How many lands (and ramp) ? A synthesis attempt
The last few years, we were blessed with very good articles or videos trying to solve the lands and ramp count issue in EDH.
Of course I'm speaking about this article.
But also this one.
https://edhpowerlevel.com/articles/lands/
More recently, and probably following content creators videos about those topics, we have seen reddit posts about playing 40+ lands or cutting mana rocks. In this post, I will try to give a synthesis of the theories presented in the articles above or youtube videos. I will also add personnal views on cheap ramp and draw.
- Frank Karsten formula
"A good formula for the number of lands in your 99-card deck, counting MDFCs partially in this fashion, is: 31.42 + 3.13 * average mana value of your spells – 0.28 * number of cheap card draw or mana ramp spells. This means that if your average mana value is three, which is fairly typical, then you should start with 40 or 41 lands and cut one land for every three or four cheap card draw or mana ramp spells in your deck."
Here, "cheap card draw or mana ramp spells" refers to 0-2cmc spells, non-mythic MDFCs count for 0.38 land, and mythic ones for 0.74 land. Frank Karsten also points out that draw and ramp spells are not all equals in their consistency and efficiency.
We need to be very careful with two things when using this formula. First, we can't cut too many lands by adding cheap draw and ramp. We need enough lands for our deck to start functioning. We will see in point 2 how many is that. Second, let's keep in mind that draw gives us more consistency and ramp gives us more explosivity. We can balance our cheap draw and cheap ramp count depending on how much explosivity we want. But we definitely want land drops consistency. If we play a ramp spell while missing a land drop, we just "paid for a land drop", making our ramp spell "hot garbage" as said in the second article.
- The sweet spot to avoid both mana flood and mana screw
"Decks that need 3 mana to run do well with around 37 lands."
The second article gives us a different approach to the lands count issue, by calculating the soft spot where we have the highest chances to avoid both mana flood and mana screw.
That sweet spot is 31 lands if our deck can function with 2 mana, 37 lands if it can function with 3 mana, and 42 lands if it can function with 4 mana.
The article is not very specific about what "need 3 mana to run" means, but we can understand it as how many mana the deck needs to play its strategy and/or draw into more lands. Many B2-B3 decks play 36-40 lands and fall into that category of decks that can start functioning with 3 lands. But they definitely want to hit their 4th land drop too. How can we do that? By drawing cards. Drawing cards is actually the best way to avoid both mana flood and mana screw.
Decks that need only 2 mana to run and can get away with 31 lands exist at B2-B3. They are usually spellslinger or artifact decks with a very low mana curve and a huge amount of cheap draw. They show us how cheap draw can make us hit our land drops very consistently.
- Synthesis : how many lands, draw and ramp ?
If we combine the sweet spot theory with Frank Karsten formula, we can use the formula to aim at exactly 31, 37, or 42 lands.
We just need to ajust our mana curve, cheap draw count, and cheap ramp count, so we can hit the sweet spot. That said, I would use that sweet spot more as a minimum land count, and allow myself to play more lands, if the lands above the sweet spot count are MDFCs, channel lands, adventure lands, or cycling lands.
Now, how many of each of cheap draw and cheap ramp do we actually want? As I said earlier, we can't rely too much on ramp, as we want to hit our land drops by playing lands and cheap draw. Unless we consistently ramp into 4cmc draw spells or engines. But a dedicated ramp deck wants at least 12-13 cheap ramp pieces or a mana dork in the command zone to consistently have 4+ mana on turn 3. This is a very specific build.
Let's consider a B2-B3 deck with a 4cmc commander, a bunch of 2cmc mana rocks, and 37 lands, that is not a dedicated ramp deck. If we miss our land drop turn 4 after playing a 2cmc rock and our commander, it would have been better to draw a land than a mana rock, and play synergy pieces on curve, like The Trinket Mage explains in his video "Mana Rocks Are a Scam". His solution is to cut 2cmc mana rocks and play a total of 42 lands, adding MDFCs and utility lands, in decks that don't really benefit from using 2cmc mana rocks.
It makes sense, and I play decks without green that have no 2cmc mana rocks. But I would rather keep the non-MDFCs (and similar) land count at 37, and add enough MDFCs, channel lands, adventure lands, cycling lands and cheap draw spells so they are worth 5 lands. Meaning I would count cheap draw spells rather than add utility lands that use a land drop to get played outside of the 37. I would also keep some 2cmc rocks if the deck still benefits from them or need them to support the mana curve based on Frank Karsten formula. The logic behind all of this is that draw is more linked to the land count, and ramp to the mana curve.
- Which kind of ramp for which kind of deck ?
I will end this long post with some considerations about the different ramp spells types, and not only the cheap ones.
In his video "Mana Rocks Are a Scam", The Trinket Mage specifically talks about 2cmc mana rocks, which get easily removed and are often a bad draw in the late game. Of course, like mana dorks, land ramp spells, rituals, or big mana rocks, they have their place in the right deck. Artifacts decks for example.
Some archetypes really want to play only a tailor-made ramp package. Aggressive combat triggers decks, for exemple, can't waste a turn on ramping. But they may have creatures that make treasure tokens on attack or when they deal damage to an opponent.
Same for aristocrats decks. They want to play a synergy piece every turn to build their engine. And they may only play mana positive ramp pieces like Sol Ring, as they are always good and not a tempo loss. Or altars, as they are synergy pieces themselves.
And land matters decks want a higher land count as they have many ways to put lands into play, so they will likely not get mana flooded.
Just to say that this post is not about telling you what to put in your deck, but about how to articulate those different theories together and use them as a tool to balance our decks.
Thank you if you made it to the end of the post. I had to write it down for myself. I apologize if my English is not easy to read. And I hope some players will give me their thoughts about all of this.