How to Build your Commander Mana Base | Guide to Building a Mana Base in any Color Combination
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- čas přidán 22. 07. 2024
- This is your complete guide to building a commander mana base!
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Welcome to the ultimate guide to building a commander mana base! We'll be answering a lot of questions in this video. Among them are how many lands to play, how many tapped lands to play, when to play more lands and when to cut lands from your deck, how to make a mono color, two color, three color, four color, five color, and even colorless mana base, and which utility lands we like most!
0:00 - Intro and Big Questions
2:47 - Zero Color
3:43 - Single Color
10:10 - Two Color
15:54 - Three Color
19:57 - Four Color
24:47 - Five Color
27:58 - When to Add or Remove Lands
33:10 - Tae-Kwon Do and Grave Titan Destruction - Hry
Last time I was this early, Grave Titan was a win condition
this better get pinned ;)
You're damn right
You must have meant to write Frost Titan feeble human...
@@gravetitan1321 he meant what he said 😝
Memes aside, I've only actually seen it played once at our table - in a Scarab God deck
The rule I learned from a video I watched on cutting lands for rocks is:
1.) start off with 40 lands as a base.
2.) any '0' mana rock counts for 1*a.
3.) any '1' mana rock counts for 0.75*b
4.) any '2' mana rock counts for 0.50*c
5.) any '3' mana rock counts for 0.25*d
6.) land count ~ 40 - (a + 0.75*b + 0.50*c + 0.25*d)
7.) This gives you a good minimum land count to start off with.
Thats the thought I had in my head actually. On the dot.
What would you consider ramp spells like Farseek?
Or even instant-speed ramp spells that fetch?
@@ivorymantis1026 if I had to guess match their cmc values? Land ramp is better than artifact ramp but sometimes they come in tapped. It a bit of a pros and cons thing.
3 visits is 3 CMC so in this case I’d match it with the 3 CMC rock section. I would almost always choose land ramp over rocks though if available.
Disclaimer: I’m still learning a bunch and hope I ended up on this video.
@@rotomrist 3 visits is 2 cmc, and the land comes in untapped
War Room is an absolutely insane utility land in one and two color decks that don't always draw a lot of cards.
I have one in Kozilek. Even better ;)
Recently been getting back into EDH and magic in general. Stumbling across your channel has provided me so many tools and bits of info I didn’t know I needed, all while entertaining me. Keep up the great work!!
That's so cool to hear, we hope to keep providing you with awesome info! Plus as a bonus you have a huge backlog to check out :P
You know I actually pride myself on making good Mana bases on a budget. This is the most ideal scenario but if you're like me and own 0 fetches and 0 shocklands it's surprisingly not that hard to make a good Mana base.
Excellent video either way, definitely helps you consider the fundamentals when building a deck
In my opinion it's not very hard to build a mana base if budget is no issue. "Play fetches and shocks!" wasn't really surprising news to get from such a video. So I would have found a "How To Build Good Mana Bases On A Budget" video actually way more helpful.
Honestly the biggest suggestion is to play the more budget tapped lands. There are also a lot of lands from old standard sets that aren't really used anymore like the Innistrad reveal lands. Pain lands are usually cheap as long as they're not the ones from Modern Horizons. Caves of Koios is an example for Orzhov. It's better to pay 3 dollars for a land than 20-30 for a specific shock or a fetch. Uber budgeted lists just have to run tapped lands, but you're also running more basics so it evens out
You are correct u can make good mana bases without them because of the card pool but in reverse it's not the same for other formats where without them your gimping yourself
@@Bny73gdyq5 highly recommend the newest precons that came out with crimson vow. They don't have too many extra lands and will function just fine. Now those are 2 color decks, but they do give you an understanding on the significance of lands that can produce many colors and more often than not, the lands in the precon are going to be cheap so that you know for future decks in similar colors
No worries, I've helped a lot of my friends get into commander recently. It's interesting the level of difference something like a Mana base can change or be different in many ways. Godspeed with your decks man
Bounce lands are still quite effective despite coming in play tapped. They enable plenty of ETB cards and help you not miss land drops. I’d never use scrylands over bounce lands.
I've never actually thought to put fetches and way more utility lands in my mono-colored deck, but that makes so much sense! I literally just went and upgraded my Thassa deck after watching.
We got you homie!
In 5 color I run 22 basics. A couple bounces, 3 battlebond lands, a forest-shock(for farseek), 3 scry lands. Evolving, terramophic, command tower, mana confluence. Minamo and opal palace. 37 lands. In total 17 green sources(22 counting artifacts) .Then bunches of green ramp spells. And some signets. NEVER had a manapriblem in around 30-40 games with the deck. 😊👍
Not sure if you'll see this a year later but do you have deckstats? I'd love to see a 5 color deck with a proper mana base. I'm struggling with my first one.
@@jean-lucgenereau4617 play all triomes
play as much fetches as possible
play the good goldlands: Commander Tower, City of Brass, Mana Confluence, Exotic Orchard, Forbidden Orchard. I might have forgotten one.
@@MisterAssasine thanks:) I've figured it out in the past few months and the deck runs super well.
Bloodmoon loves to see non basic lands played 😁
I hear it's a big fan
Well, that is the Price of Progress 😉
Don’t forget magus of the moon and ruination!
100 card deck u mean mostly LD 😂
A nice include for 5 colour decks is the world tree. Perfect mana with 6 lands.
easily slots in and can replace whatever your worst shockland is
I've been playing Commander for a while, but these kind of videos are always interesting and helpful 👍
I love listening to you talk - it's like having my video on 1.5x. That makes me think you are both very knowledgeable. Do you ever play and record it, so we can see how what you talk about performs? I'd love to see you play sometime!
My rule of thumb is to simply count out or stack up based off of mana symbols present, then make a tiered list based on it's need. My Go-Shintai deck is essentially a Green-focused Bant deck with Rakdos to help. In such, I recognize that Green is my more important color, followed by Azorius, then Rakdos. You can do some really fine finagling with filters if you have consistent colors in those filters. With that WUBRG deck, things like Cascading Cataracts and The World Tree become very helpful.
Honestly, I have had very little issue with my deck at ~7 or 8 power level with this, I still use filters too.
Generally I see WUBRG decks as decks that focus on a color archetype or two or three, maybe four, but with a few other colors splashed in as assistance. In my deck's case, adding black adds access to some very nice removal spells in Golgari and Orzhov colors. Red is generally my hardest sell in that deck, as I primarily use it to cast red shrines or Rakdos removal cards... still really looking for some good fits of red in an enchantment-heavy deck. I always plan out spot-removal, but Goglari and Orzhov removal is just so much better, and Azorius has better counters and wipes if needed.
I wish there was some kind of accompanying quick crib sheet for the types of duals you generally include. Like you said for two colours you have fast lands, pathways, filters, temples, and various typed duals that you'd put in 2 color but not 3, but it would be easier with a visual, even just a text list, especially with novice deckbuilders who would want/need this and don't necessarily know all the tools at their disposal. There are also some other cycles like the soon to be completed reveal cycle and the taint cycle that I was wondering about where you'd start cutting them in the scheme of things.
Splendid catch there on the "cut a land for Mox Diamond".
OMG I've been waiting for this! I'm so excited I'm going to comment BEFORE I WATCH!
Thats completely insane!
WOW thanks guyz
Love the video so far, thank you so much for enabling closed captioning! :)
No problem at all.
Man the videos keep coming! And more important the qualtity doesn't fall off -> A+ / compeltly insane, keep rolling
We are completely insane, on a 20-day streak of daily content!
Compeltly
Super detailed videos like these are the actual best. Its appreciated even by people who don't know how much value they're getting, keep at it 🙏🙏👍👍
Thanks! We LOVE cramming a ton of insight and knowledge into one informative video :)
@@NitpickingNerds it adds some serious rewatchibility 👍
@@NitpickingNerds I personally would love some appreciation for the more budget side of it. Not only because its what most people play with but even people who do have access to many different cards also restrict themselves via budget in order to play with certain playgroups or for any other arbitrary reason
Regarding the last point: I think yes, sure, it is your card, you can legally do whatever you want with it and I am not even mad about it, but I think it is always a bad sign, when people destroy things out of fun. The problem here that I think may have 'enraged' some people is that many can't afford some cards and it somehow looks ungrateful to destroy what other people struggle to get. It is like throwing food into the trash in front of homeless or starving people: It may be your right to do it and it is your decision - but maybe, sometimes, we should appreciate the things we have (and others don't) a little more. These are no bad vibes, I just wanted us to try to understand, why people may have been upset. Keep it up, I love your channel :)
For my Ramos deck I’m running most of the gates, mazes end and some tap/untapped duals. Not a single basic in the whole deck and it works great.
Also, Exotic Orchard is pretty awesome, comes into play untapped and almost always taps for the colors you want.
exotic orchard is command tower pt. 2.
Exotic Orchard only in 3 colors or more. Otherwise completely unplayable.
@@craigstuckey319 From a lot of experience playing it. I don't think you are right. Most of my decks are two color and rarely does Exotic Orchard let me down.
@@craigstuckey319 they changed the rules so that if a player in commander would produce mana of a color not in their commander's color identity, it just produces colorless mana. 90%+ it will tap for both your colors, and if it only taps for 1 color or colorless its not a huge deal in a 2 color deck
Only really good in 4/5 colors imo but that’s just me.
Me, the colorless player: "Where's my mana base guide?! REEEE!!!!"
Wastes ?
Use whatever fun lands you want boo
@@Jakkgusa faceless menace is I bad I hate it so much
@@jamesgratz4771 need some upgrade tips?
We give colorless tips! 😂
Was watching this while multi-tasking at work. One thing I noticed since these are pretty long videos and often time we may need to pause/stop and finish watching later is that when I jump back in to watch, I don’t fully remember what topic we’re on. On command zone they will add the topic they’re discussing in the bottom corner like “2 color decks” which just gives the viewer more context if you guys go on little side tangents here and there. Anyway, just a suggestion. You guys get better and better with every video you put out. Got a new patreon backer! 👌
I actually see you break down the video into sections like this already, so I can always hover over the timeline, but every little bit helps.
Thanks for the feedback 😌
This was very helpful I am building a Jank 5 color deck with all the Godzilla Cards and the land base for 5 color is where I struggle
I used to use Wild Growth cards as filter tips of joints back in the nineties.
great and informative video guys! Love your channel
Thanks for the kind words
At the two color section and I am realizing these are some pricey lands (when aren't good lands pricey, I know). Was hoping that there was a budget take on lands in commander, but this is still a great video for when you want to really bling out a deck. The philosophy is always applicable and nice.
There is nearly No good and Budget when it comes to Lands
Budget Mana Always means slow and/or without consistency
I buyed once a good Manabase with Shocks,Fetches ,Utilitylands Like Cavern and Others (Mana Confluence etc) and Switch them between my Decks
It was an expensive one but the Difference is huge.
Good Decks and Manabases without wanting to spend some Money doesnt Work in Magic or Most other Tcgs
thriving lands are the best tapped lands IMO... I just built an aragorn united deck that is all tap lands except for 6 basics... still got him out turn 3 on its trial run and I haven't even put any talismans in yet ...though I did get a felwar stone turn 2 out of luck with 2 or the basics drawn. I'd still be happy with an on turn 4 drop of him though.
I will say the thriving lands are a stressful choice when they are the first lands you draw
how do you feel about basic count for mono color decks with gauntlet of power/interplanar lens? they really ask for a high (probably snow) basic count
I love Crystal Quarry and Kaleidastone in my UWBRG decks
For my Ur-Dragon i go full basic heavy green with as much ramp as possible. My i look at my ramp halfway as a drwa because i got cards out of my deck into play
I did Tae Kwan Do for 2 years. Great show guys
Bad ass
What would be the best lands for a 5 color pauper deck? So far I have the gates, snow duals, and lands that can tap for any color but are sacrificed unless 1 is payed when they enter the battlefield
Do heavily agree with the land counts in decks, I tend to go for 35 lands personally (usually fitting in every single 1-2 Ramp Artifacts in not green, usually sticking most of the mana dorks and 2 mana ramp in green), my decks that aren't there are:
* Landfall: Omnath, Locus of Rage - 41 lands
* Artifact Storm: Elsha of the Infinite - 30 lands (16 mana rocks, 3 artifact untappers, Dramatic Reversal kind of counts as ramp here?)
I don't have a Sensei's Divining Top, and I don't have the tutors for the Dramatic/Scepter combo, so it's more of budget janky untap goodness lol (I scared someone with Empowered Auto-generator + Clock of Omens in this deck, they saw me untap it 3 times the turn it came out and blew it up lol)
For a three color would it be better to run a
Grand Coliseum:
(City of Brass that enters tapped),
or a Tarnished Citadel
(T, 1 colorless; T, any color 3 damage to you) in place of a Mana Confluence?
I’m thinking of making a Naya Rin and Seri deck and was trying to figure out which MDFC lands to include. I feel like there’s 4-5 I could see myself running, but none in the red colors. What would you suggest?
What would you consider utility lands? I just build a Kruphix deck (not an eldrazi on but a group hug/ draw deck) and I don’t have many utility lands. I counted 5 (including 2 cycle lands). Is that ok for a simic deck?
I'm at 35 lands in my 5 color deck with 7-12 forms of ramp (rocks/dorks) with few lords that reduce cast cost. Atm I have all triomes, shocks, slow fetches, Temples, pain lands, check, battle lands, bridges, kaldheim dual, thriving, and some check and tribal lands. I'm trying to figure out what to cut and keep....
So I generally follow this guide but don't play nearly as many utility. Generally I always play land destruction utility and graveyard hate, but not much past that (so usually 2-3 in 2-color decks). Would be interested to know what you guys think are the best utility lands to play past those?
Do you think Exotic Orchard is acceptable/worth it in 3 color decks? Don't have fetch lands but have my pains/battle bonds/some triomes and working on upgrading my mana bases slowly.
Good content. Suggestion: in the video description put the timestamps to section the video, so when we come back we easily can find the section that covers the scenario that made us come back. Also if en editing you put a small ribbon that says if you're talking about 2 color or 3 colors. It helps thousands of viewers :)
Example. Next month I decide to build/optimize a 4 color deck, hey I want to go to that video that had that info and was well organized.
@@RobMedellin I had been meaning to work chapters into our videos and actually, this video''s chapters are up as we speak
I never go below 38 lands (including mdfc) I also play pretty casual and if your games go to turn 10-12 hitting a land drop every turn makes a huge difference.
Really helpful outline!
Every time you talk about your own decks I always get curious what your deck lists look like. Are they all packing staples like Mama Crypt/duals? Are there vast power level differences in them?
Love and miss you Joe..
I run 24 wastes in my Butcher Koz deck. Because I have creatures which care about Wastes. And I don't want to get killed by Blood Moon/Magus of the Moon/Back to Basics. Yeah, you can use any color....but the utility lands get shut down for their good effects. And I play with people who run stuff like Blood Moon.
Which one is the random extra triome for abzan they were talking about?
In my vampire commander deck I have fifteen, black fifteen white, lotus field (hex proof as cost discard two land, tap add three mana), three orzhoz (both black and white). My commander is dracula the voyager
There’s so many different types of dual lands now, even though they come in tapped the Kaldheim snow duals and indestructible artifact duals from MH2 are welcome, I’m liking the design space with the “slightly better guildgates” even with the untapped let down.
The more lands we get the more people get to have good mana bases so keep em coming
I try to build commander decks that synergize with the commander, but pose a serious threat with out casting it. Mana base is the best way to accomplish that goal
What about the 3 color lairs that come into play untapped?
I'm curious now, what's your Gruul deck, Joe Cherries? And do you have a list? I recently have built Xenagos, and it's a blast :)
Hey Nitpicking Nerds, pretty new to the channel but ya'll are making incredible content!
I've got a question about building a mana base in particular decks. How do ya'll determine your land choices based on mana symbol skew? E.g. I've got a Mardu deck (Markov) that is 65%, 22%, and 13% black, white, and red symbols respectively. Seems like including all the Boros duals would not be optimal. Also, a Gruul deck (Svella) that is 75% green and 25% red.
Is there a list of the best utility lands?
You already did this. Dozens of people watched it. Dozens!
Nope 👎
Im gonna make a magda brazen outlaw deck and i honestly might put command tower in there just because its funny. also i am not sure if you guys have a video for this yet but it would be nice to have a video on utility lands with a little bit focusing on the generic put it in any deck utility lands and mainly looking at utility lands that are great with certain themes.
Someone's watched a bunch of Dungeon Dudes. Great advice for deckbuilding!
Who the heck is Dungeon Dudes? lol
is 2 basic lands work for 3 color mardu color kaalia?
Mana bases for a meta with no non-basic land hate. Maybe it's just my meta, but I use way more basic lands, even in 5 color.
Thanks, I've been wanting to learn.
Hopefully this helps!
@@NitpickingNerds, it sure does!
Great video. Im late to the show. I newer playes of color fetches.
I REALLY want that gravy-T of yours. I collect NN stuff in case you guys get MEGA popular!
We are actually sending it back to the person who gave it to us originally! #borrowed
@@NitpickingNerds shut up and take my money!
whats the extra abzan triome they mentioned? I cant find it online anywhere
It’s called Murmuring Bosk!
Emeria, the Sky Ruin is a pet card of mine. How do I support it in a manabase, monocolor or multicolor? What about Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle?
Also, would you consider the tapped fetchlands in something like a 4-5 color Landfall deck? Either as a supplement to all the good fetchlands you can run, or as a budget replacement?
I would say only as a budget replacement
I don’t completely agree with your colorless land base. If you’re playing colorless, your goal usually is to super ramp. So adding an Extraplannae Lens with a high waste count(around 17) is the most optimal base. That leaves you plenty of room to play the best utility lands. But if you don’t have an Extraplannar lens then I would go with your suggestion.
Popped in the link on an Ancient Tomb and Minamo
Not sure how I forgot about ancient tomb but eh...
Cheers
I want utility lands to get reprinted so damn bad. I do not want my base deck list to either be bad or run me more than my whole budget list.
How do you factor in basic land pay offs like crypt ghast or extraplanar lens? Do you think factor in these cards when suggesting 18 basics?
I would lump both of those into the "mana rock" category even though technically they don't produce their own mana without investment
If you are playing cards like that then you can up the basic land count
Endless Atlas is imo one of the best card draw spells in colorless, and you wanna be playing more wastes than 4 if you are to play that card.
What about the "vivid" lands? I've found them invaluable for fixing mana.
nreally nice for atraxa, just ok otherwise
Can I adjust this mana base any if my play-group uses 1 free partial Paris mulligan? If so what would yall recommend?
I don't think you need to. Your manabase is just designed to give you access to all colors after drawing a couple of lands. Partial Paris just means your average opening hand will be better. I guess at most you could get a little greedy and like cut a land or two but I think you'll be fine just running as is with a rock solid mana base
@@NitpickingNerds thanks. Great video also
Nice, now I know how many "blu" and how many "ble" to put in my deck. Thank Beezy! :P
Oh god did Joe misspell something again
@@NitpickingNerds no, at the start he clearly said "blu" and "ble", that was on purpose ! hahaha :)
Myriad Landscape goes in decks I'd consider a 5 or lower (I hate tapped lands)
Oh, thank you for this! I have been needing help in this for ages. It takes a village to fix this problem.
Lol glad you found it informative
Oh wow just learned you two are from WNY. I’m from the Falls
Man, I tend to use 32ish lands (about 30 to 34) but I also prefer to use really low cmc cards, not a big fan of most cards that are more than 4 or 5 mama unless they are VERY good so I usually only have one or no cards that are 7/+, around two 6 drops, maybe three or four 5 drops, maybe 10ish 4 drops, and then lots of the rest. I also usually only play mono / two colored decks (mostly monoblack or black / green).
You guys are in Tonawanda???
What does MDFCs mean?
Question about the thumbnail: what's the card associated with the number 4?
Verdant Catacombs
I know you guys don’t advocate for bounce lands, but do you think they go up in value when your deck is running a lot of mdfcs? I personally enjoy the play pattern of bouncing an mdfc back to hand in the mid-late game to cast it immediately
Tapped gross lol
Tapped = unplayable. Same for ramp spells. If it's tapped it's a deal breaker.
If it's mid-late game, tap the land you're gonna bounce before playing your bounce land
Undertale released on gamepass today, and the nerds got a new vid. The next 40 minutes of my life will be good 😁
What could be better?
37 Lands
10 pieces of ramp
Some incidental or conditional ramp
hah. thats funny. I used to do Tae Kwon Do and jujutsu in college. made a lot of friends doing it. even met a friend that re-introduced me to magic!
I give my grave titan changeling effects while gaining zombie bonuses in my deck
Happy Saint Patrick's day! Not sure if you celebrate but its popular in Buffalo
How does Abzan have an extra Triome? I'm confused.
I think they mean Murmuring Bosk, the Treefolk tribal land
I thoroughly loved seeing the grave titan burn
It brought a great deal of enjoyment to us as well
Lets go!
We goin!
Your guys depth of MTG knowledge is most impressive.
Funny enough I need a grave titan in my deathtouch/infect deck. Also gonna need to add field of the dead to decks now :(
Only if you want one, its not a must.
If any deck can recur lands reliably, Strip Mine can be crippling. I built an Omnath deck around landfall, and it was only when someone else using the deck decided to recur a Strip Mine through Crucible of Worlds on a five color deck to endlessly get them off their fifth color did I realize I'd accidentally created a monster. I never even accounted for that horrible event but god was it effective.
I cannot convince myself to play MDFCs just because I have taught myself to abhor any and all taplands. The only taplands I ever run anymore are Triomes and I cannot bring myself to put more into any deck even if they are versatile
People probably get mad that you destroy a card of $10 value when there are a lot of players who can't afford a $10 card that you could have given to them. That being said, you saved someone from making the mistake of playing grave titan... Soooo... Nice work!
I will admit that I have a sentimental attachment to magic cards. That said, the grave titan video was funny... But also a little sad. It was bittersweet, but in the best way possible.
Are we getting a grave titan tribal deck soon? Can’t wait to bring that to cEDH night and wreck everyone.
In your dreams!
Why no love for the mirage fetchlands
But you guys didn't give me any pointers for a 6 mana colored base. Did you guys not hear that with the release of the Lord of the Rings set, we are getting purple mana? I need help for my Salrond edh deck.
Three troll comments in one 😂
I highly disagree with running so many utility lands in a single-color deck. You want to mazimize the number of basic lands in a mono-color deck because one of the main pay-offs that mono-color decks have access to are the cards that reward you for playing the same type of land (gauntlet of power, caged sun, etc.). ESPECIALLY mono-black decks want to be extra careful with how many swamps they run since there are a TON of cards that double mana for swamps in black.
I watched this video and changed my entire orzhov aristocrats deck