Old cards: Powerful, or Broken?

[Oversoul]

Well, regardless of how notable any decks posted here are, if you follow any Vintage tournaments, you'll notice that basic lands are less than prominent. I just went here for an example. There are seventeen decklists. And by my count, there are only, let's see...

...only 48 basics between them (give or take). And most of those are Islands. Several of these decks run a few basics alongside duals and fetchlands (in these cases the basics are there to help cushion the blows of nonbasic land hate cards like Wasteland and Back to Basics).

I think that describes the general basic land situation in competitive Vintage (although for better data one of the writers for SCG used to make long articles with more detailed statistics but I'm not sure if he does anymore or if they are premium now).

Typically Legacy is going to see more basics, but some decks can run without them.

Oh, and even excluding powered Vintage decks and dual lands, casual monobrown decks (which Mirrodin sort of killed because everyone maindecked artifact hate like mad) don't use basic lands. I don't know that any were posted here, but personally I have seen them a lot.

 

[Gizmo]

Gizmo: Non-Basic land decks are worse than basic land decks UNLESS you use Dual lands, because dual lands are broken.

Oversoul: No, you're wrong - I looked at decks in a format using dual lands and they all used non-basic lands.


Umm.... did you have a point? Just, y'know, asking.

 

[Oversoul]

Oh! That was what you said? I guess that I was in error, because it looked to me like you said this...

Basic lands are the cornerstone of Magic in ALL formats. Non-basics HURT to use, and that's the way they should be. You want just enough nonbasics to blunt the edges of your mana, but ideally want to run as many basic lands as you can get away with. Drawing too many non-basic lands can easily lose you games by their either coming into play tapped, not untapping, or dealing you damage.

Also, I seem to be remembering what I said incorrectly. Wow, I must really be losing it...

 

[Gizmo]

And any combination of non-basics you try and put together will be WORSE than the same deck that runs at least 50% basic land, unless you're going crazy with splashing in colours OR you use dual lands. Because dual lands are broken in any format - that people play anti-dual land cards in Type-I simply shows they are broken

I was incorrect to highlight the 'all' in that quote you made, because of course in Type I nobody uses basic lands because there are broken dual lands to use instead. Which just proves my point really. But regardless I should have said 'all but Type-I, which has dual lands'. However from reading all my post, and not just quoting bits out of context, you should really have been able to understand what I was getting at.

 

[Landkiller]

Is Tolarian Academy on it's own broken? No. Is Memory Jar? No. Is Channel? No. Is Replenish? No.

I think Memory Jar is broken on it's own.

 

[Oversoul]

But regardless I should have said 'all but Type-I, which has dual lands'. However from reading all my post, and not just quoting bits out of context, you should really have been able to understand what I was getting at.

I took nothing out of context. I could have quoted the whole post, but it would simply have taken up space. The important detail was the "ALL." You even capitalized it...

As far as my looking up some Vintage decks goes, that was in response to what Spidey said. It didn't really apply to anything you said. Paraphrasing it as "No, you're wrong - I looked at decks in a format using dual lands and they all used non-basic lands." completely misrepresents my point (I do have one).

 

[Spiderman]

All I said was no one had ever posted a deck here (meaning at the CPA) with no basic lands. I probably should have qualified it with "to my recollection" because obviously "never" is an absolute and I should have known you would have nit-picked it

But you then expanded to Vintage decks which you seemed to have gotten from outside the CPA and from other sites which then really had nothing to do with my statement at all...

 

[Ferret]

You know, I once saw a guy use a deck that had no land whatsoever. It was the night before I went to the Urza's Saga pre-release. It had the Power Nine (of course), as well as other cheap mana sources from Unlimited, Four Time Warps and a few other nasty cards. The priniciple was to use a Braingeyser and force your opponent to draw his whole hand. Sound familiar? He should have sued!

-Ferret

"Speaking of Older Cards...watch the front page, folks!"

 

[Spiderman]

Heh, weren't no-land decks also behind the first Rukh Egg decks before they were errata'd to be "from play"?

 

[Mikeymike]

I think Memory Jar is broken on it's own.

What the? Now there is a name I have not seen on these boards in a long while.

Good to see you Landkiller.

 

[Oversoul]

All I said was no one had ever posted a deck here (meaning at the CPA) with no basic lands. I probably should have qualified it with "to my recollection" because obviously "never" is an absolute and I should have known you would have nit-picked it

But you then expanded to Vintage decks which you seemed to have gotten from outside the CPA and from other sites which then really had nothing to do with my statement at all...

I expanded it because I didn't know where to start in a search for CPA-posted decks that lack basic lands. You also said that you agreed with Gizmo because it made "more sense." I don't think the issue is whether basic lands are as important in Vintage, but I just wanted to provide evidence to the contrary if you received in impression that basic lands are in every deck.

I wouldn't call it nit-picking, but you can if you want...

Having played for as long as you have, I would think that you have seen some sort of deck that had no basic lands. I guess there's always an exception though...

Anyway, here is the sole example I can find of a CPA-posted deck (two in one post, actually) totally lacking in basic lands. The decklists are designed for Vintage, although I no longer have any plans for this archetype (it just doesn't seem nearly as resilient as some other Tendrils decks).

I wish I could find more underpowered examples, but I wouldn't know how.

 

[Mikeymike]

I play a few different decks without a single basic land. Though...

1) They do all rely on dual lands
2) Our group rarely ever plays Back to Basics, Ruination, Blood Moon, etc.

 

[TheCasualOblivion]

The Ninja deck I just posted runs 14 Nonbasic to 6 basic. In theory, I could sub in 4 Tree of Tales and 2 of whatever the black artifact is and bring that total to 20. I personally used to build decks all the time with no basic land, but that was back when I had 38 Dual Lands. Back then, I made it a matter of pride to build decks with as few basic lands as possible.

 

[Spiderman]

I expanded it because I didn't know where to start in a search for CPA-posted decks that lack basic lands.

You could have started with the deck you said you posted...

You also said that you agreed with Gizmo because it made "more sense." I don't think the issue is whether basic lands are as important in Vintage, but I just wanted to provide evidence to the contrary if you received in impression that basic lands are in every deck.

But from what you said above, basic lands ARE in every deck. Just not in great quantities (which is in itself odd, because I would have thought people would be packing non-basic land hate like Bloodmoon a lot more and I seem to remember rakso pointing that out).

Having played for as long as you have, I would think that you have seen some sort of deck that had no basic lands. I guess there's always an exception though...

Unfortunately, I probably haven't played as often as you. The only real deck I've seen that hasn't used basic lands is the Urza Land deck (monobrown).

Anyway, here is the sole example I can find of a CPA-posted deck (two in one post, actually) totally lacking in basic lands. The decklists are designed for Vintage, although I no longer have any plans for this archetype (it just doesn't seem nearly as resilient as some other Tendrils decks).

I wish I could find more underpowered examples, but I wouldn't know how.

I think you're missing the link But barring a thorough search, c'mon, out of the upteen hundreds of decks posted in our deck forum, the percentage of no basic land deck is probably miniscule. I mean, I bet 1% or less. Which still doesn't jive with your general assertion.

If we talk decks where non-basics outnumber basics, the percentage would be higher, but I still would be willing to bet that it's not the majority.