High basic counts in relatively fair decks usually translate to higher winrates

I'm a very opinionated person. And this is one of these opinions I've had for a while and I want to write about.

It is no secret: the mana in Value Vintage, while perfectly serviceable, is nothing to write home about. We have no fetchlands and no shocklands. Most 2-3 color decks function on a combination of checklands, fastlands, painlands and tangolands.

These are, in my opinion, the four best land cycles we have almost universal access to. Two of them love it when you play basics, and also play pretty well with each other, although they're better suited for slower decks. The other two are better suited for faster, more aggressive decks and don't care that much about your basic land situation.

There are, of course, other nonbasics that see play. A lot of fast combo decks love Aether Hub, Tendo Ice Bridge and Gemstone Mine, alongside "fast mana with a downside" lands like Havenwood Battleground and Sulfur Vent. Things like Cloudpost + Glimmerpost + Trenchpost, the Dark Depths + Thespian's Stage combo, or manlands like Hall of Storm Giants and Lair of the Hydra see extensive play. And of course, I have been a vocal proponent of Agna Qel'a ever since it first got printed.

But none of these are cards you run because you want stable, consistent access to two colors of mana. These are cards you run because you believe your deck can get away with it.

Honorable exceptions

The blowjob brothers

Green Cloudpost is a mainstay of the format. Lately, it's hedging more towards colorless, only running green cards like Once Upon a Time and Ancient Stirrings for consistency. The only benefit Cloudpost could get from running basics is hedging against Harbinger of the Seas and Dust Bowl. Otherwise, the deck is not interested in basic lands.

Of course, Blue Cloudpost is less scared of Harbinger of the Seas than Green Cloudpost is, on the account that it is in fact a blue control deck and having your taplands enter as basic Islands until you manage to kill a 2/2 is not a bad thing.

Blowing your load prematurely

Hypergenesis is interested in many things. Stable mana that gets you safely into the end game is not chief among them. They are trying to place a Cascade trigger on the stack on turn 2, cast their marquee spell and hopefully that's the last spell that resolves that turn.

Therefore, Hypergenesis is not very interested in basic lands, nor very scared of Harbinger of the Seas.

Revealing your entire hand on turn 1

Here's where things get interesting. Manabond decks are often dead to Harbinger of the Seas whether or not they control a basic (or fifty) because often, they simply don't have the ability to answer it. Maybe Manabond decks should begin playing some outs to Harbinger of the Sea they can cast off basic Islands and Forests. In fact, most Manabond decks already are on a good number of basics. My recommendation to these players is not to up their basic land count, but to figure out an answer to Harbinger and land a Dark Depths between Harbinger resolving and you killing it.

Okay, the counterexamples are out of the way. Let's start talking about the many things basic lands do in Value Vintage.

Reasons why you could want more basic lands in your decks

Budget heroes

Of course, when your deck is supposed to be 75 cards and the budget limit is 30 bucks, you have a 40 cent per card budget.

Every basic land that you add to your deck is 40 cents you're freeing for something powerful. For every 4 basic lands your deck runs, you're (generally) allowed to play a single $2 card.

Many great lands love basic lands

Say you're trying to brew a Blue-Black Control deck. It's trying to get to the late game and overwhelm your opponent with an abundance of resources and great win conditions.

• Step 1: You want to not die immediately to combo decks. This often means being able to hold Spell Pierce on 1 and Counterspell / Lose Focus on 2. Guess who does this? Our old, reliable Island.

• Step 2: You want to get to the mid game and have excellent mana that allows you to cast both your black and blue spells. Drowned Catacomb and Sunken Hollow will love you for having spent your first two turns of the game playing basic lands.

• Step 3: When you get into the late game, you want to have some sort of engine that allows you to pull ahead while both players are at parity. Things like Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise do this very well, and Agna Qel'a both helps fuel them and helps you find them. Guess what, our new best friend from the Avatar set LOVES basic lands.

• Step 4: Drop your stupid Limited bomb and ride it to victory. It could be some sort of Planeswalker, it could be a Sphinx of the Final Word, it can just be Sailors' Bane, this part is the least important part of a control deck, honestly.

Many great nonlands love basic cards

This one should be self-explanatory, but it's most important to aggressive red decks. Is that copy of Barbarian Ring worth having a fail case where you can't cast Fireblast? I personally do not think so.

Playing more basic lands forces you to play less colors

Playing more basic lands will make you correct your worst instincts when it comes to deckbuilding. Does that deck really need to be three colors? Or are you just adding a point of failure the deck does not need? It's not that playing more basics raises your winrate, it's that building more sensible manabases with less points of failure leads to better outcomes.

Of course, the deck needs to do something powerful. Mana is only half of the equation, doing something worthwhile with that mana is the other half.

Playing more basics in a 2 color deck usually forces you to choose a main color that most of your lands will generate, and a splash color that you're trying to leverage on later turns.

In conclusion

If you are trying to build a fair deck in Value Vintage, limiting yourself to 2 colors will greatly improve your consistency and the amount of basic lands you can afford to run without making your mana unreliable. If you can build a monocolored deck, even better.

There is a reason why Blue-White spirits usually underperforms when compared to Monoblue Spirits, and it is not Spell Queller.