Turn 2 Mana Bases - Percentages(!)

One of the problems facing a multi-color manabase is that you may not be able to cast your spells "on curve" because either you don't have the colors you need, or your lands come into play tapped.

I've been talking about how the M13-Innistrad-Ravnica shock (+Farseek) mana bases give you unparalleled color access (16 or more sources per color), and late-game untapped lands (any shockland, any Farseek, causes only your shocklands to enter tapped if you don't want to pay the life)

This bodes very well for our late-game mana, but what about the early game?

There are some very powerful two-drops that are very color-intensive in today's standard.  If we want to use them on two to keep ourselves alive to play our Thragtusks on five, we need to be able to pay for them on two, so we don't lose too much tempo (momentum) in the game.

Any of the charms, Call of the Conclave, or Dreadbore are good stabilization plays, but they have something in common...

They're pretty hard to cast!  Well, if we want to consider how hard they actually are to cast, we need to bring in some probability.  Now, I'm pretty good at probability, but my initial efforts to solve this kind of problem (Draw a Call of the Conclave and two lands that can cast it on turn two on the play/draw...) proved too complex for my standard methods, leaving me in despair!

However, I am at least half of a computer programmer, so I wrote some code to simulate opening hands, with my requirements for casting the spell in question:
1) Have the spell
2) Have at least two lands that together can cover the colors required.
3) Have at least one of them come into play untapped by the critical turn (2)
4) Calculate it on the play and the draw.

I did not include other things like "not 6 lands" or "an otherwise good hand" because the second especially is pretty hard to figure out., and a 4-land opener with a turn two play that draws two lands on the first two turns is not exactly a mulligan.

All of these probabilities are the chances of playing the card in question, PRESUMING WE DRAW AT LEAST ONE OF IT.   It also assumes we have four of the card in question, though that actually has zero impact of the chances of the mana working out.

So, lets do some experimental probability!

The first candidate is a "average" mana base (26 land, two utility, 2 of each shock, 1 of each basic, fill with Forests), attempting to cast "Call of the Conclave".

I figured this would be a relatively easy spell to cast (many sources of Green and White, Green is our primary color, etc)
On the draw, 72% of our hands with Call the Conclave can cast it.
On the play, 65% of our hands with Call the Conclave can cast it.

That's not bad for a color-intensive spell!  Now, what if we max our out mana base, how does that effect the chances of making our centaur?
On the draw, 76%.
On the play, 69%
So, not a huge effect here.

What if we minimize it? (1x of each shock, fill with forests)
On the draw, 69%
On the play, 61%

Pretty cool!

What about a card like Elite Inquisitor?

This card is a bit different, because it's double-colored, which is actually a bit harder to cast.  But the upside for casting it against Zombies, etc, is quite reasonable.

Maxed out manabase: (this is also as good as it gets for a cost of WW, because white happens to be the color of BOTH shocklands in the Bant colors.
59% on the play
67% on the draw

What about double colors of another color?

We also only have two forests left, so any other double-color combination with this manabase is going to be harder to cast than this, when we draw it.  (Black is the equivalent of White in the Jund manabase)

A card that cost UU or GG (or GG, or RR in Jund) would only be castable with maximum fetches:
36% on the play
43% on the draw

Those are truly abysmal percentages.

If we minimize our shocklands, and put in a whopping 8 basic forests, the percentages up to
59% on the play
67% on the draw
For our hasty undying friend.  It should not be too concerning that this works out to (roughly) the same percentages as our Elite Vanguard friend above, when we maximize the shocklands (aka the white that comes into play untapped).

What about a double "off color" spell?

With minimal fetchlands (aka minimal off colors)
30% on the play
36% on the draw
With maximized fetchlands (aka maximum off colors)
64% on the play
71% on the draw

So, we can play these spells, but if we expect to play them on turn two, we double our chances by changing 6 basics to shocks....

What about an easy to cast spell (the easiest)?

With a minimum of shocklands, we have:
80% on the play
87% on the draw

With a maximum of shocklands (which actually reduces the green sources)
76% on the play
83% on the draw

What about an "off-color" single color spell?

With maximum fetchlands (maximum true off color, Blue for Bant, Red for Jund)
74% on the play
81% on the draw
With minimum fetchlands:
66% on the play
73% on the draw

So, what the heck does this all mean?

Well, we want to cast our spells, so this tells you what you need to do to your mana base to cast your good cheap spells "on-curve".  The results for the cards like Elite Inquisitor, or Azorius Charm (Sign in blood, or Dreadbore for Jund) are particularly revealing, while cards like Call the Conclave (or Golgari Charm for Jund) are much more forgiving on your mana base.

Hopefully this was revealing overall, if you have an interest in other combinations, or casting costs, I have the program set up to figure it out.  Good luck!

Farseek mana base - investigation

I talked before about how I believe this to be one of the most important cards in standard right now, and I still feel that way.  It powers up green-based decks into the three color area quite easily, as long as your multiple-colored-mana requirements are not too harsh. (Farseek doesn't power up a RRBB Rakdos, Lord of Riots casting cost very well, but it sure turns on the ability to cast Searing Spear and Oblivion Ring and Inspiration and Ultimate Price)

This is because our Farseek is going to be searching out basically a dual land, and though this dual land can tap for one of two colors, it cannot tap for both of those colors at the same time.

Because Farseek costs Green to cast, the best way for it to work as fixing is if our three colors include a Ravnica Shock-Land that is of two NON-GREEN colors.  Once Gatecrash comes out, this will be a non-concern, but for the next 2-3 months, this is not ignorable.

If we go Farseek into Temple Garden (taps for G or W), we get our dual land, but we don't get full three-color fixing out of it.  If we go Farseek into Blood Crypt (R/B) and are G/R/B as our three colors, we get full three-color fixing with our one fixing spell cast.  This means what is most important are the non-green duals.

The Non-Green Ravnica duals ("shock-lands") we have so far are:

So, the three color pairs (again, until Gatecrash makes this all irrelevant) that make the most sense from Farseek-fixing are:
Red-Black-Green (Jund)
Red-Blue-Green (RUG)
Blue-White-Green (Bant)

I see a lot of people playing "Junk" (Green-Black-White).  They play their Farseek off Forest-Forest, and get a... Oh wait, I can't fix my mana with Farseek, because all I can get are Temple Garden (Green-White) or Overgrown Tomb (Green-Black), which doesn't fix both of my colors.  Junk has some powerful spells, but the mana just isn't as good as it could be for now.

Of these three, RUG has only one Ravnica shock-land at this point (Blue-Green, and Green-Red are in Gatecrash).  That is not a mortal wound to this color triad, because like we said, green-fixing via Farseek lands is not the most important.  However, Bant or Jund have 4 more potential lands that can tap to cast Farseek, while also fixing one of the two other colors, as well as being fixing during those games when you don't draw Farseek.

So, I would encourage focusing on the two "shards" (Bant and Jund) rather than the "wedge" (RUG) for the time being.

Again, we're looking at a mana base that is 12 M10-like duals (between M13 and Innistrad), 4 Farseek, 1-4 Shocklands of each type (depending on how much multiple color we need), 1-4 Innistrad block lands that tap for colorless, and Basics to fill to 24-26.  


















It is quite reasonable if color requirements are relatively light to play only one or two of each shockland, just to find with Farseek and rarely take two damage, if your spells look like Thragtusk or Sever the Bloodline. (lots of colorless)

If your spells look more like Rakdos or Call of the Conclave however (little colorless to be found) upping the shock-land count may be warranted.

Another thing to consider is that with any shockland in play, ALL 12 of your Innistrad/M13 duals come into play UNTAPPED!  This is pretty huge (and another selling point for Farseek searching out a dual)

Once (if) we go to four-colors, this will no longer be true necessarily, but for three color mana bases, we are good to go with any shock-land in play.  If we overdo it on shock-lands though, our mana may come into play tapped because they are shock-lands and they are painful, rather than that the lands themselves come into play tapped by game-rule...

How much fixing can we get?

If we max out on colored mana, for color group ABC, we use:
4x AB M10
4x BC M10
4x AC Innistrad
4x AB Shock
4x AC Shock
1x A Basic
1x B Basic
1x C Basic
1x Some utility land.

This mana base gives us a almost shocking 17 sources of A, 13 sources of B, 13 sources of C.  This is better mana than a two-color mana base with 12 of two different basics.

A more conservative (less life paid) mana base would look something like:
4x AB M10
4x BC M10
4x AC Innistrad
2x AB Shock
2x AC Shock
1x A Basic
1x B Basic
4x C Basic
2x Some utility land.

This gives 13 sources of A, 11 sources of B, and 14 sources of C.  This is 5 less colored sources (one more utility, 4 less shocks), but we still have in the neighborhood of half our lands that tap for any color.

Which way I'd go would depend on how mana-intensive our spells are, and how much early game multi-color we need.  We also need to consider that farseek is effectively four more sources of non-green, if we have green.  This pushes the number of sources of each color to pretty absurd levels.

Keyrunes

We also have the possibility of using Keyrunes as mana fixing/acceleration/creatures, but green decks just won't need it as much as, say, a Red-Blue-Black (Grixis) deck would need, because farseek fills this role a bit for us.  Farseek is cheaper, which is huge, and on-demand double-fixes (you don't have to have the "Right" Keyrune in your hand at the time).  It also doesn't open us up to most any type of removal.  The Keyrunes turning into creatures late game is relevant, but hopefully we get our late-game utility from the Innistrad block utility lands.  (Let us use our mana once we've run out of other stuff to do)

Utility Lands

To wrap this post up, since we've been going for a bit now, lets think about the last aspect of mana, the colorless Innistrad block lands ("utility lands")

Cavern of Souls is the first utility land that comes to mind. 

I call this a colorless land, because, well, 90% of the time it is going to be tapping for colorless.  It doesn't fix mana for non-creatures, it doesn't cast Farseek, it doesn't tap for colored mana for more than half of your creatures, it just doesn't tap for colored all that often.  What it does to is make sure that a particular creature spell that is critical resolves.  (Presuming you knew what creature spell was going to be critical when you played the Cavern)

Syncopate at least is going to be played in standard.  Snapcaster Mage will flash it back.  People are not going to play around counterspells, which is the best time to be playing counterspells, especially two-mana ones.    If our big plan is to cast a Olivia, Angel of Serenity, Thragtusk, or Niv Mizzet, and we die if it doesn't resolve, Cavern is worth thinking about.

Maybe it's a sideboard card, since it really hurts our mana base in general, but it needs to be kept in mind.

Other colorless sources that are not the Innistrad block utility lands (Cathedral of War, Rogue's Passage, Hellion Crucible, Grove of the Guardian, Ghost Quarter) really don't make the grade.  Unblockability, coming into play tapped, and making a pretty average guy is not what we're looking for out of a land in a multi-color deck.  Grove is particularly bad, because we need the land to function when we don't have an overwhelming board presence.  Grove is also weak to Unsummon, a card we should be relatively resilient to.  (We're not going to tap two Thrag's to make a 8/8 either)

Green requirements:

Alchemist's Refuge is playable in Bant (GWU), but it is not terribly exciting.  It does let you play Sorceries and Planeswalkers at instant speed (I initially read it as just creatures), but planeswalkers are actively bad to cast at instant speed.  It does increase the costs of the spells by 3 (UG, and tapping the Refuge), so I would not put this at the #1 slot in terms of usefulness.

Kessig Wolf Run is a well-known pillar of standard magic.  It turns x mana into x-3 damage when you have nothing else going on.  It gives trample to get past chump-blockers (spirit tokens).  It makes all of your guys into individual threats, which is strong against sweepers.  It is particularly good with Thragtusk, since he has a high power, and leaves a guy behind after he's removed, so you get to pump multiple times for strong effect.  This is easily one of the best utility lands in standard.

Grim Backwoods has not seen play in any deck that I've seen, outside the commander format.  It just costs too much mana, too much resource, just asks too much of you for what it offers.  I love Black and Green, but this is one of the worst utility lands from this cycle.

Gavony Township on the other hand is one of the best utility lands in standard these days.  It snaps the neck of the mirror match, it gets your guys out of range of damage-based removal, and it adds a bit of damage each turn.  If the board is stalled at all, Gavony Township will take the game away.  Restoration Angel tends to lead to board stalls, and opposing Angels can stop yours due to their power being less than their toughness.  Gavony Township fixes these problems though.  It is at it's best with mana creatures (since they tap to activate it, and are pumped by it), but it is still good with any setup that involves creatures and a stalled board.

Non-Green requirements:

Moorland Haunt was a staple of standard for quite some time in the Delver decks of yore.  It is good at getting the final few damage in, re-using your cheap creatures, utilizing self-mill, and extracting maximum value from your creatures.  It also has the cheapest activation cost (yay... go UW), which is quite important.  However, in a Bant deck, you end up re-using your creatures with Angel of Serenity, or your guys are so big they win the game on their own, so it is not a good tactical fit with the Bant strategy.

Stensia Bloodhall is the epitome of grinding.  It has the highest activation cost, and one might say the least effect.  Why doesn't this drain your opponent for 2?  CMON!  Anyway, likely not for us, since we're winning with 8 point swings, not 2 point pings over 10 turns.

Nephalia Drownyard is a great card against control, but not for this deck strategy.

Vault of the Archangel is conceivably the best card for this archtype.  It is probably the best justification to go BWG ("Junk"), as it works particularly well with Lingering Souls.  Unfortunately, it doesn't fit well with our mana requirements.  Life gain is strong vs the aggro decks.  Deathtouch is probably less relevant, but as we move into the 4 color Green world of Gatecrash, we should remember that this exists.

Desolate Lighthouse is a fine card, but I'd probably rather play 1-2x Faithless Looting, than 1-2x Desolate Lighthouse.  Also, it is RU, which only works with RUG in the above triads.

Slayer's Stronghold is an incredibly aggressive card, and it makes all your late-game draws live.  Unfortunately, it's not in any of our color pairs.

The top contenders are definately Cavern of Souls, Gavony Township, Vault of the Archangel, and Kessig Wolf Run.

That's all for today, thanks for reading!

End of old standard - looking forward! Farseek!

The GW flicker deck tested pretty poorly.  It beat some random decks, but none of them too convincingly, and it lost to zombies and delver. (or broke even).  My plan for defeating the format is not to break even vs the tier one decks, and beating bad decks, so I bailed on the GW flicker deck before taking to the scary real world level of MtGO.

I experimented with a R(g) ultra-haste list, which actually gave Delver a run for it's money, but wasn't overwhelming, and my bad cards (Mogg Flunkies) were absolutely terrible in the matchup.  The plan of "race them" worked very bad against mana leak, and Geist of Saint Traft.  You just can't race a Geist, ever.

Moving into RtR standard, I am quite excited about the idea of a green-based midrange deck.  I really like the idea of Farseek into a Shockland (Blood Crypt, etc) as a way to fix two colors (or provide double green), and I'm also very excited about the combination of core set (Rootbound Crag and co.) and Innistrad (Woodland Cemetary, etc) duals, with Shocklands, and basics to power up ultra-mana fixing.

I think a three-color manabase is pretty free around a core of:
4x Farseek
12x Innistrad + Core duals in 3x 2-color combinations.
3-6 shocklands (1-4 until future sets release) (to fetch with Farseek.  One per color combo might be enough - don't want to take too much pain...)
1-3 innistrad utility lands. (Gavony Township, Vault of the Archangel, etc)
Cavern if the creature types align at all, or if counters are at all prevalent.
4-10 Basics (Borderland Ranger, filling out Farseek, powering up 12x duals, etc)

This is a super-solid mana base for even double-color requirements, due to the green-base, and we easily have over half our mana sources in each color, without even considering Farseek (which is basically a tri-land in this setup)  I intend to do some math on this to see just how many of the shocklands I need, or how many utility lands I can afford, because:
A) I'm interested in casting my spells.
B) I'm not interested in taking a bunch of damate from my mana base.
C) I need a shockland or basic to power up my 12 taplands, so I'm not playing as if I have 20 vivid lands in my deck.

Thragtusk is an easy inclusion, with the green core, and which two colors I use to compliment that is more a matter of taste (JUND!) than anything.  This deck also has nowhere to go but up with the other sets in this series, since we get the other shocklands to complete the three-color wheel, and once all 10 shocks are available, there's no reason this can't be a 4 or 5 color concoction, based on what is needed for the meta.

I really like this green core (Thrag-Farseek), and I have a hard job in front of me to narrow down all the cards I could be playing to the remaining 25-28 slots in the deck...