I’m not entirely sure whether I’m coming or going, what day it is, what country I’m in right now, and what tournament I’m meant to be telling you about. I think Pro Tour: Kyoto has just finished about an hour and 50 feet ago, and Gabriel Nassif has won his first individual Pro Tour. I think I’m going to start writing about that in nine time zone’s time, when I get back to England, where Sunday has barely started, as opposed to America, where, although it has technically begun, no sane person should be conscious. No, Pro Tour tales are for next week — or never if the plane crashes, in which case REALLY thanks for reading — and instead I’m going to force the protesting brain back through the Format vortex to last weekend, when according to my travel documents I was in Rotterdam. Further investigation via the mothership has confirmed this to my satisfaction, so even though I cannot actually remember anything about it, I shall endeavor to bring you quality analysis and comment, and crave your indulgence should my jet-lag-induced near-catatonic state cause my prose to lapse into incoherence. As if that would be a change.
So, to business. Cunningly suspecting that my brain might be fried round about now, I formulated a carefully-woven plan involving minimal words and maximum numbers. Yes, it’s time to pick apart the thoughts of many of the world’s best players as they battle with the Limited Format from the Grand Prix. Three boosters of Shards of Alara go with three boosters of Conflux to form a unique Format with far-reaching consequences. It was my regular sparring partner (and scourge of the forums) MagicDave who correctly identified that the 3/3 split between the sets made the following math obvious and critical: You were twice as likely (approximately) to open any given Conflux common than any parallel rarity in Shards, given that the set was roughly half the size. Let’s put that into a concrete example. We saw from our statistics during ‘Shards By The Numbers’ last year that Resounding Thunder was immensely popular, as well it might be. With 100 Commons in the set, and only 30 going into each pool, it’s pretty easy to see the average frequency of the appearance of any given common, namely 50%. Just kidding, wanted to make sure you were paying attention. Clearly, 30% is our number. Now in Conflux, we can all get behind a five damage spell that incidentally fixes your mana if you want like Fiery Fall. In Conflux there are 50 commons. You will again open 30 in your pool. That’s a 60% chance of seeing a Fiery Fall. In and of itself that figure isn’t super-significant. Sure, a bit more than half of your opponents will have had the option of playing with this spell. Let’s call it four opponents in a seven round tournament. How many players would play with Fiery Fall?
In our sample of 52 players (the identities of whom will shortly be coming up), 33 copies of the 36 Fiery Falls were played. As usual with statistics we have to be careful, since three of the pools had multiple copies (lucky them). That still means that 30/33 players who opened a Fiery Fall played with it (those 33 representing pretty close to our theoretical average opening rate of 60%). Only one player who played with red mana failed to play with Fiery Fall, and a small donation will persuade me to tell you which Constructed-star Pro this was. In other words, if you see red mana ever in this Format, you should assume that your opponent is playing with Fiery Fall, not least because it’s one of the contributing factors to choosing to play red in the first place.. Those players who comprehensively understand what that does to the likely make-up of opposing decks are going to be at a serious advantage over those who don’t. At its simplest, the guy who’s worrying about Oblivion Ring or Branching Bolt isn’t worrying enough about what you’re far more likely to be holding.
For those of you who intrinsically grasp this kind of stuff, I appreciate I’m preaching to the choir, but I also appreciate that this sort of thing sometimes seems counter-intuitive. If you’re in the former group, skip the rest of this paragraph. If you’re still going ‘huh?’ then try this:
Let’s imagine there are ten cards in Set One, and it comes in 10 card booster packs. Assuming an equal distribution, a booster pack will contain cards 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10. Now imagine Set Two, which also comes in 10 card booster packs. However, there are only five cards in Set Two. A typical Set Two booster will look like this: A,B,C,D,E,A,B,C,D,E. Put these together and we get:
A — B — C — D — E — A — B — C — D — E
1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 — 7 — 8 — 9 — 10
There are, quite clearly, two of A for any given number. The letters occur twice as frequently, so despite opening the same number of boosters from each set, I will end up with twice as many of any given letter as any given number. For ‘Letters’ read ‘Conflux,’ and for ‘Numbers’ read ‘Shards.’
Welcome back all you math whizzes. You’ve missed nothing. So let’s take a look at the sample data we’ve chosen for our study. I won’t pretend that there was an entirely scientific process to this. I looked at the start list of over 1200 players, and picked out ones I thought were really good at the game. Note that I say ‘the game’, not necessarily at Limited, as I didn’t make that Format distinction. My first list took me to 45, and then I added an extra seven on the second pass. It didn’t seem necessary to cut a couple to get back to a neat 50, so 52 is the sample size. I’ve again consciously obscured which players made what decisions, as that isn’t the purpose of the sample. Rather, it’s to see what ‘The Pro Community’ thinks (or at least thought last week) about the Format as of Grand Prix: Rotterdam.
With the blurring of the Shards archetypes, there’s no doubt that the overwhelming bulk of data that’s relevant to us concerns the manabases. How many of each basic land are being played? How many decks run just two colors? Is a Shard approach still viable/likely? How many lands represent a splash? What is the influence of the non-basic lands from Conflux? What difference does Conflux make to the effectiveness of Panoramas, of Obelisks, and of the Tri-Lands? How many Conflux artifacts get played as mana-fixers? What role do the basic landcyclers play in the Format? And what is the correct number of land/sources to play in a typical deck?
Let’s see what we can do to unravel some of these questions.
Total basic land played:
Forest 192
Island 71
Mountain 216
Plains 114
Swamp 134
Number of players who played at least one of that land type:
Forest 45
Island 26
Mountain 47
Plains 40
Swamp 43
Only five players neglected to run at least one mountain as a splash. Even half our sample of 52 played at least one island, but here’s a more telling stat.
Number of players who played at least five of a land type:
Forest 23
Island 5
Mountain 27
Plains 6
Swamp 13
It’s not a surprise to find that Forests and Mountains are popular, especially as they dovetail so nicely. Perhaps more intriguing is that so many players ran red as a main colour, given that one of the major reasons for playing Red — removal — is so eminently splashable. It seems as if Red men are far from hideous these days. It’s also not that surprising that islands aren’t popular, but the big loser here is plains. It seems that there’s very little reason to play White as a main color, presumably for exactly the same reason as for the Red, namely that splashing is so easy. Oblivion Ring, Resounding Silence, Path To Exile all cost a solitary White mana.
The number of different basic land types played in decks (/52):
2 color: 1
3 color: 20
4 color: 15
5 color: 16
It’s fair to say that the 2-color deck was a little bit odd, containing 8 Mountains and 7 Swamps, plus a tri-land. 16, as we’ll see was not the typical number of total lands played. Given that Domain is a hefty feature of Conflux, we might expect to see more players adding the last basic to give full benefit. However, as MagicDave also correctly pointed out in Rotterdam, the benefits in turning Domain from four to five are marginal at best, and 5-color strategies rarely require the actual basics to get going. Think of the activations on Fleshformer, Paragon Of The Amesha and so on. Basics not (basically) required.
Number of players who played exactly one of a particular basic land type:
24.
In 3-color decks: 0
In 4-color decks: 11
In 5-color decks: 13
By far the most popular configuration was with a double splash of one land for types 4 and 5. Seven of the thirteen five-color players with individual splashes ran singletons of land types 4 and 5, while three had triple singletons.
Of course, the basic land count is only part of the story. Next let’s look at the usefulness of the Conflux lands. For the purposes of this sample, I consciously ignored Reliquary Tower, since it gives you no colored mana. Therefore the cards considered are Ancient Ziggurat, Exotic Orchard, Rupture Spire and Unstable Frontier. As a group, the numbers look like this. In total, 51 of these lands were opened by our 52 players, although 21 failed to see any of them. Of these 51, 43 were played, and that’s significant, given that such a large portion of our sample saw none. Turns out, that was probably bad news. In addition, several of the absentees can be accounted for by the fact that several lucky players were oversubscribed, and played 2/3 or even 3/4. Although the lands all have different strengths and weaknesses, it seems there is very little reason not to play them all.
What about the Shards lands then? First, the panoramas. On the face of it, we might assume that the value of these would have risen, given that the needs of finding off-color lands would also have gone up with the move away from straight-forward individual Shard decks. 61 Panoramas were played by our test group in Rotterdam, out of 82. That’s roughly 75%, a definite drop from all-Shards play. How about the Tri-lands? Last time the number was a mighty 90%. This time, it’s 41/46, roughly the same. Then there’s the Obelisks, which saw 53% play in all-Shards play. This time 36/77 saw play, reflecting a hardening attitude towards them as a group, and the pressures of playing assorted other preferable fixing. I believe this accounts for the fall-off for the panoramas too.
In our next two groups of fixers, we’ll see where some of that ‘bleed’ has occurred. First, the artifacts. These are Armillary Sphere, Kaleidostone, and Mana Cylix. Of 30 Armillary Spheres opened, a full 26 were played, and many here at the Pro Tour suggested to me that this was the incorrect number by four +/- none. (That’s a polling joke, by the way.) This is undoubtedly the hot mana card from Conflux, your best friend for going five color, and going some way to explaining all those double splashes for fourth and fifth basic land types. Kaleidostone is a one-shot deal, so is generally less useful for recurring needs like Fleshformer, but ideal for sorting things out for your Maelstrom Archangel. 21 were opened, and 10 were played. I don’t believe this indicates that Kaleidostone is a bad card, just that there’s a ton of pressure for those fixing slots, and it certainly doesn’t want to be taking up a removal or creature space in the deck without very good reason. As for Mana Cylix, this is clearly the poor relation. 35 were opened. Hazard a guess at how many were played. Think for a moment, an artifact that gets you any color of mana you like, provided you have some kind of mana to, er, cylix through it. Somebody must want that, right? Wrong. 0/35 for the Cylix. Apparently, not a very good card.
Then there are the basic landcyclers. Whilst mechanically they’re the same, they’re treated very differently by our test group. Remember, Gleam Of Resistance is the combat trick, Traumatic Visions the Counterspell, Absorb Vis is a Soul Feast, Fiery Fall is a removal spell, and Sylvan Bounty gains life. Here are the numbers:
Gleam Of Resistance 11/27
Traumatic Visions 7/22
Absorb Vis 12/26
Fiery Fall 33/36
Sylvan Bounty 6/21
Given the basic land distribution we saw earlier, we might expect Traumatic Visions to do poorly, but thanks to the ability, Gleam Of Resistance outpaces the lifegain Sylvan Bounty. Just under half played Absorb Vis, while Fiery Fall was of course the runaway hit. Apart from Exploding Borders (2/23, apparently also not very good) this completes our picture of the mana options available.
So what is the correct manabase? Here’s the distribution, involving the number of land (regardless of type) plus obelisks:
16 — 5
16+1 — 5
16+2 — 1
17 — 16
17+1 — 17
17+2 — 4
17+3 — 1
18 — 3
38/52 found some kind of 17 land configuration to be correct. None of the 18 landers had any kind of acceleration, and the only surprise to me is how many players felt they could get away with 16, albeit mostly with a small amount of help.
Conclusions
– Panoramas aren’t as good as you used to think.
– Be careful which basic landcyclers you use, as they aren’t created equal.
– Armillary Sphere is virtually always a correct choice.
– So is Fiery Fall.
– If you play Mana Cylix, you may still have the chance to be the first player ever to do so.
– If you open Conflux lands, play them, and work around their individual quirks.
– Seventeen land is probably the correct answer.
– Think more about playing around cards from Conflux, as they appear twice as often.
– Green and Red are the major players, Black and White are tier two, and Blue is unloved.
– White is very frequently a splash color.
– Almost nobody plays Blue as a main color.
– Obelisks are losing favor.
There are many conclusions which the data alone can’t tell us. It can’t tell us that Maelstrom Archangel is good, because none of our 52 were lucky enough to see one. 3/8 Fusion Elementals were played, but that’s a tiny sample size. Most important, knowing what cards are good ‘on average’ doesn’t tell you when you’re looking at a deck where ‘on average’ isn’t the correct answer. Still, hopefully you have at least some idea of what better players are doing with the new cards available to them.
Until a jetlag-free, normal time-zone, back in Blighty article next week, as ever, thanks for reading,
R.