Should I Add the Filter Lands to My Normal Decks?
General forum
Posted on July 26, 2020, 11:44 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
In each of my two-colored "normal" (i.e., non-EDH) decks, I have two cycles of dual lands, the appropriately-colored "shocklands" (i.e., Hallowed Fountain, Godless Shrine, and so forth) and "check lands" (i.e., Hinterland Harbor, Glacial Fortress, and so forth), and those usually are sufficient for providing whatever mana that I shall require for casting the spells in those decks.
However, the enemy-colored "filter lands" (i.e., Rugged Prairie, Flooded Grove, and so forth) were reprinted in Masters 25, which greatly decreased their prices, and the allied-colored cards of that same cycle (i.e., Mystic Gate, Wooded Bastion, and so forth) are soon to be reprinted in Double Masters, which shall almost certainly decrease their prices, as well.
Therefore, I am wondering: should I add the appropriately-colored filter lands to each of my two-colored decks? The increased versatility of the mana bases of those decks would be excellent, but one or two specific players in my normal group have a habit of using cards that punish players for using non-basic lands (most notably Blood Moon), and eight dual lands per deck is already very impressive, so what does everyone else say about this? Should I add the filter lands to my normal decks?
BrandonJamesCAC says... #3
I have only used filter lands in B/W Tokens and Esper Control.
For:
And Cryptic Command
I've found that a good rule of thumb is if you have 4x of any card with triple color cost, run 2.
July 27, 2020 1:25 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #4
Omniscience_is_life, TypicalTimmy, because I currently have a great job and because those cards are soon to decrease in price, my budget is not an issue in this situation.
However, as I said, before, I already have eight dual lands (out of 28 total lands) in each of these decks, and those usually are sufficient; I rarely ever am unable to cast the spells that I wish to cast, so, unless I notice that I am being color-screwed consistently, I likely shall not need them. Also, if I do add them, I would naturally have four of each, meaning that I would be down to 16 basic lands per deck, and I would rather not have that few basic lands, in the rare case that an opponent is punishing non-basic lands.
July 27, 2020 7:18 a.m.
This might be a bit blunt, but the "Should I add card XYZ to my decks?" is a really bad premise and you should probably stop this line of thinking.
Cards should be assessed on a deck by deck basis, not en masse. What might be the right call for one deck is the wrong call for the next. In this case, it entirely depends on what each of your decks is trying to achieve, what the meta is like and how hard costed your spells are.
In addition to this, trying to create blanket rules of "should I add this particular card to all my decks?" just ends up creating a bucnch of same-y decks, which seems like a waste of a lot of cardboard.
I used to play EDH with a particular player who had like 30 decks and I swear, over 10 of them were artifact decks. Like the dude had a hard-on for them or something. And before a game he was like "should I play my Esper artifact deck, my other Esper artifact deck, my blue/white artifact deck, one of my two mono blue artifact decks or one of my colourless artifact decks?" FFS dude, what's the point?
And I get that you want to look at a bunch of cards in the context of your decks - that's fine. But you should probably be either talking about the cards in general (either merits or drawbacks), in which case you shouldn't be asking "should I add/change/whatever card XYZ in/to/with all of my (insert format here) decks", or you should be asking about a particular deck (including a link to it), which provides a crapload more context about your question.
July 27, 2020 10:39 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #6
TypicalTimmy, most of the players with whom I play are casual; I, myself, am not very competitive, so I usually avoid competitive players.
July 27, 2020 5:13 p.m.
DeinoStinkus: I think you're missing the point of the comment, sorry. Just because two decks have a lot of similar cards doesn't mean that they both got that way by blanket decision. The Journey and the destination are two different things.
Each deck wants to achieve differnt things. Hell, there are even lots of differnet vairants of a given deck that want ot achieve different things. So the deck should be assessed on what it's trying to do and then cards should be added/swapped out accordingly. But you should only make decisions about a card, one deck at a time. That doesn't mean that you can't add a copy of a card to multiple decks, but it means that they should be assessed individually, not as a group.
I also disagree with your arguement about people not having lots of money to spend on the game so they are "adding to their collection". If you don't have much money to spend on the game, then it's even more important that you're not wasting money by making big purchases of multiple cards so tha you can just blanket add a copy of XYZ to every deck you. You should be even more strategic in picking the cards for the deck, so you can get the best value from it while spending the least amount of money.
TypicalTimmy: Yes, the social contract matters here, but the deck you play and the time you have are not intrisically linked. Good time does not equal casual and stressful must win at all costs does not equal competitive. My playgroup runs both casual and competitive decks and it doesn't matter what level of game we're playing, the attitudes and the good times and the bullshitting each other is the same. How we play the actual cards might change, but that's about all.
And again, it doesn't matter if it's a casual or a competitive setting, you shouldn't just be blanket buying cards for all your decks. Sure, you might run a bunch of the scry lands because that's what you can afford, but you should be asking yourself, "does this card add value here?" on each of your decks. If the answer is yes, then great, add it. But just going "I bought a scry land for each of my decks so I will add a scry land to each of my decks" is bad deckbuilding.
July 27, 2020 8:25 p.m.
King_marchesa says... #8
I personally dislike filter lands and though I don't play much besides edh I find that it's a pain to get all the colors you need and sometimes filter lands end up screwing me rather than helping me. I'm going to agree with TypicalTimmy in that as long as you have fun, that's all that matters.
July 27, 2020 8:41 p.m.
TypicalTimmy: That's a rather reductive statement. The whole point of this thread was asking about adding cards to make some decks better.
On top of that, even if I am having fun playing the game, I care what my opponent is playing and I care what I'm playing, for multiple reasons.
I care what my opponent is playing becuase I want to make sure that I'm generally matching the level that they're playing at. I've sat down to games and horribly misread the table and pulled out a 8-9/10 deck against a bunch of 5s becuase my opponent had a full art Azami alter. That wasn't a fun game for anyone. And I care about what my opponent is playing becuase if they have a deck which effectively shuts down mine, then I'm going to look to modify my deck next time so it doesn't get as badly hosed.
And I care about what I run, becuase a big part of MtG is deck optimisation - building your list to be better tailored to your playstyle, Building your list to be more effective in what it does; this is generally the focus of the vast majority of players. But if it's just about "building a deck and having fun" then go and buy a precon and be content with that. But if you're not, then that is illustrating my point.
July 27, 2020 8:46 p.m.
A couple points:
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Most of the time a filter land is going to be better than a basic land. However, there are exceptions--filter lands require you to tap two lands to use that mana; if your deck has a low curve, or relies heavily on keeping instant-speed mana up, filter lands can be a bit of a problem.
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I am assuming you are replacing a basic land with the filter land. I would be very reluctant to replace another dual land with a filter land, given the problems outlined above.
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If your deck relies heavily on basic lands (lots of basic land tutors, etc.), it might not be a good idea to cut a basic for a filter land.
To create a general rule: I think your default position could be including filter lands in your deck; just be cognizant of the flaws of filters, and be prepared to remove them from your list in some situations.
July 27, 2020 9:28 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #11
Caerwyn, I already have eight dual lands in each deck, which should be more than sufficient, and, even with the lower prices, purchasing four of each filter land (for a total of forty cards) will be very expensive, so I now think that it may be better to save my money for other cards in Double Masters.
July 27, 2020 11:16 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #12
Filter lands lose to Damping Sphere. That card's existence sort of kills Filter's competitive playability, and if we get enough reprints they should go back to a halfway decent price.
That said, if you can afford their pointlessly high price tag, they are fairly good.
Also, scry lands are playable -- in some Pioneer decks and the occasional Modern deck, as ways to get the most out of t1 when you don't have 1 mana plays. Course, manlands are better there.
I also like running scry lands in EDH -- they're better than a lot of other garbage.
Omniscience_is_life says... #2
God, it depends on your budget and play experience, I guess. Have you had trouble with mana fixing in the past? If not, it probably isn't worth the money, buy a fetch instead. If so, or you are on a budget, then it might be worth it. But I've found, as a person who owns a grand total of one shockland, that basics are fine. Really. Don't stress yourself about your manabase; you probably aren't playing super-fast competitive, e.g. you don't need a hypertuned, hella refined manabase like you might think
July 26, 2020 11:59 p.m.