Urza's Lands Study (long)
Mark Jenison
Hi all,
I was curious in doing some sort of study on Urzas lands to see just how useful
(or how useless) these lands are. I've always wanted to see if I could make a
deck which successfully used this. Anyway, here's the study:
Urza vs Basic Lands
-------------------
A few basic comparisons based on a 60 card deck with 24 lands in the deck.
Max mana production:
deck with all basic lands: 24 mana (obviously)
deck with all basic lands + 4 Towers, Plants and Mines: 40 mana
I ran a few computer simulations using the two decks above and made these
observations. The following observations were made assuming that the deck
with the Urza lands would ALWAYS play lands in an attempt to get the 3 card
combo out (so if the initial draw had 1 basic land, a plant and a tower, it
would always drop the two Ursa lands during the first two turns), and it would
always go second (and get the extra card drawn).
If you get the last of the three lands in play, you get what I call a
"mana explosion". The towers now produce 3 generic mana, the plant and mine
now produce 2 generic mana. Getting the combo out in the first three turns
takes you from 2 mana on turn 2, to 7 on turn 3, and adds 2-3 mana for each
Urza's land you play after that. This is the major attraction of Urza's lands.
First of all, using the Magic Suitcase, we see the usual percentage of drawing
a three card combo by round 3 (since this is the quickest you can get the
combo out, barring effects like Fast Bonds, etc) is 12.69%.
However, my simulation requires that the initial hand has at least one
land in it (or else it muligans), and since there are 12 basic lands and 12
Urza lands in the deck, there is a 50% chance that the initial hand will
already have one of the Urza's lands in it, so it has a chance similar to a 2
card combo out by round 3, which is around 22%.
So 50% of the time there's going to be a 12.69% chance of getting the combo out
by turn 3, and the other half of the time it's going to be around 22% to get
out the combo by turn 3. So I'm guessing it would average around 17% of the
time by turn 3.
Anyway, so in my simulation, the player always draws on his first turn (goes
second). I ran a simulation of 10,000 draws (I could have run more, but the
average is probably pretty stable at this point) to see what the mana curve
would be like. I think there's a way to figure these values out statistically,
but I don't have that sort of background :-)
Urza deck Basic deck
T1: 1.000000 T1: 1.000000
T2: 1.934900 T2: 1.967400
T3: 3.444600 T3: 2.829200
T4: 4.552300 T4: 3.700400
T5: 5.527200 T5: 4.328100
T6: 6.401500 T6: 4.971800
T7: 7.110300 T7: 5.593800
T8: 8.038300 T8: 6.066600
T9: 8.759700 T9: 6.429500
T10: 9.393500 T10: 6.830200
T11: 9.956300 T11: 7.222800
T12: 10.532400 T12: 7.601400
T13: 11.531400 T13: 8.066200
T14: 12.183600 T14: 8.436500
T15: 13.057800 T15: 8.809500
T16: 13.680600 T16: 9.230200
T17: 14.462500 T17: 9.622700
T18: 15.508700 T18: 10.071600
T19: 16.259400 T19: 10.483400
T20: 17.084800 T20: 10.902700
T21: 17.582800 T21: 11.318800
T22: 18.527200 T22: 11.599100
T23: 19.296600 T23: 12.060000
T24: 20.131400 T24: 12.407600
T25: 21.098000 T25: 12.835300
T26: 21.644200 T26: 13.258100
T27: 22.290600 T27: 13.648000
T28: 22.974600 T28: 14.062700
T29: 23.640500 T29: 14.464800
T30: 24.150700 T30: 14.872000
T31: 24.957500 T31: 15.247900
T32: 25.761000 T32: 15.644000
T33: 26.259600 T33: 16.147900
T34: 27.066400 T34: 16.529200
T35: 27.767600 T35: 16.862500
T36: 28.665300 T36: 17.211900
T37: 29.326300 T37: 17.582400
T38: 29.936300 T38: 18.054900
T39: 30.612400 T39: 18.396100
T40: 31.226100 T40: 18.769800
T41: 31.827000 T41: 19.180600
T42: 32.543800 T42: 19.631400
T43: 33.373000 T43: 20.147000
T44: 34.126500 T44: 20.567400
T45: 34.697600 T45: 20.903500
T46: 35.505000 T46: 21.282700
T47: 36.237000 T47: 21.631000
T48: 36.877200 T48: 22.056000
T49: 37.648500 T49: 22.518500
T50: 38.311200 T50: 22.953800
T51: 38.871000 T51: 23.233500
T52: 39.456900 T52: 23.695900
T53: 40.000000 T53: 24.000000
Too bad you can't show graphs on newsgroups :-)
The Curve
---------
Anyway, this "average" really dims down the "mana explosion" that happens with
Urza decks and shows more of a gradual increase over a basic land deck. Since
the combo can come out as soon as turn 3, you notice that at turn 3 the Urza
deck has a higher average of mana, and the curve starts there.
A few observations: On average, around turn 30 the Urza deck will have as
much mana as the basic land deck will *ever* have. Most games don't go to 30
turns (unless designed that way), so this really isn't much of a factor.
As you can see, the averages show that the mana curve for an Urza's desk up
until about turn 10 is almost 1 mana per 1 turn, while the basic land deck is
at about 6-7 mana by turn 10. Keep in mind though, they are still playing
roughly the same number of land cards!
Ok, so what good is it? Well, by turn 10, 9-10 mana for a generic/single
color deck is usually just as valuable as 6-7 mana for a single color deck,
since most single color casting costs start to drop off around 6-7.
You say "So, I have 9-10 mana to his 6-7 mana by turn 10, and I'm laying
roughly the same number of lands as my opponent! I must be kicking their
butt!" Not necessarily. You are probably in great shape if you got at least
one basic land and a few cards of that color, and the combo out at this time.
But an Urza's land deck has inherent problems as you'll see later.
Decks Designed For Massive Mana
-------------------------------
What decks benefit from great amounts of generic mana?
1) Decks relying heavily on artifacts and artifact creatures
Artifact decks are one type. I'll discuss them more later.
Even though the mana curve is still higher, it doesn't drastically pull away
until after turn 10. Up until that, you're opponent is probably going to be
casting better creatures for a lower casting cost than you. The better a
color creature get's, the more of a specific mana color is in it's casting
cost, which means a lower chance of you casting the same creature from your
single color/urza deck.
Another thing; even though the mana curve is higher, than doesn't mean you
should increase the mana curve of your creatures drastically. Drawing 3 4CC
creatures in the first hand is going to make it difficult to block their low
CC creatures.
2) Decks with buyback spells as it's cornerstone
Bounce desk: Capsizes
Graveyard recursion decks: Disturbed Burials
Burn decks: Flames of Wrath
COP/Protection decks: Invulnerability
3) Decks with X in the spells casting cost as it's cornerstone.
Burn against burn, the one with Urza's will probably finish the game first.
Other decks can benefit from more powerful Life spells, Howl's from beyond,
Endless Screams, etc.
4) Decks with generic mana pumping creatures (Carrion Ants, etc), or generic
mana for cost of abilities.
There aren't many creatures which have a purely generic mana pumping abilities
(that aren't artifact creatures), but there are a few, including some with
X in the cost, so point 4 isn't really something to base a deck around, but
used in conjunction with the previous 3...
Imagine a Urza/black deck with Carrion Ants, Initiates of the Ebon hand, and
Drain Lifes. Add Disturbed Burial buy backs and some Nekkratals.
So the above makes life with Urza's lands sound great. But why is it not?
Because playing a single color along with Urza's lands can be dangerous for the
same reason playing a dual color deck can be dangerous: Color screw. You draw
5 black cards and two Urza lands. You're done. You can't cast crap.
Urza's land MUST be treated as a double color deck: Usually 50% one color,
50% of the other. You've got to put in half generic mana cards, if not more.
You draw 4 artifacts and 3 swamps. You're not screwed. This is the benefit
over a dual color deck, in that if a player draws 4 red cards and 3 island,
that player IS screwed.
However, this point is MOOT now, due to the abundance of multicolor lands.
In the Urza deck, the swamp is the dual land (generic and black). However,
the multicolor land can exist by itself in any hand and can potentially be
used to cast something. 6 red and 1 multicolor blue/red, you can still
(potentially) cast red. Same with 6 blue cards.
However, while 6 generic and 1 swamp can (potentially) cast your Battering Ram,
5 black and two generic can't do jack. While this sort of screw CAN
potentially happen in a dual color deck (assuming not all the lands are dual
color), it has better odds of NOT happening because of the multicolor lands
than an Urza's deck has, assuming the 24 lands, half Urza's and half one color.
9 islands, 9 red, 6 multicolor red/blue vs 12 Urza's, 12 swamps; the latter
has a greater chance of this type of "color screw".
The way to fix this would be to add more basic lands, but then you are
overloading on lands. If you can get around this (Fast Bond, Horn of Greed,
that one green creature that allows lands to be played from your hand, etc),
then maybe this could actually work. The other option is to remove a
number of Urza's lands, but then you start to loose the benefits of the
Urza's lands all together. Adding more generic mana sources wouldn't do crap,
but adding more generic mana cards (artifacts) will increase your chances of
casting *something*.
The possibilities of early round color screws and the fact that artifact
creatures/spells are generally more expensive to cast is mainly the reason
an Urza's land deck fails: because the opponent, in most cases, has the
advantage BEFORE the mana explosion occurs or before the mana screw clears up,
meaning you're spending the rest of the game coming back.
Building an Urza's land deck
----------------------------
So Urza's Lands decks have very limited options:
1) Destroy your opponent outright
Burn baby burn! Direct damage decks. Fireballs and Aladin Ring's,
Rocket Launchers, whatever. Drop some initial Walkers and Ornithopers to
defend against early beat down (so you don't waste mana casting your creatures
and don't waste burn spells on killing theirs). Pray you can survive long
enough to get a Disk, or something that will keep your hand full of
burn cards, whatever. Pray you win the race.
2) Build a deck made to last the long run until you can balance the game out.
One good way to do this is to 1) cast only defensive, disposable creatures
during the first 10 rounds, 2) keep ANY good creatures/spells in your hand
until 3) you can play the Nevinyrral's Disk (1 turn before you pop it). This
way, when the Disk goes off, you've consciously kept the best cards AND have
a larger mana advantage (on average) with which to cast them.
You'll still need around a 50% mix of artifact creatures in this deck.
FACT: The average color creature with a casting cost greater than 1 has a
better rating (power/toughness and/or ability) for it's casting cost than
the average artifact creature with a similar cost. (I said average; there are a
number of exceptions)
HOWEVER, for creatures with casting cost 1 or less, artifact creatures are as
good, if not better. The draw back about this is that ANY color can produce
these creatures just as efficiently. But due to the fact above, most people
will leave a slot open for a slightly higher casting cost creature.
All artifact decks just don't work for the reasons mentioned above. The
average artifact creature has an equivalent color creature for equal or less
casting cost. It also seems there is a lack of flying artifact creatures.
An artifact deck can't survive on just generic mana and artifacts; it's just
too slow, and their are no instants, sorceries, or interrupts, which means
you're playing entirely with permanents. You must splash colors. There are
a few good color cards to help with a high artifact content/generic mana deck.
Multicolor lands allow for many ways to splash.
Single Cards:
Green:
Living Artifact (in a deck built for the long run, getting this out early can
offset the damage taken in the early rounds).
Titiana's song (could hurt OR help, depending what artifacts you're using)
Crumble (gain life)
Erhnham Djinn - only 3G for a 4/5. If you use multicolor pain lands, you can
give the opponent all the forest walk he wants, considering you have no forests
Blue:
Reconstruction
Animate Artifact (my 8/8 Aladin's ring blocks your Rootbreaker worm. Pay 8
and tap to do four points to you :-))
Ancestral Knowledge - helps you get the 3 Urza land card combo set up, and the
Urza's lands then help pay for the AK cumulative upkeep to set up another card
combo.
Black:
Well, I can't think of any.
Red:
Not really any good ones - Dwarven Weaponsmith
White:
Divine Offering (if my 8/8 Aladin's ring dies, I'm going to get 8 life
from it first).
Argivian Find
Just about ANY good buyback spell with a generic mana buyback cost.
Artifact:
Nevinyrral's Disk - needed to reset the game when you get behind early.
Winter Orb - It isn't all that bad: He untaps a land for one mana, you can
potentially untap for 3 mana. It can slow an early game charge by the opponent
until you've got your resources in hand. Then destroy it with the Crumble or
Divine Intervention at the end of their turn. Cast a few artifact creatures,
then cast another Winter Orb :-)
Horn of Greed - can't hurt. After all, you'll be laying lands for MORE mana
per turn than they will.
Any high casting or pumpable artifact, Rocket Launcher, Collosus of Sardia,
Aladin's Ring, Dragon Engine, etc.
Combos
------
Argivian Archealogist/Dwarven Weaponsmith. Pretty weak.
Living Artifact/Mana Vault - drawing these two early and you'll get a mana
boost and get the life back later. Not that great UNTIL you get out multiple
Living Artifacts.
Hurkyl's Recall/Nevinyrral's Disk - During their turn, pop the disk and
respond with the Hurkyl's recall (which puts the disk BACK in your hand).
During your turn, untap, draw, and cast about 5 creatures to their one.
Strong.
Balance/Hurkyl's Recall - This is better than the Disk if there are
enchantments in play that help you, and it will also ensure mana dominance,
as 3 Urza's lands can produce 7 mana, more than there 3 basic lands. You'll
be able to recast you're creatures faster and bigger.
Summary
-------
So, that's what I've concluded from my study based on the simulation,
statistical reports, and the struggle to build a good Artifact Deck for
about a year now. Any further study as to what ratio of Urza's Lands and basic
land will give you a better mana curve with about the same chance of mana
screw as dual color decks with multicolor lands would really be neat to see
(the benefit here would be that in the long run, the Urza deck would have more
mana available quicker, probably for buyback spells or the finishing X damage
spell) but that is left as an exercise for the reader :-)
If you make any follow ups to this post, please forward me a copy so I don't
miss any of discussion. If some stats person could put some numbers to the
odds, ratios, etc that I discuss above, I'd love to see those numbers, too.
If everyone already knew this about Urza's lands, sorry about wasting the
bandwidth.
And if anyone has an artifact/splash deck that does well, please send it to
me so I can compare notes.
--
Mark Jenison
shaft
{snipped interesting post}
I have an artifact deck that, while it doesn't always win, it's still
hilarious to play. It's based off an Atog/Tawnos's Wand, then a Phyrexian
Dreadnought with quite a bit of mana disruption thrown in for good measure.
People always question the Winter Orb and the Mana Web together, but when I
have one or two lands and six artifact sources out, it can only hurt my
opponant. There is so much synergy here it's disgusting, everything works
with almost everything. If anyone has any ideas on how to make it viable in
type II drop me an email. I'd love to take it to a tourney and beat down
all the crappy Necro's.
4 Urza's Tower's
4 Urza's MIne
4 Urza's Power PLant
2 Crystal Vein
4 Mana Vault
4 Fellwar Stone
2 Tawnos's Wand
2 Meekstone
2 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Ornithopter
4 Sol Grail
2 Shield of the Ages
4 Winter Orb
2 Mana Web
3 Barbed Sextant
4 Kaervek's Torch
4 Atog
4 Phyrexian Walker
1 Well of Knowledge
Sideboard to taste
-Jason
Marcus Malden
This was a very good posting, and I am almost sure that it gets its
place at the Dojo. I thought that it was actually better than any
article in the last two issues of "the Duelist". Maybe you should
write for them?
I'm now hooked and will try the Urza's Land in a buyback deck. Maybe
if Urza's Saga gets a expansion relying heavily on Artifacts that the
artifact decks become popular and powerful again? Just guessing.
Marcus Malden
--
rp1...@online-club.de (http://www.online-club.de/m3/rp11910)
E' = dE / dx = p(x) + x dp / dx