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Should you play black in four color for binding?
🕑 Added 2022-10-05 20:34:15 +0000 UTCFiguring out the black splash in four color.
With the printing of Leyline Binding players have quickly adopted it into various decks in modern. With almost all going to five colors to help facilitate the one mana version of the card. This also lead popular streamer aspiring spike to try out both shadow prophecy and Soul of Windgrace in a control shell. This has sparked a lot of questions.
Should we be playing a black triome?
If so which triome over what land?
Is shadow prophecy worth inclusion in the deck?
Is soul of windgrace worth putting into the deck?
For both these spells. How many black sources should we play if we play these cards?
Today we are going to answer all these question s
.
Should we play the black triome?
The perks of playing the black triome are
- Cheaper Leyline Bindings
- able to play black spells
- Prismatic ending being able to easily hit 5 colors
- EE being able to go up 5 (currently we don't play EE but if we had the black splash you might consider it more. As it is a high impact card in a few match ups.)
The down sides are
- Increase in tap lands or having to rework the mana so you can consistently cast your verdicts and red cards in the early turns.
Now at first glance it seems like the pros outweigh the cons and it's an easy inclusion. However I don't think all factors are equal. Binding being one less mana only really matters in spots where we are really choked on mana. The other two factors of black mana are not huge as the deck does play abundant growth. Meaning you already have access to these plays, just a bit more work to do so. The ability to play black cards I will cover in the other sections but to surmise you will need more than just one triome for those cards.
So how much does having to rework the mana or having an additional tap land cost? While hard to exactly quantify it comes down to a philosophy I have.
In magic one of the easiest and most avoidable ways to lose is having mana that wont let you cast your spells.
If you increase the number of tap lands then your going to have a harder time interacting in the first couple of turns every game. While I have written in the past that the four color deck does want lots of lands this does slightly differ, as having lands that must enter tap is a huge liability. As you often need to be interacting at every point in the curve early. To be totally honest I have considered cutting the second triome and many occasions, but this philosophy of casting my spells has swayed me away every time.
Now we are looking to up our tap land count to three in order to enable Leyline Binding. The first place you have to look at making a cut is probably traverse, as it is a land with extra steps and having it become and actual land does up the range of keep able hands. However you're also making your deck less powerful in the late game as you now down a tutor. This trade off is a hard one to stomach. As your deck is a little prone to flooding out. Your traverse also help you beat cards like blood moon which are still brought in all the time versus this deck.
If you go with cutting one of the other triomes in order to make room for the black splash your running into mana problems with some of your spells as both red triomes help enable early Wrenn and Six, along with Expressive Iteration. Both are great at fixing early mana problems. While not the end of the world it does go a bit against my philosophy. However I do think its worth seeing how things change when we do the math and lay out what the black splash would look like, before we make a final judgment.
Currently the deck has
15 fetches
6 shock lands (all the none black ones)
2 triomes (jeskai and temur)
4 basics (2 forest 1 island 1 plains)
2 utility lands in the form of Otowara and Boseju
This makes our mana source colors at
White 20
Blue 21
Red 20
Green 22
This is about what your wanting from a Yorrion deck. Having less then 20 of a source is starting to get risky in these sort of decks as the numbers are all inflated by fetch lands.
*note that abundant growth and traverse both make these numbers higher in practice but when laying things out I want to assume we don't have those. With the mindset of planning for the worst case scenario.
So what land are we turning into a black triome and which triome?
The answer I came to was that the temur triome gets cut for the sultai triome. When thinking about how to fit black in I wanted our two most core colors to be supported. Those being Blue and Green. Counterspell and Eternal Witness are the early cards that require double pips. The only other color with double pips is white with Supreme Verdict in the main deck., but having that on turn four is much easier to do then having Counterspell mana on turn two and eternal witness/endurance mana on turn three. Our deck also leans on green mana early to help fix draws thanks to cards like Abundant Growth, Traverse and Wrenn and Six.
You will notice this does remove a red source early for Wrenn and Six. Making it harder to consistently play her on turn two. This is one of the big reasons to be against the black splash while following the philosophy of clean mana. This is the cleanest way for the eternal witness decks so now lets do some math.
What does our source count look like with this small change?
White 20
Blue 21
Black 16
Red 19
Green 22
While only a small influx in the red mana you are dipping below the number 20 every so slightly.
Whats the verdict?
I am against it. Despite it being a small difference, I think those small things catch up over thousands of games. Making your Wrenn and Six worse is one of the easiest ways to lose in this deck. She fixes your mana, and while you often keep hands with her that have a fetch land which should of set this problem, you are sometimes leaning on expressive iteration to get you your mana early and help fix your draw. Combine all of this with meaning you might need to fetch shock more for Omnath and I think juice just isn't worth the squeeze for Leyline Binding as the only black card.
If your curious on the math and how I landed here I use this Frank Karsten article to help land on the math.
https://strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/home/how-many-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells-a-2022-update/
Is Shadow Prophecy or Soul of Wind Grace worth the splash?
We just spent a lot of time talking about philosophy of casting our spells and having good mana. That is going to personally push me off both black cards we are about to talk about.
TLDR not worth the mana hit in the current eternal witness style of deck.
Lets assume I was willing to be a bit greedier with my mana. Would these spells be worth the splash?
Shadow Prophecy
This card looks to be doing a dig through time meets read the bones impression. So does this powerful card advantage spell provide anything the deck is really needing?
Not really. While the ability to help enable delirium is interesting in the context of the builds of the four color that lean heavily on those cards it is just another card advantage card. This deck is filled with cards that generate extra cards and is already playing Expressive Iteration. Which is the best card advantage card in the last decade. Combine that with the late game of Eternal Witness and Ephimerate and this card just doesn't quite do enough to warrant a spot in the deck.
Soul of Wind Grace
This card is very interesting. It works really well with Omnath at enabling landfall, when combined with the fetch lands. It also has great synergy with Wrenn and Six. Who very often doesn't ultimate and simply dies with you having three or four extra lands in your hand. So while very appealing it doesn't jump out as being better than any of our other card advantages and grindy cards. It does spark the idea of playing a Jund deck with this card, but ultimately I think this card just doesn't impact the game enough to warrant its place in a four color pile. Even when we have the extra twenty cards compared to a normal deck.
If you do want to play the black splash I would highly suggest playing another fetch land and most likely cutting the supreme verdict from your deck. While I dont endorse this build as the one with the highest win rate chance its going to increase your chance if your married to the black splash.
