Are Mana Rocks A Scam? | Commander Clash Podcast 70

Frank Karsten "How Many Lands Do You Need In Your Deck?": strategy.chann...
Sam Black's original tweet thread: / 1588224245397704704
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[@MTGGoldfishCommander]

Frank Karsten "How Many Lands Do You Need In Your Deck?": strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/home/how-many-lands-do-you-need-in-your-deck-an-updated-analysis/ Sam Black's original tweet thread: twitter.com/SamuelHBlack/status/1588224245397704704

[@andyspendlove1019]

I think one of the big problems Sam was trying to address is when people miss land drops but play rocks or Rampant Growths and still feel good about themselves. Ramp is only ramp if you’re also hitting your land drops. Otherwise you’re spending mana and card slots in your deck to do what everyone else at the table is doing for free. Which is why he went into “you could be spending that 2 or 3 mana on a real card rather than using it to make up for the land drop you missed from not running enough land.” I don’t think he said anything that sounds like “ramp is bad. Dark Confidant is better than Arcane Signet,” which is what it seems like you heard. Rather I think he was mostly trying to teach newer players the power of consistently hitting your land drops.

[@zarath7]

This reminds me about how it has somehow become a popular internet idea that Cultivate is an F tier green ramp spell, how could you ever play that... only play Nature's Lore, Three Visits, Skyshroud Claim for max efficiency. Ramp does nothing if you miss your land drops, and Cultivate makes sure you don't. I tend to run both kinds, but I can think of many times I kept a 3 land hand and drew no more, then wished the Nature's Lore or rock in my hand was Cultivate.

[@timbombadil4046]

Sure that happens. But that's just something that sometimes happens. The goal is ramp is to get a turn or more ahead. But sometimes you don't draw say that 4th land. So ramping wasn't a huge payoff. But that's not necessarily an expected outcome after 4 draws. If you have 38 lands you're 14% likely to not draw a land by turn 3 if you have 3 in your starting 7. That's unfortunate, but do you design your deck worrying about that 14% chance? You only win on average 25% of games all things being equal. Generally it's when things like that 14% don't happen, so accept you can't win 'em all, and make the most out of the opportunities you get.

[@NewOldEBM]

I think that's what he was trying to get across too, and I think it was a tremendous oversight by him to not emphasize it more, because people who play a good number of lands and rarely ramp in place of a land drop just kind of.... stop listening after that because it kind of doesn't have a bearing on them. I definitely did because I thought "what kind of fuckwit casts a thran dynamo but doesn't play land 5?". Reasonable message, but said too vaguely with faaaaaaaar too wide of a net to be taken seriously

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

@@timbombadil4046 just run 40 lands in your decks and you'll usually get through 5 drops, then your ramp is ramp and not catch up

[@fargoretro]

I think this highlights the value of Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, and other higher cmc ramp

[@lxyacht]

These discussions are infinitely more interesting than tier lists, cheers.

[@ms.sysbit5511]

Tier lists are fun as like a one in four episodes thing or fewer.

[@AdelaarGD]

Could not disagree more. The tier lists have more structure. These ones ware just waffling and tangents and fallacies. This one specifically is like pointless. Someone tried to make a general statement, and this is just pointing out all the edge cases where it doesn't apply. Seth's conclusion of "just do what's better for your deck, raffine can play more lands" is such a non-answer that makes the whole video moot.

[@ImperialVersian]

@@AdelaarGD completely agreed. The moment that both the original argument, and the MTG goldfish guys both basically said that different decks do different things, I realized that this was pointless to discuss.

[@ms.sysbit5511]

@@AdelaarGD it’s a podcast discussion; what else exactly did you expect? It’s a discussion not a structured debate with an itinerary. They went into more depth than tier lists and the focus wasn’t on ‘being spicy.’ While it may not provide a definitive answer, they shed light on a fixation that players slip into. To you “do what is best for your deck” may be old news but to plenty it is likely a revelation. Also if there is no hard, fast rule because decks have different needs, what other possible conclusion could they reach without being wrong as an absolutist? The idea of breaking away from checklists is laudable even if not new to me.

[@jasonl1184]

Discussion topics like these are kinda rare so I don’t blame the crew

[@lxyacht]

You needed to have Richard in on this. I bet he'd have great counter arguments to the stuff all the value masters are making.

[@ComfyDents]

I know what Richard would say. Just use artifact ramp and get you lands with Cartographer's Hawk aswell! Why choose one when you can get both? :D

[@andyspendlove1019]

Commander is the format for value masters tho

[@diegotejada55]

@@andyspendlove1019 and Commander Clash is the podcast for differing opinions, a lot more so when Richard's here

[@mrTjstephens1]

Richard definitely should have been on this one!

[@tw1stymint]

came here to say this

[@iceghost27]

Seriously

[@adamhall1340]

Yeah, I miss Richard. No hate on Phil, he's still getting his feet as we all would, it's just not the same. Phil will get there in time.

[@joeparadiselui]

I had a moment of letdown when I remembered he wouldn't be on ha

[@CrimsonQueso]

I don't even value anyone else's opinions lol

[@DeltaDrakon]

I think you guys should go a full season of no mana rock decks and see how they perform

[@Treanorium]

Ooooo, I like this one :D

[@jeffrhall9219]

Drake - I just typed the same thing wiithout reading the comments. I think a half season would give enough of a sample size to see how it plays with no rocks. Then perhaps half a season with two players using mana rocks and two players going the land only method, switching out who gets rocks and who doesn't from game to game. (I think it would be a given that Crim and Tomer are going to use vastly diifferent builds,)

[@ericsalisbury3583]

I think one person should run no ramp and everyone else runs fast mana. See if this statement is true. It goes against 30 years of magic history so I'm calling bs on it.

[@CheeseBoigger]

Upvote

[@goldbergbrain]

I think they should do it just to make the games more interesting.

[@batman11693]

So I read a channel fireball article that suggested low mv commanders needed less rocks and more lands as a way to reliably cast them and have interaction. I tried it in my Naban commander deck and I found it ran a lot better. So I think Sam is right to an extent, but the crew makes some good counterpoints.

[@Pengu92]

Massive Edit: TLDR, Sam is good at Magic Sam has a reply deeper in that thread (and I can see how the cast missed it but it frames the context way better) that the discussion is about 2 or 3 mana rocks that tap for 1 mana. He's not saying unsleeve your crypts and Sol rings, he's talking about signets and such which changes the context enough for me to change my stance. Because he's absolutely right, people really aren't playing enough lands. The argument still ignores the (rather common imo) situation where your command IS the value you piece that you want on the board ASAP. The 4 mana and under crowd are probably still playing the right number for them, but those 5+ (Gitrog, Muldrotha, the mad lads playing drakuseth) could stand to shift around their numbers.

[@kjellegilhustad2095]

The answer as always is more land destruction.

[@gigawarman12]

If only current WotC thought the same

[@DRAGHNALL]

Agree 1000 percent

[@MCvicRPG]

#normalize land destruction I want more efficient land destruction spells.

[@kjellegilhustad2095]

You need land destruction like destroy x lands and then draw a card. That way people would punish the green player without falling behind the two other players.

[@Alucardtube636]

A nope land desteuctuon ia the wors achtipe, wonder why they dont suport it anymore

[@ChadJShonk]

In my experience, a game doesn't become a game until someone starts to multi-spell. It's very rare to win a game of commander by just making one land drop a turn and casting one spell per turn. Once people start casting two or three spells, you've turned a corner towards the endgame. Ramp, including rocks, lets you get to that phase of the game faster.

[@itsthekid9815]

So while that state of the game is important. Sam blacks point is 100% wants that to happen. It's what Richard does. We ask how he keeps getting away with it when he takes a some what sam black route. Casting multiple spells a turn is very powerful and can snow ball into winning the game. Yet if you aren't doing this people don't focus on you and allow you to do whatever you are doing.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

I've never played a game of Magic that ended with a player having less than 8 lands where any of the players had fun. Short games like that feel like nobody got to play their deck.

[@itsthekid9815]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 I mean that's just not true. A big group of players actually like playing aggressive deck. You could have said what you thought with lying.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@itsthekid9815 I said an objectively true fact about my experiences. I didn't realize you were my stalker AND that you remember my life better than I do. Weird. Should I call the cops or will you do that for me?

[@anaflores5251]

Maybe hot take but I think the answer to "I'm worried about missing a land drop" isn't running more lands and less mana rocks, I think it's adding more draw so you can draw into your lands 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@Steven-rb7ph]

Not a hot take, this is just good deck building technique.

[@ProR2D2]

Case Dismissed. Needed to be a 5 second podcast. If they are running out of ideas they should make more of the underrated card series. I know 100 cards that not many people (not even youtubers) know, that I would love to talk about if they ever consider to invite me.

[@casteanpreswyn7528]

@@ProR2D2 lol k

[@casteanpreswyn7528]

@@Steven-rb7ph not a hot take, and also not "just good deck building technique", the hot take and actual truth is that most edh players don't include enough lands in their decks. This is part of, but not entirely, the reason edh players hate land destruction so much. Especially when it comes to effects that say something similar to, "destroy target/all lands its/their controller(s) search their library for a basic land card and puts it onto the battlefield (un)tapped."

[@anaflores5251]

@@casteanpreswyn7528 Personally, single target land destruction ✨should✨ be the response to greens ability to ramp out lands as hard as it does. But I don't think the reason EDH players hate MLD is because they're not running enough lands, it's because it adds another 6-7 turns to the game without meaningfully advancing it

[@zztzgza]

Well as long as those mana rocks aren't promising you ramp in the form of a decentralized banking platform then they're not a scam lol

[@starmanda88]

💀

[@MaxMckayful]

Man, that new deck taking over Modern - Rakdos decentralized banking platform, sure is a nuisance!

[@CoryFPS]

They just keep printing more mana not backed by leylines!

[@brningpyre]

So many people I played against at Magic 30 were clearly not running enough lands. They always had to mulligan and missed a ton of land drops. I made sure to ask people how many lands every game I played with people (mulligan or no) to get a feel for where things were at. There were a ton of people playing 32-33 lands in casual, and they constantly had to mulligan, and missed land drops. Ofc, a couple still missed a few land drops and were playing 37, but not nearly as frequently. Also found that some people get REALLY angry when you even slightly imply that they might be playing too few lands. Commander players are bad at cutting cards, and I think that cutting lands just seems like an easy out to them. 37-38 lands is a great spot, and where I try to put all my decks (unless it's cEDH, ofc). And I had really consistent draws all weekend long at Magic 30 (and just in general). Also, play bounce lands, they help a lot, too.

[@Blacklodge_Willy]

Yeah that's the sweet spot for me as well. The only decks I play the 34 lands have a heavy green ramp package to begin with.

[@raedien]

Been playing Commander for like 15 years and my land count is the highest it's ever been.

[@theetiologist9539]

If the power creep keeps coming then mana rocks will be a scam. The problem is that commander cards used to be big and splashy with lots of high cmc cards. Eventually commander is going to be like a 4 cmc and under format if wizards keeps ruining it.

[@BobardeZanzibar]

The highest powerlevel is already sub-2. Commander operates on gentleman's rules.

[@Ent229]

From my reading, the idea was to play more lands in addition to rocks rather than cutting lands to make room for the rocks. The main point was "Don't spend mana on a mana rock only to then miss your land drop. Play enough lands to hit your land drops." So if the game goes on 8 turns, include enough lands to hit your first 6-8 land drops, but still run ramp so your turn 8 is a big enough play to win the game." I also think ramping by more than 1 (Worn Powerstone for example) is a bit more resilient to this critique. If removing land to include Worn Powerstone (and similar ramp 2+) results in your missing a SINGLE land drop, then you paid 3 mana to still be ahead by 1. However that changes if you removed so many land that you now are missing multiple land drops.

[@SleepTight7474]

Without any consideration into the power level of my decks , I can simply say that I enjoy opening hands without mana rocks more. Leaves room for more interaction, redundant synergies, and cool pet cards. In creature centric decks I have found myself cutting all rock (even sol ring), to include more interesting pieces. However I agree with Seth that most of the time you are ramping to keep up, not get ahead. This really nullifies Sam's argument about getting ahead in the early turns and becoming a target.

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

but the point is ramping to keep up is bad, just play more lands

[@Shielded10]

Why would you cut a mana positive card? Do you have a sol ring on a stick I don't know about?

[@DylanHunter64]

I'm glad I asked Sam to elaborate on this because I think it spawned some pretty interesting discussion. I think Richard would share a lot of his sentiments.

[@TheHomieNess]

If you use sams logic then what’s the point of having creatures in your deck if they’re just going to be killed eventually and are way more likely to be board wiped or spot removed.

[@jw5087]

I think 60 card format players might be overestimating the value of consistency. I recommend reading "Wild Swing - A winning argument for high variance decks" on Edhrec. Their basic argument is that a higher number of players in edh favours high variance strategies that let you either win or lose by a lot. They use some basic maths to explain the principle and it makes sense to me. Using mana rocks is definitely more variance prone than the gameplay Sam Black describes. It gives you the opportunity for explosive starts and escalating value generation, which might just be what you need to win in Commander.

[@jw5087]

The more lands thing is interesting though. People don't believe in deckthinning in Commander,but I noticed that I often end up missing Land drops in decks with many fetches or Land tutors. And I'm already running 39 (42 with mdfcs). However, I'm doubtful more lands will fix this. I'm planning to run more early draw instead.

[@MaxMckayful]

Coming from competitive Legacy (and also somewhat true in Modern), those scenes do an amazing job balancing the consistency versus power tradeoff, with many Tier 2 and Tier 1.5 decks in the high variance category. The best decks figure out how to do both - power + consistent. Is a great axis of MtG theory to keep in mind!

[@drpibisback7680]

@@MaxMckayful The article does address that a bit. In 1v1 the math doesn't work out as well for variance because of the closer to 50% math for who wins - if you trade consistency for power, you're giving yourself worse than 50% odds by creating more scenarios where you lose to yourself. In a 4-player format, you've only got a 25% base chance, so playing a more swingy deck isn't going to throw away percentage points the same way those tier 1.5/2 1v1 decks do - you spend so much more time in the hole that playing game-swinging big spells is more likely to get you out than put you in.

[@joe2125]

i totally agree with Seth on Armageddon. From my very first game of commander a year ago, i was irritated that green was allowed to dominate the board with ramp but no one was really allowed to do anything about it. You can destroy artifacts, creatures, enchantments, but not lands. you can punish black decks with graveyard hate, you can punish white and red decks with mass creature destruction, ect but you cant do shit about green. its actually quite unfair and makes green easily the most dominant color

[@hermodnitter3902]

Agreed. Make MLD more accepted! I don't mind it...

[@micahhonig1575]

I think balance effects are better for this. If you straight up MLD there will be players stuck top decking until they happen to draw into 2 or 3 lands before they can do anything and at that point RNG sort of determines who wins. There are exceptions, of course, but if you just want to run cards that keep the green player in check I like cards like: Keldon Firebombers (all players sac all but 3 lands) Urza’s sylex (all players sac all but 6 lands) Magus of the balance and restore balance (slower/worse versions of the banned card “Balance” which equalizes every player’s permanents with whoever has the least of each type) These are ways to keep the green player in check without punishing everyone else at the table accidentally. Lots of people still won’t like it, but they avoid a lot of the bad feels that MLD effects lend themselves to.

[@Isabelle-ve9oq]

When you speak of land decks, what time of land decks are you referring to (ie. Landfall or traditional ramp into big spells)?

[@tonyrosetti2738]

MLD rewards Green ramp. Land ramp decks are the first ones to recover from MLD. Efficient removal punishes land ramp. Having tons of mana does you no good if you have no cards.

[@frosty980]

I think people have forgotten how mld can prolong a game without a convincing win on board. I play semi-regularly against mld that just gets run out and every time it just makes the game take 30-45 minutes longer than it should have. I’m not for normalizing MLD if people don’t play it for the win

[@petrri323]

I agree with every part of the tweet aside from the final point that, “less mana rocks is better in most cases.” I think it means nothing. You could say the same about literally any card type. “Less creatures is better in most cases.” “Less enchantments is better in most cases.” “Less [insert card type here] is better in most cases.” Problem is, there are A LOT of cases where any of these statements could be a combination of: completely accurate, partially misleading, or so far off the mark it gets invited to breakdance for Australia. I think blanket statements like, “run more/less of ‘X’ it’s usually better…” have got to be just about the worst deck building advice you can give. Because every deck is unique, every deck needs a unique amount of each card type. There’s no one size fits all. There’s a difference between generalized advice like, “you want to make sure you run interactive spells.” And blanket statements like, “people run too much ‘X’ in their lists! They should run ‘Y’ instead!” Also are we really still trying to make the whole, “what about removal?” argument? Like, EVERYTHING can be removed. If you’re not playing something, because someone else might blow it up, you might be playing the wrong table top game. “You should run less lands and more mana rocks because MLD exists.” And “you should run less mana rocks and more lands because artifact removal exists.” Are quite literally the same point being argued. A whole lot of nothing. Why people keep trotting out this tired old garbage, I will never understand.

[@pastelcia42]

It’s absolutely true that people play way too few lands in their decks

[@draftmagicagain1000]

55 minimum.

[@justinreschke3642]

If you're not going to play any mana rocks, then I'm going to play Armageddon with my mana rocks and we'll see who's board is more fragile.

[@gadischneider9231]

Yeah I think that sam black argued that people should play MLD more. Also I think he meant less mana rocks, not zero.

[@vavakxnonexus]

Yeah, this whole discussion is definitely pushing me closer towards embracing land destruction.

[@omahonda]

But that is the point, no one plays Armageddon, but everyone plays artifact wipes.

[@sc100ott]

I love my Skyclave Relics. That said, not playing mana rocks because you’re afraid they’ll get blown up is kind of like not playing strong creatures because you’re afraid they’ll get blown up.

[@brainpower45]

I feel like the ability of mana rocks to deploy more mana rocks is being left out of the discussion. When I have a Rhystic Study going, or resolve a Jeska will, or cast a wheel, or have any of a million value engines drawing me cards, my biggest concern is converting cards in hand into some form of advantage. Any lands drawn past the first each turn are completely dead cardboard, because they can't be turned into any form of board presence. A 2 mana rock is effectively a 1 mana land if you can use the mana it produces that turn to continue deploying your hand, which is an excellent rate. The games where someone untaps with 5 mana and 10 cards in hand, and goes land, signet, signet, wrath of God are almost always wrapped up because even the other players at the table with resources left have a hard time keeping up with the mana advantage.

[@draftmagicagain1000]

Ew Rhystic Study 😢

[@pamfsy3725]

Y'all have my vote for a 'no ramp' theme for an episode of Clash; hearing this discussion makes me want to take out the rocks from a deck or two and try it out for a while. The plus is it gives more room for cool spells!

[@felipeguidolin1055]

This is the hottest of hot takes. OP's arguments are that: players are playing less lands than they should because they are playing rocks, and that rocks are overrated because they get blown up. No one is saying that ramp is bad, because we all agree that ramping is powerfull, so the answer here is that we should be prioritizing land ramp (which is something that CZ has also said in the past). But the only color that can consistently play land ramp is Green (and White, by a mile away). Black has a few mana doubling effects, but most of the time Black, Red and Blue are dependent on artifact ramp. Wayfarer's Bauble, Burnished Heart and Solemn Simulacrum can only take you so far, I still need to fill the ramp slots with something.

[@maxreis9534]

Raffine is a very special case. You loot at least one card a turn. Its better if you draw a land than a signet because it doesnt cost extra mana.

[@mofomiko]

Then again, Raffine cares about discarding Nonland-cards. I think ramping ahead with rocks is still valid and very important to chain spells later on

[@elitemaster666]

This is very deck specific. For the most part the player that spends the most mana wins, thus ramp is good, just dont cut too many lands for it. I think: 1. A deck like Omnath or Windgrace needs 39-42 lands and about 20-25 ramp since they are Lands matter decks. 2. A deck like Edgar Markov can run 8-10 ramp spells only since he prefers to play lower CMC creatures to storm the board. 3. A C-EDH deck with a low curve can afford to run less ramp, though they tend to just run the crypt/moxen. 4. A high CMC commander should have at least 38 lands and 20 ramp spells like Kozilek 5. A normal commander benefits more from the 37+13 Tomer mentioned than 43 lands. You get the commander out earlier, you get to two spell earlier. So overall, I guess I don't agree with the premise either.

[@Jerhevon]

I feel it's also important to have a way to deploy those lands too. Like while a mana rock isn't the most efficient thing to do with your mana, I do feel it is enhancing your board presence. Especially if they have alternate utility (Such as the Celestus) Where as while a hand full of lands does ensure you have land drops, you can only deploy them from your hand just so fast. In addition, what are you asking your 2-drop creatures to actually do for you?

[@saipris]

I love the Goldfish crew for tackling this topic, but I wish they could have gotten Sam Black on the episode to discuss his perspective.

[@drpibisback7680]

Yeah, when you're having a discussion about someone's hot take you should really have them there to clarify.

[@wittenbergian]

What if you did a 2HG style commander game where one team has no ramp and the other sticks to the 37+13 formula?

[@koengro]

I also made a Raffine deck recently and I actually play less lands than usual since wuth connive you'll find your lands anyway and discarding nonlands give more value. And regarding to land destruction, that's why I like Uza's sylex to punish land rampers. That's what I like to see more: sort of equaliser spells.

[@itsthekid9815]

The issue with that is you have to swing with raffine. Having that game plan is fine yet it's the first threat and will get answered more than it probably should.

[@representativejoints1188]

My Chishiro got the birds of paradise added too it and I love it. I needed more ramp and figured it could hold a blade the best!

[@patarfuifui]

MTGGoldfish is my favorite source for KZbin goodness, thank you guys so much for the countless hours of entertainment!

[@smashfanatic]

2-mana rocks like arcane signet are still among the best plays you can play on turn 2. They very quickly have diminishing returns (they tend to be awful top decks), but they're such good plays early on, that you need to take the risk on the lower floor. Keep in mind that if you flood out, you can just use the excess mana to pay commander tax. EDH is the format that least punishes you for mana flood. There are also card filtering like Faithless Looting that also lets you pitch your extra ramp (and lands for that matter). People do tend to not play enough lands too, which is obviously a big mistake. Especially as lands get better and better, they become much safer investments. You acn go up to 38-40 lands if you have lands that are green Boseiju, or the MDFCs, etc. that act as spells in a pinch. Ramp is only really good if you don't miss those early land drops. However, the format has sped up to the point where big CMC ramp is less critical. I have huge mana curve decks and I still only run about 2-4 cards taht are 4+ CMC.

[@Hunkn0w]

Why mana rocks are so important is extremely simple. 90% of 2/3 CMC cards that you want to play are either removal or some combo piece you want to play later on. You don't want to drop an ashnod's altar or a zulaport cutroath early on, and you also don't want to waste your negate/counterspell/artifact removal on a turn 2 play when you don't know what's the most threathening player. Mana rocks are important because no 2/3 mana play (except very few specific cards like a winter orb or rysthic study) will heavily affect the board and you want to transition to a state in which some plays will affect the board. And just for clarification, this is taking into account we are talking about casual(ish), in competitive you don't even see 2 CMC mana rocks.

[@johanandersson8252]

I would say that any Mana-rock is a scam if they came from a Booster with an Msrp of 250 dollars 🙄.

[@vinnythewebsurfer]

I’ve always been more excited whenever new utility lands came out over rocks. The Kaldheim ones (idk if there’s a proper name) were some of my favourite cards of that year. Shout out to Axgard Armory.

[@Ixidora]

Also the blue green clone-esque one and the blue black reanimator land, I've had so many clutch plays with those

[@henryackerson7138]

Axgard armory is amazing in the decks that care about it

[@danielscully449]

A game with Crim and Richard playing high lands no ramp and Seth and Phil ramping out would cool. Let the two extremes duke it out

[@felipeguidolin1055]

I usually go with 36 lands + 12 ramp + 12 draw, glad to see some math backup.

[@thetruthisoutthere8714]

I'm not limited on the number of rocks I can play each turn, except for the mana I have. I'm limited on the number of lands I can put in play unless I play cards that let me ignore that rule to a degree. If I'm drawing cards, I'm going to be sitting on lands. I wouldn't sit on rocks, and if my board is wiped, it happens, but at least I did something. Sitting on a grip of lands with just your commander out and without getting anything else just sucks. Mana rocking up is still progressing the game and allows you to invest for later. My Shorikai deck is my favorite, it's just under 3 CMC when excluding lands, under 2 including them. I'm running 31 lands, 1 MDFC, 11 rocks, 4 artifact cost reducers (I often clone one of them, so up to 5), ~7-12 draw spells excluding Shorikai (depending on how you look at them, but advantage/selection at least). I run weathered wayfarer to get the lands I want most, and I run Urza, Inspiring Statuary, and Chief artificer (along with Relic of Legends) to make pseudo rocks. Basically my deck becomes a board of rocks that are blockers or value/combo pieces. The artifacts become stupid cheap and it begins to steam roll really well, pretty much guaranteeing a win by turn 7-10, though can be faster. The games where I draw no rocks are 100% the slowest games. Missing land drops is crucial to avoid, but being unable to invest towards future advancement is extremely detrimental. I think what you guys may undervalue, and something that I love to build into my decks, is resiliency. I have Brilliant Restoration, Cosmic Intervention, and Gerrard's Hourglass Pendant as ways to recover from a wipe, and Elixir of Immortality to at least have a chance of getting stuff back from within my library. Sure there's exile, but not as frequent as people believe. I also run a few counters that I mainly use defensively, or to keep the game from ending. I have Teferi's Protection as well to keep what I have out. I have a bunch of ways to keep value in hand or going on board that I built in to mitigate the Shorikai discard condition, so adding a few cards to ensure I keep my stuff was just the next logical step. Everyone's worried about losing their stuff but can't be bothered to fight to keep it or find ways to get it back. "It dies to removal" is the dumbest argument against mana rocks. It's obvious that you can lose anything you put out on board, which sucks, but that's the name of the game. Advantage vs. Investment. On a related note: I'm stoked to Urza's Sylex some green decks back into the Stone Age. Break parity where I can. Tomer wouldn't touch my Shorikai deck, but I would play it any day over his. www.moxfield.com/decks/mEhMCqhwiEyIbcyvQ8g3lw

[@shonmatthew]

More card draw is clearly the answer to hitting consistent land drops.

[@jjvh500]

Idk how I never saw this thread on twitter. But I think a point in favor of this arguement that is missing (at least from what you showed) is how with the rise of treasure WotC is now trying to balance out and put out some more artifact hate. A lot of this new hate hits 2-3 or less MV artifacts, not specifically artifact tokens. As a way to preemptively beat this in deck building just running more lands and fewer rocks sounds smart. Just look at things like Brotherhood's End, Fade from History, or Culling Ritual. But I would like to see you guys test it! A fair way to test this would be have 2 players use no rock decks and 2 people run their normal land+ramp package. Then switch the players the next week so there is a little less bias on WHO's deck it is... or how unlucky Crim is at getting lands, lol

[@1AlasBabylon]

It's a very interesting thing to think about, but Seth is right - the fact that there's a Commander shifts the play patterns so much. Gladiator and Canadian Highlander basically run no mana rocks at all save for Moxen in CH, and those literally cost 0 mana. It's an arms race to get value out of your Commander, and rocks do help immensely with that.

[@Bizarre404]

It all depends on what your deck does. Are you recurring lands? Are you recurring artifacts? Why run mana rocks in elves? Why not run rocks in mono red rush gambit decks. Here is the kicker. Commander is a legacy format. It has access to force of will (and friends). The reason Force ran legacy for as long as it did is because of game winning situations that can be presented with early mana generation. Rocks are objectively stronger than running more lands. A challenge. Create a turn 0 or 1 win in commander without using rocks. The only way it's possible is with rituals. The discrepancy between rocks and rituals is much more interesting than rocks and land. the cheapest win in commander is either 3 for thasa/consultation or 2 for animate dead on world gorger (with a mana dump). short of dark ritual, rite of flame, and simian spirit guide, there is virtually no way to begin chaining cards together towards these goals outside of mana rocks on turn one. Your turn 1 rocks are some of the strongest cards in the format because they threaten opening up chains like this that lead to an early win. The same reason the free counter spells are so valuable to players, to deny early chains. Your turn two rocks (arcane sig, feldwar, etc.) are less valuable than the early rocks because you have put yourself in the range of removal and responses by the time the turn passes around, and most the most critical difference, they don't net mana the turn they are played. The same combos could be available in two decks. One runs no rocks, the other does. It is simply risk versus reward. Preference. The deck with 45 lands will consistently be able to provide the mana for the combo on the exact turn you meet the cmc costs (assuming you're holding what you need) The deck with 35 land and 10 rocks (same number of mana sources) and we will say for the sake of argument they are all 2 drops, and you need 6 mana, if both decks draw the same interaction-less hand and the deck with rocks hits, you can reach the goal two turns earlier than your opponent. Now the math. 1/3 of your deck is lands 33. 1/5 of your deck is rocks 19-20. the odds of you having the mana to pay for a two drop rock by your 9th card, your second turn, is fairly good. and the odds are you have roughly three lands in hand by your second turn. with a rock dropped on turn two and four mana available turn three (10 cards deep into your library) you are in position to create an engine, defend against win cons, and possibly both. This would be an example of a B tier deck. With A tier being much more cost-efficient rocks, rituals, dorks, land based enchants etc. S tier would be these decks with the cheapest easiest win cons, best counterplay available, strongest fetch etc.

[@cmsfhms]

I have been saying this! Of course it is situational! But more useful, dual use cards are better. Also yes people need land drops as well!

[@thewarrior77550]

Imma be honest I'm with crim. It's a idea that not everyone wants and refuses to put in thought. I've seen a mono blue and even mono black that had 0 rocks and still kept up with the game just off of more land and spells that either get land or put land in play

[@another505]

how does mono b/u have spells that put more land into play? Besides walking atlas and terrain generator

[@thewarrior77550]

@@another505 the metal Bambi the bobble and even the land that seeks 2 lands you be surprised

[@thewarrior77550]

It's cool to see colors that don't ramp like green ramp good with out of base ways that are definitely out of the norm

[@Eruedraith127]

Interesting that they call raffine out here, bc my raffine deck actually has less lands than I reasonably should (35 including mdfcs) because I know I WANT to throw away non-lands. It's a very aggressive deck where I'm unusually conniving for 2 or 3 by turn 3 or 4, though.

[@codyvaughn7966]

60 forest azusa has worked better for me every time than I expected

[@fernandotanigushi8310]

Azusa + Crucible and fetches is the green dream of the Amazon forest

[@zacrance]

I have been playing commander for 8 years. I think the takeaway is that there is no "perfect" number of lands for every deck, and the same is true for artifacts that ramp you. I think it is so reliant on the deck and commander(s) itself, that a perfect number of anything. Is there a "perfect" number of enchantments that every deck should run? or the same for instants? No, there isn't. I see a lot of decks on EDHrec that run 30-34 lands, which I think is too low personally, but if you have a lot of card draw and card selection, then you may never miss a land drop even with only 30 lands. It really depends on how you build your decks and what your deck is doing.

[@thengine7]

No, the take away is that two and three mana rocks aren't always worth it. Sol ring and mana crypt are always worth it.

[@kennellfrederick4367]

@@thengine7 it depends on which mana rocks are used. but signets aren't a scam. No matter what, the purpose of ramp is to set you up for future turns. as long as you aren't sacrificing land drops for ramp you are in good shape.

[@another505]

after watching so many videos, you guys convinced me from 37 lands average decks, to 39.

[@CharlotteMimic]

I really like this idea! I have a Wilhelt zombie tribal deck, and often end up with hands full of lands and mana rocks with no action, relying solely on Wilhelt's slow trickle of cards to draw me into action. There are also a pile of 3-4 mana zombie lords that didn't make the deck because I didn't have room. This seems like the prime example of a deck that would work better with fewer rocks and more land. But my Alela, Artful Provocateur deck has synergy with artifact ramp, and Alela wants to hit the board ahead of my other spells so she can make faeries. Probably not gonna touch the rocks in that deck.

[@MaxMckayful]

Are the land replacing rocks or are you going down on total mana? If it's no difference in total mana, the "hands full of lands and mana rocks" become " hands even fuller of lands". Unless you're Seth, who obsessively runs utility lands and MDFCs to avoid that. Cutting down on total mana is something that we constantly are trying not do, but it's so hard because of the "cool other cards I want to make room for!"

[@CharlotteMimic]

@@MaxMckayful some rocks become lands, some become spells (Since Sam's thesis is: you can cut 10 rocks and replace them with 3-5 lands and 5-7 spells)

[@SSolemn]

My Alela has 34lands and 10rocks and works really well. The secret is card draw in that deck, it is a must to have a lot of it.

[@eon2330]

Most powerful 2 drops are. Tutors. Commanders. Creatures that generate more than 1 colored mana. Card advantage engines. Massive ramp(dockside). Removal and stax. And then ramp.

[@ConsoleCleric]

Lots of testing, here. Your land count depends on several factors, but a big one is how consistently you want to cast your Commander “on time.” If your Commander is 6-mana and you need it out by turn 5-6, you need at least 40-lands. Say I’m wrong, but you also need to factor tax, should the Commander be removed.

[@RafaRB0]

One point overlooked in my oppinion is the value of being an agressor at the table. Not only there's political leverage but you have immediate impact on the table right from the start, either by hitting an opponent you know will be troublesome or by forcing opponents to waste a turn wrathing/removing early. I used to play with a friend that had a fast zombie deck, it wasnt aggro but you be surprised how fast those two drops became a problem

[@TheCommunistGamerTV]

I agree, but only in some decks. And not in the way he's thinking. If you're powering out a key commander then yeah, 2 cmc rocks for the 4cmc commander on T3 line is very powerful. But if you're in a low-curve, high-synergy deck that can just curve out and doesn't lean as heavily on a commander then ramp becomes kinda superfluous. But if you're drawing enough cards, especially recursively, you can also cut lands because you'll hit them byt dint of the volume of cards you're drawing. This all assumes you aren't playing cEDH-level fast mana, because obviously you play those when you're playing optimally.

[@spedcuber178]

The big problem with the original tweet is that you can't play more than one land per turn. Mana rocks aren't meant to replace lands, they are to help get mana generators out faster. Most people aren't playing 15 rocks or something. Absolutely lands are better than mana rocks to have out on your field, but not everyone is playing Green. If you are not in green, rocks are your mana ramp. If you plan to win turn 5 then sure, standard mana rocks are wasted (fast mana being an exception). But in casual?

[@cronchable]

I actually agree with Sam here. I've started to prioritise card draw/selection over ramp in some of my decks (depending on strategy ofc) and they're playing much better than before. I see it happen way too often that someone plays out a signet t2 and then misses their t4 and t5 land drops. At which point you basically only ramped for two turns. There's nothing worse than topdecking a ramp spell with no land drop to make that turn, and ramp is also exceptionally bad to draw late game, that's why I generally prefer card selection. It'll get you lands if you need them, but also anything else if you don't.

[@TheSpunYarn]

I have been getting good results experimenting with more lands/less rocks in my decks since this discussion.

[@shoot_game718]

21:50 Tomer, in some decks, I do want my commander out asap. Hakbal is a good example; he makes mana, cards, and board strength. This is not true for all decks though. My Baylen, the Haymaker, deck can't use Baylen until usually turn 4 or 5 at least once I actually have enough tokens. By playing her earlier, a removal spell means I used 3 mana and increased commander tax before I got any value. While playing the commander is important, you don't always need it right away, and not casting your commander is the best form of protection.

[@mattleak666]

I run 35 land 5 mana rock in most decks and never had a problem I think it also depends on when your deck curves out

[@alexzavoluk2271]

Comparisons to 60 cards are slightly misleading, because both failure modes (mana screw and mana flood) are more likely with a larger deck (intuitively: Drawing several lands in a row affects the remaining makeup of your deck less than if it only had 60 cards). If you consider flood to not be as bad as screw (since you always have your commander, and you can play any spells that you do draw), then a higher fraction of lands makes sense.

[@fernandotanigushi8310]

Yeah, flood in commander is a little better since you always have a creature on the 99. I always keep a "bad five" rather than a "dumb good 2 lander". And commander has a bigger number of five+ mv spells in the decks, which means flooding allows you to cast those spells more reliably

[@alexzavoluk2271]

I also disagree strongly with the idea that ramp has to be chosen to curve into your commander. Not all decks want to just play the commander right away (especially if the only thing you've done is play ramp), plus you an often spend additional mana on other cards after casting your commander (like 2 mana rock -> Sai + 1 mana artifact).

[@alexzavoluk2271]

The issue with MLD is that it effects everyone worse. Arguably, it's more powerful against the non-green decks than the green ones (unless you have lots of rocks). I think if there were ways to force the green deck to play fair without preventing anyone from casting spells for 10 turns, the reaction wouldn't be nearly so bad.

[@ranmuke]

If your deck plays like a vintage deck that needs to turbo out non-interactive wincon like thassa's oracle+milling yourself out or producing infinite mana+card draw to bury your opponents, having more lands is a foreign concept to winning games.

[@braddalrymple8615]

I left MTG more than a year ago And unsubscribed from everything everywhere But I just bumped into this video and I wanted you all to know how much I loved each one of you and missed your voices and the fun you guys used to bring. I hope you are all well💙

[@draftmagicagain1000]

What happened that had you leave the game?

[@FlowBerni]

Started all my decks with like 5 ramp spells, over 2 years of extensive edh playing, several 100 games later I play approximately 12 ramp spells in each of my decks, it got necessary to keep up with turn 4 Myrims and so on. We banned Ancient Tomb, Mana Crypt and all the really strong artifact ramps at the beginning of our journey.

[@thetogtube2]

Yeah I agree with Seth (and the team) fully on this one. My general rule of thumb is 50% of my decks are lands and / or acceleration. So if I have 10 ramp spells I’d run 40 lands… but usually 35 lands and 15 ramp spells (in generally).

[@mightyone3737]

The problem with hating on mana rocks is that in many Commander metas the cards that matter don't start until 3 or 4 mana, so there is an incentive to get there a turn or two early, and if you waste a turn or 2 even earlier by 'just ramping' you're hardly behind by your 4th turn, when people might have dealt 5-10 damage and drawn a card or something, so there are plenty of decks where you'd rather run less lands (and have less dead draws later, where your ramp has multiple purposes, either combo piece or it provides some other value, like a body for a Craterhoof. I think in cEDH you definitely want more ramp, because most decks start getting pretty funky at 3-5 mana, depending on what absurd thing their deck is trying to do, and getting to that mana sooner enough is key, it doesn't matter if you have 3 lands if your game is going to end turn 2, so you definitely see cEDH decks that really cut lands hard and just run the best 1 and 2 drops for their Ad Naus decks, these decks play very well. As far as lands, 40 is a lot of lands in my experience, but I presently have a Ramp/Sisay deck, where the deck is trying to get Sisay out and activate her over and over for value (I can either dig out combos or dig out Shrines if we're playing friendly), but that deck has a janky enough mana base that it actually runs 39 lands and ~25 ramp sources, because I not only need total mana, I need fixing, so the deck also has various extra land drop effects. The ramp in the deck is a mix of (usually) big mana dorks, 3 upper tier mana rocks and a pile of land ramp at various values, I run 3 cards that ramp everyone, in part hoping to ramp people past their supply of basics, when I am the only one benefiting. If I just have gobs of mana I can Legacy Weapon people, which is funny, but the deck can generate infinite mana or just wipe everyone's life total with ~20 mana, spent over 2 or more turns fwiw), and Sisay can go Voltron if I dig out Raised by Giants, can't believe they printed a card she could dig out and get super-buff with a non-Aura. I think there are people who run artifact hate, but afaik Vandal Blast is considered kinda salty and people don't run stuff like that deliberately. I see them, but rarely. If this guy hates on ramp rocks, I wonder what he thinks of the OG Storage Lands from FE and MM, stuff like Bottomless Vault? I run all 4 in my Rakdos deck, and while they can do nothing if drawn really late, they only need to sit out for a few turns to feel decent, and that deck has no ways to add tokens like Proliferate. While they are lack luster when drawn late, but if I play one turn 1 it can feel amazing, I've kept dicey hands and counted on those lands, and as long nobody bothers to Strip Mine me I've managed to generate some mana, though it's true just drawing land drops would also be good, the issue is they tend to be slower hands at best, I feel very different about a 3 land hand with a 2 mana rock vs a 4 land hand, hitting that 4 mana on turn 3 could be a big deal. I think Crim is right that we tend to over-value the rocks, in most cases your better off just hitting more land drops in most cases, and drawing a rock later game feels crummy in most cases (unless it's a Hedron Archive and you can crack it right away!) when drawing a land feels bad but less terrible, it's a tough call in some decks, but I feel like lowering your land count sometimes makes sense, surely people wouldn't run 28 lands in cEDH if it was a bad idea? I think it's consistently a lot better to draw too many lands in a Commander deck designed around big plays, but if your deck is designed around smaller plays I feel like you'd rather run less land, because flooding really sucks, and +36 lands seems like you'd get flooded too often, most decks hate 5 or more lands in their opener, and will just lose if they draw a few more right away. If you want to compare, compare it in vs games with a lower land count deck (28-32 lands) with tons of ramp vs a high land count deck with no ramp (+40 lands without landfall synergies) is an interesting conundrum, but in my experience, my 30 land Meren deck rarely has much less man than my Tatyova deck that runs 45 and has lots of ramp on top of it, but like Crim I have been mana screwed mana times in 45 land Tatyova, fortunately you don't need many lands to juggle lands and generate infinite value/win, so who cares, take the good with the bad! If you plan on flooding because your Commander can be recast, watch out for Oubliette and other lockdown effects, I love them in OG Zur, but also, make sure that recasting your Commander will matter, it's easy to have a small Commander you can recast, but many lower MV Commanders don't generate card advantage and suck late.

[@Gweezy12]

The problem with 45 lands is flooding is a real problem most decks dont need to hit a land drop every turn after turn 6 or 7. You card draw becomes way worst. Like how many times have u kept a 4 land hand a kept drawing into lands. Most lands don't have any utility outside being able to cast spells. 7/10 id rather see a spell than a land.

[@tamhuynh1905]

I agree with Seth, even in my Azusa deck that plays 50 lands, I play all the 1/0 mana rocks and dorks because a turn 1 or 2 Azusa is so much stronger than turn 3 because my top end is super impactful.

[@zizthesin]

i typically run about 45 mana sources in my decks - this includes my ramp package. Normally i'll run 36-40 lands + ramp spells to get commander out faster or being able to hold up protection sooner for my pieces. i'll go above 40 lands for landfall decks.

[@narkfly]

Muldrotha prefers permanent based ramp over spells like Rampant Growth. Prioritize casting Muldrotha, playing a land from the yard, and casting Kaya's Ghostform on the same turn to maximize the value of getting the land from the yard, in case Muldrotha or the yard gets blown up.

[@ygaudreault]

I think that with a really low mana curve deck he his right, people will sometimes default to putting 10+ rocks in a deck with a low average cmc deck. Unless you are playing the 0/1 mana ones, I think your are better off playing spells on the 2 slot.

[@Metroid23456]

One of the things I would point out is the statement that "24 lands in a 60 card deck is equal to 38 lands in a commander deck" is wrong. 24 lands is equivalent to 40 lands. For decks that go up five drops in standard, you would play around 25 or maybe 26 lands. 25 lands is 42 lands (rounded up), and 26 is roughly 43 lands (rounded up). Commander decks also go bigger with their spells, so playing more lands to hit that amount makes sense. Whether you play mana rocks or not, I think it is clear that a lot of players play too few lands. You can of course remove lands if you have a high amount of card draw, or a low curve

[@plus1032]

I think it depends on if someone is playing for fun, or playing to win. A “playing for fun” deck probably subscribes to older commander values, playing the cards they want to play, instead of the best options for each slot. “Playing to win” decks will be optimized already, running the super synergetic and mana positive rocks/ramp that are 100% worth a slot in these decks.

[@piralos1329]

I think my favourite comment on this topic is that "People play white like sultai, then complain it's not good". Which is an idea that I see most effectively demonstrated in this discussion, paired with an analysis of what white decks do. Green has a lot of huge big drops, which ramping massively benefits, but white doesn't have a huge concentration of that! Sure, there are angel decks and such, but a deck like Adeline doesn't want to run a bunch of ramp cards! It'd rather run a lower curve, to get under those who would instead ramp a bunch. I think there is an argument that rocks aren't needed for every deck, and I think that the idea that every deck needs ramp is a relic of old commander, same with the idea of Boros being the weakest colour bc it can't ramp effectively. I personally find I run around 6 ramp piece in most decks, alongside around 36-38 lands, and just have a relatively low curve. If you want to play huge bombs every turn, like Zendikar Resurgent into Avenger into Hoof, then sure, ramp is really strong! But in a deck like Meren, that is just full of value creatures? Ramp isn't as useful. Still good, bc ramping still lets you play multiple things out a turn, but not the be all end all. I do think another important consideration to keep in mind here is that Commander Tax Is A Thing. Like, in other formats, you don't have to worry about a key card going from 4 mana to 8 mana, but in commander, you do! And that's another area rocks can help out with a LOT.

[@jordangroblewsky2087]

An important point I feel was missed in this episode: in other formats, decks play 24 lands to make sure they hit a certain amount of mana by a certain turn. Even in standard, they traditionally only need to hit 5 or 6 land drops to be able to cast anything in their deck. In commander, if the game is regularly going 10+ turns, you want to hit a land drop every turn you can. To do that, you need to run an even higher percentage of lands in your deck to naturally hit as many of those land drops as possible. Look at standard decks from a couple years ago. Those decks were running 27-28 lands because they were trying to consistently hit their 7-8 drops, which is exactly what commander is trying to do.

[@dullestpenguin4151]

I think Tomer is right on the 50 land + ramp number. I would also agree with Sam that the number of lands should probably be greater and that the person who ramps a threat out fast is always answered.

[@seandun7083]

The reasons I personally don't like mld: -you can rebuild after other types of board wipes (creature, artifact, enchantment, etc), but it is much harder and takes much longer to do so from land board wipes. -artifact ramp will almost never be more than half of your mana unless you play a turn 1 Sol ring whereas lands will pretty much always make up the largest portion of your mana. -once mld happens, it cannot be easily reversed. Only green has mass land reanimation and it costs mana. Crucible of worlds effects don't slot into most decks and also are mostly in green. I actually don't hate winter orb as much as I dislike Armageddon in casual settings (not that I do necessarily like it) because once someone does manage to blow it up, everyone gets all their lands back. - it's very difficult to interact with. Blue has counter spells and white has a variety of stuff to give things indestructible (though some of that only applies to creatures) but between the other three colors it's pretty much just heroic intervention and that's all. I also don't mind partial land destruction as much like urza's silex since it does still allow people to do stuff afterwards.

[@tthakshmm3349]

I think that this discussion went in a slightly different direction from Sam's intended point. I think his perspective is that you shouldn't count mana rocks towards your land or "mana" count, not that they should be cut from commander decks. Simply put, playing 8-12 mana rocks is not an excuse to cut lands and only play 36-38 as opposed to running 39-41 lands.

[@fargoretro]

A better discussion would be "is land ramp better than mana rocks and dorks?"

[@chrisbarraza7700]

I appreciate that there are formula's for optimal setups. I prefer to fail miserably until I get it right with each of my decks.

[@AseAPS]

I think, outside of cEDH, people don't play enough lands. However, at cEDH the standard is 27-31 lands, and these players are playing correctly. Fast mana is such a game changer! You need to mulligan hard for both a fast start and early interaction. Flooding will absolutely lose you the game at that level.

[@dullestpenguin4151]

I have a theory about EDH: the player base ignores smart play style do to the assumption that nobody make anyone "feel bad". I'm typically a midrange player in 1v1 and my general goal is to wait for my opponent to over extend so I can two or three for one. I feel in commander if I ramp in green then wrath the board of artifacts or all permanents by also playing white I can maybe 10+ for 1. The ideology is I'm the bad guy but I retort with don't play bad and overextend. Further on Tomers "I've reloaded" comment, I don't think so. Green often requires a big creature on board to reload, blue needs a high resource of mana, and the other colors need a lot of help also. You may have raced out and drew a card, but I'm shutting off the engine likely a turn before it goes off. I may be arch enemy, but as long as I'm smart I'm simply the guy with a full grip playing against players behind on lands and cards. Sam may be talking in part about how vulnerable rocks are if we played more strategically. Just a theory I've had for a while.

[@andrewrockwell1282]

replace a few of those 43 lands with cheep card draw so you can draw into lands and have other gas.

[@SkyFire2112]

In my werewolf deck I took out arcane signet for a Grove of the Burnwillows. I kept drawing it but not wanting to waste mana playing it because my deck plays one creature/ enchantment per turn to keep it night and then the rest of my land is for all my instant interactions. My drawing a dual land feels much better in my deck

[@jyomi7506]

I play a lot of artifact decks, and it's funny how many decks don't really wipe out artifacts. Every mana rock on the board keeps my Shorikai safe, so I totally recommend playing a lot of mana rocks in every deck XD Joke's aside though, I don't like wiping out ALL of the lands in a game, but we do need SOMETHING to handle all the ramp. There's an Asusa, Lost but Seeking player at my LGS, and as a budget player it's a nightmare to play against it... Seeing them have more lands than I have permanents then having my whole board blown up and going back to like 5-6 mana feels hopeless. Why can't we punish that? We should right? Let them get salty, I was salty when all my rocks got exiled to deal with an indestructible giant golem on turn 5... Salt doesn't mean it shouldn't happen in the game.

[@TheBraxton17]

The thought of no mana rocks is kind of weird, you will typically don't find a lot of people tying to play fair magic to the point where you won't fall behind in a pod. Not to say it won't work at all but with green and even white ramp now and the way blue and black can control a board in commander you will either loose the political peices instead of the rocks so which ones is worse?

[@AnEpicSquirrel]

The issue with MLDs is not as simple as "players don't like it." Notably it will extend a game if a win-con is not hit right away, and often can lock out people from playing (similarly to Stax which is pretty agreed upon to be simply annoying to play around). I do not think it's unreasonable for players to want to be able to cast 6-mana spells on turn 6 if they built their decks to support hitting a land every turn. The difference with mana rocks and lands is in non-green decks you can only (typically) get one land per turn, so you invest that mana into mana rocks for a mana-positive amount the next few turns (identical with green with investing into land ramp spells, just with a different permanent type). When you wipe the rocks off the board, the players can still do things with their existing lands. With an MLD, mana rocks (which there are only a few of that will be played per game) often won't be enough to play spells without the deck having been built around expecting an MLD. If people wanted to play longer games with full graveyards, then careless MLDs are fine, but I would assume most would prefer playing multiple games for the night attempting for their decks doing their own thing rather than recovering from an MLD. There is a huge distinction between MLDs & Stax with Mill however, as Milling cards does not lock someone from using their mana (aka playing the game). People want to be able to tap for 6 mana on turn 6 to cast one or two spells - milling doesn't stop this, but an Armageddon wiping the board without winning the game the game does. Personally, I do believe targeted Land Destruction should be encouraged, but that non-win-con MLDs should be called out and avoided due to the waste of time it causes - if a win-con isn't hit after the MLD, I'd rather just end the game there and shuffle up for a new one than to be on turn 6 with 2 lands on my board and my graveyard full of what I already cast. To speak on the Vegas example, the Bearer of the Heavens + Purphoros combo had a definitive win-con and time to interact before the permanent-wipe went off - the opponent players failed to do so, which as salty as it may be, is fair Magic. And the counter to green land-ramp is to organize against the green player - Commander is a social game and if everyone sees the threat, act on it (or convince people if they don't see it).

[@DSP1927]

I love the idea of a "no ramp" (or at least no mana rocks) game or two. It's always interesting to see the various deckbuilding theories played out since it's difficult for some people to get enough games in to form their own opinions...It also has the potential to reduce the "staple-y" effect of mana rocks, opening deckbuilding up to more niche cards!

[@Ixidora]

I always start my deck builds assuming I am not using any ramp. If after putting the list together I find it needs extra mana despite making my land drops I look at the least useful nonlands and consider rocks and other ramp sources. I have a werewolf commander deck that only runs a sol ring and an arcane signet because I have 3(?) mana dork werewolves and my curve is super low. The biggest oddball of my decks is my Fynn, the Fangbearer deck which has an average MV of like 2.1 but I run sol ring and 11 other nonland ramp sources at 2 mana so I can dump my hand and get in for damage fast with all my little creatures. It really struggles with draw power though so I'm working on that(maybe I should pull some of the ramp lol).

[@casteanpreswyn7528]

It's either "no ramp" or no unique rules, can't make green(the best color in the format) any better.

[@thengine7]

Rocks aren't the problem. Sol ring, mana crypt, and moxes are the problem.

[@Ixidora]

@@thengine7 so rocks? Also the OG mox are all banned and the rest require 2-1ing yourself or other significant effort to bring online. Anyway the rocks themselves aren't the issue being discussed here but the over dependency on them for ramp and fixing, the point is that there are many alternatives to ensuring smooth play with effective ramp.

[@SickOfItAll1988]

@@thengine7 nah, green is the problem. Rocks give other colors the chance to keep up.

[@silverknight6831]

The statement is true for CEDH. Casual Commander is a different environment, so it would depend on your play group.

[@AeonHero64]

Weird topic, interested to see how this discussion goes

[@jordangroblewsky2087]

I halfway agree with Sam Black. I think it depends on what archetype your deck fits into(aggro, combo, control, etc.). Generally though, I would rather play a card advantage engine like Sylvan Library or Phyrexian Arena and hit my land drop every turn for the rest of the game than ramp and miss a land drops on turn 4/5/6. Plus, playing Elesh Norn on turn 7 with 7 lands is still really strong. I USED to play a ton of ramp, but as the format has sped up, I find myself wanting to put more impactful permanents in play like Thalia and Scavenging Ooze than mana rocks. Games aren't going long enough for them to generate the value I want to justify spending my early turns "setting up" for a game that won't go past turn 8 or 9.

[@TruthlessHero]

A little late to the party, but I thought this was an incredibly interesting topic so I'm gonna opine. My take on it (besides the obvious "well it depends" that's applicable in almost every discussion about commander) is that I don't run rocks (or ramp in general) just to accelerate my curve. Myself, and a lot of the people I commonly play with, build for synergy. If I'm playing a creature based deck, my land will never cantrip with a beast whisperer, but that birds will. There are very few lands I can sacrifice in my artifacts aristocrat style deck for triggers, but commander sphere puts me ahead of the curve,cantrips when I need the draw, and triggers my mayhem devil. As an added bonus it sacrifices itself, no KCI needes. TL:DR The missed opportunity cost for not playing rocks or fragile ramp in general is more than just not accelerating your curve, you may well be limiting the synergies you built into your strategy.

[@RMGamer31O]

Hear me out: instead of adding expensive (card draw and ramp) spells, why not just run lands that draw cards or allow you to play more lands? There’s quite an expansive list if you’re willing to dig for them. For example, there’s cards like War Room, Arch of Orazca and cycling lands that can draw cards from your land base in any color, and there’s bounce lands, terrain generator, Myriad Landscape and Thawing Glaciers that allow you to play more lands in your land base. There’s definitely more than I listed for both categories, so feel free to experiment. That’s just my thoughts on the matter.

[@gmpd4191]

Too many variables in deck building to decide how many lands to play. I play a Raffine deck with 32 lands and 2 mana rocks and no sol ring because most of my cards are 2 mana and I’m able to draw three cards a turn to find my lands and I rarely have issues because I just need to get to three. My Belzenlok deck has 14 cards under 4 cmc so I’m running 38 lands and 55 mana sources and I need the rocks to cast multiple big cards a turn and I can’t wait until turn 12 to do it. There is no blanket answer and each deck is different

[@representativejoints1188]

I'm also trying hard to keep my land counts at 38-40 now and I thought about it before seeing this podcast. Because I should use more lands with value. Like playing from the library, manifesting as a creature and not worrying about it dying, cycling, ect.

[@stormtrooperjeepjk]

I would agree to playing more lands if you have a way to play more lands per turn.... But a turn one sol ring turn two signet... Turn 3 chromatic lantern.... I think you are still in a better position than dropping a land every turn (notwithstanding a zero drop rock value)

[@devinwarren7654]

One of the best decks I ever had in commander for myself. Heavy casual play by the way. Had 38 basic and and 10 utility lands. But it was omnath. Rg. But it threatened to win almost every game I played with it. But it wasn’t really my style. It didn’t really interact with the board until it was going off. I had a ton of fun with it though. But this subject is really depending on what is going on in the specific game you are in. And the deck build. But every card in commander can be great, or subpar. Depending on the cards around them.

[@andrewtaylor5883]

First thoughts are this: I firmly believe I have seen more and more decks which revolves around the 99 vs the commander and with decks like those lands are more important in order to cast the value cards that combo. I build/play decks that revolve around the commander and they usually have synergies with non-land cards

[@themoakman]

With the amount of "required" cards in decks these days with the amount of rocks, lands, and required autoincludes, it just reduces your deck down the having such a small margin for the fun cards. Decks have to be so tightly curated these days even a casual format feels so competitive just in deckbuilding. I've started doing this thing where I have a set number of "fun" cards in a deck and every game I take out those X number of cards and add them to giant stack of fun cards and shuffle them up and deal out X number to put in the deck while keeping the core of my deck's functionality and still having some fun variety.