How Many Basic Lands are Sufficient?
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on May 18, 2019, 1:55 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
In all of my decks, slightly less than half of the cards are lands, and, in the specific case of my Atraxa EDH deck, 40 out of the 100 cards are lands.
Of those lands, slightly more than half of them (24) are basic lands, a decision that I made to protect myself in the case that one of my opponents is sufficiently cruel to use Blood Moon or Ruination .
I previously had in this deck all four triple lands that Atraxa supports ( Arcane Sanctum , Opulent Palace , Sandsteppe Citadel , and Seaside Citadel ), but I removed them in favor of the "storage lands" that Atraxa supports, since the deck's focus on the proliferate mechanic should allow those lands to generate large amounts of mana with little investment.
Now, however, I find myself wondering if I can risk reducing the number of basic lands in this deck to 20, so that I may keep the triple lands, since they are excellent for this deck; the deck does contain Chromatic Lantern , but I cannot rely on drawing that card every game, as it is only one card out of one-hundred.
What does everyone else say about this? Should I keep twenty-four basic lands in my Atraxa deck, or can I afford having only twenty, to allow the triple lands to remain in it?
Always depends of your meta Blood Moon , Contamination effects are a thing in your play group?
if yes, you should run more ramp with the green side of Atraxa, Praetors' Voice search for your fixing in early, when 3 colors or more are present the most important thing it's to fix you mana pool in order to always have a back up plan if something ( Blood Moon ) happends, in this case even with a some mana rocks to fix your mana pool are going to be in this cases good options (a few signets and 3x1 rocks like Darksteel Ingot / Chromatic Lantern / Commander's Sphere )
I think ShockLands, BuddyLands, PainLands, and some utility lands for a grand total of 36/38 lands with some good old Mana Rocks are more than enough to play Atraxa.
My recomendation, check for the Tolarian Comunity for 4 Color decks:
May 18, 2019 2:36 a.m.
My solution to blood moon and ruination is to turn everyone against the jerk playing those cards before the game even starts, just don't let them live long enough to play that garbage. Its a political format and if you can't get people to shut that player down before he gets going then you are in trouble anyway. That or have creatures, artifacts, and enchantments that can make fancy mana combos so you can brush the cards off. I really dislike the idea of having so many basic lands in a 4C deck. Even in my 3C decks I rarely run more than 15.
As for big mana with atraxa, the first thing that comes to mind is Crystalline Crawler , Gyre Sage or Workhorse to abuse all those poliferates.
May 18, 2019 8:31 a.m.
GhostChieftain says... #6
First and foremost, I think you are playing too many lands and probably not enough mana rocks. In my opinion, unless it is a lands matter deck, all edh decks should have anywhere from 32-36 lands depending on the amount of mana rocks and mana dorks. I would say get rid of 6 basics and add in the 6 signets that you have available to you. Another super solid rock is Fellwar Stone and it is actually normally better than the signets in a multiplayer game. These will make it faster and easier to ramp into atraxa as well as still having access to your colors even through the oppressive enchantments you mentioned.
LordBlackblade says... #2
So I feel like this is kind of two questions.
First, are the triple lands good? Personally, I think so (they're the only tap land I will usually run); however, having four lands that enter tapped will slow you down in certain situations. I think you really need to look at your deck and see how many lands that you have that enter tapped. If that number is small (ideally 0) I think you'll be okay running the triple lands.
Second, how many basics are enough versus cards like Ruination and Blood Moon ? The real answer here is that it depends on your meta. Do a lot of your opponents run these effects? If so, you should run more basics to avoid getting hosed. That said however, a better plan in my mind is to include the so called "good" mana rocks. Sol Ring , the Talisman cycle, the Signet cycle, etc. There are a ton of good rocks, especially with access to four colors, that you could run that would make you less vulnerable to these types of effects.
May 18, 2019 2:15 a.m.