MTG Duel of the Planeswalkers 2013

[Pinky]

It's not a "flaw" in the game, it's an intentional balancing mechanic. If you absolutely knew at what rate you would be hitting your land drops, every single mana curve and most decks would look exactly the same. You would never see decks like Red Wins and Eldrazi ramp in the same format. There's a risk to playing expensive spells because of that random element and there are entire decks that work really well because they either sidestep that element entirely (Birthing Pod) or use the cards that are printed to smooth out their lands (almost any ramp deck).

Yeah, getting mana screwed happens. You always notice that more often than you curve out perfectly, though. You also notice that more often than you do when your opponent gets screwed and you walk away with a completely free win.

Minimizing the impact of too many/too little lands is part of building your decks. Red and White are great for keeping your curve super low so you can actually win a game with only two of three lands, while Green can actually do something game-changing when you draw that sixth land in a row.

None of this solves the problem of having 50% of my land cards packed into the top twenty cards of the library. I play white or red mono to deal with mana starvation, but a library of cheap spells does nothing to cure me of excess mana.

I've been looking through tournament winners' builds. The revolve around land-effect spells (draw or destruction), mana-producing creatures and artifacts, or generic extra card draws. That's how people used to win more than ten years ago and I think there is a lesson to be learned from that.