Addendum: Why 65/10 Lotus is Unhinged

03/15/2024

This is simply a brief addendum to my article on why 68 card gurk is 68 cards. Specifically, I wanted to briefly touch on the recent tweet about playing 65 cards maindeck and 10 cards sideboard in Pioneer Lotus Field.

I think that this is somewhat deranged, and almost certainly not correct. Namely, the main reason given for playing 65 cards was so that you could fit in more copies of Archdruid's Charm and Impulse postboard, while having a similar deck composition preboard.

But the solution here, as Sam Black points out in the replies, is to simply play 4th copies of Charm and Impulse in the sideboard. By playing 65/10 with the intention of boarding to 60/15, you're essentially just turning two sideboard slots into lands in - the two extra lands you have to play in your 65 to keep mana consistent!

Yes, you get to draw your tutor targets less often by doing this - but in the grand scheme of things I highly doubt that actually matters enough in Lotus to want to play more than 60.