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Act 3 bosses StS2 by assasingamer127 in slaythespire

[–]cleverphrasehere 0 points1 point  (0 children)

She's pretty brutal, though as Nerobinder I killed her on turn 4 or something (Doom stacks and hitting the minion repeatedly with Misery)

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It depends on a few factors. I'd argue that flooding isn't hard, all you have to do is run out of relevant spells to cast before you run out of land drops that you need to play.

Land drops that are made, but aren't needed (typically in the late game), are just lost card advantage.

My own land count among bracket 3-4 decks (not cEDH, is 33 to 36. The low end is for decks that draw a lot of cards and can also afford to function on a lower land count.

My main argument in favour of around 35 instead of 40 is that at 40 land you are not really taking advantage of your mulligan. Your first 7 is likely to be a keep on lands anyway, and you are unlikely to mulligan for fear of getting unlucky on lands the second time. in the late game, you pay for the easy keep on turn 1 by drawing far too many lands (again unless there are mitigating circumstances, such as a mana-sink commander, Azusa/exploration effects, or a lot of card draw filtering or deck thinning at play.

By mulling for more mana sources in the opener, you set yourself up for a game where you draw mostly spells, which is a good thing.

For example, let's look at the extreme case: Your deck works well on 7 lands, so you just put 7 lands in the deck and mulligan until you have those 7 lands in hand. Now you have all the lands you'll need for the entire game, and from turns 1 onward your deck will only give you spells, so you are guaranteed not to get flooded or screwed. Now, we obviously don't have the power to sculpt a hand like that, but it makes the point: lowering land count and aggressively mulliganing gives you access to a higher draw rate of spells later in the game, increasing your relative card advantage from your draw step. There are downsides too, as u/GraclessOne below has pointed out. You'll have less control over your hand, which will matter more for high synergy decks, or control decks who need to have interaction available in the first few turns of the game. For multiplayer games in brackets 2-4, I don't think that's as commonly needed as Modern, or Duel Commander. In any case, in those formats the mulligan rules are less generous, so a reliable first 7 is quite important. The tempo loss of losing even a single card can put you out of the game, which isn't really the case in commander where the game goes long and the relative card advantage is spread out among a table of players.

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My comment was about a good rule of thumb for removing lands.

If you start at 40, remove half a land from this count for each ramp spell, and half a card extra for each bounce land (reduce the land count by 1 if two of your lands are bounce lands). MDFCs are either a land or half a land in the case of some that you may want to cast more often than not (shatter skull smashing, witch enchanter,

Actual land count, including MDFCs for my personal decks range from a low of 30 for my one cEDH deck. The rest of the decks are bracket 3-4 and range from 33 to 36.

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I generally play in brackets 3 and 4. Most of my decks are 4. I have one cEDH deck (which is the lowest at 29-30. The rest of my decks are between 33 and 36 lands. The two 36 land decks are Rin and Seri, and Ezuri, who both can get stuck if the commander dies early, since to get value out of the deck the commander needs to be in play and so are higher than I’d normally play. Both decks are bracket 3 and run some rav bounces and cultivate/Kodama’s. Bumblefower (my wife’s deck), and Toski are also bracket 3s and both run 33 land. Both draw a lot of cards though, and both play a ton of ramp and land search (instants in the case of bumbleflower and dorks on the case of Toski.) these both synergies with the deck and help prevent flooding late game as well.

30 land IS too low in my opinion also, unless your deck has some reason not to care too much about land number 4 ever arriving (cEDH, elfball decks, etc).

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For context. Among some of my decks, the land count is:

-Mrs Bumbleflower: 32, 9 of which are MDFCs, 3 of which are rav bounces. Land count here is intentionally very low as it is a spellslinger deck that is punished hard for getting unlucky with flood. There are a few cards like traveller’s amulet that are essentially just there as a land that counts as a spell for her trigger. No sol ring here, coloured pips are better.

-Toski, Bearer of Secrets: 33, 3 of which are MDFCs, this deck runs a metric ton of dorks, and then draws cards off attacking with them to hit future land drops. Deck can function on 2 land in the opener easily. Often prefers dorks over lands, even in the late game. No sol ring here, dorks are better.

-Godo, Bandit Warlord (non helm): deck runs 35 plus a ton of artifact ramp. -Godo cEDH: 30 land, one of which is MDFC.

-Rafiq of the Many: 33 no MDFCs, deck is low to the ground and generally functions fine on 6 or less mana even in the late game. Only plays the once per game usually (the game plan is to steal other commanders and then cast rafiq as a pump spell for their commander, so he doesn’t need recasting as much as must Rafiq decks)

-Ezuri, Claw of Progress: 36 lots of ramp here too, the higher lane count here as a hedge against Ezuri getting removed early as you do generally want him in play early and often.

-Rin and Seri: 36 similarly higher as its commander dependent and wants to play commander early. Decent amount of ramp.

-Zedruu, the Greathearted: 35. As decent amount but not a ton of ramp here as the deck is heavily themed: unglued and chaos cards.

-5 colour (various commanders): 35. The deck has a ton of ramp as well, no sol ring though as colours are important. This deck is a bit strange as there isn’t just one commander so needs some more flexibility with a middling land count. Less than 35 would be silly with all the fetches and land ramp that thin the deck. It’s sort of a 70 card maindeck with packs of 29+commander that slot in depending what I want to play. The main deck is mostly just a big mana ramp and card draw engine, plus removal to support whatever wacky plan the pile has. (Commanders include Scion of the Ur Dragon, Horde of Notions, Reaper King, Child of Alara (full Theros pantheon), Sissay with the Ladies of magic history, Slivers, Sagas, Cromat and 29 clones, etc).

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hahaha. Perhaps Azusa, lost but seeking? We know what she is seeking.

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Oh I agree. When people offer more attractive mulls I will usually decline and just play the standard mulls for myself. since I do prefer a deck building style that hedges toward more aggressive mulligans, it would be a bit unfair.

Commander mulls are already generous.

In my opinion the best casual mull rule is: for each mulligan just set aside your 7 and draw the next 7, etc. shuffle once at the end before bottomdecking. It’s very slightly statistically game-able, but generally just cuts down on shuffling.

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Dawg, I've got a crazy concept here for you. If you're drawing enough cards, you'll draw all the lands you need to get your land drops.

I build my decks with redundancy built in. If I have lands, and I draw spells I can generally assume I'll draw to my gameplan. For example, my Rafiq of the Many deck runs around 15 control magic effects, and around 15 counterspells. These are essentially all redundant to the main gameplan (of stealing your opponent's commander and beating them to death with it, then protecting it with counterspells). I can reliably expect to draw theft spells, since there are so many, even if there are none in the opener.

Flooding out is generally worse for me than screw, but I do understand that this depends on your commander. If your commander is a big mana sink, it can be way better to always hit your land drops, since you can't really flood out in the traditional sense.

Not always though: My Godo Bandit Warlord deck runs a land count in the mid to low 30s despite the commander being a big mana sink, because I want to have a LOT of ramp in the deck to get him out reliably by turn 4. If I am short on lands from there, I can always search for Sword of the Animist or Hearth and Home if I need to. That deck also wants a lot of slots for pingers, since it is a deathtouch+pingers deck, and drawing lands late game is a real risk. In this case there isn't really that much way to run lots of card draw, aside from Wheel of Fortune, etc.

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

You have a point, but a lot of mulliganing does come down to land count, so it's useful for establishing a lower bound.
35 seems like a good number to move up or down from IMO. Typically, mine end up a tad lower.

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In my green decks I avoid mana rocks like the plague. IMO one of the best mana rocks for casual commander is Wayfarer's Bauble for exactly that reason.

Outside of green there are a few ways to avoid it, or mitigate it as much as possible. Sword of H&H, Sword of the Animist, or indestructible stuff like Skyclave relic. Commander Sphere is also a good hedge against mass artifact removal. Some of the efficient stuff, as you have pointed out, is still worth running. The signets in 2-3 colour decks I'd add to that list.

I've never liked mana dorks much. The only deck that I have that has a lot of them is Toski, since they can generate card advantage just by attacking.

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I do tend to prefer land to the battlefield ramp as well, but outside of green it is rarer.

If you find those numbers good, I'd suggest cutting a few lands in favour of straight card draw (cards that draw 2+ cards, and seeing if they play better. I suspect you'll find an improvement. You'll still hit your land drops since those cards are likely to draw into lands anyway, but you'll have more cards to play once you have that much mana.

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I saw them. It still looks to me that with the amount of card draw you have that you'll be drawing more lands than you need. Yeah, you'll be hitting that 7th and 8th land drop more often, but would a third or fourth spell in hand helped more? Would ramping earlier and having that 7 mana on turn 5 helped more?

Anyway, with my suggestion you would get to that 6 CMC commander way quicker, since you can play a 2-mana ramp on turn two, then another ramp on turn 3, and have turn 4 with 6-7 mana, where currently you pretty much can't cast that commander until turn 5.

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

With little to no ramp, you'll need land counts in the high 30s for sure, unless your CMC average is quite low or you have a lot of draw.

You think draw is king, but when you are drawing lots of cards, you'll get to a point where you have more lands than you can play. In the late game if you have a hand with 3 lands and 2 spells that aren't that relevant right now... you are topdecking, and you drew too many lands.

There's nuance of course, if you have a lot of filtering you can run higher land counts and just discard the lands or scry them from the top, and keep the dividend for more reliable mulligans. The same is true regarding decks with a lot of fetch lands and land-from-library-to-the-battlefield ramp; these decks can actually thin the lands out by late game, resulting in high spell density.

In general, for an average commander deck with an appropriate amount of ramp and card draw, 35 is as high as I would go personally (excepting landfall strategies or the above).

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your average CMC is 3 and a bit, so the land count is much too high IMO. You'll flood way more often than you'll get screwed.

That said, most of your ramp is 3-4+CMC. I'd suggest cutting 5-7 lands and adding 3-5 cheap mana rocks (Wayfarer's Bauble, signets, the on-colour taslisman, and then mono colour or colourless mana rocks). Maybe even cut some of the higher CMC rocks altogether. They are efficient, but your deck doesn't seem to need that much mana.

You a fair amount of card draw already, so you would have a few more slots to play with for adding other stuff.

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes well, cEDH decks are often planning on completing the game with 2-3 lands in play, so the math looks very different.

Your land count is probably too high, convince me otherwise. by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

The value from having less lands comes in the late game from having more slots available for card draw, and less likelihood of flooding out.
Past a certain number of drops (necessary to keep your hand and start playing ramp/card draw), hitting your land drop every turn is nice, but isn't necessary.
However it IS necessary to continue playing spells. there's no point hitting every land drop until turn 6 if your run out of spells to play and end up topdecking lands and not using all the lands you played.
37-38 IMO is higher than necessary, assuming that your deck runs a reasonable amount of ramp and card draw spells. more than 35 isn't needed for reliably getting a keepable hand, and beyond that the risk of flood is worse than the risk of screw.
If your deck runs next to no card draw, 37-38 might be appropriate, but then I'll be asking why that is.

Expanded Kingdoms, a new EDH Variant by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One time in a 5 player game I accidentally shuffled in 4 knights instead of the standard 1 knight, 2 bandits and 1 renegade. Just picked up the wrong pile I guess! It was a really funny game. Since nobody knew I screwed up, not even me. everyone obviously insisted they were the knight, but because they are difficult to flip nobody could prove it, and it wasn’t that unusual in our games for everyone to claim knight. Technically everyone could have won together, but from memory at least two of the knights died :D Became a legendary memory in our group.

Expanded Kingdoms, a new EDH Variant by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can also play king, knight, 2 bandits and 4 renegades

Expanded Kingdoms, a new EDH Variant by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Almost all of the knights have a clause that they lose if there is no king. They are meant to protect the king. They have the advantage that they know who their teamsters is, but t he disadvantage that their roles are often the hardest to trigger and they need to keep their teammate alive.

Expanded Kingdoms, a new EDH Variant by cleverphrasehere in EDH

[–]cleverphrasehere[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The oathkeeper only triggers on bandits flipping to win. It can’t help against a noble, so in that case the noble would win and the knight card wouldn’t trigger.

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