This thread is dedicated to the discussion regarding how many land players should include in their decks. This is a cornerstone to good deck building, and often goes over looked by players, new and old.
I suggest about 40% (24 out of 60) as a starting point, and have two or three of those lands be functional. This is a beginning point, but there are many factors to consider for each deck.
Remember, outside of some kooky manaless Dredge deck or something, you can't play the game without sufficient land or mana sources.
So very true, there's so much that determines how many lands shoul be run:
How many colors?
Utility lands?
What's the avg mana cost?
What's the 'critical' land drop?
What duel lands are you running?
I would say that 24 is right about a good starting point. The best thing you can do is playtest
Totally depends on the deck.
Assuming the deck in question is 60 cards, the first thing I look at is number of colors. If it's just 1, I usually cut 1 or 2 land down to 22 or 23. 2 colors, I might go down to 23 if the deck is good with mana fixing cards (say the deck includes a playset of {birds of paradise} or similar). 3 colors, no way can I cut land below 24.
2nd thing I look at is mana fixers, as I mentioned above. If I have none, I'm less likely to lighten my land-load.
3rd I check my CMC curve. If I have no huge cost cards (6 or above) I'll probably lighten up on land. But if I need to hit 4 or 5 on the respective turn and never miss a beat, I'll be more likely to keep my land towards 24.
My rule of thumb is about a third of your deck should be land. It serves me well most of the time. I also play with a lot of green so I usually have some mana dorks in my decks.
I like 22 personally. But yes, fatties and multicolored spells are always a big factor.
One of the major things I look at in a multi color deck is the number of colored mana necessary for each card. Like if I'm building a {R}{B} deck, but almost all the black cards have {B}{B} in their CMC while the reds only have {R}, I'll factor in more swamps than mountains.
I run anywhere between 22-24 lands depending on deck and cmc, rarely use 21 lands.
23
Hehe, I used to run 20 lands and only 60 cards back in the day. Then again I barely ever ran decks that require more then 4 mana to cast(except fireball and life drain)
Quote from: Gorzo on September 20, 2012, 03:06:20 PM
2nd thing I look at is mana fixers, as I mentioned above. If I have none, I'm less likely to lighten my land-load.
Awesome alliteration :)
90% of the time, you can get a decent manabase without much trial at all.
However, sometimes it just takes more than that. For example, I had to redo my Grites deck land about 4 times to get it right... And it could still use work :P
If tou are running my mono-red standard deck then you are running 18 lands.
As a general rule for beginners i ask them how many land drops do they have to hit to not be a goldeen out of water and then add that number to 20. So green decks can win on one so 20-21 is fine, humans needs two generally so 22 land is great, naya tends to need three mana so 23 is average choice, heartless wants to be able to play solemn if they dont pull heartless so 24 is recommended, tfog runs 24-25 depending on the cost of the kill con. Control that needs to hit the first 6 drops will run between 25-29 low being heavy card draw decks and mana fix/ramps and high for utility lands bombs. Outside of that card draw, mana ramp/fix, and alternate costs can severly edit a decks mana base. Delver is a great example, it needs two or three mana (most the time) to win, but has alternate costs and 20% card draw making it able to play 18-20 land. On top of that it benefits from drawing nonland cards.
Quote from: Kaleo42 on September 20, 2012, 11:55:35 PM
As a general rule for beginners i ask them how many land drops do they have to hit to not be a goldeen out of water and then add that number to 20. So green decks can win on one so 20-21 is fine, humans needs two generally so 22 land is great, naya tends to need three mana so 23 is average choice, heartless wants to be able to play solemn if they dont pull heartless so 24 is recommended, tfog runs 24-25 depending on the cost of the kill con. Control that needs to hit the first 6 drops will run between 25-29 low being heavy card draw decks and mana fix/ramps and high for utility lands bombs. Outside of that card draw, mana ramp/fix, and alternate costs can severly edit a decks mana base. Delver is a great example, it needs two or three mana (most the time) to win, but has alternate costs and 20% card draw making it able to play 18-20 land. On top of that it benefits from drawing nonland cards.
I agree with most of this but in the number of lands control decks need. 24-27 lands is all control decks need. 24 if it is a midrange control deck, and 27 is the max any deck should run. 29 is just to much most times you would just be flooded with mana. Certain ramp decks run 27-28 mainly if its valakut because it uses lands to win. Running up to 29 lands limits the number of spell/creature choses you have.
I barely ever run a 60 card deck so for me it's all about colours and percentage.
For mono it's always between 33-40% and maybe a little more if it's two colours.
I generally run colour fixing/draw/tutor to modify this also. Generally have no issues.
What I've gotten out of this whole thread is "Your mana base is completely dependent on your deck type and how you play that deck.". There's been a lot of numbers suggested, and then immediately countered with a different number, which was then countered with a different number. The thread seems to be spinning it's wheels, but not going anywhere
Part if my original point. You can't easily say "put X land in any given deck".
I do think players tend to err on the side of too few though.
I start at 33% (20/60) and work from there. I do agree with another poster when they said that the lower your overall CMC the less land you need.
Bingo!🎯
Now a mono-colored low-CMC deck (WW, RDW) can get by off a lower mana ratio, but I'm really hesitant to go much below 21/60.
I wont quote is to avoid massive chains, but someone called out my comment on 29 land.
When forbidden alchemy was first released, our current state champ gained his title with a blue black control that ran 29 land. He used {liliana of the veil} and {forbidden alchemy} heavily which made great use of the high land percentage. He never mulliganed (to my knowledge) in that deck and would hit every land drop. A combo of {black sun's zenith} and {blue sun's zenith} proved fatal to his opponents as they couldnt keep creatures on board or get ahead of his amazing card advatage as he hand picked what to have in his hand and tossed land after land until the opponent conceded to a liliana ultimate or a blue sun finish that made them draw their library after it was deminished by {nephelia drownyard}s throughout the game.