The medallions lose some of that usefulness pretty quickly as more colors are added, it's not usually worth 5 slots in a deck, but fit very nicely into a deck with only one or two colors. On the other hand, Modal Double-Faced lands like Jwari Disruption occupy a unique space, but I typically consider them equivalent to one-third of a land. Therefore, you could theoretically reduce your deck's land count by one if you run three of these cards. As power level increases, game length decreases, and decks need to have lower curves on average.

I’ll provide you with the basic method I used for these calculations, and if you have the time, you can utilize an online hypergeometric calculator to replicate these results. You’ve got all this info and advice and insight into land bases for Commander. Now you need to recognize the responsibility that comes with it. Let’s go over some of the most important factors and how they affect your land base. Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. But now let's move away from the math (thanks, Frank!) and talk about some reasons why we might make the choices we make.

How many lands should you have in EDH?

We're seeing numbers nowhere near that formula in decks nowhere near the average CMC of Cameron's cEDH lists. 29 lands and 4 rocks feels really, really low, even if you do have land ramp and enchantment-based mana production and mana dorks. Getting both colors reliably turn one is difficult. As is paying for double color costs like Counterspell or Mana Drain on turn two.

It's always a bad feeling to never hit that last color and have a hand full of things you can't cast. Lands that can tap for multiple, or any color blunt this, but have downsides, and are always one Ruination or Blood Moon away from keeping you out of the game for good. For both formats, the standard number of lands to play in a 40-card deck is typically 17. However, aggressive decks may go as low as 15 lands if they’re mono-colored, and 16 lands for 2-color decks.

It is however not optimized for (casual) multiplayer Commander. My calculations differ in two assumptions from his. Since this allows for more greedy mulligans, I changed the mulligan strategy as well.

As the curve drops and the games get shorter, the number of lands you need decreases. In short, no, you don’t necessarily need more lands for a 4- or 5-color deck. You’re probably running about lands already and that’s a pretty good average for any deck.

Never play 34 in a 100 card deck that's asking for trouble. Control decks are relatively scarce, and they typically run between 26 to 27 lands. Despite having access to cheap removal spells, they also rely on impactful cards like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria as win conditions. Therefore, they prioritize playing these cards on curve as frequently as possible by running a high number of lands. Mana ramp cards like Sol Ring or Coldsteel Heart also help to determine the number of lands you can play, since these ramp spells let you hit the determined spot of mana where your deck operates the best.

MTG Arena Historic Brawl Considerations

Just like opposing ends of a spectrum, the reasons you’d play lower land counts vs. higher ones are basically the reverse. Decks that rarely see the mana value of their spells go above 3-4 pack lands more towards the range. This ensures you’re going to see spells after your opening hand more than you’ll see lands. I hope this article helps you develop your mana bases. Writing this has helped me think about my decks and make some small changes.

The typical number of mana sources you should run in your EDH Deck is 43 to 55. Your land base should be between lands and your mana rocks and other sources should be 10-15. When it comes to mana rocks a lot of players use a ratio of two rocks per one land. So if you originally ran 40 lands but you have 10 rocks, you can comfortably drop about 5 lands. Some players say the ratio is three-to-one, but it’s up to you at the end of the day.

One of the more confusing aspects of building a Commander deck, for players of all levels, is how many lands to include. Probably the most common number players admit is between 35 and 38. I cringe when I hear someone say 32 or 33, but I hear it (I always get "but I've got like six mana rocks too!" in response). Anyone who has read just about anything I've written in the last three years or so has heard me bang the drums for 40 lands as a baseline for every Commander deck.

How Many Lands Should an MTG Commander Deck Have?

The other unique consideration is that the minimum deck size is also a maximum deck size, and most decks have a lot of ways to search their library for specific cards. Every unique card you can find with your search effects increases the power of each of those effects, and there are enough effects that getting extra tutorable targets in your deck can make the deck quite a bit stronger. This means that squeezing extra spells into your deck is valuable in a way that doesn't come up as much in most 60-card formats, so you really get rewarded for minimizing the amount of space you use on lands. Third, the best cards in cEDH are so much better than the worst cards that getting rid of a few of the worst cards in order to find more of the best cards is a great exchange, so aggressive mulligans are more rewarded. These are the decks that need more than 40 lands. Yeah, a lot of decks play around 38 or lower, but that’s right around average for decks that don’t want to be playing lands like crazy and just want to make sure they have lands to play.

Aggro isn't the strongest in EDH but there are ways to make it commander deck work, and that needs to have a lot of mana, fast. Control too needs to get it's mana base stable and early so it can afford to hold those counter and removal spells to use when things start happening. Other decks can afford to build up a bit slower, unless it's forced EDH is a slow format after all, the faster you want to act in the game, the more land you likely need to do it. There are two things I want out of a game of Commander. I want to be in the game and feel like I could potentially win it at some point, and I want to actually be able to play my cards.