At Level 1 you took starting land counts on trust: 17 in 40, 24 in 60. This lesson shows the odds behind them. Every number here was worked out from the deck sizes with the standard formula for drawing without replacement. You do not need the formula. You need a feel for a handful of results.
Lands in your opening hand
Here is how often a seven-card hand holds each number of lands.
| Lands in hand | 40 cards, 17 lands | 60 cards, 24 lands | 99 cards, 37 lands |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1% | 2% | 3% |
| 1 | 9% | 12% | 15% |
| 2 | 25% | 27% | 29% |
| 3 | 32% | 31% | 29% |
| 4 | 23% | 20% | 17% |
| 5 | 8% | 7% | 6% |
| 6 or 7 | 2% | 1% | 1% |
The 99-card column is a Commander library with 37 lands. Its numbers are slightly worse because the deck leans on ramp cards for the rest of its mana.
Two lessons stand out. Hands with two to five lands come up about 84% to 88% of the time in 40- and 60-card decks. And the zero-or-one-land hand, the classic mulligan, shows up around one hand in ten in limited and one in seven in a 60-card deck.
Hitting your land drops
The chance of having at least as many lands as the turn number, by that turn:
| By turn | 40 cards, 17 lands: play | draw | 60 cards, 24 lands: play | draw |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 94% | 97% | 91% | 95% |
| 3 | 85% | 90% | 79% | 86% |
| 4 | 71% | 80% | 63% | 73% |
| 5 | 55% | 66% | 47% | 57% |
These are odds from the full deck, before you see your hand. Look at what drawing first is worth: about 9 points on the fourth land drop. That is why aggressive decks usually choose to play first, and slow decks with expensive spells sometimes choose to draw.
It also shows why a 40-card deck with 16 lands feels different. With 16, the chance of a fourth land on turn four on the play drops from 71% to 64%. With 18, it rises to 77%. One land moves the needle by about six or seven points.
Finding a key card
The chance of seeing at least one copy of a card in your opening seven, and by your third turn on the draw (ten cards seen):
| Copies | Opening 7 | By turn 3, on the draw |
|---|---|---|
| 4 in 60 | 40% | 53% |
| 3 in 60 | 32% | 43% |
| 2 in 60 | 22% | 31% |
| 1 in 60 | 12% | 17% |
| 1 in 40 | 18% | 25% |
| 1 in 99 | 7% | 10% |
A four-of is in your opening hand less than half the time. If your deck needs one specific card to work, it will often not work. That is why strong decks run redundant cards that do similar jobs, and why Commander decks lean on card draw and search effects.
Mulligan decisions
The current mulligan rule: shuffle, draw a fresh seven, then put one card on the bottom for each mulligan you have taken. In multiplayer games like Commander, the first mulligan is free.
A practical framework for a two-player game:
- Zero or one land: mulligan, unless almost every spell in your hand costs 1 and your deck is built for it.
- Two lands: usually keep, especially on the draw, if you have cheap plays. A two-lander on the draw finds a third land by turn three about 85% of the time with 17 lands in 40, and about 81% with 24 in 60.
- Three or four lands: keep, unless the spells do nothing against what you expect to face.
- Five lands: keep if the two spells are strong. Mulligan if they are weak.
- Six or seven lands: mulligan.
The question is always “is this hand better than an average six?” A going-to-six hand is a real cost, about one card’s worth, but a hand that cannot cast spells costs more.
Using the numbers in a game
Odds also help in the middle of a game. If you need one of your two remaining removal spells and have 25 cards left in your library, each draw finds one 8% of the time. Over your next three draws, it is about 23%. That number tells you whether to play for the draw or play around not finding it.
You will not calculate during games. Learn the three tables above well enough to recall roughly, and you will know when a plan is a long shot and when it is likely. The Carcassonne odds lesson uses the same thinking for tiles, if you like seeing an idea from two angles.
Next lesson
Who's the Beatdown? Finding Your Role in a Magic Game
Next, who's the beatdown: how to tell, game by game, whether your job is to race or to survive, and why getting it wrong loses more games than bad draws.
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