Since we are between PTQs at the moment, and because of the upcoming Pro Tour, I’d like to spend this week on a not-often-discussed topic: how to build a mana base of a deck. I believe people just toss lands in an ad hoc fashion without giving much thought to it.

Suppose we are building a new deck for the upcoming Standard with the following cards:

"Soul Splash"

• Creatures (6)
• 4 Sun Titan
• 2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

• Spells (26)
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Ray of Revelation
• 2 Forbidden Alchemy
• 4 Desperate Ravings
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Lingering Souls
• 1 Whipflare
• 2 Day of Judgment
• 3 Unburial Rites
• 4 Ratchet Bomb

• Lands (26)
• 26 Lands

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What lands do we want and why? We would like access to early red, early blue, double-white, as well as white and black simultaneously.

Four Evolving Wilds is an automatic shoo-in here. Alongside that, we would like a minimum of two Plains, one Mountain, one Swamp, two Islands, and possibly a Forest for flashback on Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation.

The M12-style dual lands (Glacial Fortress, Clifftop Retreat, and Isolated Chapel) have a place here, so intuitively, I feel that we should put in three, two, and two, respectively.

That brings us to:

"Mana Base"

• Lands (18)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Island
• 2 Plains
• 2 Clifftop Retreat
• 2 Isolated Chapel
• 3 Glacial Fortress
• 4 Evolving Wilds

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Other possible lands are the Scars of Mirrodin dual lands, of which Seachrome Coast and Blackcleave Cliffs make sense here. Adding in three Coasts and four Cliffs brings us to:

"Mana Base"

• Lands (25)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Island
• 2 Plains
• 2 Clifftop Retreat
• 2 Isolated Chapel
• 3 Glacial Fortress
• 3 Seachrome Coast
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 4 Evolving Wilds

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In this style of deck, I feel that the last land should be capable of producing all five colors of mana. Only one land in Standard fits the bill here, and that’s Shimmering Grotto.

Version 1 of the mana base:

Green is just for flashback, so only having six sources for it is not a big deal.

The red and blue counts are a bit low here, so our best course of action is probably to cut one Plains for a Sulfur Falls. Another issue that is likely to occur is that our M12-style duals are not going to come into play untapped very often, so we are looking to replace those with an alternative option.

Version 2 of the mana base:

We gain the ability to have more basic lands (namely Plains and Islands) that enable our M12-style dual lands while giving up one black source (only for Unburial Rites and flashback on Forbidden Alchemy). Notice that this mana base does not account for any sideboard cards you may want. If you want to board Dissipate or other double-colored spells, you would need to adjust the lands accordingly. Green is really not a necessity in this deck (just an afterthought on two flashback spells), so it is okay to go very low on the number of sources.

As a side note, in decks like these, you can afford to play twenty-six or more lands because you have a bunch of card-filtering (Desperate Ravings, Faithless Looting, Forbidden Alchemy). You want to be absolutely sure that you don’t get mana-screwed—you are very proficient at ditching excess lands when necessary, but being mana-screwed is a death knell here.

Another deck I’d like to go over building the mana base for is Jund.

Suppose we want to play the following spells:

"Jund"

• Creatures (19)
• 2 Grim Lavamancer
• 2 Kitchen Finks
• 3 Eternal Witness
• 4 Bloodbraid Elf
• 4 Dark Confidant
• 4 Tarmogoyf

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Liliana of the Veil

• Spells (13)
• 2 Terminate
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 1 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 2 Maelstrom Pulse
• 4 Thoughtseize

• Lands (25)
• 25 Lands

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Volcanic Fallout
• 2 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Grim Lavamancer
• 4 Relic of Progenitus
• 1 Duress
• 1 Torpor Orb
• 2 Smother
• 1 Terminate
• 1 Kitchen Finks

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Which lands do we want and why?

The color requirements early on are: , and together, , , and .

Off the cuff, four Treetop Village seems like a nearly automatic inclusion because it’s an incredible man land. Blackcleave Cliffs and Copperline Gorge help provide fixing that doesn’t damage you. Verdant Catacombs with Forest and Swamp and one of each relevant Ravnica dual provides a nice amount of fixing without going overboard with lands that hurt you. Twilight Mire, Graven Cairns, and Fire-Lit Thicket allow you to be more flexible with your mana, but playing too many means drawing hands that force you to play very awkwardly.

Here's where I end up after that:

Notice that even with just one of each dual land and a minimal number of fetches, we are able to build a very good mana base. The Mountain is there to be fetched if a creature of ours is Path to Exiled. The only concern I would have about this mana base is that you are extremely vulnerable to Blood Moon. It is possible to solve that problem by cutting down on Twilight Mires and playing more Forests and Swamps to be able to Maelstrom Pulse it while under a Blood Moon.

To summarize, there are many things you should consider while building a mana base.

1. Try to see what mana costs you need to support.
2. Try to minimize the number of lands that enter the battlefield tapped.
3. In formats where Blood Moon, Price of Progress, and Wasteland are legal, try to see if you can minimize the number of nonbasic lands you play.

Please leave any comments on Twitter @jkyu06 or on the comments here.