Non-Basic Lands
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Dec. 19, 2013, 4:36 p.m. by GlimmerKing
So how important are non-basic lands? I rarely use anything outside of guildgates to be able to produce multiple kinds of mana with a single land. Even if nonbasic lands slow a deck down with 'enters the battlefield tapped', does it make up for being more dependable and consistent with the colors you need? Just want your guys' thoughts on this.
thataddkid says... #3
In EDH, it all depends on your meta. In general you don't want guildgates because a turn can cost you a game, but with some politickin' you can be completely fine in a casual meta. In a cutthroat meta, you can be jumped on in a second and having a delayed mana base can really hurt you.
December 19, 2013 4:48 p.m.
Duals are pretty important to having a good deck. There a lot of cheaper untapped ones out there, such as pain lands, both types of filter lands, checklands, etc., so there's not really a great reason to exclude them.
December 19, 2013 5:01 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #5
The guildgates are pretty awful as far as nonbasics go. There are plenty of duals that come in untapped or offer some additional advantage to counteract the loss of tempo.
Examples of good EDH duals:
ABUR duals
Shock lands
Pain lands
Filter lands
Shard lands
Man lands (WWK)
Check lands
Apart from that, there are many important nonbasic lands.
Maze of Ith
Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Homeward Path
Command Tower
Reflecting Pool
Academy Ruins
Wasteland
Strip Mine
Not all good nonbasics enter tapped. Most of them enter untapped. For the ones that do enter tapped, you need to determine whether the loss of tempo is worth whatever else the land offers your deck.
You should read some of the articles on my profile page, including the one about EDH deckbuilding and some of the ones from the Pandora's Deckbox series. I'll be coming out with an efficiency article in February, and that article will address concerns about cost effectiveness and tempo.
December 19, 2013 5:27 p.m.
I pretty much only use duals that dont enter tapped when using multi-color decks, hell even in mono-colored decks I run a TON of non-basics, non-basics give you more bang for your buck, and value is something most (if not all) mtg players want in their cards.
The highest number of non-basics I've played with is 21, in a straight up mono-white deck, and even then I could still toss in a Wasteland and the other land killing lands.
Also Guildgates suck.
December 19, 2013 6:40 p.m.
Just watch out for the guy playing mono-red who drops Blood Moon . I have a deck that runs it and dropped it against a five-color deck that ran no basics, screwed them over pretty good that they almost scooped immediately.
December 19, 2013 10:15 p.m.
HarbingerJK says... #8
I always play 3 full playsets of different non-basics. 4 buddy lands, 4 shock lands and 4 manlands or fetch lands. It makes you feel a helluva lot more free to play different colored spells.
December 19, 2013 10:43 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #9
@HarbingerJK: Note that this was posted in the EDH forum. In EDH, you can only run one of each nonbasic.
December 20, 2013 1:25 a.m.
HarbingerJK says... #10
whoop that's what I get for scrolling through at work
December 20, 2013 2:25 a.m.
nobu_the_bard says... #11
In EDH my experience has been you should always include a couple of basics if you can, even if you have all of the best nonbasics ever. That way you can still benefit from things like Path to Exile or Collective Voyage or what have you. Lacking any basics makes those sorts of things no-downside tools to be used against you, makes you vulnerable to nonbasic hate like Blood Moon , and other such things.
PrimeSpeaky says... #2
I think it mostly depends on your crowd and the speed of the play group. For my group, playing etb tapped duals just usually don't cut it when someone is threatening to Tooth and Nail Entwined turn 4. But we're a relatively cut-throat group to some extent
December 19, 2013 4:48 p.m.