Lets Talk About Getting Mana Screwed...
The 8 by 8 EDH System is a strategy first approach to EDH deck building that aims to build fun and reliable decks but... cannot save you from becoming the laughing stock of the RNG Gods! (Random Number Generator, for those who don't know)
Why are we here? Why do we exist? Why did they add so much randomness to this game?? These are the fundamental existential questions we all will ask ourselves at some point in our lives. And the answer is very simple, because the randomness of existence is the spice of life! It adds intrigue, without that, the world is a monochrome formless soup of homogeneity (aka booooring!!).
In the wonderful game of Magic the Gathering, its most controversial yet absolutely necessary cornerstone mechanic/theme/concept is that in amongst your spells, you have lands, which can be tapped to produce the mana you need to play the game. Everyone who plays this game, will experience getting mana screwed because of this clear segregation of things.
Some old attempts at patching the issue are first hand Mulligans (The rules around these change from time to time). Some new additions to the game help blur the line a bit in the form of multi-faced cards (MDFC's) that are a land on one side and a spell on the other (note this point, it will come up later! Please pay attention students!). This helps us fudge our land draw probabilities a bit, but ultimately won't fix the issue at hand.
Sometimes, you won't draw any lands. Sometimes you will draw all your lands. Or somewhere in between. At any critical point in the game. It will suck.
What to Expect
This isn't a guide, rather its a theory that hopes to metamorphosis into a Hypothesis, and eventually become a staple in every rule 0 conversation around the world. Sheesh, so much science! This is gonna be wild!
This isn't ramp. This isn't fixing. This isn't even how to build an effective manabase. Check this amazing(ly popular) article out for more info on this:
This isn't how the 8 by 8 EDH System will save you from RNG, but it can still help, see how over here:
Instead, this is my argument and campaign for a new world, in which we have a means to break the segregation of land and non-land cards in our hands, so that we can all live happily ever after... amen.
TLDR
Allowing players to fairly trade a card in hand for a single basic land will provide more balanced gameplay and help players avoid the feel bad situation of not being able to play their spells due to lack of mana.
the action cannot be exploited for combo's as it replaces your standard play one land action
most cards that allow playing spells from exile are highly conditional, and can't be exploited to break games
oops no lands decks may gain in popularity, but will still remain mostly janky and slow and are unlikely to influence competitive matches
For now this should form part of the rule 0 discussion
Introduction
The RNG we experience in MTG, is a necessary part of the game. It's what really adds the fizz to games of EDH, but also leads to early game, and sometimes late game feels bad (just get good you noob!). But we should first establish a few ground rules before diving in, so that we define the specific issue we are gonna solve, so its easier to test and validate.
Ground Rules:
Whatever we do, must not unfairly tilt games
It should not be combo exploitable, so it cannot repeat
It should offer a fair trade to mitigate the randomness (sacrifices are always required when praying to the Gods of RNG)
There should be sufficient precedent to the mechanics, so it is simple to understand
We are not introducing complexity, we are mitigating randomness
We will be able to test each of these rules later in the conclusion to see how this theory looks.
The basic theory I propose is:
Any player should be able to exile a card from their hand, to put a basic land from outside the game into play tapped, matching a mana symbol in the exiled spells mana cost.**
** Terms and conditions apply, see below for more details!
If you have ideas on how to do this better, by all means, join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/c/intothe99/about
Find me or whoever in the discord, and argue your case!
How To Make This Work
We can from the initial theory extract a few key bits of info:
any player
exile a card from hand
a basic land from outside the game
into play tapped
matching a mana symbol in the exiled spells mana cost
Already it should be obvious that the wording here matches standard MTG speak. Nothing appears extraordinary and thus I believe we are already hitting the mark with our ground rules.
Any player
Yes, not just the player having an issue, any player. This is because problems occur at any point in a game, for any player. This makes it fair, and you aren't gonna feel like you are propping up one person making them feel unworthy or grateful to just exist.
What we don't want is, any time you could play an instant, get a land. So we reinforce this with:
this replaces your standard land play for the turn action
Timing matters:
replaces your one land per turn allowance
in your turn specifically
only in a main phase
Simply, this can't be performed multiple times in the same turn (even though some effects allow you to play an extra land, those are additional plays, not the original allowance and thus don't count). Its only possible in a players own main phase, limiting this further, Combos are thus now no longer possible.
Exile a card from hand
What I mean here is a spell that has a mana cost with symbols in it. (see below for more details on the symbol restrictions.
There aren't many cards that can be played from exile, so it is unlikely that its possible to do really janky things with this. Plus it opens an interesting avenue for cards that aren't typically used because they are too weird or not good enough otherwise, to see daylight again.
Most times, a players most expensive card would be sent into exile, because they need mana, not greed, and cheaper spells can be played next turn as opposed to more exiling to fix or hit land drops. So this seems to me, like a fair trade. Sacrifice the least likely to be played spell for the ability to play and not fall behind.
One could argue that this flags cards you should consider cutting from the deck to improve reliability.
A basic land from outside the game
It should be obvious why the land must be basic, any non-basic or dial land would immediately break the game.
Landfall triggers as it should with any land entering the battlefield.
Also, basic lands should be easily on hand, at home or in LGS's. They can be sleeved differently (or not you heretic!) to highlight when they are not part of the actual deck, and thus can't be shuffled back into the deck.
Outside the game is a tabboo area for Commander, but I think an exception for this theory is fine. Its not like we giving access to Wishes to tutor combo pieces.
Also, the land cannot be a token copy, this would open avenues to break the game with token copying or destruction combo's. Oops I play "Lockdown" bye bye everyone's lands!
Into play tapped
There is precedent for this in the MDFC cards, where the simple lands ETB tapped, only the better ones have pay 3 life to ETB untapped.
Think of this as part of the cost of the prayers to the Gods of RNG. I slow down, but I'm not completely out of the game!
Matching a mana symbol in the exiled spells mana cost
If a generic cost is present like "(2) G" then we should allow:
a basic forest
or a basic waste (colorless mana)
If the spell has only colored symbols eg. "RG"
a basic mountain
or a basic forest
The dilemma players will face here is that multi-color spells will help you fix in addition to hitting your land drops, artifacts and colorless will just help you hit land drops but not fix. This will lead to more careful composition of your strategies, and overall should improve decks.
Can I Exploit This?
Being able to play a card from exile, or playing an Oops no lands strategy are the only two ways I can think of that can exploit this. So let me argue each of these cases.
Cards that can play from exile
Like I mentioned before, there aren't many;
Most of the cards in this filter have other conditions or aren't relevant to this situation. Only about 4 from what I can see will matter (as of the writing of this article):
Squee, the Immortal
Misthollow Griffin
Eternal Scourge
Ashiok, Nightmare Muse (her or is it Jace ultimate.. uh oh.. spoiler maybe...)
None of these apart from Ashiok look particularly strong, and the creatures would go into the battlefield anyway, so I don't see for the most part, any gaming breaking effects.
Ashiok will probably be an issue but only if you ultimate it, but lets be honest, this planeswalker must be removed immediately regardless. So I think its still fine.
Oops no lands
Yes, some people will build decks with no lands at all. And you know what? That's okay, we do this at the moment with MDFC cards, and its not going to give your opponent that much advantage to have all their basic lands entering tapped for the whole game. They can still only play one per turn, their only real advantage is an increase in versatility, which is a casual game requirement.
This one will require testing to see for sure though, and that's why this should be treated only as a Rule 0 Theoretical play mode for now.
Making it real
One more precedent we have that helps this theory become reality is Planechase. Basically your game takes place in one of the areas of a plane inside the MTG multiverse.
Typically this will add a static effect, with some conditions, and a chaos effect. Each player can roll the plane change die, and if lucky (yay! more RNG!!) you either change to a new plane or perform a "chaos" effect.
Maybe a more palatable version of this is simply to start on this plane, and then players can roll it away if luck (or unlucky depending on your sadistic attitude). Honestly I would think this is certainly the best of all the planes because it helps the whole table without any downside. Group hugs baby!!
Here's my attempt at coming up with something (yes yes I used AI, go sue Microsoft or something..) that you could download and print maybe.
I will go hide now.
Final Remarks
The main goal of this article was to put forward a theory that allowing players to exile cards from their hands to exchange them for basic lands would help games be more playable and less prone to unfun RNG side effects.
Fair trade, within the boundaries of the existing rules (as much as possible), means the action won't break games or lead to tilted board states and all players benefit from being able to at least play their spells. (screw you blue mages!)
This is only a theory for now, but with actual gameplay experience, it can become an accepted Hypothesis, and eventually a staple at game tables around the world. Try it out and come let us know in the discord! (Join the Patreon to get access, there's a free option, so come say hi!)
You may now be wondering a bit more about other ways the 8 by 8 EDH System can help you build better decks, and I hope to explain more in some upcoming guides, so make sure you subscribe/follow @intothe99podcast on YouTube and Instagram to keep up-to-date!
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