OK, So I was pondering how to make limited mana bases for 3 color decks, starting with the Karsten article
People have critiqued this saying that it's "unreasonably strict" for limited (90% threshold) but some kind soul over at MTGSalvation provided the following:

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the- ... or-formats



This is pretty useful because now we can think about the "typical" limited splits of 11/6 10/7 9/8 and splashing with 3-4.

At 9 sources we have a 71% chance of casting a CC1 on turn 3. That's high variance but OK. Note that if you have CCX and AAY running 9/8 is going to screw you a fair amount of time.

We already know we can't splash for double color spells. Luckily there are not that many in KTK. The card to be careful of is Hordeling Outburst, but note that Arrow Storm and Rite of the Serpent are going to require a fair number of red or black sources (like 7).

Given that we are playing a wedge with cards that are, A1, B1, C1 on turn 2... we can see that we probably want 7 sources of each. I also think that it's a given that you are going to be playing 18 lands in this set - since "everything happens with 5 mana". It might be reasonable to go 17 with a mana rock and a good number of 2 drops...

If we want 7x3 sources our of 18 we need at least 3 dual lands. Note that if you drop to 17 lands you need another dual. A tri land counts as 2 duals. That should cover us for T2-T3 plays.

Unless we have an ABC rare (like a charm or acendency). This is actually much harder to cast now. We have a ~90% chance for any given color... but to get all 3 it's down to 73% (and tri-lands don't really help here)... because you can get Forest/Forest/Triland which won't fix you AND your 3rd land can't CiPT.

So really you would be happy to have 5 or 6 fixing cards, letting you have like 9 sources (although CiPT is still an issue). You definiitly want to run 9-10 if you run any of the CCX rares, like say Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker.

If you go heavy red (because you P1P1 said planeswalker, for example), you can probably get away with a 9/6/6 with 3 fixing or even 9/6/4 if the 3rd color is really light.

Also noted elsewhere - the enemy duals are twice as useful as the ally ones, because they fix 2 wedges instead of 1.

I like this thread. I wish it included more on what your fixing artifacts, land dig, ramp spells, etc. replace. Creatures or Removal? Which part of the curve? How do you anticipate playing your lands into your spells? Stuff like that.

For me, I'm going to try (lol, well, hope for the prerelease) the ol' Ravnica 8/7/2, with at least one of the two being a +1 to the 8/7, and then I'll have a fixing artifact in there to round at least two colors off. Going Temur, so I think my creatures will be better than my opponents' removal, so am anticipating (hoping, again) for 18 creatures, 1 artifact, 4 spells. But this may change if I find myself in prowess, for example, or with a deep Sultai splash. If that happens, I anticipate going as low as 14 creatures and 9 removal/tempo spells.

I am crazy neurotic specific tho, having made an XLS of KTK "removal" that I can't attach here bc it's an XLS... let me see if I can pdf it... doo dee doo... nope. Your loss!

Yeah, I kinda ran out of steam.

I suspect the number of creatures you run depends on the number of playable 2-drops you get. There are quite a few bears and pikers and early pressure vs. bad mana bases is a viable strategy. In this case you want to have as close to mono colored as possible, run 18 dudes, all the removals and combat tricks, screw fixing. If you have stuff that costs xyz you are going to have to run 4-5 fixers. Most of them will be tapped lands (there aren't many green fixing spells - I think otherwise green would be too nuts in draft). If you have a lot of morphs then the mana rocks are going to be a little awkward.

The other odd thing is that if you have delve cards you are going to want to be trading 2-drops and morphs like nobodies business.



Tease! Cut and paste it into a google spreadsheet and post the URL. TO THE CLOUD!

Delve is great for both the RW strategies I think.

I posted this somewhere else, but it really belongs in this thread:

You want to drop five mana sources in first five turns. One of these should be a common dual, one a mana stone. If you can manage six, all the better. The dual should hit on turn one or two, depending on whether you have a one or two-drop to play. In addition, you should have a three-drop or a morph in play on your turn four, and you should be representing the clan morph mana on your turn five. This is an all-common scenario, if you can replace some of this with uncommons or rares, so much the better.

As you see, I propose developing my board for the first few turns, and then taking over the game from any opponents foolish enough to try for aggro, in the face of Abzan and all the defensive common one and two-drops. There is a common, 4/4 lifelinker in the set! More than that, there are no outstanding aggro one and two drops.

So, and I'm going purely by instinct here, you probably need twenty mana sources to pull off something like this. Maybe nineteen, we'll see. As Zen said, things start happening at five mana. And if you're stuck at three with your opponent at five, you just might lose in a turn or two.

70% is pretty danged solid. I dunno what you guys are talking about. Obviously not ideal, but I'd be willing to gamble on a 70% win rate.

Great write up by the way.

I think Mardu would tromp all over that. In a slow format, sealed will be glacial.

70% isn't win rate... unless the card you throw down is an instant win. I mean, let's say I play a mana base where I have a 70% chance of on 4 so's I can butcher some fools. But this is no where near a 70% win - as first off you have to actually DRAW Butcher of the Horde in 10-11 cards and then you have to untap with it.

This is what I meant to say. This is the opposite strategy of trying to go under with 2 power 2 drops and over with fliers. I think you need 4+ fixers to play the grind out morph/bomb game. Tying it back to rstnme, probalby this is a 14-15 creature deck because the morphs can be played at multiple curve slots.

3 toughness and first strike are going to be very good.

And this is what you need to beat if you decide to go aggro. The biggest strike against aggro is not the absence of pikers (did you notice the blue one?), it's the absence of cheap combat tricks which would save your critter, kill the blocker, and let you play another attacker on the same turn.

I'm probably missing something. But this could be intentional, since a multicolor deck needs time to set up its mana. Maybe the aggro decks will start the beatdown on turn three? This is still faster than a wedge deck that doesn't really start attacking till turn five.

It's obviously intentional. Otherwise most of the morphs would never show their face before the game was over. And outlast would be useless.