that legacy decks tend to have a very low curve for tempo and to take advantage of things like counterbalance. Many decks also play blue for force and cheap draw which makes playing less land even easier. I ran 18 lands in my madness survival deck and it worked out ok because I had birds, elves, multiple rofellos and a curve that had very few creatures above 2 cc but generally speaking I need a pretty strong reason to play less than 20 lands in a non-combo deck. Hell even burn played 19 and it was combo-ish. I think the trend of cutting lands makes resource denial better but everyone has already written it off because the format is too fast. Its the state of things at the moment

[frogboy]

Like, I lose a lot more games because I didn't draw enough lands than games I lost because I drew too many. Playing mana guys is one thing, but using your first few turns to make your land drops isn't very impressive if the other guy is doing things to actually affect the board.

[Pinder]

I think that people are just getting too greedy. While it may not be optimal or smart to cheat so much on mana, if it's possible and you can still pull out wins, then you can bet that people are going to.

Plus, between having fetchlands and real, honest-to-God dual lands, I think that Legacy players are a little spoiled when it comes down to being able to stretch manabases, at least in terms of color requirements, so it's only natural to think you can stretch it in other ways, too.

Of course, I'm admittedly pretty horrible at designing manabases.

[Aggro_zombies]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have fucking terrible luck and get consistently mana flooded - just ask anyone who knows me, I lose more games to "15 lands, 5 spells in a 17 land deck" than anything else. It's so bad it's become a joke around here. I even ran 16 lands in Threshold at one point in the hopes that dropping my land count would reduce my mana flood, and it did...so much so that I got consistently mana screwed. And no, it's not my shuffling - I could mana weave my deck, or put all the lands on top, or whatever, and shuffle it twenty times and STILL get mana flooded.

If I could run 16.5 lands, I'd be set.

Seriously, fuck this.

[Shugyosha]

Threshold runs 17-18 lands for years as well as Landstill running 23-24 lands + Crucible for years. So its pretty much proven that these are the correct numbers. ITF for example needs steady land drops but it hasn't the problem of Landstill that many lands don't produce colored mana and it doesn't need to attack or defend with lands as Landstill does.

Threshold needs 2-3 lands to operate. By turn three (on the play) you will have seen more than 10 cards of your deck (7 + draw two + cantrip/Top/fetch). 17 out of 60 cards means you will see probably see at least 2 lands. As you play 6-8 fetches color requirements are not an issue. Thats why T2 decks usually run more than 20 lands. They are not only mana hungry but lack our format's fixing (card quality spells and efficient fetches/duals).

[Maveric78f]

In my aggro control deck, I play 21 lands plus 4 vials. As I hate dead draws too, my strategy is to play 4*wastelands and 4*rishadan ports, and no card that requires double coloured mana. I commonly keep hands with no coloured mana but a vial or hands with 5 lands. I have to say also that I play stifle and trickbind (yeah I play dreadnought), so that it completes my LD (taking advantage of bad built manabases) and it protects me from opponent wastelands. I also play daze and FoW of course, which protects me against any other kind of land destruction.

There is a lot to say about legacy players making all the same mistakes, regarding mana base. Waiting the opponent's turn before fetching (risk of stifle) and playing an EOT brainstorm (although BS is not a card you want to play turn1, except in combo or in resp to a threat, chalice, counterbalance, a spell you want to coutnerspell). The number of players that daze without taking the mana first in order not to be dazed in resp is also amazing. And I'm not talking about MWS tests, but about tourney games, where people usually come with a deck they know. As I play rishadan port, I can also tell that 80% of the players I meet in tournaments play BS in response to the port activation during upkeep, although, they should keep the mana and play the BS after the draw. It's a bit off subject, but you have to figure out that legacy players do not learn from their mistakes. See Aggro_zombies telling that he's flooded when he plays 17 lands and mana screwed when he plays 16 lands. The clue here is maybe that he doesn't play his cantrips the right way. 17 is already far too low. And playing 12 cantrips is dumb since threshold is irrelevant, i.e. since tarmogoyf exists. I'm still not convinced about playing more than 4 actually.

[Citrus-God]

The point of running cantrips is to find lands early game and deny the drawing of lands midgame. Control decks run 25+ mana sources.

Besides that, running lands are awesome. If you truly hate drawing them midgame, just run more fetchlands. Deck thinning is awesome I hear. Besides that, playing a lot of land is important because you're relying on your opening hand to help you make land drops usually. More lands = less mulligans which means the more consistent and strong your early-midgame is, the less likely the mana flooding will matter if you can execute your plan and put yourself in a position to be ahead of your opponent. Vial Goblins is a good example of this.

[Maveric78f]

The point of running cantrips is to find lands early game and deny the drawing of lands midgame.

When you play 12 cantrips, in the best case you'll lose 1 land: the one you'll tap each turn to cantrip into a business card. In the worst case it will lock you up against chalice, trinisphere, thorn of amethyst, discard or counterbalance. In general legacy players play their cantrips too early in the game. They should 1st devote their mana to play business spell and once their hand is emptied of spells they want to play, they play their cantrips to find other ones. But the new builds are stupid since there is not anymore any 1CC business spell, except mongoose (which is not as good as it used to be btw), but a lot of players start playing it only when they have threshold. Good cantrips are necessarily instants, because you want first of all to play it when you have some mana left (because the mana you kept for stifle/spell snare or disrupt has been useless this turn). So that, BS is obviously a must have, but after that, the best is opt, and everybody will agree it's still quite bad.

[Citrus-God]

When you play 12 cantrips, in the best case you'll lose 1 land: the one you'll tap each turn to cantrip into a business card. In the worst case it will lock you up against chalice, trinisphere, thorn of amethyst, discard or counterbalance. In general legacy players play their cantrips too early in the game. They should 1st devote their mana to play business spell and once their hand is emptied of spells they want to play, they play their cantrips to find other ones. But the new builds are stupid since there is not anymore any 1CC business spell, except mongoose (which is not as good as it used to be btw), but a lot of players start playing it only when they have threshold. Good cantrips are necessarily instants, because you want first of all to play it when you have some mana left (because the mana you kept for stifle/spell snare or disrupt has been useless this turn). So that, BS is obviously a must have, but after that, the best is opt, and everybody will agree it's still quite bad.

// Lands 17
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Flooded Strand
4 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
1 Forest
3 Island


// Creatures 10
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Werebear
2 Fledgling Dragon


// Spells 33
4 Brainstorm
4 Portent
2 Serum Visions
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Predict
4 Daze
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Pithing Needle


// Sideboard 15
4 Pyroclasm
3 Krosan Grip
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Fledgling Dragon


And yes, this is why we run free counters; the mana curve of the deck is so low, we get away with running cards like Daze. But what makes the turbo xerox engine good is that post-board, we get away with boarding out lands if the opponent isnt running LD for more business and whatever we board in, we can use cantrips to cycle through the deck to find you that particular card. This was amazing because finding Pyroclasm was a priority for the deck in the era of Werebears and Pyroclasm. Finding and setting up the Counterbalance lock was a priority for the Threshold mirror.

So the point I'm getting here is that the engine was amazing because it not only gave you a strong pre-board game, but an absolutely amazing post-board game as well because of it's flexibility and raw power.

[Maveric78f]

Most of all it was amazing because the deck NEEDED threshold, which is not the case anymore.

[Citrus-God]

Most of all it was amazing because the deck NEEDED threshold, which is not the case anymore.

No, the deck used Threshold creatures as threats, nothing more. The deck still functioned well with other threats, but Threshold creatures were used because they were better than Dryads, Watchwolves, and Jotun Grunt because the point of Threshold back then was to play control until midgame thanks to free counters, then you move into midgame, drop some threats in which you already happen to have Threshold at the time, and just win.

What made the deck amazing was the superior card quality you have over your opponent via cantrip chain, your amazing post-board games, and the fact you rarely had any dead cards in hand because they were denied as you chain cantrips to cycle through your deck. The deck wasn't about amazing back then because chaining cantrips got you Threshold, the deck was amazing because the deck offered the pilot efficiency, flexibility and versatility.

[Maveric78f]

I completely disagree. Tormod's crypt was a good hate against threshold and gob had a positive MU (against Ugw threshold at least), because the creatures were big too late (at turn 4 in best cases), meaning that if threshold could have avoided to have these weaknesses it would have done it. The goal of threshold was to cheat with creature's cost and at this time, there was not a single creature that could compete with threshold's except terravore (no tarmogoyf, no stalker, no epochrasite, no dreadnought, no crusher). Threshold could dominate the board the creature's board with its 1CC or 2CC creatures. Moreover at this time, chalice did not see much play.

Today, this deck has evolved to tarmhold and finally, only Ubased aggro-control featuring tarmo decks remain (and sometimes mongoose). But people fail to remove those damn cantrips for obscur reasons, thinking it enables them to reduce their land count, but it is irrelevant to pay mana to find mana. You only need BS, in order to get rid in midgame of useless cards or to find an early solution. Most of the time, cantrips addicted players play them as soon as they can in order to get rid of them and to be able to set a strategy once, they at least can read their hand.

Ps: I prefer to precise that I don't consider SDT as a cantrip, even if it can serve this purpose randomly, and SDT is clearly a good inclusion to those U based aggro-control decks including tarmogoyf, specially for counterbalance, but not only.

[Citrus-God]

I completely disagree. Tormod's crypt was a good hate against threshold and gob had a positive MU (against Ugw threshold at least), because the creatures were big too late (at turn 4 in best cases), meaning that if threshold could have avoided to have these weaknesses it would have done it.

It's called Pithing Needle. If Pithing Needle didnt protect the graveyard, it wouldnt matter; as long as a cantrip gets cast, the chain keeps going.

The goal of threshold was to cheat with creature's cost and at this time, there was not a single creature that could compete with threshold's except terravore (no tarmogoyf, no stalker, no epochrasite, no dreadnought, no crusher). Threshold could dominate the board the creature's board with its 1CC or 2CC creatures. Moreover at this time, chalice did not see much play.

There were creatures in that era that questioned the size of Threshold creatures; Exalted Angel, Ravenous Baloth, Flametongue Kavu etc, etc...

Today, this deck has evolved to tarmhold and finally, only Ubased aggro-control featuring tarmo decks remain (and sometimes mongoose). But people fail to remove those damn cantrips for obscur reasons, thinking it enables them to reduce their land count, but it is irrelevant to pay mana to find mana. You only need BS, in order to get rid in midgame of useless cards or to find an early solution. Most of the time, cantrips addicted players play them as soon as they can in order to get rid of them and to be able to set a strategy once, they at least can read their hand.

They still run cantrips because cantrips do lower their land count, allows them to keep more opening hands, and finds vital pieces. And had you casted those cantrips aggressively, you should avoid drawing into dead cards because the only other cards you need to cast after those cantrips are either threats, business, counters, and more cantrips. SDT also helps filter bad draws.

I know you dislike Threshold as a deck because of the cantrips solely, but results as far as I know, also matters. Threshold is still a top deck.

[Maveric78f]

I mean that most players play their cantrips although they don't even know what they are looking for. They are just seaching for tarmogoyf. If that's their only purpose, eladarmi's call would be better, being an instant.

When threshold players will stop playing their BS at the end of their first turn, I'll start considering that they know what they do with their cantrips. Also, most threshold players start their game by cantriping, not even knowing what their opponent is playing. How can you cantrip with effectiveness, if you don't even know what you need?

Of course, don't get me wrong, I know very good threshold players, but they left most of their cantrips (only 8 left), and they know how to play them.

[Omega]

I always first turn ponder no matter what my opponent is playing just to get first turn daze if i dont have it. Or to get a force of will. Otherwise, it is preparing my next draws. Setting up my game.

Brainstorm : Mid-late game, im using it with fetchland to gain "card advantage/quality". Early game, if im casting it, it is to find an answer (daze/fow) or it is to find lands. I never brainstorm for no reason EOT turn 1.

That said, there is no universal guide on using cantrip in ThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh. You don't know why they are playing them, so stop assuming they don't know what they are doing

Cantrips also allow you to run consistenly with less lands. Like what everyone said, 3 lands is about what Threshold needs to operate very well. Over 3 lands is not necessary. Thus the needs of all the cantrips. Late game, i didnt write it, but ponder serve as a mini tutor (top 3) to find a card that is relevant to the game state

Rbert

[Deep6er]

Why doesn't anyone want to actually make their land drops anymore? Pretty much all the Daze aggro decks are playing like eighteen or nineteen lands and banking on Ponder and Brainstorm to get there. I can see that in the decks that stop at two, but then you've got the control decks like It's the Fear playing like 22 lands; don't you pretty much always want to get your first five land drops or so? You've obviously got to get to three, and if you have to do something to the board instead of Intuition for Loam it's kind of rough when you can't do multiple things per turn. There's that Intuition-Threshold list that's trying to do things with Deed and Intuition and plays like eighteen land or whatever. Mono White Control plays 22 lands? I'm pretty sure my mono white Onslaught Block deck played like 26 plus four Eternal Dragons. Even Vorosh cheats on lands a little.

I can buy that Daze lets you basically rebuy a land drop, but then you've got decks like Dreadstill that have Counterbalance and Trinket Mage but are also running Factories and Wastelands. Do people just not want to use Brainstorm to find real cards? One of the reasons I thought Aggro Loam was so exciting was because it played like 26 lands and had Loams so you always got to make all your drops and it was awesome.

Discuss.

So I'm just going to throw this out there, but it's because of a funny little thing called a mana curve.

Do you know why Threshold doesn't want to hit land drops every single turn? Because they don't need more than two land to operate efficiently. Three lands operates optimally. After that, lands are dead draws.

It's the Fear plays twenty-two lands because that's all you need. When I tested twenty-three it was too many. For a deck that wants to make sure the top three cards vary according to casting cost, having too many lands fucks up that equation. I'm fine with getting to three, then waiting to hit land after that. Top helps quite a bit for the slower matches, but I need gas in hand to stop my opponent, and land is not gas. Since most of the spells I'll be casting to stop my opponent are relatively cheap (Deed, Swords, Explosives at one or two), then constantly drawing lands will kill me more effectively than their creatures would. It's about balance.

Why are you stuck in the idea that a control deck has to have infinity-million mana sources? I played Onslaught block too. My Rifter deck had twenty-seven lands. Want to know something? We're not playing Onslaught block. What is your deal with all the land drops? You've made this complaint constantly. Why not play 40-X lands? That deck fucking makes it's land drops like nobody's business.

Your arguments don't make any sense. We build the decks to play well. You come in with, "this deck should play more lands because that's what I did in Onslaught block." To which we respond, "we build the decks like we did because that's how it works, and that's what happened after months of testing and refining." Comparing Legacy to Onslaught Block is absolutely mind boggling. The mana curve in Onslaught Block was insanely high. Vengeance, Akroma, Decree (all of them), Dragon, etc. means that you wanted as many lands as possible. In Legacy, nobody plays anything that costs more than six mana except for the odd Eternal Dragon in some Landstill lists.

I would recommend getting out of the Onslaught Block mindset and looking at Legacy. It might help.

[TheLion]

Yes, Deep6er is completely right. As long as the deck works with their land count, all is fine, isn't it?

In Legacy, nobody plays anything that costs more than six mana except for the odd Eternal Dragon in some Landstill lists.

Please make Tooth and Nail.dec and Enduring Ideal.dec work in Legacy! :-D

Maybe people are just too focussed on the "i-must-play-fetchlands-because-they-thin-my-deck-and-other-people-say-this-is-good"-Theory, that they can't play a higher curve, since they never draw enough lands.

If decks would play without 8 fetchlands, they could obviously play a higher curve. Isn't that the reason, why RW Rifter didn't play any Fetchlands, back in 2005?

[Forbiddian]

If decks played fewer fetchlands, they would pretty much have to go mono (or run pain lands, shock lands, etc.).

Dual colored is easily supportable and not very vulnerable to non-basic hate, and gives you the flexibility of Swords or KGrip or whatever else you want.

Decks mainly run fetches for the benefit of mana smoothing or the free shuffle.

[bruno_tiete]

Mono White Control plays 22 lands? I'm pretty sure my mono white Onslaught Block deck played like 26 plus four Eternal Dragons. Even Vorosh cheats on lands a little.

While I agree people tend to grow greedy regarding land count, Legacy manabases have the "right" to be smaller due to the lower average mana cost. Control cards in Legacy cost 4. Thats what people pay for a beater in Standard.
This is the same reason why Chalice of the Void is so good in Legacy. Mana costs are seldom above 4.

It's pretty common to see people cut a land for that last business spell. In most of this last minute changes, people would be better off playing 61 cards than increasing their chances of manascrew.

Loam can play its high land count comfortably because it can get rid of some through cycling, as well as it can maximize its mana usage throughout the game.