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7 months ago ::
Nov 19, 2012 - 4:49AM
#11
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Date Joined:
Mar 10, 2003
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4 is the important mana cost to focus on. That's the point where your cards generally need to start deciding matches on their own. Your 1 - 3 slot develops the game, but most 4 drops are like Day of Judgment  or Garruk Wildspeaker  or Huntmaster of the Fells  and start taking over games all by themselves. Every deck (and this is a broad statement) reflects on how capable it is to utilize that 4 slot. The quicker you want the game to end, the less important that slot becomes. The longer you want it to last, the most significant your 4 drops need to be. As your deck adjusts its mana needs, the more reliable higher mana costs become. What I'm trying to illustrate here is that every card that costs more than 4 (again, broad generalization) becomes more allowable in your deck as your focus on the 4 increases. This changes from deck to deck, but is a fine idea to work with, usually when considering midrange and control decks.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 19, 2012 - 4:55AM
#12
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Date Joined:
Sep 22, 2008
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Rule of thumb, your deck core is at 2-3-4. You should win with those cards alone, anything higher is a bonus, is cheated into play and/or is ramped into play. Play as few 5-6+ as you can unless they are required. A deck with an ammount of meekstone  and 4X trinket mage  can play 4 X sun titan  . Since the rest of the deck is probably about slowing down the opponent with board wipes, exiles and counterspells. And like it was said already, you can cheat those big monsters into play
I love trolls   Dont hate me because I'm blunt and you cannot handle it
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7 months ago ::
Nov 19, 2012 - 5:34AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Dec 12, 2007
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tropical island  arbor elf  taiga  overgrowth  savannah  mana reflection  3 turns of good strong accelleration sets you up with a possible 16 mana going into turn 4. You can even build a deck around such an approach. (sometimes referred to as elf ball) Without going green it is much harder to be really obnoxious but, voltaic key  into grim monolith  can be awfully obnoxious in many colors. add a 3rd turn accelleration of coalition relic  and 4th turn unwinding clock  and perhaps even an ice cauldron  or two and you can be almost as bad as green. In green you can also defend fairly well with things like uncounterable creatures or weenie persist/undying creatures. White, Black, and red all have mass removal. In casual at least, pretty much any mana cost can be paid if it is worth the effort to develop. The limiting factor is that many times two small effects combine to create a win condition, combo is what keeps ramp inline.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 19, 2012 - 2:20PM
#14
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Date Joined:
Feb 22, 2005
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To answer the question more generally: Based on personal experience, I've found that 6 is the highest number I can expect to consistently reach in a 24 land control-leaning deck with no ramp. 5 is my preferred top end though. At 22 or fewer lands and no ramp i tend to top at 5. If you aren't ramping  or cheating  , I recommend not running anything with a CMC higher than 6.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 24, 2012 - 1:56AM
#15
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Date Joined:
Dec 15, 2011
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I would go max 5cc and 24-28 lands to support such a high cost.
I usually play with the following mana: (Which can be split into two colors at any time)
24 lands
12 1cc
12 2cc
8 3cc
4 4cc
22 lands
12 1cc
12 2cc
14 3cc
Split the mana evenly unless one color is splash, then I use to play with 14 lands of the maincolor.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 24, 2012 - 4:19AM
#16
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Date Joined:
Oct 23, 2010
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Generally, maximum mana cost is usually a trivial matter- As for importance of mana cost in constructed play- 2 is usually the most key, followed by 4.
2 Drops are where many mana curves begin and 2 is reserved for spells too powerful to be cast for 1 mana, but small enough to work on 2 lands. 2 is the home of many ramp spells, removal spells, cantrips and sources of fractal card advantage.
4 Drops on the otherhand- are cards that start a threshold of being difficult to simply cast out-of-hand. The average hand (consisting of 2 or 3 land) usually requires drawing 1 or 2 mana sources to cast 4 drops, which makes a density of 4-drops a good reason to increase your land count or use spells that act as substitute land or mana sources.
A density of 5+ drops, in my experience (not just the odd inclusion of a 5 drop) requires some serious consideration towards the number of draw and ramp sources the particular deck which operates them contains.
Signature by 
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6 months ago ::
Nov 24, 2012 - 10:50AM
#17
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Date Joined:
Oct 12, 2010
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Clever deduction Watson! Maybe you can explain why Supergirl is trying to kill me.
----
Autocard is your friend.
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] = Lightning Bolt 
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6 months ago ::
Nov 24, 2012 - 2:33PM
#18
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Date Joined:
Apr 28, 2008
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Well, yes, a card with cmc 20 would instantly be playable, but that would be for entirely different reasons  .
Everything Mown does is elegant.
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6 months ago ::
Nov 25, 2012 - 10:11AM
#19
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Date Joined:
Oct 12, 2010
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Well, yes, a card with cmc 20 would instantly be playable, but that would be for entirely different reasons .
See? This is my point. We can't just say "What's playable?" A three-color card with ccdddee would normally be unplayable, but Cruel Ultimatum  . Green sucks in limited, but ROE limited was basically everyone drafting black/green and then seeing what to do with the other 10 or so cards in each pack.
Clever deduction Watson! Maybe you can explain why Supergirl is trying to kill me.
----
Autocard is your friend.
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] = Lightning Bolt
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