How to build a 3-color mana base
Standard Deck Help forum
Posted on Dec. 1, 2015, 10:32 a.m. by e10mays
I'd like to build a 3 color mana base for as cheap as possible, but without using cards like Evolving Wilds where they come in tapped and delay action. How do I do this?? Green ramp fetch spells?
MTGNuclear says... #3
It's literally impossible to have a good tri colour mana base without spending a decent amount of money. Evolving wilds is not good enough, the life gain lands are not good enough, hell even the tri lands are not good enough anymore.
December 1, 2015 10:39 a.m.
Depending on what three colors you're looking at, splashing the 4th color is virtually free. For instance bant and naya have a good land base with there perspective 8 fetches but abzan has to splash blue or red to support fetch/dual land base
December 1, 2015 10:44 a.m.
Fortunately dual lands aren't crazy expensive and the fetch lands see eternal play so they will maintain value.
December 1, 2015 10:50 a.m.
ragemaster42 says... #7
in all seriousness, what kind of format are you trying to build this mana base in? there are standard mana bases that work very well and aren't like, $200, and then there are standard mana bases that are a good deal more. but if you're looking into say, modern, then it's pretty hard to play tri-colors without things like fetch lands, because you need your colors, and it's just so much more viable then things like Evolving Wilds. But if you're more about like, commander, then, it can get pretty expensive, due to the number of cards in the deck, and the likelihood of you pulling a color that you need is not great, so dual lands, like those printed in Innistrad block, or things like the tango lands from BFZ,shock lands and fetches are really nice to have to ensure that you get all of the color you need, when you need them. But really, it depends on what colors and format that you're playing to dictate the quality of a mana base.
December 1, 2015 11:11 a.m.
MTGNuclear says... #8
ragemaster42 this is a standard deck forum help, so I'm assuming it's for standard therefore it's pretty darn expensive
December 1, 2015 11:31 a.m.
You can make a functional base on budget. Combine 4 of the tri lands and a mix of khans lifegain lands and pain lands. It's not great, mind you, but you'll be able to pay for costs. There will be plenty of times the mana base will delay you a turn, but that's the price you'll have to pay.
December 1, 2015 1:45 p.m.
Pain Lands and Battle Lands are the way to go, even just 1 of each is significantly more effective than running full play-sets of the relevant tap lands in your 3 colour build. You can run up to 6 tap lands of any type before they start effecting your curve's speed so that is something to consider for building mana base on a budget.
IF you are really that restricted to where you simply can't get any mana base that costs more that $1 a card than just use the 3rd colour as a splash and keep the 3rd colour's card count below 12 and don't run cards with 2+ devotion in that colour, than you can run 6-8 tap lands and you shouldn't have a problem with 3 colour mana.
December 1, 2015 2:14 p.m.
My land base is Mardu.
It's fast as hell and uses no fetch lands.
You can check it out to see if you can make something similar for Abzan.
December 1, 2015 3:32 p.m.
BrandonJamesCAC says... #13
I'm not a fan of standard but I think your best bet for 3 colors without breaking the bank is something like this.
For an ESPER deck ie:
2x Insert any Blue Fetch Land if possible
5x of each Basic
December 1, 2015 3:52 p.m.
ChrisHansonBiomancin says... #14
Hopefully you're playing a wedge so you can utilize tri lands and pain lands. If you're trying to do a shard, I'd go with ragemaster42 and start with a kidney. You only really need one.
December 1, 2015 4:36 p.m.
ComputerizedMTG says... #15
Like people have mentioned the cheapest way is to use the tri-lands, tapped duals and the painlands. The only issue with that is that they slow you down or risk causing more damage than fetchlands.
In all honesty if you want a solid manabase, you kinda have to use fetches and tango lands. You might be able to skip fetches depending on your color ratio, but if you want a consistent manabase that does not slow you down it's hard to do without fetches as everything else comes into play tapped and that being able to cast your answer a turn earlier can change the tides of the game.
Honestly if you work out a good color ratio you can just get by with the tango lands which work perfectly fine, but you will still run into issues. Generally if you are on a budget, meaning you can't buy what you need, then in pretty much almost any format going 3 colors is kind of a bad idea. It's almost like saying "I want a new Lamborghini, but I only have 50,000 to spend on a car". You can run the threee color on a budget but it will be too clunky imo.
There are other ways, have you tried trading for them? Try avoiding a 3 color combo that runs the more expensive fetches like Polluted Delta and only run a 3 color combo, with the right ratio, that may work perfectly fine with 4 fetches rather than 8 for example. Or check out Pucatrade, it's a pretty sweet way to get cards that would normally be out of your price range, with enough effort.
Hope that helps.
December 1, 2015 8:20 p.m.
Thanks everyone for the advice! I'll probably stick to two colored decks for now. Maybe I'll get another part-time job and build a three color one day.
ragemaster42 says... #2
my suggestion would be to sell your body for fetch lands
December 1, 2015 10:38 a.m.