Counterspell should be available on T2 with a high degree of consistency (90%), but I shouldn't be forced to grab every fixing land in each pack I see to make that happen (and I should be able to run 2 colors with maybe a third splash).
Lol. I don't think you understand the math required to make this possible. Especially since you're talking about how your drafters put XX and YY cost cards in the same deck. In order to have a 90% chance of having UU on T2 for the counterspell in your opening hand, you need 18 sources of blue in your deck.
Since you're wanting a 90% probability (a number that is largely considered unattainable even for constructed multicolor manabases; 75% is considered great and 51% is considered moderate) and your drafters want to play XX and 1YY cost cards in the same deck, you're going to need to build an 18/16 manabase. So your average 2-color deck, in order to have what you consider to be "good" mana, requires 16 fixing lands per deck. I don't think 13% is going to get you anywhere close to what you're looking for. A 540 card cube would need to play 171 mana fixing lands in order to reach the demand you want.
OR you could educate your drafters about how mana works, and build decks with great mana using 11% fixing.
Quote from ahadabans »
Not that you calculated the percentages wrong, but that those mana base splits are good. 12/8 (13/7 even) is weak sauce if you want to cast a T2 CC card in your main color.
13/7 is great for casting CC cards on T2. Assuming you have realistic expectations, that is. A 75% chance is very good for limited.
Quote from ahadabans »
Statistically speaking, in this scenario it's unlikely you will be able to assemble an ideal mana base regardless of how highly you try and draft it.
This isn't true either. Between matching guild fixing, off-color fetch/dual interactions, universal non-guild fixing and non-land fixing, every deck has an opportunity to scoop up at least 4-6 cards for fixing per draft. Which, if you draft and deckbuild appropriately, is more than enough.
I sounds like a good solution for your group is to pull all mana fixing lands from the cube, and so slightly smaller packs. You follow this with a couple of 5-10 card land packs. It is not how most of us would run it but I think it could really give you the experience you say you want.
I'm going to keep going slightly off-topic on this, but if this is too much, dear Mods, please move this discussion to a relevant thread.
The great thing about Math (and Science in general!) is that you don't need to believe in it for it to be true. Sure, what we have available to explain gravity (for instance) is just a model, i.e. an approximation at best. But being an approximation does not mean we get to dismiss it - you can choose not to believe in gravity all you want, but you're still subject to its effect just like everyone else.
So, what does this tell us? Well, if in a 2-color deck all our 2-drops cost 1C instead of CC, then with a single dual land we're 90% to get there. If we have 3 dual lands, then that gives us a 13-7 mana base, which puts us very close to the 14 sources needed to be above 90% to cast all our CC 2-drops in our main color by turn 2, and definitely above 90% for turn 3!
Again, every time we're dealing with probabilities we're dealing with the uncertain, but all we can do in the face of randomness is to maximize our odds of getting a desired effect, and Math helps us get there. Of course there's a certain feel attached to deck-building, cube-building, etc etc, but we, as Cube designers, are doing our drafters a disservice by not using the tools available to us, and this is one of the best resources we have. And this means that this is absolutely a question of educating ourselves and our drafters in the implications of having too many CC (a to a lesser extent 1CC) cards both in the Cube and in any given Cube deck.
This is also a matter of realizing that this a Limited format and not a Constructed one. Like the name indicates, in Constructed games you get to construct your deck to your heart's desire, and carefully tailor your mana base to have as many sources of a certain color as you so desire - everyone is picking from the same pool and everyone has access to the same cards. But last I checked, Cube is a Limited format - the point is precisely to build a deck from a limited pool of cards, and you are competing with the other players for those cards. Yes, of course my UB deck will have worse fixing if I have to fight for it with the 2 other UB drafters at the table, but I have the choice to move into other colors, prioritize fixing accordingly, or try my best to stay away from cards with multiple mana symbols on them. That's the whole point of playing limited, actually. This whole process and experience goes out the window if I just give free fixing to everyone, either by straight-up giving free dual lands to everyone, include too many mana-fixing lands in the draft pool, or have some sort of weird Rotisserie draft going in parallel with the main draft in which everyone can get "free" fixing. At that point, we're talking about some very weird simulation of a Constructed format - sure, that has its place, but at the basis of every single discussion we have in this forum is the implicit understanding that we're talking about a Limited format. OK, we can argue that typically Cubes have a much larger percentage of fixing than retail Limited formats, and that's OK (if we're talking about revisiting Magic's history and granting people access to all those sweet sweet cards they want to play with, we may as well give them powerful fixing to work with) - but the point is still to play a Limited format, with all the (hard) choices the come with it, both in drafting and deck-building, since they have an influence in actual game play.
You may desire to have more fixing in your Cube, or less fixing. You may be so terrified of mana screw that you need to have a myriad of safety nets to avoid it, or you embrace it for what it is, and minimize it by being a responsible Cube designer and (maybe most importantly!) a responsible drafter. What you don't get to do is to decide that the rules of Magic *and* Math don't apply to you. After all, the only way to be 100% sure guaranteed to have UU available in turn 2, in a 40-card deck, is to run 34 lands that produce blue mana and come into play untapped - think about that.
(Oh, yeah, and what about those new lands in BFZ with those sweet basic land types? Personally, I prefer my lands to enter the battlefield untapped, but I also like that people run 2 colors with a splash or even 3 colors in draft, so I have a slightly higher percentage of fixing lands in my Cube. The great thing about these lands is that they make off-color fetches count a source of those colors for all the relevant purposes, but unlike ABUs and shocklands these lands will most likely enter the battlefield tapped, which favors control-ish decks and color combinations. If could see myself being interested in the blue ones, and maybe the green ones, but outside of legitimate budget concerns I would definitely pass on the Mardu-colored ones. If anything, these lands just illustrate of how great fetchlands are, and make them a slightly higher pick than the already high picks they are...)
Alternatively, just give everyone a Worldknit at the beginning of draft.
I wonder if anyone's actually done that. Would make for an interesting experience, or maybe it's just one of those many interesting draft variants that I never manage to get around to.
Thanks for this link. I remembered reading this awhile back but couldn't recall where. I'm bookmarking it because it's a really good reference.
In that article, the author has 14 sources to reliably cast your CC 2 drop on T2. The number I gave (16) is unrealistically high for a draft environment, which is why I put "ideal" next to it (it's not achievable outside a constructed mana base). But I'd be perfectly OK with having that type of mana base in cube if it were possible.
I get the sense that some people feel having too much fixing creates major balance problems. And while I agree that there is always such thing as "too much of a good thing", I believe these issues are being overstated. Constructed environments have way better fixing than even a cube with 15% fixing lands (more than anyone is running here including me). And yet the color pie still function, the best deck isn't necessarily 5 color control or 3+ color good stuff. So if that is a real problem in your meta, there could be other reasons for it. It's well established what my opinion is on power max design, so I won't bother elaborating more on it.
Another thing that I don't believe has been brought up is the cost associated with running dual lands. Other than the ABU duals, every dual land comes with a cost associated (whether life loss or ETB tapped, etc.). So while running more in your deck makes your mana better, it comes with a downside. Even if I grabbed 16 shocks for my 5 color bogus deck, can I realistically take 12 points of damage in the first six turns of the game? And if I can't, do I time walk my opponent land drops to avoid that damage? And how much will that move set me back? People are acting like you can run an infinite amount of fixing and play 5 color at no penalty. Good luck with that.
I calculate 18 sources for 91.88% chance of CC. Fourteen sources gives 79.18%.
I think the percentage is higher when you factor in mulligans (and the math gets way more complicated). The link mrbrightside posted is a great read if you have the time.
Wait - my numbers above are what you would need to get cc in opening hand of seven. But if you are on the play and draw one card by turn two you need 16 to hit 90% and if you are on the draw you need 14 sources. I am not considering mulligans at all.
So yeah, Karsten's numbers seem reasonable if he considers mulligans.
That only accounts for sources though, and it doesn't account for the card you're casting. If my first drawn spell is Counterspell, I need 2 sources in the next 7 cards (6 from opening, 1 from T2 draw) from my remaining 39 in order to be able to cast it on T2. 17 sources gives you a 90.6& chance. Once you factor in mulligans, that can come down a bit, as he illustrates.
I initially dismissed the battlelands as inferior to the checklands, but I am slowly coming around. I still think the checklands are slightly better because they are almost always untapped on turn two, whereas battlelands never etb untapped before turn three. However, having basic land types is very important for fetchlands and for a dozen other cards in cube (like Vedalken Shackles, Rofellos, etc).
What pushed me over the edge is this consideration though: It is not unusual that you see a fetchland in a booster that matches only one color of your 2-color deck (e.g. you draft RB and see a Wooded Foothills). Do you pick it in the hope that you will get either your ABU dual or shockdual (Badlands or Blood Crypt) later? That fetchland would be super good if you get at least one of those two duals, but pretty useless if you don't. My cube is a bit larger, so we only draft roughly half of it. This means that even if nobody is drafting your colors, none of the two duals you needed might be in the draft. If I included the battlelands, then the chance for getting at least one fetcheable dual would increase by 50%! (In the example, even if neither Badlands nor Blood Crypt were in the pool, Smoldering Marsh could be there to turn on your Foothills.)
How many cubes have cut checklands for battlelands? What are your experiences with the battlelands?
I wasn't running Checks before, but I cut my #5 land cycle for the Battle Lands and I've been enjoying them so far. They ETBT less often than I predicted they would, and counting as the basic land types has been very relevant. I'd give them a shot if you haven't played them at all, and see how your group likes them.
Lol. I don't think you understand the math required to make this possible. Especially since you're talking about how your drafters put XX and YY cost cards in the same deck. In order to have a 90% chance of having UU on T2 for the counterspell in your opening hand, you need 18 sources of blue in your deck.
Since you're wanting a 90% probability (a number that is largely considered unattainable even for constructed multicolor manabases; 75% is considered great and 51% is considered moderate) and your drafters want to play XX and 1YY cost cards in the same deck, you're going to need to build an 18/16 manabase. So your average 2-color deck, in order to have what you consider to be "good" mana, requires 16 fixing lands per deck. I don't think 13% is going to get you anywhere close to what you're looking for. A 540 card cube would need to play 171 mana fixing lands in order to reach the demand you want.
OR you could educate your drafters about how mana works, and build decks with great mana using 11% fixing.
13/7 is great for casting CC cards on T2. Assuming you have realistic expectations, that is. A 75% chance is very good for limited.
This isn't true either. Between matching guild fixing, off-color fetch/dual interactions, universal non-guild fixing and non-land fixing, every deck has an opportunity to scoop up at least 4-6 cards for fixing per draft. Which, if you draft and deckbuild appropriately, is more than enough.
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The great thing about Math (and Science in general!) is that you don't need to believe in it for it to be true. Sure, what we have available to explain gravity (for instance) is just a model, i.e. an approximation at best. But being an approximation does not mean we get to dismiss it - you can choose not to believe in gravity all you want, but you're still subject to its effect just like everyone else.
This brings us to the math behind mana bases. wtwlf123's article is actually pretty solid, but if for some reason someone is still adamant in dismissing it, I'd like to refer you to Frank Karsten, Magic Hall-of-Famer, numbers guy and holder of a PhD in this area: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells/. Go ahead, I'll give you some time to read it.
So, what does this tell us? Well, if in a 2-color deck all our 2-drops cost 1C instead of CC, then with a single dual land we're 90% to get there. If we have 3 dual lands, then that gives us a 13-7 mana base, which puts us very close to the 14 sources needed to be above 90% to cast all our CC 2-drops in our main color by turn 2, and definitely above 90% for turn 3!
Again, every time we're dealing with probabilities we're dealing with the uncertain, but all we can do in the face of randomness is to maximize our odds of getting a desired effect, and Math helps us get there. Of course there's a certain feel attached to deck-building, cube-building, etc etc, but we, as Cube designers, are doing our drafters a disservice by not using the tools available to us, and this is one of the best resources we have. And this means that this is absolutely a question of educating ourselves and our drafters in the implications of having too many CC (a to a lesser extent 1CC) cards both in the Cube and in any given Cube deck.
This is also a matter of realizing that this a Limited format and not a Constructed one. Like the name indicates, in Constructed games you get to construct your deck to your heart's desire, and carefully tailor your mana base to have as many sources of a certain color as you so desire - everyone is picking from the same pool and everyone has access to the same cards. But last I checked, Cube is a Limited format - the point is precisely to build a deck from a limited pool of cards, and you are competing with the other players for those cards. Yes, of course my UB deck will have worse fixing if I have to fight for it with the 2 other UB drafters at the table, but I have the choice to move into other colors, prioritize fixing accordingly, or try my best to stay away from cards with multiple mana symbols on them. That's the whole point of playing limited, actually. This whole process and experience goes out the window if I just give free fixing to everyone, either by straight-up giving free dual lands to everyone, include too many mana-fixing lands in the draft pool, or have some sort of weird Rotisserie draft going in parallel with the main draft in which everyone can get "free" fixing. At that point, we're talking about some very weird simulation of a Constructed format - sure, that has its place, but at the basis of every single discussion we have in this forum is the implicit understanding that we're talking about a Limited format. OK, we can argue that typically Cubes have a much larger percentage of fixing than retail Limited formats, and that's OK (if we're talking about revisiting Magic's history and granting people access to all those sweet sweet cards they want to play with, we may as well give them powerful fixing to work with) - but the point is still to play a Limited format, with all the (hard) choices the come with it, both in drafting and deck-building, since they have an influence in actual game play.
You may desire to have more fixing in your Cube, or less fixing. You may be so terrified of mana screw that you need to have a myriad of safety nets to avoid it, or you embrace it for what it is, and minimize it by being a responsible Cube designer and (maybe most importantly!) a responsible drafter. What you don't get to do is to decide that the rules of Magic *and* Math don't apply to you. After all, the only way to be 100% sure guaranteed to have UU available in turn 2, in a 40-card deck, is to run 34 lands that produce blue mana and come into play untapped - think about that.
(Oh, yeah, and what about those new lands in BFZ with those sweet basic land types? Personally, I prefer my lands to enter the battlefield untapped, but I also like that people run 2 colors with a splash or even 3 colors in draft, so I have a slightly higher percentage of fixing lands in my Cube. The great thing about these lands is that they make off-color fetches count a source of those colors for all the relevant purposes, but unlike ABUs and shocklands these lands will most likely enter the battlefield tapped, which favors control-ish decks and color combinations. If could see myself being interested in the blue ones, and maybe the green ones, but outside of legitimate budget concerns I would definitely pass on the Mardu-colored ones. If anything, these lands just illustrate of how great fetchlands are, and make them a slightly higher pick than the already high picks they are...)
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I wonder if anyone's actually done that. Would make for an interesting experience, or maybe it's just one of those many interesting draft variants that I never manage to get around to.
Cubetutor Link
Thanks for this link. I remembered reading this awhile back but couldn't recall where. I'm bookmarking it because it's a really good reference.
In that article, the author has 14 sources to reliably cast your CC 2 drop on T2. The number I gave (16) is unrealistically high for a draft environment, which is why I put "ideal" next to it (it's not achievable outside a constructed mana base). But I'd be perfectly OK with having that type of mana base in cube if it were possible.
I get the sense that some people feel having too much fixing creates major balance problems. And while I agree that there is always such thing as "too much of a good thing", I believe these issues are being overstated. Constructed environments have way better fixing than even a cube with 15% fixing lands (more than anyone is running here including me). And yet the color pie still function, the best deck isn't necessarily 5 color control or 3+ color good stuff. So if that is a real problem in your meta, there could be other reasons for it. It's well established what my opinion is on power max design, so I won't bother elaborating more on it.
Another thing that I don't believe has been brought up is the cost associated with running dual lands. Other than the ABU duals, every dual land comes with a cost associated (whether life loss or ETB tapped, etc.). So while running more in your deck makes your mana better, it comes with a downside. Even if I grabbed 16 shocks for my 5 color bogus deck, can I realistically take 12 points of damage in the first six turns of the game? And if I can't, do I time walk my opponent land drops to avoid that damage? And how much will that move set me back? People are acting like you can run an infinite amount of fixing and play 5 color at no penalty. Good luck with that.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
I think the percentage is higher when you factor in mulligans (and the math gets way more complicated). The link mrbrightside posted is a great read if you have the time.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
So yeah, Karsten's numbers seem reasonable if he considers mulligans.
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What pushed me over the edge is this consideration though: It is not unusual that you see a fetchland in a booster that matches only one color of your 2-color deck (e.g. you draft RB and see a Wooded Foothills). Do you pick it in the hope that you will get either your ABU dual or shockdual (Badlands or Blood Crypt) later? That fetchland would be super good if you get at least one of those two duals, but pretty useless if you don't. My cube is a bit larger, so we only draft roughly half of it. This means that even if nobody is drafting your colors, none of the two duals you needed might be in the draft. If I included the battlelands, then the chance for getting at least one fetcheable dual would increase by 50%! (In the example, even if neither Badlands nor Blood Crypt were in the pool, Smoldering Marsh could be there to turn on your Foothills.)
How many cubes have cut checklands for battlelands? What are your experiences with the battlelands?
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!