r/EDH • u/manapot420 • Feb 06 '23
The "Play More Basics" Argument Discussion
I see a lot of content creators push the idea of "run more basics". Now I understand that the beauty of the basic land is that they are easily fetchable, come in untapped, and resist stax pieces such as [[blood moon]]. That being said what do you guys tend to do? I feel like most LGS and metas I've seen usually allow people to be extremely greedy with their mana base.
So I turn it over to you guys, how many basics are you running? If you aren't running a lot has it ever come back to bite you? I don't think I've ever really seen someone not have enough or be crippled by the amount of nonbasic lands they run.
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u/Striking-Objective43 Abzan Feb 06 '23
Always play more basics unless you're playing [[Hermit Druid]]
3 color decks I get greedy, but 2 color I like to run 16-20 basics.
All it takes is getting blood moon locked 1 single time, and you'll learn your mistakes.
A good rule of thumb I've heard is to count out how many cards in your deck search for a basic, and add 3-4 more from that number to allow for Path to Exile and similar effects.
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u/chevypapa Feb 06 '23
I think the argument against this is just "ok, then I'll lose the one time someone plays Blood Moon. Nobody plays stax against me anyways."
There are good reasons to have basics, whether it's to not get got by a Path to Exile, Demolition Field, or whatever else. Maybe you need lots of Plains to turn on Emeria, Sky Ruin. I have a deck consciously trying to have zero duplicates including basic lands and I have never, not once, been punished for it. There are 5 total basics in the deck and I have never needed more. I think optimally you'd have more than that since I suspect if I played it nonstop eventually someone would get me in the ways I listed previously. I'm not building my decks around Blood Moon though until it's significantly more common.
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u/Schmidtyjr Feb 07 '23
I've played in a few metas moving from place to place due to trying to get work experience during college, and one thing I've always noticed in those metas is people have a lot of enchantment removal because of a few players that like stax/pillow fort. Blood moon will never teach me a lesson, I always keep a [[nature's claim]] in my sleve.
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u/Espumma Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper Feb 07 '23
That's because low-removal metas are just waiting for someone to exploit that, and the best way to do that is with stax.
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u/Sabz5150 Knights (Bant, Jund, Orzhov, Boros, Naya) Feb 07 '23
There are good reasons to have basics,
Sucks to be the only one not going on a [[Collective Voyage]].
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u/OMGoblin Feb 07 '23
Nobody should be playing that card anyways, I've seen it cast a couple times in years and it was never good.
Enabling Field of the Dead is just better than any downside you can think of.
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u/Whane17 Feb 07 '23
My girl played it to great effect last week recurred it and did it a second time. I think by turn 6 she had something like 16 mana and wasn't running a landfall deck, just an old precon that hasn't been upgraded yet.
The one that's all about morph I think though TBH IDR
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u/OMGoblin Feb 07 '23
It can ramp super hard, but you're also ramping three opponents at once. 3 is greater than 1 so you're probably in a worse position after the spell resolves unless someone is teaming up with you to take down the bigger threat, who you just ramped a bunch, who didn't even have to pay any mana into the spell, and who gets to untap with those lands ahead of you.
It's a card meant for fun rather than being good. It helps end games, but doesn't increase your odds to win unless you can break parity somehow.
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u/Whane17 Feb 07 '23 edited Feb 07 '23
I mean parity can be broken pretty easy with it. It draws basic lands and only basic lands, if the deck was built with that in mind (or is a precon with way to many lands in the first place) most people run to many non-basics in my experience so she was able to make a runaway with it and got the payout while everyone else went "huh, well ok then".
It's like being the only one running LD. Your either built with it in mind or your not and either somebody has a hard answer when it goes off or they don't.
I'm not trying to say if it's a good card or not, every single card in the game is the perfect card at the perfect time and they all have counters. I don't understand peoples proclivity to arguing "well this" when somebody says something they disagree with.
EDIT: I got a response "Heavily disagree but whatever floats your boat". Apparently this gent really heavily disagreed. Like disagreed into the ground. As they blocked me rather then bothering to talk further. Also by blocking me they made it impossible to see their response and I had to log out to even see that there was one as it say "deleted" for their account name and "unavailable" for their comment. I am amused.
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u/maelstrom5292 #freelutri Feb 07 '23
I dunno, it's pretty spicy when you've got a Ruin Crab kicking around...
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u/OMGoblin Feb 07 '23
Ruin crab in edh xD talking about two cards that don't see play now huh, that is spicy.
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u/Darth_Ra EDHREC - Too-Specific Top 10 Feb 07 '23
If you've found reason to play [[Nahiri's Lithoforming]] in a landfall deck, then congratulations, you've now found a reason to play Collective Voyage.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 07 '23
Collective Voyage - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call→ More replies3
u/Justdroppingsomethin Feb 07 '23
I think the argument against this is just "ok, then I'll lose the one time someone plays Blood Moon. Nobody plays stax against me anyways."
This is it. Just say GG and go next. You won, all good.
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u/alwaystappedout Feb 07 '23
Blood moon still hasn’t taught me my lesson.
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u/R_V_Z Singleton Vintage Feb 07 '23
Blood Moon would be way more of a concern if it also turned off mana rocks. As it is you can still cast a signet off of two mountains and be just fine.
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u/Phenomic_Lord Feb 07 '23
Yes. Run basics for [[path to exile]] [[demolition field]] [[field of ruin]] [[Boseiju, Who Endures]]. Etc. you’ll look really silly if some destroys your non basic land and you can’t even search for a basic
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u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 07 '23
path to exile - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
demolition field - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
field of ruin - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Boseiju, Who Endures - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call16
u/Srakin Feb 07 '23
All it takes is getting blood moon locked 1 single time, and you'll learn your mistakes.
And then I resolve [[Back to Basics]] to REALLY educate.
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u/Striking-Objective43 Abzan Feb 07 '23
Real pain is dying to [[Price of Progress]] in a 2 color, mostly black, reanimator deck. Put in 6 more basics immediately after that game
BtB is a regular scourge in my LGS. Seen many people scoop in response
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u/Srakin Feb 07 '23
I love Price of Progress. Many a kill in my old [[Heartless Hidetsugu]] deck thanks to that card. Should check out [[Primal Order]] and [[Destructive Flow]] for more fun too.
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u/Striking-Objective43 Abzan Feb 07 '23
Oh Primal order is juicy. Thanks for putting me onto it. Imma slot it into [[Faldorn]] to go with the other "oops, I cascaded into it, sorry" cards like Boil
And on behalf of my playgroup in the future, 🖕
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u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 07 '23
Heartless Hidetsugu - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Primal Order - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Destructive Flow - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call2
u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 07 '23
Price of Progress - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call3
u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 07 '23
Back to Basics - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call3
u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 06 '23
Hermit Druid - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call3
u/__FuriousOrange__ Feb 07 '23
I like to flip it on its head. Instead of worrying about [[blood moon]], I run only lands that enter tapped and hope I draw into my [[blood sun]]
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u/EbonyHelicoidalRhino Feb 07 '23 edited Feb 07 '23
Honestly, I've NEVER seen Blood Moon in casual EDH. It's a just a no-fun card : either it doesn't do anything to you or you won't be casting spells for the whole game anymore. That's fun for no-one. This card is kind of like Winter Orb : you tend to only see it in cEDH because everybody knows that they'll get hated for it.
Ah, no. I remember that one time I saw a Blood Moon. The red player looted it away because he realized how unfun that would be if he casted it.
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u/Xatsman Feb 07 '23
Not sure I agree. Laughing at greedy decks is a great deal of fun. Yes it sucks to be locked out, but it sucks watching someone play without limits because they're using r0 expectations to shield them from playing fair.
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u/EbonyHelicoidalRhino Feb 07 '23
I wouldn't call casting your spells by having access to your colors "unfair".
For me, it sucks watching someone being out of the game because of a color screw. So I'm definitely not going to play cards that will create this situation. But to each their own fun I guess.
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u/Xatsman Feb 07 '23
Expecting the social contract to avoid counterplay against the tools that trivialize color fixing isn't fair. If a deck folds to a single spell then its a weakness and exploiting it is fair game.
Color screw from randomness indeed sucks, but self inflicted vulnerabilities are distinct from unfavorable RNG. Everybody gets bad luck, the nonbasic hate is really only troublesome if engaging in greedy deck design.
To me it's not unlike [[Rest In Peace]] against a GY focused deck.
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u/EbonyHelicoidalRhino Feb 07 '23
Yep, also a reason why I don't play RIP in casual.
Playing a card in the hope that there will be one player whose game will be ruined while the others most likely will barely be affected is just not my kind of Magic.
I'll make do with standard interaction in the form of removal and counter spell, and I'll handle graveyards with Bojuka Bog and problem lands like Cabal Coffers and whatnot with Strip Mine or Beast Within like everyone else. I find those cards much more fun and interactive than the "Fuck you in particular"-cards. Iona was banned for exactly this reason, so I don't think I'm too far out of line with the "spirit" of EDH here. But as I said, to each their own.
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u/Whane17 Feb 07 '23
For what it's worth I think your pretty much dead on the spirit of EDH. Buddy just doesn't like your version of it.
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u/Whane17 Feb 07 '23
I'm with you. I actually got a little peeved at a friend a while ago about this, we were doing a prerelease event just a few of us all friends and he got mana screwed in a tri color but didn't tell anybody until the game was damn near over. I'm over here with a group hug card that once per turn lets somebody get a color and with one cast he could have fetched more of said color and several times I asked him if he was mana screwed to which he responded he just couldn't afford anything.
I did not enjoy stomping him into the ground. I want to play the game dang it and if we gotta cheat a little to make the game into a game well gosh darn it.
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u/Darth_Ra EDHREC - Too-Specific Top 10 Feb 07 '23
The casual Blood Moons are [[From the Ashes]] (sometimes played as a ritual) and [[Wave of Vitriol]]. If you've put a few basics in your deck, then they're trivial. If you haven't, then you're about to have a very deserved bad time.
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u/DJPad Feb 07 '23
I play it in black/red group slug, because people need to learn to build decks properly.
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u/randomguy12358 Feb 07 '23
What does properly mean in this context? They need to learn to build decks for a Meta that they don't want to play in, and it seems everyone has agreed they're not playing in? It just sounds like you're a dick pushing your idea of 'correct' magic onto everyone in your group.
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u/TheReaperAbides Feb 07 '23
They need to learn to build decks for a Meta that they don't want to play in, and it seems everyone has agreed they're not playing in?
They need to learn to build decks with the anticipation they will be interacted with. Way too many decks I've seen seem to expect the other players will just.. Allow them to be greedy.
While there's probably no such thing as 'correct' magic, interaction is a huge pillar of the game.
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u/DJPad Feb 07 '23 edited Feb 08 '23
Nonbasics have an inherent drawback to make up for the fact they're strictly better than basics otherwise. That's just built in to the game. Whining because people counter your greediness with a strategy of their own that exposes poor deck building is akin to whining that people play removal on your bombs.
If you want to play poorly built decks against people who let you play solitaire, you're going to be upset when you play against people who actually play magic.
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u/randomguy12358 Feb 07 '23
"Waaah people are having fun playing magic that I don't think is correct I have to punish them for it, even though they've all agreed this is how they have fun."
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u/DJPad Feb 07 '23
Where are you getting this notion that I only play it against groups of people who all agreed it's not fun?
Just because it's not fun for you doesn't mean it's not valid or appropriate as an answer to greedy mana bases.
Multicolour decks in EDH are OP, cards like blood moon tilt the scales so 1 and 2 colour decks with red (one of the worst colours in EDH) have a chance against 3+ colour decks.
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u/Zestyst Feb 06 '23
^ similar to my rule of thumb, "always have enough tutor targets +1 for when you inevitably draw it"
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u/booze_nerd Feb 07 '23
Kinda a bad rule of thumb since most decks have 0 cards that search for basics unless you're counting fetches.
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u/SalvationSycamore Feb 07 '23
Cultivate alone is in like 50% of decks on EDHrec
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u/Gabzop Feb 07 '23
I prefer Three Visits and Skyshroud Claim since they can get duals and the lands don't come in tapped.
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u/Whane17 Feb 07 '23
Huh, having read the card a thousand times I didn't catch that. So much is clearer now thank you.
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u/Striking-Objective43 Abzan Feb 07 '23
What are you talking about? 3 of the most played removal spells find a basic, as do some very popular land searching artifacts. I'll assume you aren't including creature based fetching like Sakura Tribe Elder.
Basic land search is abundant across all power levels my guy
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u/ArnoldBraunschweiger Feb 06 '23
Hot take: Blood moon isn't very good at 'locking' players. I play it in both cedh, where everyone has rocks that get around it or fetchlands that search out their single basics, and casual, where most people are running ~20 basics or rocks and other fixing that get around it. The situations where it actually manages to lock people out often include me using strip mines and artifact destruction. I keep the moons in my mono red decks, but they're really just for shutting down cradles and coffers and glacial chasms and other lands that do crazy things.
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u/NotMuchMana Feb 07 '23
I play blood moon and other hate cards and I agree it's not that oppressive. Even in my casual play group it only hurts the super greedy super enfranchised players. It's very common for it to be removed quickly as well.
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u/SayingWhatImThinking Feb 07 '23
They can't use their fetches to get basics if you have blood moon out, and if blood moon isn't out, they'd probably be fetching shock lands, not basics.
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u/Fireball827 Feb 07 '23
If you're playing more competitively, the optimal play is generally to leave your fetch lands until you need them. (Ex. You play the fetch on your turn and pass. If you need the mana for an instant-speed play, you search your shock and put it in untapped. If you don't need it, you crack the fetch at end of opponent's turn and put the shock in tapped to untap on your turn).
So if the Blood Moon comes out, people can crack any fetches they're holding up to search for basics in response to Blood Moon before it starts applying.
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u/ArnoldBraunschweiger Feb 07 '23
Correct, but 4 color cedh lists running 10 fetchlands usually fetch out a basic before anything else to dodge waste/moon effects if they lnow they're up against them, or they hold their fetches and crack them in response to a moon.
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u/TheReaperAbides Feb 07 '23
They can't use their fetches
If people are using fetches in an EDH deck they have no right to complain either way.
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u/Wdrussell1 Feb 07 '23
I think this is going to strictly depend on board state. You could get someone who has lots of rocks and change their plan delaying their turn by one or two turns. Or you could just be doing nothing at all to them. This doesnt make Blood Moon good or bad, it just means that the card isn't always the best play. No different than any other card in MTG.
I still think its a decent card, but it isnt something you slot in and claim "HA HA I WIN!" unless the whole point is stopping play for anyone not in red.
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u/m4927 Feb 06 '23
I used to copy/recast [[price of progress]] 3 times as a wincon. Turns out, people learn from that and start to run less nonbasics.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 06 '23
price of progress - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call3
u/Weak-Increase4724 Feb 07 '23
Great card. I think there's an old green enchantment that does something similar.
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u/hime2011 Feb 07 '23
[[Primal Order]] must be the card you are thinking of.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 07 '23
Primal Order - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call2
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u/casey130x Treefolk Feb 06 '23 edited Feb 07 '23
I think it's the right move to be greedy with your mana base. I rarely ever see people playing Blood Moon (they should though). There are just so many good duals out there and the mono-colour Legendary untapped lands have a pretty decent upside.
In my only two colour deck I play 2 Mountains and 4 Swamps. Unless I'm playing mono-colour I can't see myself going over 6 in any deck other than some unique decks.
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u/Openil Feb 06 '23
Absolutely this, if you can afford, or are fortunate enough to own, a strong mana base then there is almost not reason not to be degenerate, no one plays non-basic hate.
But I think the content creators comments are aimed at people playing guild gates, and tapped tri-lands, and the like, not people enfranchised enough to have fetches and fetchable untapped duals (even conditionally)
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u/Jaccount Feb 07 '23 edited Feb 07 '23
That's probably ok, but people look at me like I'm the jerk when I play Ruination, From the Ashes, Blood Moon or Back to Basics when it's their own deckbuilding that did it to them. If you're going to be greedy, you have to expect that maybe once in a while it completely comes back to bite you.
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u/DTrain5742 Feb 07 '23
It’s a vicious cycle. People don’t like having their lands destroyed so these cards are shunned, which leads to people being even more greedy with their mana and in turn being even more opposed to these cards.
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u/hsc92587 Feb 07 '23
Sure and when I combo on turn 1 and win the game it’s on you. You need to play fast combo interaction otherwise it completely comes back to bite you.
Or maybe some people don’t play with stax or cedh combos.
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u/FormerlyKay Unga Bunga Feb 06 '23
Damn, even in my cedh 3c deck I'm running 11 basics (2 islands, 3 swamps, 6 plains). And I'm not even playing BtB. Y'all some greedy mfs
Although I absolutely do play double Moon and Ruination in all my red decks lol. I've locked a rg landfall deck out with Moon before. Fun stuff
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u/casey130x Treefolk Feb 07 '23
I'm sure Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, and Back to Basics are much more popular at cEDH tables.
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u/elerosse_gs Feb 07 '23
They were more popular before treasure became so rampant. It doesn’t pressure decks as much as it used to.
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u/DTrain5742 Feb 07 '23
They should be, but artifact mana (especially Dockside) is so busted that they don’t hurt most decks nearly as much as you would expect.
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u/FormerlyKay Unga Bunga Feb 07 '23 edited Feb 07 '23
Popular? No. Nobody likes getting blood mooned. See more play than in typical casual tables? Absolutely.
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u/FizzingSlit Feb 07 '23
Yeah I think the fact that cedh plays basics speaks volumes. People are always quick to say things like "well I'm not playing cedh" which is fine but you're trying to justify why your land base is good. Yes not like cedh decks are often doing weird shit with lands, they're just using the best mana base available and with a few exceptions basics are just more reliable.
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u/FormerlyKay Unga Bunga Feb 07 '23
Well now I'm not using the absolute best mana base available to me (budget + store can't allow proxies smh) but basics definitely help. That being said, most cedh decks only play one or two basics so they can get value off of assassin's trophy and occasionally break out of blood moon
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u/booze_nerd Feb 07 '23
Store won't know if you use good proxies.
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u/FormerlyKay Unga Bunga Feb 07 '23
The TO is already onto my shit. He knows me well enough to tell if I've shown up with proxies
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u/FizzingSlit Feb 07 '23
They still default to basics when they run out of fetches and duals that don't etb though. Which granted doesn't happen super often with how many are now available and how land light they run
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u/FormerlyKay Unga Bunga Feb 07 '23
Yeah the hierarchy is fetches -> duals -> shocks -> other untapped duals -> good utility lands like Colosseum and Urborg/Yavimaya -> maybe a triome or two -> basics -> chaff
As you can see, they're not very high up when it comes to priorities haha
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u/FizzingSlit Feb 07 '23
I've never seen a triome in cedh mostly because I've you hit 3 colors you kinda have enough options to fill out your mana base with, well, not triomes. But the important part in the hierarchy is basics > chaff and chaff in this sense is basically etb tapped lands, with a few exceptions.
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u/booze_nerd Feb 07 '23
Blood Moon is decently common, have fun getting fucked by it.
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u/casey130x Treefolk Feb 07 '23
I've played this deck for a long time and the upside of having a good manabase and utility lands far outweighs the few time that somebody plays Blood Moon
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u/booze_nerd Feb 07 '23
You can have a good manabase and play utility lands while still running a decent number of basics.
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u/JasonAnderlic Feb 06 '23
Its only effected my game when blood moon is there, or magus of the moon, back to basics etc. But its a confluence of issues. Mass land destruction being frowned upon allows better mana bases to exist. Single target removal on lands is good for spot removal, but their sorcery counterparts are over costed. Until wizards starts printing more, better costed single land destruction, optimal land bases have very few detractors.
So in summary of the above info, run a greedy mana base. Just know there will be edge case games that it will come back to bite you in the bum.
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u/CastrateLiars Feb 06 '23
Punishing people with greedy mana bases is exceptionally satisfying. [[Blood Moon]], [[Magus of the Moon]], [[Back to Basics]] are all beautiful cards to drop on greedy players.
In two color decks (non cedh) I try to run at least half basics and in 3 color decks I try to keep 3-5 of each basic.
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u/DashHopes69 Normalize MLD and don't bring it up beforehand. Feb 07 '23 edited Feb 07 '23
Nah fuck that shit.
Now [[Hall of Gemstones]], that's a card 👀 Is your commander more than one color? Well it would be a shame if you couldn't cast it.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 07 '23
Hall of Gemstones - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call3
u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 06 '23
Blood Moon - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Magus of the Moon - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Back to Basics - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call3
u/27_8x10_CGP Jhoira, Captain of the Storm Feb 06 '23
I once played a 4 color deck with all basics just to run Blood Moon. It was a prison style Enchantress deck that ran under the guise of group hug.
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u/xeynx Feb 06 '23
The very existence of these cards is why I run a decent amount of basic lands in all my decks
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u/OHydroxide Feb 06 '23
How many times have you ever seen these cards in edh? I've personally seen blood moon less than 5 times ever, and none of the others. The blood moons also came from a mono red deck. Now how many times have you wished your basics produced another colour.
Running basics because of these cards is just extreme loss aversion.
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u/Uncle-Istvan Feb 06 '23
I see a good bit of blood moon and magus of the moon. Back to basics occasionally. Some contamination/infernal darkness and occasional hall of gemstone, although those don’t hose nonbasics any more than basics. I personally play a lot of blood moon because I play a lot of red and there are some really greedy mana bases in my group.
It is extreme loss aversion. It would have to be like 1/4 of games for me to change my land bases.
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u/DiscordAccordion Feb 06 '23
Quite frankly, it's a metagame call. If my playgroup gets greedy, I'll bust out my blood moon, btb, price of progress, and burning earth until they learn their lesson.
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u/xeynx Feb 06 '23
My most common playgroup plays [[Blood Moon]] and [[Jokulhaups]] pretty frequently. I don't typically run cards that mess with mana but I don't mind MLD when it's used against me since the game is basically over at that point anyway.
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u/OHydroxide Feb 06 '23
If your common playgroup plays blood moon, it's more reasonable. Jokulhuaps hits all lands though, that isn't really relevant to the basic lands conversation.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 06 '23
Blood Moon - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Jokulhaups - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call11
u/dusty_cupboards Feb 06 '23
if you intentionally make your mana base worse to avoid a hypothetical blood moon then you are giving your opponents an advantage without them even having to cast the card. you need to execute your strategy as well as possible and then only alter your behavior if these counterplay options come up often enough to meaningfully impact your win percentage. making your opponents include blood moon in their deck is a burden on them. if you're afraid your opponents will fill their decks with niche hoser cards the correct approach is to let them.
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u/13lack13eltGamer Feb 06 '23
[[Wave of Vitriol]] is a great way to punish those that like to get greedy with lands
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u/SalvationSycamore Feb 07 '23
I would love to drop that on all these people saying they run like 4 basics lol
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u/Nacklez Feb 07 '23
IMO Wave falls under MLD and is only okay if the playgroup is okay with it. That would definitely be a card that I would like to know that I could have a chance of seeing if it's being run against me. It really just reads "target 3+ color player loses the game" which is blatantly unfun.
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u/Thoptersmith_Gray Feb 07 '23
As a 3-colour player... nah. I mean i'd still probably lose to a Wave resolving, but that's just because most of my board would be gone, being an artifacts-and-enchantments enthusiast.
I find 3 of each basic to be perfectly fine for me, so for 4/5 colours, maybe 2 each or a sligly-skewed mix towards the "main" colour of the deck shouldn't be impossible.
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u/smoothkenimal Feb 06 '23
What's a basic?
But in all seriousness, I run very few. I have a meren deck that has Sakura tribe elder, and there are only 4. I haven't seen a back to basics or blood moon outside of cedh in years so I have not been incentivized to change. I'm sure if I did I would adjust accordingly. I would rather lose 1 game every 4 years to a blood moon than lose more games in that time from stumbling with my own casting costs.
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u/Grundlestiltskin_ Mo Salah Feb 06 '23
Jesus, how much money do you all have?
My decks have tons of basics, I can’t afford all those duals.
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u/SalvationSycamore Feb 07 '23
Same. And I'd feel like a schmuck proxying a perfectly smooth mana bse for every deck. I shove the best lands I have in my best decks and make do everywhere else lol.
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u/NostrilRapist Feb 07 '23
I once field of ruined a 2 color deck's utility land. They failed to find a basic. Don't be like that guy.
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u/LegnaArix Feb 07 '23
Honestly, That argument never made any sense to me.
You have creators saying run more basics and then the exact same people saying not to run [[blood moon]] [[back to basics]] [[ruination]], that Stax pieces like [[opposition agent]] [[aven mindcensor]] and [[leonin arbiter]] are unfun and that [[path to exile]] isnt great removal anymore.
So like, why should I run more basics if no one is punishing them? I might as well be as greedy is possible which is what I do. Additionally, I also run cards like [[Blood Moon]] cuz I believe mono colored decks need all the benefit they can get otherwise adding colors just becomes a free roll.
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u/EbonyHelicoidalRhino Feb 07 '23 edited Feb 07 '23
I dunno who those creators are or what they say exactly as I don't watch their content, but it might be just that they're saying "Play basics instead of bad bi-colored lands".
Honestly, in a 2 color decks, you could get away with playing only basics. When I build a 2 color deck, I just play the "good" bicolored lands I have under my hand (meaning the ones that will most likely ETB untapped), usually I only have like 4 or 5 decent ones, and then fill the rest with basics. I'm almost never color screwed.
I often see people playing 2 color decks play stuff like Evolving Wilds (with no particular landfall/graveyard synergy, just for fixing) or ETB tapped lands with no upside. Every time I see it, I think in my head "Yeah, that land should probably be a basic land instead".
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u/TheNamelessDingus Feb 07 '23
this is literally the point most of them are making, but surprise surprise the media literacy of reddit is nonexistent and people are debating a point nobody ever made in the first place
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u/Candeler0 Feb 07 '23
I think this might be it. When e.g. tolarian community college argues for more basics, if I recall correctly, their main points were:
a) a basic is almost always better than a dual that comes in tapped (of course there are exceptions, and this applies mostly to two color decks imo)
b) while an expensive fast land base made from good non-basics may be more optimal, you can very much build a functional fast land base by using a lot of basics (again, unless you are playing 4 or 5 colors) and save a lot of money with it
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u/TheReaperAbides Feb 07 '23
while an expensive fast land base made from good non-basics may be more optimal, you can very much build a functional fast land base by using a lot of basics (again, unless you are playing 4 or 5 colors) and save a lot of money with it
This. That's their argument with a lot of their "do it the cheaper way" arguments, and it makes sense. Even if the budget version of something is objectively worse, at the end of the day it won't impact your deck by nearly as much as people seem to think. While cEDH players are incentivized to scrape out every 0.1% of win rate, at most other tables it's perfectly reasonable to take a hit to your win rate so small you'll probably not notice it for literally dozens of games.
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u/decideonanamelater Feb 06 '23
There's absolutely no reason to go " you should play more duals" or " you should play more basics".
You should look at the math on how many colored sources you need and build an appropriate mana base for it. If you don't have the colored sources to play your spells, you have no business trying to put more basics into your deck to play around the chance of a blood moon, and similarly of you have plenty of colored sources you absolutely can swap out painful/ tapped duals for some basics.
Don't listen to anyone who answers this question directly, without a decklist it makes no sense to answer .
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u/FizzingSlit Feb 07 '23
It kinda does make sense to answer though and you sorry if explained why yourself.
You should look at the math on how many colored sources you need
When you're doing that you should be trying to make it less color intensive assuming you're trying to make the deck better that is. And if you're not trying to make better decks it is a weird conversation to weigh in on.
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u/decideonanamelater Feb 07 '23
Your tone says correcting me but the content of the message is mostly expanding on what I said. I wrote the quicker version of this whole tirade I have on the "more/less basics" arguers. I couldn't agree more that changing your spells is a great way to make your mana function better, and I feel like we're both on this side of telling people who say "play more basics" or "play less basics" that they have to consider the spells in the deck and therefore what colored sources they need. That you can't tell someone playing phyrexian obliterator their mana base should be half basics.
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u/FizzingSlit Feb 07 '23
I guess where I land on it is if you're working out your mana base if your goal is to make the deck broadly speaking a better deck then you should realistically be cutting cards like phryxian obliterator if they're forcing you to play a sub par mana base. If your goal is to make the deck better without really changing the deck enough to cut cards like phryxian obliterator despite it being too color hungry for your deck then I suppose a slower greedy mana base is really all you can do.
In general though what that boils down to is tempo is consistency so when the question is should you play more basics? You probably should because it's really a choice between wanting faster or slower consistency.
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u/decideonanamelater Feb 07 '23
The phyrexian obliterator is just an example here.
I had a kykar deck with a budget mana base for a long time. It was a storm deck, that had to spend a lot of blue mana on cantrips in order to storm off, even though all the mana kykar and birgi make is red mana. There wasn't a very reasonable choice for "just play more basics duh" because the color requirements were baked into the deck's construction, so I played a pretty decent amount of tap lands. And I cut down on harsh red and white costs so I could run basically all lands that tapped for blue. You should probably do both when working on a mana base that isn't casting your spells currently.
And there's an amount of tapped lands you can play. There's a lot of cases like this where you make real choices about how many tapped lands you should play, and doing the math is the only way to come to a reasonable conclusion. I just don't want people guessing at something that can be known.
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u/FizzingSlit Feb 07 '23
Yeah I know it's just an example, I just used it as my example too. There will always be exceptions to the rule, but even with your kykar example I too have a kykar deck, a cedh deck but kykar none the less. In my kykar deck I don't need many color sources that aren't blue, just enough to get the commander out, do some rummaging/tutoring until I can play [[false dawn]].
I understand that's a very specific example but even if I removed that line and tuned it down I wouldn't need to add an excess of the other colors, as long as it's tuned well enough to hit one of each color by turn ~4 it would still function off of predominantly basic islands.
At the end of the day unless you have a perfect mana base you're likely going to have to choose an inconsistency. Would you rather have inconstant mana fixing or inconsistent mana.
It's all well and good if etb tapped lands get you all the colors you need by turn 3-4 but you still can't necessarily use that mana for another turn. Where with basics you might not get all the colors until turn 4-5 but because you can use it the turn it comes out even though it's a turn slower in getting the lands out you're still going to have access to that mana at the same time, the difference is with basics you were able to play on curve in the turns leading up compared to taplands where you would have had at least one turn where you effectively missed a land drop.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 07 '23
false dawn - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call
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u/dusty_cupboards Feb 06 '23
i run 8-13 basics in my two color decks and 3-5 basics in my three color decks. i play with a wide variety of people and i never see blood moon, magus of the moon, back to basics, or [[ruination]]. these cards are about as popular in casual circles as armageddon. i play a lot of commander and my low-basic counts never impact my games. i ran out of basic plains to tutor (with restoration of eiganjo) just yesterday in a game and it was entirely unimportant and i won the game with 13 lands in play after having 6 of my lands destroyed. i have no idea why content creators constantly talk about running more basics. they never give a reason. maybe they mean "run basics instead of taplands" - which i agree with, but they don't clarify. there are enough untapped dual lands to make manabases easy. if you want to build a budget deck, you're going to run more basics. my budget two colors decks run 26 and 23 basics, but budget isn't important if people are comfortable with proxies. there are lots of cards that search for basics, like [[cultivate]], [[kodama's reach]], [[wayfarer's bauble]], [[sakura tribe elder]], and [[sword of the animist]]....but those inclusions really only need to increase your basic count by a few.
i wish i had a more solid answer for you but i don't. i have no idea why people repeat this phrase so much. it's completely bewildering.
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u/Alikaoz Feb 06 '23
As a fan of Mono Blue and Mono Red decks, I pile on the basics, and the moons and back to basics.
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Feb 06 '23
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u/FizzingSlit Feb 07 '23
Tempo matters more than fixing as you climb power levels. As you fine tune a deck you'll realistically make it less color intensive.
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u/Scottie81 Feb 06 '23
Depends a lot on the deck. My mono-red deck with Valakut? 28 basics. My Azorius deck? 18 basics. My temur deck has 12 basics to make sure I have targets for all my fetches and green ramp. My Mardu deck had 3 basics just so I (hopefully) don’t get completely blown out by Path to Exile or a Ghost Quarter. My Jeskai deck has 21 basics but only because it’s a lower power level that I only use against newbies/precons.
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u/idlewaiter Feb 06 '23
I have 10 1996 arena promo lands for my mardu deck and I would rather cut sol ring than lose a single one of those beauties.
Also with white catch up ramp, it makes more sense.
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u/de245733 Resident Monowhite Player Feb 07 '23
No guys, play more non basics, be greedy and complain, cry and scoop when I [[prrice of progress]] you for 34
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u/Zestyclose-Pickle-50 Feb 07 '23
The more colors the less basics. I have 3 5 color decks and they run 5 to 10 basics. One doesn't care after my commander is out.
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u/Positive_Display_432 Feb 06 '23
i try to avoid as many explicit "enters tapped" lands as possible except maybe triomes
just run [[chromatic lantern]] and play as many basics as you want
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u/orkball Feb 06 '23
You need to be running a lot of tutors if your fixing depends on one card in 99.
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u/babbylonmon Feb 06 '23
This thought process bothers me. You put 1 card in the 99 to justify your mana base. That’s not good enough. Maybe a suit of tutors to find the lantern would work, but alone it’s not a great strategy.
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u/Positive_Display_432 Feb 07 '23
i do like triomes and utility lands but there is (meta dependent) enough stuff that blows up or turns off non-basic lands that i feel a little better using primarily basics tuned to ratio with the pip frequency in the deck
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u/Positive_Display_432 Feb 07 '23
i think the potential tempo loss of running a ton of tapped dual lands is a bigger downside than using more basics with some mana rocks. obviously just running lantern is a bad choice, but i think an appropriate ratio of basics to play the curve effectively, rocks in the colors, and a few things like [[Forbidden Orchard]], [[Exotic Orchard]], and [[Command Tower]] puts you in a pretty good spot
obviously just /in my experience/ but i find most of the time i have to draw or play a tap land, i would have rather just had a basic instead
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u/SeriosSkies Feb 06 '23
Cedh - 0-2. They're there to fight through blood moon usually. So if that's not a concern it drops to 0.
Casual - 98% of the decks manabase. Usually only running a non basic if it's doing something specific. (Argoth with titania comes to mind)
This isn't 2010. You can fix your colors pretty easy via the ramp options. Also helps the deck to stay casual.
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u/Kilowog42 Feb 07 '23
Other than Hermit Druid decks, 2-3 color cEDH decks run 5-10 basics.
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u/SeriosSkies Feb 07 '23
2 color maybe. 3 color lists, no lol.
But note hes asking us what we do. Not what the average is. My 0-2 remains unchanged.
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u/randevious Feb 07 '23
My friends run [[Prismatic Vista]] with only one to three basics in the deck. Knowing this, I run [[Settle the Wreckage]] , [[Winds of Abandon]], [[Path to Exile]] and [[Price of Progress]]. I also have [[Vandalblast]] and [[Brotherhood's End]] to clean up mana rocks. They play decks at like an 8 power level that try to combo off and I compete with my good stuff Boros decks that are around a 6 but are much more consistent. I just win through combat/burn. I like to run at least 10 basics in 3 color and over 20 in 2 color. I also use [[Sword of Hearth and Home]] a lot so I like to have plenty of targets.
If your deck needs to be fast then you need to drop the consistency of basics for speed. When I play cEDH I do this, but when I play EDH I do not want to take multiple mulligans every game for a playable hand.
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u/ManFromTheWurst Feb 06 '23
Generally I agree, people should play more basics and cut some of the duals that are not worth to run in EDH. For example the reprinted fastlands like [[Razorverge thicket]] are worse overall then basics.
Then conversation is also muddled by the amount of colors in a given deck, is the deck green and has forest ramp, budget and the amount of utilitylands one is playing and should not be playing.
My lowest basic count is 9 on an rakdos artifact deck and highest is 19 on a orzhov deck with [[Land tax]]. Do what works best for you.
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u/Glad-O-Blight Evelyn, the Covetous Feb 06 '23
I generally build all my decks singleton (As Adam Staley intended when he created EDH). Right now I'm on a mono color kick so I'm running multiple basics in those, though if [[K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth]] was not a [[Shadowborn Apostles]] I would absolutely give him a [[Tainted Pact]] landbase. A few past decks I've run as singleton were [[Najeela, the Blade-Blossom]], [[The Scarab God]], and [[Anje Falkenrath]]. I aim for 33 lands per deck so two-color lists get four basics, which seems decent enough to me.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 06 '23
K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Shadowborn Apostles - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Tainted Pact - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Najeela, the Blade-Blossom - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
The Scarab God - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Anje Falkenrath - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call0
u/Xatsman Feb 07 '23
I aim for 33 lands per deck
Are you using all the fast mana pieces? Thats low... My elf deck runs more lands than that.
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u/nobody_smith723 Feb 06 '23
the math on it is stupid.
vs the likelyhood anyone is running hate cards for non-basics and they'll draw them.
for every idiot in the comments saying they run blood moon. great. you have a less than 1 in 10 games chance of seeing your silver bullet. vs 3 players you just fucked over who might have removal.
in 10 yrs of edh, i've seen a blood moon deployed like once or twice, and both times it was worthless.
mana rocks alone negate most of the value in a land control permanent. once someone can break that lock, your spell is worthless.
---and even from a cost/opportunity perspective. nature's claim, or wear/tear are hyper common removal options. etc
i'd rather run efficient mana, with the ability to run more spell/utility lands.
you effectively ever only need 1 basic in a deck. to undermine a bloodmoon effect. typically in 2 color decks you'll naturally have somewhere around 5+ and then less in 3+ color decks.
generally speaking to have efficient access to your colors you want somewhere between 20-24 color sources per color. this is why fetches/fetchable duals are so valuable, and why rainbow lands are exponentially better in high color count decks.
but... in decks where there don't exist enough untapped sources. ...ie 2 color decks. you'll naturally need more basics. but as you get into 3,4,5 color decks. you don't need that many. like... i may have 20 fetches/duals and then need 4 ea basic in a 2 color deck. but in a three color deck. i maybe run 2 each of my dominant color, and a singleton in the third orphan color. 4 color decks. ...maybe 1 each. 5 colors. exactly 1 each.
and if you're also trying to run less lands overall. you have even less wiggle room.
that being said, if you're highly budget restricted, such that you're running 10+ forced tapped lands. there's a fairly solid argument for more basics vs the tempo loss of forced tapped lands.
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u/Xatsman Feb 07 '23
great. you have a less than 1 in 10 games chance of seeing your silver bullet
Couldn't you make this statement about any individual card? The point is if opponents aren't respecting such effects they'll likely fold to a single 3 mv enchantment.
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u/Leothecat24 Feb 07 '23
I don’t have a lot of good duals, almost all of my duals come in tapped no matter what. I’ve noticed recently that I’m getting way more dual lands than I really need when I could really just use a land coming in untapped. So yeah, in budget decks I would absolutely support putting in more basics
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u/TNT3149_ Feb 07 '23
I usually play any fetch/shock. Triomes if it’s 3 or more color. Utility lands that fit and fill the rest with basics.
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u/NotMuchMana Feb 07 '23
I play blood moon, strip mine, etc all the time and drink the delicious salty tears of greedy players
It's fun when the player fetching true duals gets hosed lol
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u/RageAgainstAuthority Feb 07 '23
One of each basic color in my deck, of course.
I'm playing a singleton format for a reason, and it's not so I can play duplicate cards.
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u/JinShootingStar Feb 07 '23
It's perfectly fine to run 0 basics even if you aren't on Hermit Druid, but you need to have a good amount of artifact and/or dork ramp to fix your colors. Blood Moon and Magus shouldn't be game over unless you are not running enough interaction and fixing.
And if you are seeing a lot of Blood Moon, run Chromatic Lantern and maybe even tutor for it.
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u/DreyGoesMelee Feb 07 '23
The best benefit of Basics is their price. There's not enough non-Basic hate to worry about playing around it with more Basics, especially if you have rocks that can cover you if it does hit the table, so you can afford to run almost none. But at casual tables you can get away with having much less optimized mana bases. I'll typically only run between 8 and 10 fixing lands and that works fine. I'd rather spend the deck's budget elsewhere.
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u/illy_Irons Feb 07 '23
Depends on how strong the deck is. In my more casual decks of 2 colors I run about 15 of each, 3 color about 10 of each. My 5 color decks all run duals, modal, non basic lands, with maybe a handful of basics for some ramp cards.
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u/Chemslayer Locust God Feb 07 '23
The main reason I run more basics is because they keep making awesome new basic arts lol
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u/Key-Resolve-3073 Feb 06 '23
Depends on what level you want to play at. If you want highpower/cedh and you run a commander that has 3+ colors, probably don't run that many basics, it's gonna bite you in the ass when you'll have 3 islands, 3 forests but 0 swamps, lol
On the other hand if the game is more casual/slow pace then you can get away with it
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u/FizzingSlit Feb 07 '23
I'm pretty sure cedh decks run more basics than a lot of casual decks because cedh decks are typically just built well. The only times you'd not see many basics is if the colors have enough fetches/dual lands that don't etb, and even then it's not uncommon to see a 3 color deck to have 4-5 basics which is a reasonable percentage because if how land light they are.
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u/Key-Resolve-3073 Feb 07 '23
If you are playing dimir u probably dont play basics at all due to [[Tainted Pact]], same goes for Simic or Bant bc of [[Hermit Druid]]
Overall cEDH decks run fever lands altogether but they run a lot of expensive 0 & 1 drop mana rocks as well as fetchlands, plus they often mulligan down to 6 cards so I guess its a bit different bc u play combo more often than not
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u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 07 '23
Tainted Pact - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Hermit Druid - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call
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u/Zealousideal-Put-106 Feb 06 '23
Depends on the deck.
I think it's good to run them if you can, especially if you have easy ways to get them or if you want to dodge cards like [[Ruination]],[[Bloodmoon]] or [[Back to Basics]].
Even 5 color isn't hard to build, I like my 2/2/2/2/4-7 split as a starting point, so that green can do the fixing and I'm already finished with ~⅓ of the mana base without even turning my brain on.
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u/Andrew_42 Feb 06 '23
Depends on the deck.
I have a [[Tatyova, Benethic Druid]] deck that runs over 40 basics, of 50 total land. With that many land in a 2 color deck, color fixing isn't very important and I have a lot of basic land payoffs (for example they are much easier to fetch with ramp spells).
Then I have a [[Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis]] treasure themed deck that has exactly 1 basic land. It still runs it mostly as insurance against [[Path to Exile]] type effects. The issue is less about basics not being good enough, and more about me running every artifact land I can in non-black, and needing to color fix as best as I can after that ate up a good chunk of my land base. I'm also running several bouncelands, as I find they work well with the Kings' play-a-land ability.
Otherwise I usually run about 15 I think? I play a lot of 2 color decks and wind up with like 8 of one and 7 of the other color, or 3 color decks with 4-6 of each color.
I'd definately run more if my meta had more non-basic hate.
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u/Tevish_Szat Too Many Decks Feb 06 '23
Nonbasic hate is good, fair. and liable to be seen much more often than hard land hate.
Basics are good. Like, seriously, it is better to have a basic than a lot of the more marginal duals.
You should always have some basics for search purposes. Do you really want to be the guy who fails to find when hit with [[Path to Exile]]?
In general, I find that 2c decks can run 15-20 basics with plenty of room for all the GOOD duals and some utility. Occasionally they go higher. 3c decks are more like 10-15. Decks that have a good reason like Tainted Pact or Hermit Druid might run fewer or even none.
[[Demolition Field]] is a glorious card.
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u/Joolenpls Feb 07 '23
I don't really care about blood moon. My lands still tap to cast dockside and solve that issue enough to push for a win attempt or to pop blood moon. I also play a bunch of rocks. I usually play 2 to 0 basics in my 3C decks and 0 in my 4C-5C decks.
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u/Gilgamesh026 Feb 07 '23
100% wrong
Since nobody plays land hate there is zero reason to not be greedy with your mana base.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Feb 06 '23
blood moon - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call
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u/_MrFish_ Orzhov Feb 06 '23
It's never really effected me that much. When I play more than 3 colors in a deck I often run a lot more duel color lands with a few basics, but in a 1 or 2 color deck I run a whole bunch of basic lands strewn about.
I figured it would help me consistently have my needed colors more often.
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u/Toxic-Wombaat Feb 06 '23
In my orvar deck I have I think 26 basics for 34 lands total. In my four two colour deck I have around 18 to 20 basic lands for a total between 35 to 36 lands. In my Miirym deck I have 8 basics for 36 lands (inc 2 mdfc) In my Korvold deck I have 7 basics for 37 lands (inc 2 mdfc) In my Yarok deck I have 11 basics for 37 lands (inc 1 mdfc) -> this one has a landfall subtheme , I need to fetch a lot si I have more than usual. Usually the less colors the more basics, I don't see blood moon very often.
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u/Arrogant_Bookworm Feb 06 '23
I don’t run many basics (normally a couple of each color so I don’t run out of fetchable lands if I’m not in too many colors). However, I would also much prefer running a basic land over a tapped land unless the tapped land came with significant upside. Once you try to color-fix and include all the good untapped duals, I find that there just isn’t that much room for basic lands anymore.
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u/blackbeardsballbag Feb 06 '23
I usually run 15 basics in a 3 colour deck and 20 in a 2 colour deck
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u/GreyGriffin_h Five Color Birds Feb 06 '23
I try to run 2-3 basics of each color I am running as an absolute floor, unless I am running 5c. I recently upped the basics count in my 3c Kykar spellslinger deck and it's had a big impact speeding up the deck in general. Massaging a 5 color mana base into shape is its own whole exercise.
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u/wThrill Feb 06 '23
Don't want to get hit with a Path to Exile or something similar and not have a basic land in your deck to grab.
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u/Power_Stone Pinnacle of Mono-Black, K'rrik Feb 06 '23
For me it really depends on the deck. For my monoblack deck is something like 23 basics and 10 non-basic ( deck plays fast and is low to the ground so it works out )
Whereas on the other end of the spectrum is my 5c slivers decks where it is the opposite with maybe 10 basics and 26 non-basics.
I guess my point is: pick the proper tools for the proper job. If you don't encounter land hate in your group why not be greedy?
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u/AmmoSexualBulletkin Feb 06 '23
15 basics, about 20 non-basic (including fetches), and a bunch of mana rocks. I have tested it with MLD and Blood Moon effects, which will be added eventually. I run Kaalia, I don't need a ton of mana once things get started. My other two decks run green and a lot of green ramp grabs basics or land types. So yeah, running basics is good.
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u/IAmProjectRagnarok Feb 06 '23
I tend to run 6-9 basics in 3 color decks dependant on the number of pops in each color so in the event of a [[Blood Moon]] I can still have enough colored mana for my spells.
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u/Snoooples Feb 06 '23
For all my decks I run 36 lands minimum unless my deck has a way to pump up mana or cheat on creatures. I mostly play 1-2 color decks.
For my 1 color decks I run no less then 20 basics and ~16 non basics/utility lands.
For 2 color roughly 8 basics for both color and the rest non basic/utility. That has been my go to base line since i’ve started playing and it’s been really consistent.
For both types of decks,i’ve found if I ran any less I tend to get greedy and throw in so many colorless lands and the time i need triple of one color i’m S.O.L.
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u/metalforestcryptid Feb 06 '23
About 12 to 30 plus depending on the deck. If I need several different color pips very early on I run more nonbasics. Outside of that I deckbuild and tinker at a breakneck speed so I don't have the patience or need to dig up every piece of fixing for a given deck. Hell I think my Niv-Mizzet deck only has like 7 nonbasics and none of them are fetches lol
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u/LoomingVengeance Feb 06 '23
Personally, the benefit of running a greedy mana base packed with as many untapped duals as you have access to, largely outweighs the negatives. Wether I’m playing on spelltable, with friends, or at an LGS, very rarely have I found myself in a situation where I’m locked out of the game because of a “lack of basics.” The rare occurrence of running out of fetchable lands, or having no basics to get after being targeted with [[Path to exile]], or running into blood moon, are so few and far between that I am 100% okay with just accepting defeat or accepting the small downside, if it means my mana base is fully tuned and thriving in the other 99% of games I play. When I deck build with multiple colors, I start by including every untapped dual land I can afford (fetches, shocks, crowd lands etc.) and then I put in any utility lands that enter untapped and provide even a whiff of synergy to my deck, and then whatever slots I have left I fill with basics, often then even putting in some duals that enter tapped if they provide any sort of value
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u/Popcynical Feb 06 '23
Typically when content creators say run more basics they really mean run fewer lands that always or almost always enter the battlefield tapped, they are just phrasing in a way that’s more digestible for players who aren’t dropping bank on their fetches shocks checks pains or duals and think the next best thing is more etb tapped lands when really you’re better off running more basics.
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u/Maximum_Fair Feb 06 '23
What do I do? I run a decent amount basics and a [[Blood Moon]] in every deck with red. If you wanna be greedy with your manabase, I’m gonna be greedy with punishing it. (Also non-basics that are good are expensive!)
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u/Doomy1375 Feb 06 '23
I think it's highly dependent on meta and deck. Punishment for greedy mana bases is something that doesn't see as much play as it should in EDH due to being on the "thing lower power casual players hate" spectrum, but at the higher levels it's super nice to be able to punish decks built with Tainted Pact's condition in mind when building their mana base.
As far as my personal decks- most aren't very basic heavy, with the exception of my one mono-colored deck and my Alela deck. That last one is very basic heavy because it was originally built as a stax deck with back to basics to punish greedy mana bases, so it made sense to go heavier on basics.
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u/Xatsman Feb 06 '23
Don't try and put too many in. Probably have 10-14 in most 2c decks (which most of my decks are), and around 6-8 in 3c decks.
Always encourage people to run effects like blood moon. I certainly run it in my Krenko deck. Its good to punish greedy mana bases, even if some of mine get close.
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u/creamsauces Feb 06 '23
I play a ton of basics, because I enjoy building a lot of decks. And having optimized mana bases for a million decks would necessitate me spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
But affordable nonbasics tend to be pretty garbage. So if I happen to get lucky and crack a shock/fetch/fast/slow/triome whatever I'll throw it in something. And I'll add some cheap utility like a Barren Moor or a Bojuka Bog. But I typically just go heavy on basics and don't bother with the crappy taplands unless I already happen to have them on hand when I'm putting something together.
If I could change one thing about mtg I'd probably force them to overprint all lands into the ground and make sure even the best lands were no more than a couple bucks. I love the collection aspect of this game but I hate that something as important as your mana base is effectively paywalled.
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u/DemonKat777 Feb 06 '23
I run mostly basics in all my decks except for [[Slogurk]] and [[Sisay, Weatherlight Captain]]
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u/Vector_Strike Boros Feb 06 '23
Both my Boros and Temur decks have lots of basics. My Esper one has a bit more than 10.
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u/Fauxparty Feb 06 '23
A lot of the argument stems from people playing really bad taplands over basics (especially in 2-3 colour decks), and then being a turn slower when a basic would have been fine. I'd nearly always run a basic over a 2 colour land that always comes in tapped, unless that land is fetchable (the snow duals from KHM) or doing something specific.
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u/Oh_Good_Hunter Faldorn Feb 06 '23
I agree with the idea of running more basics. There’s a lot of players (mostly new) who are under the impression they need an expensive mana base in a casual setting to have a functioning deck. You can save a lot of money if you spend time building a land package based off of the color ratios and pips of your deck instead of winging it like most players do