"Access to a reliable mana-base is important."
Ask yourself "how highly do I value this statement, both as a player and a game designer?".
Whatever your answer is, from "barely" to "extremely", understanding objectively what your cube is providing to drafters will allow you to make more informed decisions as a cube designer.
This article aims to explore the idea of a reliable mana base, what that means for your drafters, what methods are available for achieving this as a cube designer, and my case for non-singleton fetch/shock lands as a slot-effective solution.
(Small disclaimer: it's ok to enjoy a mana-base anywhere along the spectrum from retail limited to legacy constructed)
Defining a "reliable" mana base:In order to achieve our desired mana-base in a cube environment, it is first helpful to define and understand what a "reliable" mana base looks like.
Understanding this will allow us to make informed decisions about what kind of experience our cube provides to players.
A "reliable" mana base gives you a good chance of having the correct colour of mana available at the correct time to cast your spells. An "unreliable" mana base does not allow you to cast your spells. All mana bases will sit somewhere on a spectrum between these two points.
Frank Karsten outlines in detail in this article what he considers "reliable", setting his desired likelihood of being able to cast spells on curve at ~90%. Using some math wizardry (detailed in his article), he has produced a helpful table breaking down how many coloured sources of mana are required to achieve what I'll be referring to as the "Karsten Density".
The below table details how many coloured sources are required to cast different mana costs on curve in a 40 card deck:
| Mana cost | Sources req. | Mana cost | Sources req. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5C | 6 | 3CC | 10 |
| 4C | 6 | 2CC | 11 |
| 3C | 7 | 3CCC | 11 |
| 2C | 8 | 1CC | 12 |
| 1C | 9 | 2CCC | 13 |
| 4CC | 9 | CC | 14 |
| C | 10 | 1CCC | 14 |
| CCC | 16 |
Example: For Karsten to be comfortable reliably (90% chance) casting a creature that costs 
(e.g. Goblin Guide) on curve, he would want at least 10 red sources of mana in the deck. (bold in the table)
Your acceptable "reliability" as a cube designer or player may be higher or lower than Karsten's ideal. Understanding what your cube provides players with is key to establishing whether you are meeting your own acceptable "reliability".
With reliability defined, below I detail my case for non-singleton fetches + shocks as a slot-effective way of providing the above Karsten "reliable" mana-base to drafters:
Relevance of fetch lands vs dual lands to a given player:- A dual land represents exactly 2 colours. a copy of Fire-Lit Thicket represents only red and
green mana, and is only of interest to a player running at least both red and green. - A fetch land represents 7 dual lands, and 10 colours! A copy of Wooded Foothills can fetch all dual lands apart from the wedge it doesn't belong to. Meaning it is an effective second copy of any dual land you have that isn't exactly
/
, 
, or /. - So while our Fire-Lit Thicket was relevant to exactly 1 colour pair, Wooded Foothills is relevant to 7! This really makes the limited land slots work for you, and should ensure those lands are never "dead" at the end of a draft
- With land slots limited in cube, including lands relevant to more players increases the opportunity for more drafters to achieve the Karsten Density with fewer lands in the cube.
- Fetch lands require… lands to fetch. Shock lands have basic lands types, allowing them to fetched this way.
- Continuing the example from the fetch land section above; A player is drafting Izzet (/) and has picked up the Wooded Foothills to help improve the mana in their deck. Until they also get a Steam Vents, this Wooded Foothills is effectively another basic mountain(*1).
- As a cube designer, we need to provide our Izzet drafter with a reasonable chance to get their first copy of a fetchable dual to enable the usefulness of any fetch-land. To do this, we need to include enough copies of Steam Vents in the cube that even if one is taken by another player, the Izzet drafter still has a good chance of finding a copy in the draft.
Aggressive decks in particular require access to the correct mana in the early turns in the game, fumbling on turn 1 or 2 can spell disaster.
Aggressive decks naturally want to run fewer lands to leave room for a higher density of low MV threats. This lower land count makes achieving the ideal density harder.
- A aggro deck running 14 lands as below has: 9 sources and 9 sources
- 4 non-basic B/R lands (blood crypt + blackcleave cliffs + Sulfurous Springs + dragonskull summit)
- 5 Mountain and 5 Swamp
- A midrange deck running 17 lands and the same non-basics has: 11 sources and 10 sources.
- 4 non-basic B/R lands (blood crypt + blackcleave cliffs + Sulfurous Springs + dragonskull summit)
- 7 Mountain and 6 Swamp
If we want to enable the Karsten Density for our aggressive 1 drops in the 14 land deck, we need to up the number of relevant non-basic lands in the cube that the drafter has access to. Which brings us to...
In two otherwise identical 360 card cubes with a 50 card land section (6.25 lands per player), cube "A" is running a mix of 5 singleton lands per guild without fetches, cube "B" is running a mix of 5 non-singleton fetch/shock lands per guild.
Cube A example Rakdos section: blood crypt + blackcleave cliffs + sulphurous springs + dragonskull summit + badlands
Cube B example Rakdos section: 2x bloodstained mire + 3x blood crypt
Cube A contains 5 lands relevant to the Rakdos drafter. (5 dual lands)
Cube B contains 17 lands relevant to the Rakdos drafter. (3 dual lands + 14 fetch lands)
Our drafter is playing Rakdos aggro, with this deck.
To reliably cast their 1 drops they need 10 sources and 10 sources.
To reliably cast a kicked Goblin Bushwhacker on turn 2, they need 14 sources
Phoenix of Ash and Demonic Embrace on turn 3 would require 12 sources of and
Hellrider on turn 4 would require 11 sources.
For this example, our drafter has decided that it's not critical for Goblin Bushwhacker to be kicked on turn 2, bringing our total required sources to 12 and 12 .
In Cube A, the player managed to draft 3 of the 5 lands relevant to them (60%). They can now build a 14 land mana base of 3xDuals + 6xMountains + 5xSwamps, for a total of 9 sources & 8 sources.
The player might choose to cut demonic embrace to ease pressure on , but with 17 total colour sources they can never achieve the Karsten Density desired to give them the flexibility of a turn 1 thoughtseize or dragon's rage channeler.
In Cube B, the player drafts 7 of the 17 lands relevant to them (41%), as 2 shock lands + 5 fetch lands. They can now build a 14 land mana base with 21 total colour sources.
With 4xMountains + 3xswamps the deck has 11 sources and 10 sources, meeting the Karsten Density for casting 1 drops, and only just falling shy on Phoenix of Ash.
Note, even with this heavy non-basic density in the deck (50% of the lands), it is still a way off being able to cast spells "reliably". As cube designers, it is important to consider the castability of CC and CCC spells as it relates to the fixing we provide our players.
As the above mana base is a greedy split of almost 50/50, it is worth touching on what a more restrained draft could look like:
Building 1 drops around a primary colour (say ) and then including mainly 2+ MV cards (or cards expected to cast after T1) in the second colour (say ) while avoiding double pips, helps ease the colour sources required.
With this more considered deck composition, colour sources required look like 12/9 (21 total) where running spells, or 10/9 (19 total) where running and spells.
In Cube B, Both of these mana bases are achievable at 14 lands.
In Cube A, even if the drafter picks up all 5 duals (which is very unlikely in a draft), they cannot meet the Karsten Density, but can just meet it for and .
In Cube A, picking up the more likely 3 duals (for 17 sources in 14 lands) they cannot meet either.
In both cubes, the same 50 slots for lands are providing considerably different levels of fixing to each player.
If you don't feel compelled to meet the Karsten Density, take a look at karsten's table for 40 card decks and figure out what you consider to be "reliable" in your cube. As I've shown above, look at how many lands a given deck requires to meet your chosen reliability and then review whether your cube provides reasonable access to this for all drafters. If the cube is falling short of this, either adjust your idea of acceptable reliability down or your availability of fixing up until the two match.
- Fetches:
- Shuffle effect (interacting with top deck manipulation)
- Graveyard filling, for delirium, delve etc.
- Life loss
- "Lands matter" effects like landfall
- "leaves the battlefield" triggers
- Deck thinning (minimal)
- Shocks:
- Life loss - Puts another check on overly greedy 4+ colour decks, and also helps aggro, as the archetype that typically minds less about paying life early.
- "Basic types matter" effects such as zoo (Wild Nacatl) and Domain (tribal flames) type effects)
It's up to your design goals to decide whether the above attributes can be considered positives or negatives in your environment.
Some cube curators are concerned that improving fixing leads to more 4-5 colour goodstuff decks. Below I'll outline the contributing factors, and how more reliable fixing can be introduced without leading to pile decks.
Factors that affect pile decks:
- Aggro support - nonland card quality and density:
- If aggro is not properly supported in the cube, pile decks have more time to find their correct colours and execute their game plan uncontested.
- If aggro is properly supported, they should be able to consistently pressure the slower 4+c decks.
- Land density and quality:
- Provide enough relevant untapped non basics to allow aggressive and controlling decks to function consistently.
- Consider how many 3+ colour fixing and/or ETB tapped land are desirable in the cube. Running a cycle of triomes over a cycle of shocks provides much more benefit to slower 3+ colour decks than other macro archetypes.
- Power delta:
- Individual cards in each colour that are significantly stronger than the rest may incentivise drafters to build a greed pile.
- Narrowing this power delta helps significantly reduce the appeal of a greed pile.
In conclusion, I have found that running a combination of non-singleton fetches and shocks (*3) provides my drafters with the best opportunity in the draft (*4) to meet the Karsten Density, while being slot efficient and keeping the pressure on 4+ colour pile decks.
Even if the non-singleton fetch/shock mana base doesn't meet your design goals, I hope this article has been useful in helping you review how the lands you choose to include shape your environment and draft experience.
I've created a handy Google Sheets tool to help you explore your own ideal non basic land setup, which can be found here. (File>Make a Copy; allows you to work on your own version of this sheet)
While I won't go in depth here, I just wanted to nod towards reasons why people may not want to provide such reliable mana bases or run fetches/shocks.
- Enjoyment of mana based variance
- Creative space for using spells, treasure tokens, and eggs
- Space to enjoy different land effects
- They can be prohibitively expensive if you choose not to proxy
u/slothromp has an interesting writeup on The Case Against Fetchlands on reddit and was the inspiration for this article.
*1 - for the case of fixing an Izzet deck. Other benefits include being more open in the draft to picking up other colours + the fetch benefits listed above.
*2 - Non fetch/shock lands required to meet the karsten ideal - (in a sample 16 land deck)
*3 - My Land Balance:
I run 2 fetches and 3 shocks per guild in my main cube + 10 gold lands for a total of 60.
This allows an average of 7.5 lands per drafter, and with the fetch/shock setup I can be comfortable that a player is able to get ~7 lands relevant to them. These 7 lands provide a base of 21 sources in a 14 land deck, up to 24 in a 17 land deck, allowing players to reliably hit 2 colours of 1 drop, and having 
spells be reliably castable in most decks, and spells being reliable in some decks.
Including more shocks than fetches has proven very important for providing players the opportunity to get at least 1 copy of their relevant dual land.
*4 - Other options for pushing mana consistency even higher include allowing non basics to be added post-draft, using custom cards or custom rules.