Study of Lands - part.1 Exploration -

Introduction

The recent Lands.dec adopts 4 Sphere of Resistance as its mainboard. As this direction, the decks adopt Ancient Tomb and reduce green mana especially Burnwillows and Panishing fires package.

On the other hand, the Lands.dec remains 4 Exploration and 4 Loams. I am wondering whether these core of Lands.dec are still useful or not.

I'd like to discuss 3 points of Lands.dec.

1. Are 4 Explores needed?

2. Are 4 Loams needed?

3. Is Red good 2nd color for Lands.dec?

The value of Exploration

Deny and acceleration mana

It allows playing Wasteland and other lands simultaneously. 

Complete Stage-depth combo faster

If Exploration played in Turn 1, the combo is completed in the turn 2.

Synergy with Life from the loam

It allows playing reclaimed lands quickly.

Activate Urza's saga in turn 2

Accelerated mana allows activating Urza's saga's chapter 2 in turn 2. 

Synergy with Landfall 

Triggers landfall continuously. i.e. Valakut Exploration.

Negative points of Exploration

Less value in the closing stage of the game

It affects nothing if you have no land cards in hand.

Counter

FoW is the most common cards in Legacy.

Impact of Sphere of resistance

Green mana reduction

Current Lands.dec adopt around 13 green mana (including Mox Diamond) 
Consistent casting 1-mana spell in turn 1 requires at least 14 mana in their deck. It means recent deck is hard to play Exploration in turn 1.

Approaching another mana deny

Taxing all spell denies their mana strictly. Recent Lands.dec focusing activating Saga or Stage instead of playing spell. In other words, Exploration is not fitted another mana deny strategy. 

Threats for Stage-depth combo

The stage-depth combo is strong but also vulnerable to instant land destruction.Wasteland is the most common land in Legacy format. In other words the stage-depth combo is very unstable in current meta.

In this situation, Lands.dec reduces Stage and Depth.  So that even if Exploration played in early turn but the probability of stage-depth combo is not so high.

Ancient Tomb

I think Ancient Tomb can be converted to Exploration.

Deny and acceleration mana … acceptable

As tomb supports playing sphere, it assists mana deny strategy. And it accelerates mana directly; producing 2-mana.

Complete Stage-depth combo faster … acceptable

Playing stage -> Tomb -> Depth. It's done. 

Synergy with Life from the loam … nothing

No synergies b/w loam and tomb.

Activate Urza's saga in turn 2 … perfect

Producing 2-mana supports saga directly.

Trigger Landfall continuously … nothing

It supports playing Valakut but would not increase trigger.

Value of the closing stage … considerable

Producing mana is good. Also it helps playing Mox diamond. (It tend to happen in Saga's chapter 3)

Robustness to counter … perfect

No way to counter.

Totally, the tomb seems to cover the value of Exploration. 

Conclusion

In this article, Exploration and Ancient tomb are compared in sphere of resistance featured Lands.dec. Their value seems to be similar, so that the substitutability b/w Exploration and Tomb is considerable.

Please give your comments freely in this approach. Please do not hesitate to post to @noya.