Greetings. Today I wanted to take a step outside my normal realm and do a follow up to my "How Many Lands Should You Run?" article from last summer. One of the great advantages of that article is it was based on Frank Karsten's excellent work showing how often we'd hit our drops to what turn based on how many Lands we're running. That was really useful, and easily able to scale up to 100 card Commander decks. (Quick answer: it's still 40.)

Frank came back and actually talked about how many Lands to run in Commander, and in his normal way, he broke it down to some general assumptions and came up with a few basic answers. (Quick answer: 42 + Sol Ring for a 2-mana Commander, 38 + Sol Ring and 9 other rocks for a 6-mana Commander.) He also considered an assumed curve, with a set number of 2-, 3-, and 4- drops and the like. Read his article; it's worth your time.

However, Frank's a competitive player who's sharing his work through that lens. His article includes the quote "it appears that the two, three and four-mana slots are where the majority of your spells should be." Frank is right, if what you're looking to do is optimize your curve and minimize variation in gameplay, which is precisely what competitive players want to do. In my experience, most Commander players want to win, but they're not normally looking to do it through optimization, but rather through some combination of fellowship, enjoyment, and style. If all I wanted to do was win, I'd just play my Narset, Enlightened Master deck every game... and no one would want to play with me very much. I like winning, sure, but I also like playing different styles, using different strategies, and showing off different aspects of my deck-building. Can I build a deck that wins for under $20? Can I turn the entire Battlefield into a petting zoo? Does every Commander with Partner need a partner? The point is: we're not always just trying to optimize our decks.

All of this is to say I believe we need a broader lens than optimization when considering how we get our mana. If we're going to spend time flipping through our collections, saving pennies to order the cards we need, finding the exact alt-art version of our Commander, choosing the correct color of sleeves, and organizing a night with multiple people in the same place to play a game, it's worth more than a single calculation to figure out how much mana we need, and how much ramp we should run. 40 Lands really is a good baseline (and it turns out Sam Black agrees with me) but sometimes, we need to adjust. And a whole bunch of factors - not just the cost of our Commander - will affect how much ramp we need.

Tell me the answer!

As with most things in this format, it's not simple. We have a ton of options, to begin with. Let's start with a ground rule, though:

For "Ramp", I'm talking about a spell which actually increases the amount of mana we have access to. Obviously, it's more than getting lands. Put simply, if we have access to three mana on turn two, we're one ahead. If it doesn't give us more mana than we would otherwise have if we'd already been hitting our Land drops, it's not ramp. (Note that Borderland Ranger and other spells which put Lands in our hand have value - they can make certain we hit our drops, which is a valuable thing. So, no shade to Land Tax. It's just not "ramp".)

Now, we can break ramp into three primary categories.

1. Mana Rocks. These are the most common. Most often they are colorless Artifacts, though occasionally (and recently) we've started seeing examples with a color identity. Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Cursed Mirror, and Dreamstone Hedron are all examples, all with different effects and uses.
2. Mana Dorks. These are Creatures which tap for mana. Llanowar Elves is the classic, and Birds of Paradise are similarly old and venerable. However, we've got a ton now, like the excellent Noble Hierarch (and Ignoble Hierarch). Druid of the Anima and Drumhunter are a couple of my favorites. Many of these are fast because they come out on turn one, but they're fragile, because most Commander games will see at least one Wrath of God or similar.
3. Land Fetch. A spell which takes a Land out of your Library and puts it directly on to the Battlefield. (Note this requires a net mana gain: Harrow requires a Land sacrificed but nets us a gain of one Land, but if something sacs a Land and only puts one on the 'field, it doesn't count.) Rampant Growth is great: fetch a Basic Land, put it on the Battlefield. Next turn we untap with an extra Land. I'm a bigger fan of Cultivate and Kodama's Reach; they cost more but guarantee a ramp and a drop next turn. Burnished Hart is a great one available to every color. Navigation Orb is new, not a Creature, but a similar effect.

In most cases, I will prioritize Land Fetch first (when available), then Mana Rocks, then Mana Dorks. Land Fetch not only accelerates how much Land I have access to early, it also pulls Lands from my deck so I'm more likely to draw action later in the game; additionally, in casual EDH, broad Land destruction is pretty rare, so I'm very likely to keep that mana through the entire game.

(There are corner cases. Treasures are a real thing, and a valid strategy. Also, what about huge ramp spells like Boundless Realms? I'm going to limit this discussion to permanent, low-cost methods of ramping; a deck that's trying to get to five mana faster than everyone else isn't doing it with Boundless Realms. And while doing it with Treasures is certainly possible, Treasures won't let you recast that same Commander for seven if it dies right away.)

One problem is the vast majority of Land Fetch is limited to Green, which leaves us with Mana Rocks. If our deck doesn't include Green, but we have some reason to ramp, we'll almost certainly need to go with Rocks. These come in a variety of flavors and sizes; Sol Ring is the most common, of course, and actually nets us mana the turn it comes into play. Arcane Signet is a regular sight now, as well, because it is cheap and provides mana fixing in addition to extra mana. But the other Signets have been around a while, and at three mana the options open up quite a lot. Everflowing Chalice is great in any deck with a Proliferate subtheme. Hedron Archive is a much more expensive Sol Ring which can be cashed in for extra cards later in the game. The new Stonespeaker Crystal can help control opponants' graveyards. There's a lot of variety.

Mana Dorks, much like Fetch, are primarily limited to Green; they are, however, a particular option and worth keeping in mind. Some of them offer specific fixing (or general fixing, like Birds of Paradise). They can also be great options for really fast ramp for a combo deck that just needs to hit a ton of mana early, especially if you're on a budget because a lot of them are really cheap. Finally, if you have some way of untapping a bunch of Creatures, they can be used multiple times, which has its own value. Plus, they're a solid choice if you need a bunch of Creatures for some other reason.

There are a few other random things. One of my favorites is the Crypt Ghast thing, where you make all your lands tap for more than they should, or the Cabal Coffers thing, where you have some way of generating a bunch of mana using some specific combination of cards. We'll ignore them for the purposes of this article, but keep them in mind: a Black deck looking to be lethal and unafraid of Demonic Tutor should probably run Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers for that massive Exsaguinate.

Seriously, just tell me how many.

Okay, okay. In my Top Five Deck-Building Tips for Beginners I said one should build with 40 Lands, then include 8 - 10 slots for ramp, based on the cost of the Commander. I stand by that and actually still use that metric to this day when building.

...But, we can think about that a bit more deeply. That's a starting point. If we want to be more specific, we need to think about more than just our Commander: specifically, what is our deck trying to do, how does our deck function, and what is the curve we've got?

Does your deck need to jump ahead on mana in order to function properly and attempt to do what you want it to do? If you intend to win with eight-mana monsters, the answer is almost certainly yes; you don't want to start casting those big dudes on turn eight or you'll be hopelessly behind. Drop an 8-drop on turn five, though, and people will notice.

If your deck is trying to cast as many X spells as possible every turn, and wants X to be as much as possible, we probably want to prioritize ramp more highly than just 8 or 10 spells - in fact, I can see running 60 mana sources, like this Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire deck. Vaev isn't an X-spell deck, but it wants the commander out as soon as possible and to have a lot of mana every turn.

If your deck is primarily 1- and 2-drops, perhaps you don't need any ramp at all (consider not even playing Sol Ring!); make sure you run enough Lands to hit your drops and you'll be fine. You'd rather draw a 2-drop which changes the board state than a mana rock.

Additionally, if your deck has a lot of card draw or even just manipulation (your Commander Scrys or draws, for example, or you're Mono-Blue with a ton of cantrips and Ponder-style effects), you can adjust your number. That much draw and seeing that many cards means you'll pull the Lands you need to hit your drops... so you might be able to sit back on the ramp a bit if you have no reason to hurry. Would you rather play a cantrip right before you take your turn or leave no mana up because you cast a Network Terminal?

Does your deck reliably manipulate the top of its library (via draw, Scry, Surveil, or some other method) to help smooth your draws so you hit the Lands and other mana sources you need? (As an aside to that, do you have the discipline to dump the fun card to make sure you keep the Mana Rock?) If so, perhaps fewer (ramp spells, not Lands) are warranted. On the other hand, maybe you draw a ton of cards but also play 8-drop monsters, in which case you probably still want more ramp spells!

My point is this: you have to think about it in the context of your own deck. Not every deck needs to ramp. A permission deck which looks to turtle up is probably okay with just hitting its drops and drawing cards while it hides behind its walls; that deck doesn't need to ramp at all, just run enough Lands to keep drawing and playing them, counter stuff that would kill you, and wait till your win-con comes online. Other decks need to ramp a lot, all the time, every turn if possible. If so, run more, and make sure you're using that mana.

Dude. How many should I run.

As with Lands, I'll give a starting point: 8 - 10. If you're building your first Commander deck, add in 8 - 10 depending on your Commander cost. You can always adjust later, and lean into ramp which helps you later by drawing you cards or otherwise helping your strategy.

After that, think about if the mana helps your strategy and goals or not, and always lean into more is better. Like with Lands, more mana is likely to help you win.

I'll finish up with a couple more hot takes.

1. Don't auto-include Sol Ring. Sol Ring is very, very good. It's responsible for many explosive starts, which is why it's often an auto-include, and (presumably) why Frank included it but no additional ramp when doing the math on his Lands count. I say to him (and the rest of you): why? If your deck doesn't need to ramp, why run this one random ramp spell? If your deck doesn't need the extra mana, it's a dead spell literally anywhere other than the top eight cards of your deck after you've shuffled and before you've drawn. On the other hand, if your deck does need the mana, run Sol Ring, sure... but also run the rest of the ramp you need so your deck functions well. If Sol Ring is your only ramp spell, ask yourself if the less than 10% chance of the explosive start it gives you is worth the 90% of the time it'll be mostly dead. Other authors on this site argue persuasively that Sol Ring is a feel bad card for the table, too.
2. Ramp spells that do more are often better. You'll read that Arcane Signet is better than Commander's Sphere, because Arcane Signet is cheaper. That is sometimes true, but I encourage you to think past just what you read to what your deck is actually doing. Why are you ramping? Are you ramping because you want your Commander to come out early? If so, how much does your Commander cost? If it's three, ramping on turns two or three doesn't make you faster. If it's five mana, you can ramp on turn two or three and get the same effect. If it's 4 mana, then you have to ramp on turn two (or one, I suppose) to cast on turn three.

However, that Commander's Sphere has use once you no longer need the mana it provides. The fact it turns into a card is huge, and Arcane Signet doesn't do that. Bonder's Ornament helps you refill your hand when you have too much mana. Network Terminal loots. And consider Land Fetch spells - Rampant Growth saves you one mana but only gets you one Land. Cultivate, for one mana more, not only ramps you but guarantees your next drop. A three-Land hand with Cultivate will hit drops to five mana!

So occasionally you need to lean into two-mana (and cheaper) ramp, because of what your deck is doing. But often you don't, and in a game that lasts as long as Commander, it's worth considering better value at a higher price.

One final note: ramp is a thing decks do because they need to get mana faster. Ramp is not a replacement for an appropriate Land count. Good luck!

Thanks for reading.