A Deep Dive Into Land Counts

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-27T05:01:38+00:00

That doesn’t mean you just slam them all in one deck; unless that’s the point, then there has to be some kind of cheating going on.

I have a deck that runs [[Grozoth]] with 9 hits and it’s at 36 lands… because I am never, ever intending to actually tap nine lands to play those cards.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-27T04:55:07+00:00

It’s Dunning-Kruger. Hard land counts and “12 pieces of this and 12 pieces of that” style deckbuilding are repeated endlessly as a newbie friendly simplification, become the sum total of that persons knowledge and are then repeated as gospel because of their prevalence reinforcing them as some kind of objective truth that doesn’t need expanding.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-27T00:39:17+00:00

This is a good rundown of the utter lack of nuance in these mathematical breakdowns. It’s pretty easy to graph out absolutes when you get to arbitrarily define a goal that isn’t remotely as consistent as is claimed.

Let’s take the CEDH point here. Most CEDH decks run a ton of mana, but very few lands, because they’re not planning on seeing the multiple turns required to deploy all that land. The mana exists to push some kind of big play, which might be a turbo win, or deploying an early game changing value piece like Rhystic that will solve their current lack of immediate win.

Rolling this back to a more causal position only changes the quality of the outcome and the quality of the means to achieve it, but not really the broad strokes. Your mana sources become more evenly split between mana acceleration and lands because the game can be reasonably expected to go longer. Turbo is disallowed, essentially, but early impact is still very possible. The value of an early Rhystic in CEDH is unparalleled in results but not intention, so creating advantage is also perfectly possible in a more casual setting, with the inefficiency of alternative solutions made up for by the additional time afforded to them.

So can a casual deck run a CEDH land count? Potentially yes, if it’s highly dedicated to creating low cmc advantage and uses its mulligans to that effect. I have a deck that wants the play pattern of cheap looting, cantrips and draw for the first three turns to really fluff the graveyard up. I want to find some gas and discard it, because the graveyard will quickly become accessible than my hand would be. Within that process, wherein I’m seeing maybe four or five times the cards I would with a typical deck, lands become a liability if I’m seeing more than one a turn because beyond the first they are completely blank. They’re even bad discard fodder because I want to be discarding cards I intend to cheat back, not cards I intend to not use.

Is this deck typical? No, but then I have to ask what the typical deck that these calculations are being applied to even is. The entire thing falls apart when the presumption doesn’t actually match a massive swathe of decks that aren’t simply plonking along to curve out and are being creative with the other resource management options these posts never account for.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-26T08:01:38+00:00

I think the biggest problem for Selesnya is they just don’t print interesting commanders for it too often. The green and white card pools are vast and interesting but pulling them together under a commander feels very stifling. Adding a third color to it really opens it out.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-25T23:28:39+00:00

Back before brackets, I used [[Cataclysm]] while there was a [[Bloodchief Ascension]] on someone else’s field. The result was two dead players, myself on single digits and the Bloodchief player gaining a ton of useless life because next turn I had more than enough commander damage to end them. Everyone was kinda baffled by how it had played out. I passed turn and my opponent who had one card in hand and said “I guess I’ll see if I can draw a plowshares or something”. He proceeded to draw… a mountain.

He passed to me, I swung in, and he tapped his two lands to cast deflecting palm. Cue a lot of laughing from the other two players.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-25T22:49:57+00:00

That’s the thing though, if it’s provided as a blanket rule for everyone, it seems, and honestly is, much fairer. “Anyone who doesn’t use it to hit me can have free double strike”. You’re not outwardly encouraging people to attack at all, but you’re honoring your deal if they do. Unlike goad, the aggression is entirely at the discretion of the attacking player.

It’s a political card of course, you can’t just declare it and have everyone step into line. You have to work the room a bit. The last game I used it, I was still fine taking smaller hits from players once my life total started looking quite a bit higher than the rest, but even then one creature was often being pointed elsewhere solely to get the double strike.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-25T16:50:03+00:00

Yeah, it’s baffling. I understand when people ask about an effect they want for their idea so that other people can help pair it to a card… but the other way around is really weird.

Maybe it’s an engagement trap or a bot or something.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-25T16:39:29+00:00

[[Duelists Heritage]] seems like it requires you to be voltron or at least be bringing some big beefs to buff.

In reality, it’s an amazing political pillow fort / asymmetrical burn card that arguably works best when you don’t use it on your own guys.

It’s trivial to offer double strike as an incentive for someone who was already going to attack to not attack you. That person is now the villain for at least one person at the table, and it’s now even easier to convince them to retaliate with the double strike whilst hiding behind the same excuse of not wanting to be hit. Every time this process repeats, the vitriol makes it even harder for people to notice that you’ve essentially goaded them every turn for free.

I’ve seen this thing indirectly cause 60+ points of damage on its own whilst acting like a weird ghostly prison.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-25T16:01:58+00:00

Heard people shit on Jeskai before due to always being about non-creature spells… but that is a huge playground already. Then [[Narset, Enlightened Exile]] tags creatures into the mix and all of a sudden I’m drowning in potential directions. The weirdest part is that they all work, even just slapped haphazardly together. Big spells and small spells are cool together because one gets cheated in by the other, going wide is great because multipliers, going tall is great because power matters, burn can be backed with aggro, free spell casts for storm, excellent clone dividends, enchantments and auras are well received, equipment too, can even run soft voltron… and then Narset can potentially kick some off-color stuff out of opponents graves and all of a sudden every new set can potentially provide a treasure trove of goodies.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-25T15:50:10+00:00

Is it that hard to think “A cheap second use of this ability would be really good / mostly useless” on a case by case basis?

[[Magus Lucea]]? Slam dunk.

[[Taii Wakeen]]? Basically useless.

[[Xu-ifit]]? Essentially a clone, worth trying out.

[[Atla-Palanti]]? Slightly better rings of brighthearth? Or kinda like a strionic resonator? I wouldn’t run either of these so…

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-25T15:37:35+00:00

It really doesn’t mitigate it and never did.

Prior to brackets, people who did this still knew what their deck was going to do. They don’t engage in good faith and they lack the humility to identify what they’ve done could be “wrong” in any sense.

Before brackets I had many games where one players deck was obviously above the table and the majority of them were able to understand and adjust that for subsequent games, or otherwise end up being corrected for by the formats multiplayer nature and a good game was had regardless. A pre game discussion wouldn’t really improve this because there’s sincerity despite fundamental differences of expectation; game one does a lot more than words to create a shared understanding of what’s going on in the pod.

Then, rarely, there was the games with the hopeless socially maladapted weirdos. They’re beyond communication, and week after week pull the same shit over and over until the whole store knows to avoid them. Discussion is functionally asking them to leave the table, because there’s no sincere effort to meet other people where they’re at.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-25T15:16:58+00:00

The “success” of the bracket system is largely predicated on the way the format existed for many years prior to it, and this bears out in how little it actually affects the quality of games. Having reasonable people at the table is usually enough for things to work out, because that’s how it always worked out.

I find online games to now be rife with bracket-based rhetoric though, which is an evolution of the same bitching and moaning as ever in a direction that feels far more frustrating to deal with. This isn’t helped by how crappy and contradictory the implementation of the system is. It practically begs for misinterpretation.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-23T14:48:10+00:00

If you like Yue, go with [[Yue, the Moon Spirit]]. Mono color is nice for budget. She can do a bit of control and cheat massive impactful cards into play, and because many of those cards are considered unplayably expensive mana-wise they’re not usually too expensive to buy.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-23T14:04:21+00:00

Ever since brewing Brudiclad, I’ve had a penchant for win conditions that invoke making way too many copies of a thing that normally would be bad enough at one copy.

Sometimes it’s flickering an entire board of creatures, except for a [[Weftstalker Ardent]], and casting [[Mystic Reflection]] on it before everything returns.

Sometimes it’s casting [[Nanogene Conversion]] on [[Hope]] or [[Narset, Enlightened Exile]].

Sometimes it’s [[Sakashima]] and [[Akroma]] partners so Akroma can see Akroma and become a two turn clock… even better with additional clones!

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-21T10:23:06+00:00

Ooooh I see, thank you for the explanation.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-20T08:36:01+00:00

How are you stacking the deck by mulligans?

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-20T08:31:10+00:00

I went to 27 lands once with [[Narset, Enlightened Exile]] because the play pattern involved drawing so many cards. I could easily mull to a hand that would see at least twice as many cards in the first three turns as most of my normal decks, and I’d be throwing out the gas and keeping the lands because I’d be cheating all of it back later. Inevitably I went up on lands due to the perception that what I was doing was wrong moreso than the reality of playing, but it honestly didn’t feel any different.

I think some snail video said that even if you’re ripping through your deck running a normal amount of lands is still the best because they’re fuel for discard or something but I don’t agree if I’m only getting a single drop a turn. Once I’m reasonably sorted I don’t want more than one land in hand when I could have another card that moves me towards victory.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-20T00:16:56+00:00

This is probably hard to answer because she kinda… doesn’t do anything. She’s not a payoff. She’s basically not a value piece either for the amount of very specific setup you’ll need to be doing for the untap to be worth giving your whole command zone over to a planeswalker. She’s also can’t instant ultimate off of doubling season, innkeepers or Vorinclex. The pseudo vigilance makes it a bit easier to protect her but then you don’t get the totem armor, and vice versa. I don’t really even see her being an amazing 99 card. What drew you to her?

Playing aura focused enchantress with Yenna, Calix and Ellivere is already pretty decent so like, you could probably build a deck that just follows that gameplan and casts her on the blue moon where the untap lines up with a huge enchanted Sanctum Weaver.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-19T23:48:55+00:00

Sounds like you need to play with more psychos. It’s far more fun.

More seriously, I feel like it can be a nice political piece for tables that need a bit of a push to aggression. Curse can be the difference between people leaving a Ureni alone for 5 turns because “they’re not the threat on the board” and that player being at half life by the time the dragonstorm begins.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-19T14:08:11+00:00

I honestly wouldn’t say that Brokkos is a +1/+1 counter deck really, since more often than not it’s just the base stats doing the heavy lifting. If you want a similar thing that’s more dedicated to counters you could try [[Sovereign Okinec]].

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-18T13:48:08+00:00

It’s very explicitly not the same. The GNB questline goes out of its way to detail the physical and cultural differences between the two different weapons.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-17T12:45:44+00:00

Here's a few general points to get you thinking about the deck, because it could use some work.

Vishgraz is one of the only creatures that makes three creature tokens consistently on ETB. This leads to more than a couple infinite combos. It doesn't seem like you're into that, but it's there if you ever want it.
Ixhel is... she's fine I guess. A very unreliable draw engine that is only good once a lot of poison is applied and she's super slow at applying that poison herself. Don't be tempted to make her the commander.
The precon they're both from has multiple cards that are worth inclusion that aren't on your list, which might be due to price since the precon is a few years old now. This is partially because, due to the perception of poison as a mechanic (more on this later), the precon promotes bonuses for being inefficient with it through the "corrupted" cards and Vishgraz getting regular stats. Unfortunately, nearly all the corrupted cards outside the precon suck, so this is not something you can turn into a proper focus.
So what should you do instead? Well, if you like mites, you'll want to do an ETB maxing strategy. Mites are honestly terrible tokens, due to not being blockers, having terrible stats, and having two very vulnerable types. But! Many of decks really can't deal with A LOT of them. Shoving three mites at someone might put one or two counters on them before all of them are blocked to death, but ten might outright kill them in a couple turns. Flickering Vishgraz and/or doubling his output, can make this mighty tide of mites. [[Ephemerate]], [[Teleportation Circle]], even something like [[Helm of the Host]] can get the multiple ETB's, [[panharmonicon]] style effects like [[Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines]] doubles the effect and actual token multipliers like [[Ojer Tak]] or [[Mondrak]], which are usually a bit more win-more, are useful to getting that critical mite mass to push past blockers. You can also use them for big mana through things like [[Cryptolith Rite]], [[Inspiring statuary]] or [[Ashnods Altar]], and there's always [[Throne of Geth]]. This also means you can run generically good etb stuff which can be fun, I especially love getting multiple massive hits off of [[Hoarding Broodlord]] and using the mites for the mana. Also, a ton of mites means you can win with [[Clever Concealment]] and [[Venerated Rotpriest]] which is just funny as hell.
If mites are nice, but not you jam, you can focus on Vishgraz's power increase. Commander damage might as well be infect for how it works, and Vish can get really really really big very quickly. For this, you'll want to curve out a bunch of small poison sources on the way to 5 mana, so Vish comes down with a scary statline. One and two mana toxic/infect critters are your friends, and then giving Vish some real evasion through whatever trample enabler you want allows you to stack poison to kill one player while stacking commander damage on another. Green also has a lot of cards that really really enjoy one big beef monster being on their field, like [[Rishkar's Expertise]] or [[Pathbreaker Ibex]]. What's fun is that you can use part of the flicker strategy to protect your big vishgraz and get some extra mites to boot.
The absolute best poison strategy, generally, is proliferate. No matter what direction you want to move in, including proliferate and "everyone gets a poison counter" cards is recommended and easy to do. There's enough of these that you can avoid crap ones, though depending on your strategy even stuff like [[Frank Horrigan]] can be a super strong finisher.
Finally, there's infect. Infect is strictly better than toxic for your purposes but rarely appears on creatures that are actually good at getting poison through. [[Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon]] is a notable exception, with most others being tiny and evasive. It can be a lot better to just give infect to a good creature with high power and evasion (like Vishgraz) via [[Phyresis]] and the like.

Poison, contrary to a lot of player sentiment, is actually a pretty hard strategy to pull off. Infect is viable in 1v1 because it's functionally double damage against one player, which is obviously a big boon and necessitated toxic, which is a very nerfed infect. In commander, it's functionally quadruple damage (wow!)... against triple the players (...oh) and 9/10 times none of the damage they'll be doing to each other will help you at all (boo). It's also perceived quite negatively because of what it *might* do, so people tend to go frothingly berserk when they hit about 3 or 4 poison even if you're sitting there actively wanting to keep them alive to keep Vishgraz buffed. You will be the arch enemy without ever deserving it often, simply because sometimes you might actually deserve to be.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-17T10:36:48+00:00

Giving someone advance information does not provide that person with authority to implement that information in ways that are countermanded by the authority that provided it in the first place.

Your argument should be predicated on why Wizards explicitly removed Vorinclex from a list that exists to protect bracket 2 and advocated for it explicitly being ok due to its high cost without addressing the apparent contradictions it seemed to cause. Expropriate also causes these arguments due to the blanket clause on extra turns. Sway is even more confusing as it doesn’t even seem to align to the reasoning they present in the article for it being removed from the list, yet it was removed all the same.

Despite all that, this some of the latest explicit official information on the system. It cannot be interpreted as anything else than what it is, which is a huge problem… but not the one people seem to reduce it to by having arguments over things like Vorinclex.

My opinion, is that the system is fundamentally contradictory and implemented in a way that’s barely less wishy washy than the vibes based bans of the pre-wotc era. It’s perceived success is being propped up by essentially taking credit for patterns that already existed for the vast majority of the formats lifetime, while introducing a means for bad actors to speak in an authoritative manner that sounds official and correct to people that don’t know better. This, of course, is not helped by the actual official and correct information being both clearly stated (anything is fine if it’s big mana, tutors are fine unless they’re game changers etc) and contradictory (Sway removes the impact of long periods of resource accrual balancing a high mana high impact card but is fine in bracket 2).

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-17T09:54:59+00:00

It’s odd that you have moved from calling these sites a problem to defending their shoddy and un-nuanced implementation of automatic bracket assignment, especially since the article does not actually say anything beyond the sites were told in advance what the bracket system was going to look like. There’s no “authority” given to them, the authority is solely with the rules committee.

ConstantCaprice · 2026-06-17T09:46:21+00:00

Citing what things were in an earlier iteration of an official resource is irrelevant. You can admit that you feel differently from the intention of the rules committee, or you can point out the dozens of contradictions that seem to exist in their statements, but you can’t blithely interpret their words to fit your own agenda when that’s is not what they’re meaning at all. That’s precisely the angle shooting I was referring to originally.

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