Magic Land Count and Mana Curve: Build a Deck That Works

Every Magic player has lost a game holding a hand of great spells and two lands. Every player has also lost drawing land after land with nothing to cast. Both feel like bad luck. Some of it is. A lot of it is the deck.

This lesson gives you starting points for how many lands to play and how to shape the rest of the deck around them. They are starting points, not laws. Strong players move them a land or two for good reasons. Start here, and move them when you have a reason too.

Starting land counts

These are the numbers you will see in most beginner guides, and they hold up. A 40-card deck with 17 lands is about 43% land, and a 60-card deck with 24 lands is 40%. The rate is close because the goal is the same: hit a land drop on each of your first three or four turns most of the time.

Commander runs fewer lands as a share of the deck, because Commander decks also play many cards that make mana, like mana rocks and spells that fetch extra lands. Those cards count toward the same job.

When to move the number

• Fewer lands if your deck is fast and cheap. A deck whose most expensive spell costs 3 can often play a land or two fewer.
• More lands if your deck is full of 5- and 6-mana spells, or if a card rewards you for having lands.
• Never fewer just because you flooded last game. One game tells you very little. Ten games tell you something.

What a mana curve is

Your mana curve is how many spells you have at each mana value. Lay them out in columns, cheapest on the left. Players call it a curve because a healthy one rises toward 2 and 3, then falls off.

A common shape for a 40-card deck’s 23 spells:

The 2-mana column matters most. If you have nothing to cast on turn two, an opponent who does gets a free turn of damage or development. Most new players’ decks have too few 2s and too many 5s.

Reading your own curve

Once your deck is laid out, ask three questions.

1. What do I do on turn two? If the answer is often “nothing,” move a 5 or a 6 out for a 2.
2. How many spells cost 5 or more? Five or six expensive spells in 23 is plenty for most decks. They are strong, and they are also the cards stuck in your hand on turn four.
3. Does my top end win the game? Expensive cards should be worth the wait. A 6-mana card that does what a 3-mana card does is a cut.

Splitting your colors

In a two-color deck, split your basic lands by how many colored mana symbols each color has. If your spells show 14 red symbols and 9 green, a 17-land deck might run 10 Mountains and 7 Forests.

Then look at the timing. A cheap card that needs two of the same color, like a 2-mana spell with two red symbols, wants more red sources than the plain count suggests. An expensive card can wait for its color. If your early plays are mostly one color, lean the split that way.

A third color for one or two great cards is called a splash. Splash only for powerful cards that are not needed early, and only with a few extra ways to make that color, such as dual lands you drafted or opened. With basics alone, a splash makes many hands clunky.

Commander’s version of the curve

Commander games are longer and start at 40 life, so the curve can sit a little higher. The job of the early turns is different too: making extra mana and drawing cards matter more than attacking on turn two. The Commander deck lesson at Level 2 builds a full 100-card deck around these ideas.

Checking your work

After any change, play five games before you change it again. Keep a tally of two things: games where you missed a land drop by turn four, and games where you drew more than three extra lands with nothing to spend them on. If one tally is much bigger than the other, move one land. The probability lesson at Level 3 puts real odds on these numbers.