It has been a long time since I have asked myself if I really need to run 60 cards in competitive Magic: The Gathering. Maybe it has been 27 years? I wasn't playing while Yorion, Sky Nomad was dominating with its 80 card decks. When I came back, I have loved the New Capenna fetch lands and looked to build a deck leveraging them. I wasn't yet familiar with the domain lands and strategy. I had a Slogurk, the Overslime in that deck, and found the 4-color Slogurk legends deck to be interesting.

While I went 3-0 in my trial run of playing Slogurk legends, I found the deck to be procedurally taxing to play and therefore less fun and more annoying than I wanted to put up with. A great deck, but a decent amount of the advantage seemed to come straight from effective card advantage tools, value creation, and surprise. Now that deck is popular enough for people to see it coming and know how to combat it. In one RCQ where one qualifier played Slogurk legends, I was the only person to beat him... The deck was still new, but I understood what it was looking to do.

Now the creator of the Slogurk Legends deck won the huge MagicCon Chicago $75,000 Standard tournament with a 68 card deck (combo/midrange) using Nissa, Resurgent Animist, Slogurk, New Capenna fetch lands, Atraxa, and so on. I played this at an RCQ throwing in +2 non-lands, I was going to go +1 for the 69 memes, but wanted another Path of Peril...

It is quite good... I went 2-1-2 with 2 draws going to turns in the first rounds and my only loss to the mirror match. It was a small event and I didn't make the top 4.

Recently as I go to build a deck with New Capenna fetch lands, I want 35+ lands. Now that the idea of sticking to 60 cards has been shattered, I am going a little crazy. Let's look at some probability

Probability, When 60 Cards is Critical or Optional

Magic isn't just a game of probability. It is critical to understand the cards, play in the right order of operations, read what your opponent is doing, understand the meta game, and so on. Deck design and brewing is very much about probability. The deck I am proposing below and will play at the next RCQ (with slight possible modifications) is 84 cards, so when is 60 cards critical?

4 of 84 is 4.8% while 4 of 60 is 6.7%. This makes a 4 of 39.6% more likely to draw in a deck with 60 cards in it. So, if you are running a combo deck, or a deck with key cards such as Agatha's Soul Cauldron combo or Domain Ramp in Standard, then you won't want to drastically increase the number of cards in your deck.

However, if you are running a value generation and card advantage deck, then that lower chance to draw a "key" card doesn't matter as much if you have enough substitutable key cards. It is especially beneficial if the sacrifice of drawing those key cards less is made up from by essentially guaranteeing your mana base...

That chance of drawing above works in the opposite direction as well. If you have 1 card that you intend to search out in a 60 card deck, then you draw it 1.7% of the time. Well, that is a simplification, because if you have already seen 10 cards, then your chance to draw jumps up to 2%. With a deck of 84 cards, then your chance to draw it is 1.2%, a 29.4% lower chance. The deck below has 1 mountain and 1 plains with 10 and 9 cards to fetch them respectively. So, I will fairly consistently have access to Red/White mana if/when I need it.

The key to making this work is to choose some dominant colors with small splashes. Playing mostly legends with Plaza of Heroes helps a lot as well. Path of Peril, and Titania, Voice of Gaea are the only cards that require 2+ of the same colored mana in the deck and sideboard. Below is a mana/color analysis of the proposed deck:

Green - 22 pips, 10 fetch lands, 2 channel lands, 5 forests, 4 Plaza of Heroes

Black - 22 pips, 11 fetch lands, 4 channel lands, 3 swamps, 4 Plaza of Heroes

Blue - 14 pips, 11 fetch lands, 4 channel lands, 2 islands, 4 Plaza of Heroes

Red - 10 pips, 10 fetch lands, 1 mountain, 4 Plaza of Heroes

White - 4 pips, 9 fetch lands, 1 plains, 4 Plaza of Heroes

As you can see, I am very well covered for any particular colored mana. Green and Black are the only colors which have any non-legendary cards making Plaza of Heroes ridiculous.

Additionally, the deck runs Nissa, Resurgent Animist which is nice for mana fixing and searching for additional elves/elementals like Glissa Sunslayer, Omnath, Locus of All, and Titania, Voice of Gaea.

41 non-lands and 43 lands. 84 cards, 51.2% lands. Me from 20 years ago would be turning in my grave.

Five-Color Slogurk Legends | MKM Standard | Moshe Mann

• Creatures (34)
• 1 Jodah, the Unifier
• 1 Omnath, Locus of All
• 1 Sol'Kanar the Tainted
• 1 Titania, Voice of Gaea
• 2 Ertai Resurrected
• 2 Vohar, Vodalian Desecrator
• 3 Glissa Sunslayer
• 3 Soul of Windgrace
• 4 Deeproot Wayfinder
• 4 Inti, Seneschal of the Sun
• 4 Nissa, Resurgent Animist
• 4 Rona, Herald of Invasion
• 4 Slogurk, the Overslime

• Instants (5)
• 2 Cut Down
• 3 Go For The Throat

• Sorceries (2)
• 2 Path of Peril

• Lands (43)
• 5 Forest
• 1 Plains
• 1 Mountain
• 3 Swamps
• 2 Islands
• 2 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 2 Cabaretti Courtyard
• 3 Obscura Storefront
• 4 Brokers Hideout
• 4 Maestros Theater
• 4 Otawara, Soaring City
• 4 Plaza of Heroes
• 4 Riveteers Overlook
• 4 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Titania, Voice of Gaea
• 1 Cut Down
• 2 Path of Peril
• 2 Destroy Evil
• 1 Ertai Ressurected
• 2 Soul Guide Lantern
• 3 Duress
• 2 Cryptic Coat

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The deck above is 84 cards, yes. It does run 51% lands, yes. If you include the channel lands, then it is also 52% value/quality generation. I think the only thing that I fear is an aggressive enough deck that catches me off guard.