Drafting Lands in Khans of Tarkir

This will look like a strategy article at first blush, but the strategy is one everyone who's drafted Khans of Tarkir more than a few times should already know, and that I assume has already been written about a dozen times; this post is more about the design that led to the strategy.

It is correct to take lands that produce at least two of your deck's colors highly, and not because the Tarkir's three-color decks need more fixing than the two-color decks we commonly draft in non-gold blocks. They do—and that's the reason we take them—but it's not why we take them highly.

There's a reactive reason, and that is quite simply that our fellow drafters are taking them highly, so if we want any, we have to take them sooner than we'd like. This demonstrates an ability to adapt and is a vital skill to foster both in Magic and in life.

But it doesn't tell us why anyone started taking the lands highly to set this chain reaction in motion. If we can understand that spark, then we can do better than react next time, we can lead. Fortunately, it's not a huge mystery. WotC increased the number of playable cards per booster quite a bit in Khans of Tarkir, so that we can spend picks on the spells we need to fill out our decks as well as the lands to help them run smoothly.

If you recall your first couple drafts, you quite likely found yourself with 30 or more highly playable cards. While it can sometimes be frustrating to choose what to cut, having options in deck-building and for side-boarding is a very positive thing. It's just not nearly as positive as having reliable mana. If you could trade the half-dozen cards you didn't end up main-decking for dual lands, your deck would be quite improved. The trick is that you have to actually draft those lands.

Going into your next drafts, you're aware that you don't need as many spells, and so rather than tell yourself you'll pick up some spare lands floating around late in the pack when there's nothing better for you, you can start taking those lands 2-3 picks higher than that. Except you're still taking them too late. Several reasons: The tri-lands are uncommon and will never table; Of the 10 common dual lands, three are relevant to your clan, but two are relevant to another clan, and there are likely two players in most clans anyhow; and there are one or two 5-color drafters at your table taking nothing but lands and the very best spells, regardless of color.

So just how early do you need to take lands? Depends on your deck, obviously, but the average three-color deck probably wants to take bombs first, lands second, removal and staples third. Sometimes you can skew that by the pack's direction; I might take lands lower in my first pack, hoping that sending strong signals will send more of my preferred land back in pack two, with the back-up plan of first-picking land throughout the third pack. Alternately, you could take land highest in the first pack, watching signals and keeping your options open so that you can pick a clan (or commit to 5c) in the second pack and perhaps pick up some strong spells while other players try to catch up on land. I'm not the expert and you should be reading Star City Games for the keenest drafting advice; I'm discussing all this to talk about its ramifications to Magic Design.

First, is to appreciate that percentage-of-playables for Limited isn't just a number that R&D has been fine-tuning for Magic Draft at large over the years, but a knob that they are keenly aware of and tweak when a given format shows a need to deviate from the norm. Avacyn Restored, for example, turned this number down, making drafters adjust to a new evaluation schema where bad removal was as good as you could expect, which trickled down to creatures mattering more, which meant stalemates became more common, and evasion hit an even higher premium than usual.

Innistrad saw more playables than average, which wasn't a fix for reduced card choices like it was in Return to Ravnica; Innistrad's large playable count increased variance in decks from draft to draft and enabled less obvious archetypes like Spider Spawning, but made side-by-side card evaluation more difficult. Because there were fewer bad cards, new players would make fewer terrible decks, while skilled players had to focus more on deck synergy. I'm completely undecided whether Innistrad widened or narrowed the skill gap because I see a number of ways it pushed in both directions. Would love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Next, I'd like to talk about the interesting choice to provide the set's color fixing via lands rather than spells. Players are reticent to cut spells for lands (because spells are exciting and productive and lands just mess you up if you don't draw the right number), and they are almost as reticent to cut action spells for color fixing spells. Cards like Azorius Signet are strong enough, but I'm told R&D has moved away from 2cc mana rocks. Firewild Borderpost and kin made the cut because you could play them on turn 1. The Khans cycle including Mardu Banner is weak, despite producing a third color and being cycle-able; Morph fights with the banners both for the 3-drop slot and for late-game mana. So, it's important that they gave us 15 lands to help smooth our mana without necessarily eating up spell slots. Why include the banners when they're so badly positioned relative to lands? I think they knew the lands would become high picks and that unprepared players wouldn't have much recourse unless they did. They might also have been aimed at other formats, like Commander.

Finally, we haven't seen common lands be important picks since Zendikar (okay, the gates of Ravnica mattered, but they never got picked this highly). I dare say this situation shows that R&D learned the value of making land matter from that set, and are using that knowledge to add more variety to new sets.