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!