how many lands are enough?

[Hermes_]

so, i posted my deck ( viewtopic.php?f=35&t=24039 ) in my local magic group's fb page and one response was that 31 lands weren't enough. So how do you know how many lands or mana rocks should go into a deck?

[RxPhantom]

31?! That deck needs more ramp and more lands. I wouldn't go below 37. Your curve isn't exactly low with stuff like Blatant Thievery and Sun Titan.

If I were to come up with an Azorius ramp package on the spot, it would be:

Sol Ring
Arcane Signet
Azorius Signet
Talisman of Progress
Fellwar Stone
Wayfarer's Bauble
Mind Stone

Even with those, a lot of other players would advise adding three more.

Also, big fat exuberant shout-out to @Feyd_Ruin for making card tagging even easier with the dropdowns. Holy moly!

[pokken]

My cliche answer to the lands question is as a general rule:

One more than you think.

But rx is right here although I am leaning toward 35 as my baseline and then adjusting based on curve and need to draw extra lands lately.

[Outcryqq]

I start at 37, then adjust for things like average cmc, commander cmc, ramp, and rocks. I'd say an average cmc deck for me should see something like 37 land and another 5-7 slots for ramp/rocks.

[ZenN]

35 lands and 10+ rocks/ramp spells/land tutors/etc. is my general starting point. From there, depending on the deck, I'll go +/- 2 lands.

For reference sake, my decks are like:

• Derevi: 35 + 14
• Wanderer: 37 + 22
• Korvold: 35 + 18
• Kykar: 34 + 12

[Atraxian]

If you want to crunch some numbers, there is a probability calculator you can use here:
https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/ ... etric.aspx

Population size = your deck
Number of successes in population = number of lands or mana rocks
Sample Size = total number of cards you draw
Number of successes in sample = how many lands or mana rocks you want to see in the cards you draw

Then the calculations show the probability of reaching that number of successes in your sampe.

An example:
Suppose you want to see at least 3 lands by turn 3.
Population size = 99
Number of successes in population = #of lands (31 in your case)
Sample Size = 7 (initial hand) + 3 (cards you draw) = 10
Number of successes in sample = 3 (how many lands you want to see).

The result you have in that case is:
Cumulative Probability: P(X >= 3) = 0.662

So roughly you will have 3 lands by turn 3 66.2% of the times, not counting additional card draws or scry.
You can then adjust the land count to your liking.

Another example:
you want to measure the probability of getting at least 1 mana rock by turn 2
From your deck, I see 3 mana rocks.
Running those numbers, the chance of getting at least 1 of them by turn 2 is 0.174, so 17.4%

[DirkGently]

I think people tend to be far too rigid with how many lands they run. Think about other constructed formats - depending on the deck, some decks go quite low (even ignoring outliers like manaless dredge) whereas standard decks can go into the mid-twenties or so. Shifting a couple lands in either direction seems like undertuning to me.

It depends a lot on your curve, and what you want to be doing with your turns. If you have a lot of cheap draw engines, you probably want to go low. If you have high-curve stuff with ramp, you want to go high (ramp does not replace lands - ramp decks need more lands, not fewer). Like everything else with deck construction, it's about knowing your plan and figuring out how to optimize your execution of that plan.

My decks can have anywhere between 33-46 lands.

EDIT: looking at your deck, you're playing daxos, who gives CA on his own, but can't play lands. So you almost certainly want more lands than average so you can reliably play the cards he gives you.

Luckily there's also some REALLY obvious cuts. Quicksilver Amulet does basically nothing, all your creatures are relatively cheap. ritual of restoration just seems low-impact and bad. Annex is so expensive and clunky. armored ascension is jank, especially in 2-color. enchanted evening + aura thief is going to either being a boring combo that wins the game, or do essentially nothing - this is bad gameplay and I'd cut both. Copy enchantment doesn't have enough viable targets imo. Spy network is completely garbage that should never be played by anyone. I know it lets you look at the top card, but there are way better ways to do that. Play something like Anchor to the Aether instead, then you'll know what the card is, you know it's good, and you remove a creature at the same time.

Replace all the rest with lands and you'll be looking a lot better already.

[Mookie]

There isn't an exact number for how many lands you ought to run, but 31 is definitely on the low end. Theoretically, you could find the correct number via trial and error - if you find yourself missing land drops too often, add more lands... and if you find yourself flooding out, cut some lands. In practice though, there is a lot of variance, which means people tend to rely more on math and heuristics.

I'll also add that as a general rule, the number of lands you play in a game doesn't actually matter - rather, the number of mana sources is what you actually care about, and that includes mana rocks and other sources of ramp. How many lands you want is also going to be impacted by how much ramp you're running, and how high your curve is. The ultimate goal is generally going to be hit land drops consistently until you reach the amount of mana your deck needs to operate, which varies greatly by deck - I have some decks that function happily on 6-8 mana, while others don't really get into gear until 10, or even 20 mana.

Looking at your deck, I don't see a lot of mana sinks other than the equipment. You're also very light on card advantage other than your commander. This means that you likely don't need more mana to operate other than what you need to cast your spells, which top out at 7-8 mana. Simultaneously, you have a lot of cards in the 3-4 mana range, so you'll probably want to hit 6-7 mana quickly so you can cast two spells in a single turn.

The main reason to run ramp spells is to hit that number faster. If you play an Azorius Signet on turn 2 and follow up with another mana rock on turn 3, that's 6 mana available on turn 4, two turns ahead of what would have happened if you relied exclusively on land drops.

Anyway, if you want a short answer for your deck, I'd say around 34-37 lands, and around 5-8 sources of cheap ramp. You don't want too many mana sources because you are a bit vulnerable to flooding out, but you also want to hit 6-7 mana consistently.

[Treamayne]

My basic starting point is:
35 lands
+1 per color
+1 for each whole number over curve > 3 cmc avg.
-1 for every 2 ramp (mana-rock or land search) > 5

Examples:
Ghave Fungus Tribal - 35 +3 (colors) +0 (Curve) -0 (Ramp) is a regular 38 Lands
Karona Avatar Tribal - 35 +5 (Colors) +3 (Curve) -2 (Ramp) is 41 Lands

After the starting point, as always you playtest and adjust.

When I really want to gnat's ass a mana base, I created a spreadsheet tool (see example below) that I use to calculate percentages based on number of mana symbols in the deck (casting and activation costs) and translate that into minimum amounts of mana sources to fulfill those color requirements.

SPOILER

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[Hermes_]

EDIT: looking at your deck, you're playing daxos, who gives CA on his own, but can't play lands. So you almost certainly want more lands than average so you can reliably play the cards he gives you.

Luckily there's also some REALLY obvious cuts. Quicksilver Amulet does basically nothing, all your creatures are relatively cheap. ritual of restoration just seems low-impact and bad. Annex is so expensive and clunky. armored ascension is jank, especially in 2-color. enchanted evening + aura thief is going to either being a boring combo that wins the game, or do essentially nothing - this is bad gameplay and I'd cut both. Copy enchantment doesn't have enough viable targets imo. Spy network is completely garbage that should never be played by anyone. I know it lets you look at the top card, but there are way better ways to do that. Play something like Anchor to the Aether instead, then you'll know what the card is, you know it's good, and you remove a creature at the same time.

Replace all the rest with lands and you'll be looking a lot better already.

I don't own Anchor to the Aether, my meta is filled with decks that run duels and other good stuff lands,i've had success with annex. Spy network is because i love how my foil copy looks. I just realized,i let out Sphere of Safety EDIT: Not that it matters because i've apparently lost it,so i'll just take out the whole aura thief/enchanted evening package.

31?! That deck needs more ramp and more lands. I wouldn't go below 37. Your curve isn't exactly low with stuff like Blatant Thievery and Sun Titan.

If I were to come up with an Azorius ramp package on the spot, it would be:

Sol Ring
Fellwar Stone


Even with those, a lot of other players would advise adding three more

I only own those and they are already in the deck.

[DirkGently]

I don't own Anchor to the Aether

It's 7 cents.

my meta is filled with decks that run duels and other good stuff lands,i've had success with annex.

A tapped dual land is not worth 4 mana. Annex is really only worth it if you're reliably stealing cradle-level lands. Play a 2-mana rock if you want ramp.

Spy network is because i love how my foil copy looks.

If you must, but it's a very bad card. It basically does nothing. And c'mon, the picture isn't even foil, how cool can it really be?

I just realized,i let out Sphere of Safety

Honestly your deck isn't enchantment-focused enough for it to be all that exciting imo. It looks like you're trying to go in too many directions at once, and don't have a strong, cohesive plan. The deck could use a lot of tightening up. Luckily that makes it easy to put in a bunch more lands. For daxos, with how few lands you're running, I'd probably have ~40 lands.

[Hermes_]

I don't own Anchor to the Aether

It's 7 cents.

plus shipping

my meta is filled with decks that run duels and other good stuff lands,i've had success with annex.

A tapped dual land is not worth 4 mana. Annex is really only worth it if you're reliably stealing cradle-level lands. Play a 2-mana rock if you want ramp.[/.quote] Clearly,you've never won a game off of stealing a land at the right time.

Spy network is because i love how my foil copy looks.

If you must, but it's a very bad card. It basically does nothing. And c'mon, the picture isn't even foil, how cool can it really be?

i love the blue foil..it's so shiny and the only useless part is the face down creatures IMO

I just realized,i let out Sphere of Safety

Honestly your deck isn't enchantment-focused enough for it to be all that exciting imo. It looks like you're trying to go in too many directions at once, and don't have a strong, cohesive plan. The deck could use a lot of tightening up. Luckily that makes it easy to put in a bunch more lands. For daxos, with how few lands you're running, I'd probably have ~40 lands.
[/quote]

Well the title of the deck is Daxos WTH lol and before I realized I didn't have Sphere of safety one of the alt wincons was steel all the things with the arua/enchanted package...I mean if I really wanted go full derp I could run a Mardu commander and always go for helm/Godo, (again)

[DirkGently]

plus shipping

Well hopefully don't buy it alone.

Clearly,you've never won a game off of stealing a land at the right time.

A well-timed Wood Elemental can win the game too, that doesn't mean it's a good card.

i love the blue foil..it's so shiny and the only useless part is the face down creatures IMO

I don't mean strictly useless, I mean practically useless.

Well the title of the deck is Daxos WTH lol and before I realized I didn't have Sphere of safety one of the alt wincons was steel all the things with the arua/enchanted package...I mean if I really wanted go full derp I could run a Mardu commander and always go for helm/Godo, (again)

Personally I think it's much more interesting to have an alt wincon that isn't just a combo auto-win that has essentially no synergy with the rest of your deck (you're not really very well set up for it anyway since you can't easily kill the aura thief).

Deck building is a personal process of course, but if I were you I'd try to focus up your deck. Right now it looks like a semi-random collection of cards tbh. Every time I look at it I notice more cards that make we go...well...."WTH" as you put it. Spidersilk Net? How are you having a a hard time fitting in enough lands? This deck is so easy to cut it's perforated.

By the way, why are you running off-color fetches with no dual/shock/cycle/tango? Of all the weird places to sink money into...

[Airi]

I usually start at 37 as the default and + or - based on the average CMC of the deck (though, I almost never go over that unless it's a lands deck).

[Hermes_]

Personally I think it's much more interesting to have an alt wincon that isn't just a combo auto-win that has essentially no synergy with the rest of your deck (you're not really very well set up for it anyway since you can't easily kill the aura thief).

IT was a long shot alt-win,so no tears over losing it. Killing it would have been slapping Disenchant after it becomes an enchantment lol

Deck building is a personal process of course, but if I were you I'd try to focus up your deck. Right now it looks like a semi-random collection of cards tbh. Every time I look at it I notice more cards that make we go...well...."WTH" as you put it. Spidersilk Net? How are you having a a hard time fitting in enough lands? This deck is so easy to cut it's perforated.

By the way, why are you running off-color fetches with no dual/shock/cycle/tango? Of all the weird places to sink money into...

I honestly go nothing for the net other i like it's effect, which is likely in my meta,as for the fetches, i've owned them for years.

I honestly suck at deck building, other than glass cannon builds that are easily dealt with. (relentless rats,RW voltron) I redid the list,cutting some stuff and upping the land to 35. When i first pulled the mess together, i was going go voltron/solider token.

[RxPhantom]

31?! That deck needs more ramp and more lands. I wouldn't go below 37. Your curve isn't exactly low with stuff like Blatant Thievery and Sun Titan.

If I were to come up with an Azorius ramp package on the spot, it would be:

Sol Ring
Fellwar Stone


Even with those, a lot of other players would advise adding three more

I only own those and they are already in the deck.

Then find more! First, most of the cards I mentioned (but you deleted from the quote) are cheap. Second, there are more budget options you may have laying around that you just aren't considering. How about Star Compass? Marble Diamond? Sky Diamond? Worn Powerstone? Darksteel Ingot?

Also, I'm not going to tell anyone how to have fun, but if your goal is to optimize this deck, then you definitely need more ramp, and you need to ditch pet cards that don't do a lot for you, like Annex and Spy Network.

This is a voltron build, clearly, but I think you need to make the decision of going with equipment or auras, because trying to shoehorn both into the deck almost guarantees that you'll be doing neither very well.

Good luck. I hope this helps.

[Gashnaw]

Depends on colors in my opinion (And curve)
In mono color i say 33-35 lands, for 2 color 35-37, and 3 color or more 37-40

[Dunharrow]

I see you updated your deck.
I definitely think that you want at least 35 lands in this deck. I get that you aren't looking to buy cards, but I think you need some cheap draw effects too.
Curiosity, Ponder, Preordain, Chart a Course and maybe some repeatable draw like Mask of Memory or Bident of Thassa.
Your goal, to me, should be to play a land every turn to maximize Daxos' ability and the possibility of casting your own cards.

[PrimevalCommander]

I start with 36 lands. It always works well for me. Whenever I dropped that I always had trouble hitting land drops. 1 or 2 lands doesn't seem like much when you get more action spells, but hitting land drops is a big deal. I won't go below 35 any more in my 75% meta. Most lands I play is 38, even though Titania probably needs 40 lands.

[Hawk]

Playing around with a hypergeometric calculator - in a standard array of "37 lands + 10 accelerants", you're only 86% to cast a 4 CMC commander on curve. That's not bad especially considering that most "standard advice" deckbuilding ideas will include 10+ draw spells, many of which can also smooth out awkward draws if they are 3 cmc or less.

Running your list (now updated) through the same calculator - you are around 87% to cast Daxos of Meletis on-curve. Those odds aren't awful but it does mean 1 in 10ish draws is going to be a non-game. What's more, the odds of hitting 5 mana by turn 5 are just 61% - so, 42% of the time (or 2/5 games), you are going to struggle to recast Daxos if he eats an early removal spell. You have no reliable draw spells less than four mana (and no reliable draw of any sort really), so basically if you cast a Daxos and he dies or can't connect reliably you're going to be in dire trouble. Also note that your curve looks good, but equipment-heavy decks are artificially showing a cost lower than what they actually need, as you need mana to equip while also developing the board. Finally as noted, Daxos can't steal lands - you badly want to ramp and hit land drops to maximize the value of the stuff you steal.

All that to say - 35 lands + 4 "ramp" spells (counting Land Tax) is not enough especially without reliable cheap draw. I'd drop some of your lowest impact spells (Ritual of Restoration, Spy Network, Spidersilk Net, Annex, Extract) and add some of the draw mentioned by Dunharrow or cheaper mana rocks.

[pokken]

Playing around with a hypergeometric calculator - in a standard array of "37 lands + 10 accelerants", you're only 86% to cast a 4 CMC commander on curve. That's not bad especially considering that most "standard advice" deckbuilding ideas will include 10+ draw spells, many of which can also smooth out awkward draws if they are 3 cmc or less.

Did you adjust for mulliganning?

It's hard to do exactly because of how cheap draw spells factor in but I think Karsten has a rule of thumb you could apply.

[ZenN]

Trying to factor in draw spells properly makes the math more complicated than I care to do, but you can probably just take the number of <=4 CMC draw spells you have and figure out the probability of having one or more of those in the first few turns, multiplied by the probability that one of those spells finds a mana source, and then use that value as a multiplier on the the initial probability of just having X mana by turn Y. Probably.

[bobthefunny]

Let's take a look at regular 60 card magic quickly. A typical manabase for a normal curve is 20-24 lands. This comes out to 33-40% of the deck. Some greedy decks, that are very aggressive and hope to win quickly on a low curve will opt to drop to 18 lands. That's 30% of the deck.

In (non cEDH) Commander, games last longer, and tend to have larger bombs, which means a higher curve. You will probably want to stay closer to that 35-40% of the scale. Not only that, but hyper aggressive decks with low curves don't really work to win as quickly, with the multiplayer format, and the higher life total (yes, there are exceptions). With a longer game clock, you'll want more lands in order to continue to make land drops, and be able to match the threats your opponents are putting out.

This changes significantly as you move towards the more competitive spectrum. Competitive games can be decided in a handful of turns, so your curve is likely considerably lower, and you don't need as many lands since you won't see as many turns go by.

In Battlecruiser Commander, the single biggest thing you can do to have an increased presence in any game is to ensure you make your land drops every turn. Ramp is great, but if you're paying 2 mana for a rampant growth, but then missing your land drop, that Rampant Growth should have been a land, because you just paid 2 mana for nothing. This means having an adequate number of lands in the deck to draw them efficiently, and have one each turn to play. This also means having a sufficient amount of draw in order to get to a land per turn on average. You draw one card normally, but even with a Phyrexian Arena you won't draw into a land each turn. Keep in mind, the more you ramp, the harder it will be to draw into lands as well. Thinning out your deck for one card with a fetch land may not have a huge impact, but ramping 5 lands out of your deck is more than 10% of your land availability. It only gets more extreme the more you ramp.

When I build a deck, I like to go by tens to start:

• 10 ramp cards
• 10 draw cards
• 10 removal cards
• 10 low cost things
• 10 medium cost things
• 10 expensive things
• This leaves 39 lands to be able to fiddle with, and the deck can be easily adjusted from there.

I have run as many as 50+ lands before (a lot of extra land drops with utility lands), but I think the lowest I've ever gone is 36. I like to ramp too much.

Sometimes I will run more removal, or sometimes I will run more ramp. I just built two decks that have a ridiculously high curve, so they've been bumped up to 15 and 12 ramp cards each, taking a few of the low cost slots. This can also vary depending on how much you can reuse ramp. A Sakura-Tribe Elder has a lot more value in a Meren of Clan Nel Toth deck, than a Rampant Growth in most other decks. A white deck that runs Sword of the Animist can consider Relic Seeker or Open the Armory as half-ramp slots as well.

Varying your draw effects is important as well. While consistent card draw, such as Phyrexian Arena or Lifecrafter's Bestiary are fantastic, some hand refilling options like Recurring Insight are important as well, as are some cheaper plays for the early game to smooth things out, like Sign in Blood or Brainstorm. Sometimes recursion can fit in the CA/Draw category, sometimes it makes it's own space in my lists.

====

I will say this though: Once I've got my game going and I'm drawing cards, if I draw too many lands, I'm not sad about having to discard extra lands. But if at the beginning of the game, I don't draw enough lands to get started - then that's a less fun game.

I'm always more upset about not drawing enough lands, than of drawing too many.

[Feyd_Ruin]

If you want to crunch some numbers, there is a probability calculator you can use here:
https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/ ... etric.aspx

There's also one on here, with more features, and labeled more directly for magic:
tools/drawodds/
Same math (hypergeometric distribution), but it also adds expected value (the average number you'll get), as well as a Multivariate Intersect Calculator which gives you the odds of drawing any of two specific cards.

---

I also made a quick table for easy reference.

Lands Run	Opening Hand Average	Odds to Have 1 or 0 Lands	Odds to Have 2+ Lands	Odds to Have 3+ Lands	Average After 4 Cards Drawn
30	2.10	32.06%	67.94%	35.00%	3.30
31	2.17	29.95%	70.05%	37.40%	3.41
32	2.24	27.93%	72.07%	39.76%	3.52
33	2.31	26.00%	74.00%	42.14%	3.63
34	2.38	24.16%	75.84%	44.52%	3.74
35	2.45	22.40%	77.60%	46.89%	3.85
36	2.52	20.74%	79.26%	49.25%	3.96
37	2.59	19.16%	80.84%	51.60%	4.07
38	2.66	17.66%	82.34%	53.92%	4.18
39	2.73	16.25%	83.75%	56.20%	4.29
40	2.80	14.92%	85.08%	58.47%	4.40
41	2.87	13.67%	86.33%	60.68%	4.51
42	2.94	12.49%	87.51%	62.85%	4.62
43	3.01	11.39%	88.61%	64.98%	4.73
44	3.08	10.37%	89.63%	67.05%	4.84
45	3.15	9.41%	90.59%	69.06%	4.95
46	3.22	8.52%	91.48%	71.02%	5.06
47	3.29	7.70%	92.30%	72.92%	5.17
48	3.36	6.94%	93.06%	74.74%	5.28
49	3.43	6.23%	93.77%	76.50%	5.39
50	3.50	5.58%	94.42%	78.20%	5.50

So, mana rocks aside, you need 37 lands to "reliably" hit your first four land drops.

If your mana rocks cost 2 mana or less, you can add them to your land total to see, roughly, where "total mana" averages on turn 4 as well.
(ie: If you run all 10 Talisman and 30 lands, your total mana on turn 4 would very close to the same as 40 lands)
(It would be exactly the same, except for the small chance of drawing 3+ talisman, since you have to cast them)
(3 Mana rocks create too much unreliability of having to be cast to count for this shortcut, but you can "from the hip it" a bit)

[FoxOfWar]

I start from 36 or 37, then adjust as needed. Off the top of my head, my lowest is 33 with Athreos, though that deck is only 3 cmc or less as a deckbuilding challenge. My Polukranos, World Eater has 40, because it's all about ramping all them forests to battlefield. Pretty much all the rest of my decks are in the 35-37 range. Not really much of a hard-and-fast rule as just fairly consistently being able to play the game.