HOW TO MAKE YOUR MANA RIGHT FOR LIMITED PLAY . . . or I hate doing math in my head!

GATECRASH is coming this weekend.  It’s time for another set release, which means it’s time for a weekend of limited sealed pre-release events.   

Other than selecting the cards to use, your mana base is the most important thing during a limited event.  Every limited tournament, people ask other people how much mana should I put in the deck.  This inevitably leads to an opponent seeing your card pool and it takes the element of surprise from you when facing that “helper.”  At a venue with a small playing pool like Lilac House, this could affect the game greatly. 

In the early days of Magic, a constructed deck was made of 20 creatures, 20 spells and 20 land. If you piled your creatures and spells into groups of 4, your would end up with 10 piles of 4 cards, adding 2 land to each pile made 60 cards and 20 years ago this mana base would have been fine with all the artifact mana fixing available like Sol Rings and Moxes.  Shift to the here and now of Magic and Mana bases have changed drastically.  Most decks bump the mana curve and run more than 20 land – even with mana dorks and fetch cards.  Most modern era decks run 23-24 land. 

Limited is VERY similar to the old days of Magic constructed yet it has the uneven mana ratio of a modern day deck.  A limited deck is 40 cards, not 60.  One would say that by using the old school “math,” you could get away with running 10 lands.  That isn’t the case.  You have to jump the curve. 

Depending on your highest casting card, a limited deck should have at LEAST 15 land.  If the highest casting cost is 5 or more, you should seriously consider 17 or even 18 land in your deck.  Yes, I know that is nearly half your deck, but if you want your “bomb” 6 or 7 drop Mythic to hit the table, you DO NOT want to miss land drops.  Mana fixing artifacts and man dork creatures can help alleviate this problem and lower your land count. 

Let’s say I pulled the following cards in a Return to Ravnica limited event.  Sealed or draft is moot, the formula is the same.  Because it is me we are talking about here, I would not want to disappoint Rich Bourque and not use Rakdos as an example.  Here is my pool, broken up by cost and separating creature from spells, enchantments and artifacts:

As you see, I have once again acquired a great Rakdos selection (wink at Rich!).  I have a good balance of creatures, removal, pump and some mana boost.  This deck would run 17 mana sources.  16 land plus a Rakdos Keyrune in order to be effective with my large amount of 3 drops and afford the Chaos Imps.

After I become satisfied with my selected cards, I then place them in piles of 4 based on color:

Note I have placed artifacts in slots where I had no cards to match the color(s) present.  There are 6 piles of 4 and a last pile of 2 Rakdos Guildgates dual lands I managed to obtain. 

Now place 2 land of each appropriate color on each stack of 4:

 On the multi colored stacks, place 1 of each color in the pile:

On piles with artifacts, place 1 of each color in the deck, as well:

After this you should have 6 piles of 6 cards in each and one with 2 cards, the acquired lands.  This will make 38 cards.  On the land pile place 1 of each land:

You now have a 40 card limited deck with a proper mana ratio.  Your building field should resemble this:

Sleeve, shuffle and run a few test hands before you face your first opponent. 

If you play more than 2 colors, adjsut the mana according to the colors you are playing, especially in regards to artifact and land piles; these should reflect the 3 or more colors you are playing in which cards you place there.  For example:  your last pile of 4 lands should have at least 1 of each color you are playing.

This simple visual tool can help solve many math problems for experienced and novice players.  I’ve used it for 20 years and it still works without fail as I rarely have mana issues in a limited event.  This formula also guides you by restricting the ceiling of your build.  Too many neophytes make limited decks larger than 40 cards.  That is a cardinal NO NO!  The smaller the deck, the better the odds that you will draw what you need.

Good luck to all those come to the Gatecrash Pre-Release this weekend at Lilac House.  Mark is running 3 release events: 1 on Saturday at 1:00 and 2 on Sunday at 1:00 and 5:00 respectively. I hope to see you all there! 

 

And Rich?  Please note the following:

Until the next time I draft a BOROS deck . . .

 

 

PEACE!

(Rich Bouque is the level 2 Sanctioned Magic the gathering DCI Judge for Central New York.  Please see him for all your judging questions.  If you wish to become a Magic the Gathering Judge, Rich can also assist you in that.)