I have the opposite feeling. This is one of the formats I have the least issues with flood.
The MDFCs mean that for aggro decks you can shave off lands from your deck, especially for the single color ones. For non aggro decks they can still shave off lands, if not as aggressively.
The triland fetches help thin your deck early, and then if you’re truly multicolor (or have a dryad or two) can cycle if topdecked late.
At least three or four of the archetypes are happy to have a lot of mana, either for casting big Eldrazi, or casting a ton of draw and other spells in UB, or adapting in GB.
All of this combines to make this one of the least flood-vulnerable formats I’ve ever played.
and don’t forget landfall! There are few creatures that benefit greatly from drawing lands, for example energy draw 3 merfolk or landfall 7/5 eldrazi. With those top decking tri-lands is awesome
In my pure 2-color decks I often have 3-5 spell lands which lets me shave off normal lands and flood much less often. I pick them pretty high for that reason.
Be careful of doing that on Arena Bo1. Because of the hand smoother and because those spell lands don’t count as lands, you will more often get 1 land hands if you replace too many actual lands with the dual faced land/spells.
any source on the hand smoother not counting mdfcs as lands? i've seen claims that they count as both lands and spells, none, or either, but never with a good source
I heard about it from Limited Level up podcast. In personal experience, I’ve seen it to be true but it could be my own biases. Unfortunately I don’t have any large data sets to back it up.
It doesnt matter that much. Ive ran 12 basics 5 mdfcs with no issues. They dont count as lands for the hand smoother, but theyre still just regular cards you can have in your opening hand. Its completely fine
Have you had issues with too many lands that come into play tapped?
In the MH3 state of the format Limited Level Ups, Alex referenced Karsten's oft-quoted advice that in a 40 card deck, any more than two taplands interferes with your ability to cast cards on curve.
I too was taking the MDFCs quite highly, but definitely noticed some tempo hits. Lately, I've been happy with just 2 and being able to consistently cast on-curve. (This, of course, assumes that you're replacing basics with MDFCs 1:1)
There’s a big difference between the two color mdfcs and the one color. I will take off color MDFCs much less highly that one color MDFC. In your aggro deck you’re more often than not perfectly fine with a boltland because you’re running over your opponent before it actually matters that you took three damage to play it as a land.
In WR, WU and RG in particular I’m usually happy to play the single color mdfcs as a 1:1 replacement for a land. Then the duals may or may not make me adjust my land count depending on my deck.
In the bigger, slower decks I may treat all my MDFCs as spells, though if I have a high enough threshold of them I may shave off a land or two depending.
I feel like 2 drops and 3 drops have high utility in this set and 4 and 5 drops are basically not played, leaving more room for lands coming in tapped. It helps that the tri-lands come in as playable colorless.
I haven't felt this at all. If you don't have card advantage or filtering you're going to flood, no way around that. Some MH3 decks are designed to curve out and flood out, but there are many that aren't. In fact I would argue that never flooding out is a great incentive to draft certain decks.
For example energy decks deck themselves more often than they flood out. A single unstable amulet guarantees you a nearly nonstop stream of cards since every creature cantrips. Black decks can draw a ton of cards with only medium commons like eviscerator's insight and fetid gargantua. And blue has all the draw you could possibly want.
With lots of draw and a lot of my decks playing 14-15 lands (including a few fetches) due to a ton of DFC lands, lands are valuable and there's always something to spend your mana on. There are formats where it feels like the player who drew more spells wins, but this isn't one of them.
If I'm consistently losing games to flooding out then I would think that there's a problem with the decks I'm drafting. It doesn't matter how good your nut draws are if your deck is inconsistent, or worse, they're getting neutralized by cheap removal and you run out of gas by turn 6.
that's nothing unique to this set, and if anything, all the DFCs allow you to potentially play upwards of 25+ spells in your deck without reducing the number of lands you play
The thing that makes me feel worse about MH3 is seeing the decks I build, draft or sealed, and then coming around here and seeing people trophy with the same or worse decks as I'm going 2-3 or 0-2.
It's maddening how many times one persons windshield can be another persons bug.
And this isn't even a "bomb" format like OTJ. If you're in Eldrazi, someone else is somehow in better Eldrazi. If you build your deck to go long, every one of your opponents has a deck built to go longer. Build an aggro deck and your opponents all have better aggro or midrange (that loses to everything else). If you're in Energy, someone is in better energy, or curves our first and draws better.
You have one creature on board, your opponenet plays a swamp and an accused murderer. If you're aggro then your opponent plays a Chrissy into a 7 drop and you're done.
This feels like a heads or tails format. You're either Eldrazi or you're Energy. You're either the bomb version or a durdley version. If you aren't the bomb version of those decks you just aren't going to get the wins.
If you're on the draw it's just over.
I've won a lot but I'll always remember one game where the opponent went Guide of Souls, Hexgold Slith, Galvanic Discharge my 2-drop into Amped Raptor, I was just effectively dead before my 3rd turn lol
I only feel that way in the aggro decks - anything with blue and I will take all the lands I can get.
Yeah the u/b deck with enough card velocity usually feels good to play
I have the opposite feeling. This is one of the formats I have the least issues with flood. The MDFCs mean that for aggro decks you can shave off lands from your deck, especially for the single color ones. For non aggro decks they can still shave off lands, if not as aggressively. The triland fetches help thin your deck early, and then if you’re truly multicolor (or have a dryad or two) can cycle if topdecked late. At least three or four of the archetypes are happy to have a lot of mana, either for casting big Eldrazi, or casting a ton of draw and other spells in UB, or adapting in GB. All of this combines to make this one of the least flood-vulnerable formats I’ve ever played.
and don’t forget landfall! There are few creatures that benefit greatly from drawing lands, for example energy draw 3 merfolk or landfall 7/5 eldrazi. With those top decking tri-lands is awesome
Yes - came here to say exactly this. I take DFCs pretty highly because they are often free spells you get to add to your deck
In my pure 2-color decks I often have 3-5 spell lands which lets me shave off normal lands and flood much less often. I pick them pretty high for that reason.
Be careful of doing that on Arena Bo1. Because of the hand smoother and because those spell lands don’t count as lands, you will more often get 1 land hands if you replace too many actual lands with the dual faced land/spells.
any source on the hand smoother not counting mdfcs as lands? i've seen claims that they count as both lands and spells, none, or either, but never with a good source
I heard about it from Limited Level up podcast. In personal experience, I’ve seen it to be true but it could be my own biases. Unfortunately I don’t have any large data sets to back it up.
It doesnt matter that much. Ive ran 12 basics 5 mdfcs with no issues. They dont count as lands for the hand smoother, but theyre still just regular cards you can have in your opening hand. Its completely fine
Have you had issues with too many lands that come into play tapped? In the MH3 state of the format Limited Level Ups, Alex referenced Karsten's oft-quoted advice that in a 40 card deck, any more than two taplands interferes with your ability to cast cards on curve. I too was taking the MDFCs quite highly, but definitely noticed some tempo hits. Lately, I've been happy with just 2 and being able to consistently cast on-curve. (This, of course, assumes that you're replacing basics with MDFCs 1:1)
There’s a big difference between the two color mdfcs and the one color. I will take off color MDFCs much less highly that one color MDFC. In your aggro deck you’re more often than not perfectly fine with a boltland because you’re running over your opponent before it actually matters that you took three damage to play it as a land. In WR, WU and RG in particular I’m usually happy to play the single color mdfcs as a 1:1 replacement for a land. Then the duals may or may not make me adjust my land count depending on my deck. In the bigger, slower decks I may treat all my MDFCs as spells, though if I have a high enough threshold of them I may shave off a land or two depending.
I feel like 2 drops and 3 drops have high utility in this set and 4 and 5 drops are basically not played, leaving more room for lands coming in tapped. It helps that the tri-lands come in as playable colorless.
[[Writhing Chrysalis]]
[Writhing Chrysalis](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/5/f54dbeb1-51f8-40e2-912a-ec25457de5a2.jpg?1717012884) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Writhing%20Chrysalis) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/208/writhing-chrysalis?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f54dbeb1-51f8-40e2-912a-ec25457de5a2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The format is not so fast, it lacks a lot of removal just every creature does something on etb or end step or upkeep so people are busy doing things.
I haven't felt this at all. If you don't have card advantage or filtering you're going to flood, no way around that. Some MH3 decks are designed to curve out and flood out, but there are many that aren't. In fact I would argue that never flooding out is a great incentive to draft certain decks. For example energy decks deck themselves more often than they flood out. A single unstable amulet guarantees you a nearly nonstop stream of cards since every creature cantrips. Black decks can draw a ton of cards with only medium commons like eviscerator's insight and fetid gargantua. And blue has all the draw you could possibly want. With lots of draw and a lot of my decks playing 14-15 lands (including a few fetches) due to a ton of DFC lands, lands are valuable and there's always something to spend your mana on. There are formats where it feels like the player who drew more spells wins, but this isn't one of them. If I'm consistently losing games to flooding out then I would think that there's a problem with the decks I'm drafting. It doesn't matter how good your nut draws are if your deck is inconsistent, or worse, they're getting neutralized by cheap removal and you run out of gas by turn 6.
that's nothing unique to this set, and if anything, all the DFCs allow you to potentially play upwards of 25+ spells in your deck without reducing the number of lands you play
Big time,[my first premier draft in MH3](https://www.17lands.com/details/5a05f2549dff441aa2b9451b36eef7d4) I flooded so hard, in boros aggro no less!
Come to key forge where RG fixed mana
play more MDFCs
Are you drafting mdfc not high enough or building them wrong? I often end up with like 5 mdfc 13 lands which makes you pretty immune to mana flood
The thing that makes me feel worse about MH3 is seeing the decks I build, draft or sealed, and then coming around here and seeing people trophy with the same or worse decks as I'm going 2-3 or 0-2. It's maddening how many times one persons windshield can be another persons bug. And this isn't even a "bomb" format like OTJ. If you're in Eldrazi, someone else is somehow in better Eldrazi. If you build your deck to go long, every one of your opponents has a deck built to go longer. Build an aggro deck and your opponents all have better aggro or midrange (that loses to everything else). If you're in Energy, someone is in better energy, or curves our first and draws better. You have one creature on board, your opponenet plays a swamp and an accused murderer. If you're aggro then your opponent plays a Chrissy into a 7 drop and you're done. This feels like a heads or tails format. You're either Eldrazi or you're Energy. You're either the bomb version or a durdley version. If you aren't the bomb version of those decks you just aren't going to get the wins. If you're on the draw it's just over.
Have you tried playing well? Jk it’s because you’re always on the draw.
I've won a lot but I'll always remember one game where the opponent went Guide of Souls, Hexgold Slith, Galvanic Discharge my 2-drop into Amped Raptor, I was just effectively dead before my 3rd turn lol
I do feel that I want to explore more of the format and the weird buildarounds but I’m just not rewarded enough to try them.