#Fresh player, help with pre-con upgrade (First deck).

63 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

carmine snow
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Alright, so initial questions then. What are you willing to spend on it and are you open to ordering online after you get everything you can from the lgs?

muted umbra
worldly oracle
carmine snow
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Spent a while just building a straight $50 tcg mid budget deck, haven't tested it.

torn jetty
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think you could tune this even a bit cheaper. Stuff like Loran, wings of abandon, and kamahl are decent, but not really neccessary for your first list.

also I think there are probably a few too many anthems in the deck. They're awkward since they turn off some of your draw engines like welcoming vampire. On the subject of draw, you could add in an idol of oblivion and tocasia's welcome to go with the welcoming vampire.

duplicant doesn't really fit the deck

you probably want to go up at least 2-3 lands since you have a lot of X-spells and high MV cards in general. If you don't want to add only lands, more mdfcs like witch enchanter to go with the kabira takedown and kalni ambush are good.

lastly, in place of the anthems, you could run some overrun effects as finishers. literal overrun is really cheap and there's stuff like end-raze forerunners as well

wrt useful cards for future deck you might build, what other archetypes do you think you'll want to try making?

carmine snow
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There's an overrun in the command zone, so no need to put more in

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The manabase is already optimized, I'm not worried about that. Most of the anthems are on creatures, which is ideal. Of the two that aren't, intangible virtue is pretty much not up for removal because of the vigilance and how it plus the prava boost make attacking with tokens very free

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Commander's insignia is highly cuttable, yeah. Duplicant is more about being responsible and having removal

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And luckily still triggers mentor of the meek and welcoming vampire

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There's two mdfcs hiding there to act as lands if needed, so between the land and ramp there's 49 sources. Pretty healthy number when you're trying to reach 8

torn jetty
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oh totally missed kamahl's first line of text

torn jetty
torn jetty
# carmine snow The manabase is already optimized, I'm not worried about that. Most of the anthe...

35 lands + 2mdfc is still on the low side

Using the formula from https://www.channelfireball.com/article/how-many-lands-do-you-need-in-your-deck-an-updated-analysis/cd1c1a24-d439-4a8e-b369-b936edb0b38a/, we want 39ish lands in this deck (avg mv is 3.42, which is a bit on the higher end)

Additionally there are lots X spells and landfall triggers; lands will be rarely dead in this deck. As I said, adding more MDFCs is a good start if there's an aversion to adding more pure lands, though I think cards like Exotic Orchard, path of ancestry, and the selesynia bounceland are definitely worth adding.

carmine snow
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I've used my own formulas for mana, more is really unnecessary. Duplicant is removal, a potential draw trigger and then steals the body size of what it removes to potentially become a beater. Removal on relevantly sized bodies is way better than a lot of people realize in battlecruiser

torn jetty
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Curious to learn about your formulas for mana

carmine snow
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I don't count mdfcs as partial lands, because they're not. Playing them as a land is not going to give you part of a mana, the other mode is just an option in a pinch or once you no longer need more mana.

I consider ramp to count as an entire additional mana so long as there's enough mana lower on the curve than it to reliably cast it. Up to a certain point ramp spells are more powerful than a single land.

There's 15 cards that let you see extra cards, whether that be by scry, card draw or hideaway. These do have an appreciable impact on lowering overall necessary mana count, because they'll help to find you more. There's around a 90% likelihood of actually seeing at least one by turn 7, and around a two thirds chance of that number being at least 2.

This totals up to at least a two thirds chance of seeing 8 mana by turn 8, which isn't always necessary given that you may want to set up an extra turn or two. But then there's also a slight upward adjustment from the fact that four of the 'sources' actually provide two or more mana and you do frequently find more than one way to see extra cards. The actual likelihood of pulling off the turn 8 Kamahl in this deck is realistically around 75-80%, boosted further if you do smart mulligans to make sure you can build up to it.

As for the land count itself, it's made to reliably have turn 3 land 3 at an 80+% rate, again helped out by mulling and the one free mulligan of commander. Reliable turn 3 land 3 will make all of the ramp up to 3 mana reliable. Then the two 4-mana ramp options are made reliable by the number of ramp under 4 mana in combination with the number of lands. Which is actually 49 without those two 4-mana options. 49 is enough to reliably turn 5 source 5 at an 80+%, with additional ramp pushing variance in your favor for an earlier turn.

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Taplands only matter insofar as they impact your ability to ramp on time. Given that there's only six taplands and ten of the ramp is costed 2 or less, the 31 untapped lands is above the 28-29 needed to be reliable

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So currently, given that the deck is looking to try to win in the casual battlecruiser friendly turn 8-10 range unimpeded, the mana is suitable for its needs.

torn jetty
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Some interesting logic here

I don't count mdfcs as partial lands, because they're not. Playing them as a land is not going to give you part of a mana, the other mode is just an option in a pinch or once you no longer need more mana.

I think the reason Frank counts them as partial lands as there are some MDFCs that you would really rather play as a spell than a land, even in the earlyish turns when you're still developing your mana (perhaps a high value threat like an Esper sentinel or what not needs to be removed). It's not whether after playing the land it gives partial mana, but on average how often are you going to play it as a land.

I consider ramp to count as an entire additional mana so long as there's enough mana lower on the curve than it to reliably cast it. Up to a certain point ramp spells are more powerful than a single land.

I see where you're going, but I think the latter point needs to be emphasized more. The main point of ramp should be getting ahead on the mana curve. If you play 3 lands, miss your fourth, but instead play a ramp spell, you've essentially played an expensive land. I'd almost go as far saying playing ramp only to maintain the normal mana progression is about as bad the usual worst case for ramp: drawing it late game. Compared to other formats, commander decks always have access to an extra spell to cast and are usually designed to have good draw engines and thus have no shortage of things to spend mana on.

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There's 15 cards that let you see extra cards, whether that be by scry, card draw or hideaway. These do have an appreciable impact on lowering overall necessary mana count, because they'll help to find you more. There's around a 90% likelihood of actually seeing at least one by turn 7, and around a two thirds chance of that number being at least 2.

Frank accounts for a bit of this in his formula too, though he only counts mv < 3 cantrips and dorks instead of scry and expensive stuff. It gets messier when you include situational stuff like hideaway or expensive cards as while the chance of finding one may be 90%, they also don't work close to 100% of the time even once you find them.

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This totals up to at least a two thirds chance of seeing 8 mana by turn 8, which isn't always necessary given that you may want to set up an extra turn or two.

On one hand, I agree it's not necessary to play your commander or big finisher exactly on curve. On the other, I'd argue that for those other set up turns, you want as much mana as you possibly can get and for that you ideally want to make a real land drop basically every single turn of the game almost until it ends. As said above, ramp is best when it gives you access to resources ahead of schedule, so by turn 8 i don't want just access to 8 mana, but 10+.

muted umbra
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ramp only to maintain the normal mana progression

Ngl i hate this, ramp for me in my monkey brain, only makes sense if i'm dropping mana along side it

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So i would feel very unconfortable running less lands and relying on ramp to keep up progression

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Also how is [[Metalic Mimic]] on this deck? If sticking to a token theme

void robinBOT
torn jetty
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As for the land count itself, it's made to reliably have turn 3 land 3 at an 80+% rate, again helped out by mulling and the one free mulligan of commander. Reliable turn 3 land 3 will make all of the ramp up to 3 mana reliable.

More on the similar point, but I find a 20% chance to miss any of your first three land drops is too high. Mana is just way more important on early turns than it is later. Proper set up can lead to snowballing your resources

torn jetty
void robinBOT
torn jetty
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Lands are also good because mass land destruction is essentially soft banned in casual groups whereas mana rocks get swept up in board wipes all the time

torn jetty
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In most green decks i try to run nearly 0 mana rocks for this reason. farseek, glimpse the core and nature's lore are pretty cheap and do it for 2 mana, and at three mana you have tons more options.

I also don't mind adding way more mana dorks in a tokens deck as they benefit from some of the board pumps and can help attack for lethal

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All to say even if I don't fully agree, I think there are some decent ideas in your logic Flurry and I appreciate you sharing it.

carmine snow
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If you want that same 80% rate of turn 8 land 8 you would need a whopping 59 lands. Even if you cut that up between land and ramp, that's an obscene amount of mana to be playing and you will frequently find yourself flooded and going to topdecks... of which the majority will also be mana.

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Also, consider that the 80% ignores mulling

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The actual frequency at which I have to mull more than twice with that setup is maybe once every 10 games at most

carmine snow
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Of the probably about 20 playtests I've run on moxfield so far, achieving the power to outright knock 2 players out has been turn 9 once, turn 5 twice, turn 6 a few times and the rest were 7 or 8. Like I mentioned before, variance favors being ahead of schedule

torn jetty
torn jetty
carmine snow
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I don't go by a group rule, I go by the format rule

torn jetty
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and especially by that standard, even with the free mull i'm arguing most people are running light on lands

carmine snow
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And that's not really the case here

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The biggest concern for this deck is running out of stuff to do, not being short on mana to do stuff.

torn jetty
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i find that hard to believe with so many X spells and expensive activated abilities

carmine snow
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If you don't look at what those are. The net difference between 7 tokens and 8 tokens is significantly less than the difference of having an extra spell. If those were abilities and x spells that did something to provide more individually valuable card advantage then that would be different. But this is selesnya and a deck with a budget cap.

torn jetty
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Not doubting that you could build something plenty strong on a budget. i also just golfished a bunch of hands and felt more mana crunched than i wanted to be

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i have a very budget bird theme deck that has average mana value 1 less than this deck while running more lands and even there i feel like i could always use more lands and mana

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and again, you don't really lose that much by adding mdfcs

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witch enchanter is an easy swap for loran and even saves you a bit of money

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we're already tolerating a khalni ambush, why not a bridgeworks battle

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dorks are good in decks with anthems, throw in a tangled florahedron

carmine snow
torn jetty
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how are you calculating that number

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like i mean sure the card draw is nice if you can politic it right, but vigilance on a 2/1 body is hardly anything. while the extra mana cost is significant, you're rarely trying to play artifact/enchament removal on curve so it being slightly overcosted is usually fine

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even still a human if Tired wants to go humans

carmine snow
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  1. I would happily play Loran on curve with this deck. That's extra time to draw cards.
  2. Loran drawing cards means drawing extra mana. Given that no one bothers removing a Loran, that means it's likely that several cards can end up being drawn and multiple mana and/or spells can be found. This pretty much entirely removes the advantage witch enchanter would have
  3. Loran letting opponents draw isn't a problem, really. You pick the opponent and your opponents having 4 cards in their hands instead of 3 isn't all that likely to matter for a deck that's not trying to run opponents out of cards. In fact, it actually helps against those kinds of midrange piles because while you net neutral with the draw (1 for you 1 for an opp), the other two opponents net negative (2 opponents draw).
  4. Costing 4 is actually a very notable thing for this deck. You don't want to cast a 4 drop and a 3 drop on the turn you have 7 mana if you can help it. That's the turn you want to be able to go for a X spell, an avenger, a verdant force, etc. The turn you have 5 mana there's not many 1 drops in the deck to actually take advantage of it, versus there being twice as many 2 drops while still being able to use the 1 drops with loran. The turn you have 6 mana you want to be able to double 3-drop, with one of those being Prava in order to set up for the next two turns.
  5. Vigilance actually becomes relevant once Kamahl buffs Loran, since you can swing to add to your total damage without having to give up on the blocker and/or card draw.
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Loran is very much worth that extra $1.31

torn jetty
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pretty reasonable takes, i would then just say replace the rec sage or something else that's more situational and expensive then lol

muted umbra
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haven't seen a single group not mulligan by format rules here

muted umbra