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.

I'm going to continue to advocate for 40 lands as a starting point in my regular columns, but I'd like to take a deeper dive into land counts for Commander here. We're going to start with some hard numbers (brought to us by Frank Karsten, because despite his description of "basic" I have no idea what hypergeometric formulas are - hey, I'm a musician, not a mathematician!), then talk about reasons why we might adjust those numbers some based on goals, play styles, and desires. Hopefully, by the end, you'll have a better sense of how many lands you should run, based on your own deck and personality. Ready? Let's do this.

Frank's article is five years old now, but fortunately for us, the numbers don't change. I highly recommend reading his article, and some of the discussion below relies on you looking at it. It's quite mathy, but he goes into a great deal of detail and explains his rationale, while not ignoring the realities of the game (there are one-mana Cycling cards, cards that fetch lands, cards that tap to add mana which aren't lands, and more.). The most important factors for us to note, however, are:

1. His numbers are based on 60-card decks.
2. He shows probabilities for land drops based on a spread of the most common land counts. In other words, he's not talking about decks with one or zero lands or decks with 42 lands. Specifically, he works from about 18 out of 60 to 27 out of 60. (His first chart is 17 - 28, but the last chart of the article is the more valuable one, I think, and that one goes 18 - 27.)
3. He gives us a formula to convert for Commander decks, which I will be using throughout this article. The formula is X*99/60, where X is the number of lands in a 60-card deck. As an example, if you have 24 lands in your 60-card deck, you have 24*99/60, which equals 39.6, which rounds up to 40.

He goes into some detail about how he expects you to Mulligan based on how many lands you have in your opening hand. He also acknowledges the conversion for Commander isn't perfect, but close enough.

His first chart demonstrates the probability of hitting your land drops up to turn five (which means you play a land on each of the first five turns of the game) based on how many lands you have in your deck. Note there are two numbers; the first is if you're on the draw, the second if you're on the play. In Commander, we're always on the draw, so I'll only refer to the first number. With 18 lands in a 60-card deck, the probability of hitting your second land drop is 97.7%, and hitting your fifth 33.8%. The equivalent land count in Commander is 30 lands, so if you're running 30 lands, you'll only hit your fifth land drop about one out of every three games. You'll hit your fourth a little more than half the time.

Look what happens if you up your Commander land count to 40, or 24 in a 60-card deck. Your chances of hitting your first two drops are almost perfect - 99.8% - and your chances of hitting your fifth go up to over three out of five, or 63.8%.

But the last chart is where the rubber really meets the road. He goes through and describes what kind of deck should play what amount of land. A deck with 18 lands, or 30 in Commander, should need only "1 or 2 lands to function, and you have no 3-drops in your deck" (emphasis mine). How many Commander decks do you see with no 3-drops? With 24 lands, or 40 in Commander, you "need 3 lands on turn three in most games; 4 lands by turn four is nice but not necessary." (His percentages were based on being on the play.) You'll hit that fourth land drop 4 out of 5 times. Now look what he says about 27 lands, or 44.5 in Commander: "You need your 4th land drop to function and regularly want to hit your 5th." How many of you have Commanders which cost four or more? How many of you need that Commander for your deck to function well?

The first chart's final column is also interesting. It's the chance you "mana flood," which Frank describes as "having drawn 8 lands by turn seven when you're on the draw." By turn seven you've seen 15 cards, so this is the chance more than half of the cards you've seen are lands. In Commander, with 30 lands, that chance is barely there - 1.9%. With 40 lands, it's much higher - 12.2%. And with 45 lands, it's a whopping 22.6%, which means you'll be flooding once every four or five games!

But now let's move away from the math (thanks, Frank!) and talk about some reasons why we might make the choices we make. Allow me, if you will, to lay out my 40-land rule.

The first is mana is always useful and, generally speaking, the player who spends the most mana is most likely to win the game. That means if you're playing your lands on time, you have more resources to cast more spells, and you're more likely to come out a winner. Additionally, a land drop is a free action which can't be countered; we should take advantage of those when we can. Finally, the most common Mana Value in the decks I build is three, which means if I don't get to three mana, I probably can't really play Magic. (Mathematicians call that number the mode.) With 40 lands, the chance I'll hit my third land drop on turn three is 93.5%, which means in nine out of ten games, I'm going to be able to play some stuff and be involved. Four out of five games I'll hit my fourth and stay on curve. I also like three-mana rocks and land fetch spells, because they tend to be more versatile; I'd rather have a Magnifying Glass than an Arcane Signet most of the time, because the Glass stays useful later in the game when I have more mana. Hitting my third drop increases the likelihood of me actually jumping ahead on mana, rather than just missing a land drop and staying at parity.

Because of the higher (about one out of every nine games) chance of flooding, I build my decks assuming I'll hit my drops to turn four or five (I also tend to build with a lot of ramp) and will reliably have a lot of mana, especially going into the late game. So, I build in ways to use that mana, whether it's activated abilities of Creatures or Artifacts or X spells to use more mana as the game goes on. Magnifying Glass is a great example; if I have extra mana, I can use it to make or pop a Clue and draw an extra card. Abilities on Lands are great for this, too, whether activated like Rogue's Passage or Creeping Tar Pit, or modal like Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge. Got extra mana? That Kessig Wolf Run is calling your name.

But all this comes from my aim as a player. 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. I hate being mana screwed, and I want to know I can play the spells I put into my deck. So, I start every deck at 40 Lands (and these days, frequently, 10 mana ramp spells for a total of 50% mana in my decks). I also can't remember the last time I was mana screwed.

On the other hand, my friend and fellow Commander writer on this very site, Stephen Johnson, is a player and deck-builder I really admire. He plays with players who are generally much more competitive than my group (often playing in cEDH games) and acknowledges he would much rather be mana screwed than mana flooded. Therefore, he tends to build with around 37 Lands, which puts him somewhere between 22 and 23 on Frank's charts. Frank says that's for Aggro decks, but Stephen often builds non-Aggro decks with more expensive Commanders and Control-style builds. But he'd rather run more action and run the risk of being mana screwed than run fewer fun cards and more land and get flooded. That's his personality.

I've played against people who wear headphones while they play to avoid distractions because they're trying as hard as they can to win as efficiently as possible. I've played against people who paid to play in a tournament just so they could play some goofy combo which only works one out of every ten games. Each one of those players is going to choose their Land count differently: the game-winner is going to choose the Land count which optimizes their chance of excellent play. The goofball will run whatever they feel like, because the chaos is part of the fun of the game.

The answer to the question of how many lands you should run isn't really as absolute as my admonition to run 40 lands: instead, it depends. Would you rather be mana screwed or mana flooded? Do you mind if your deck occasionally just doesn't let you play? Are you willing to put in some mana sinks so you have stuff to do with extra mana should you flood? Is your Commander a 3-drop or a 7-drop? All of these factors matter, and we haven't even talked about ramp!

But I have some personal thoughts, too. I think the answer for a beginner is simple: 40. Put 40 lands in your deck after you've chosen your Commander, and build with only 59 slots. If you're a new player, you need to play and be relevant to learn and get better, and you'll only do that if you can actually cast your spells. If you're busy never casting your Commander because you never get to five mana, you'll never learn how your Commander interacts with a pod. You'll get a better sense of whether to adjust up or down based on your personality as you play more.

I think Commander players, at least non-cEDH ones, tend to be more willing to embrace chaos or make risky plays than competitive players. Because Commander games are inherently casual, with little more than bragging rights on the line, you can afford to take some risks with your deck. All that happens if you don't get enough mana is you have a bad game; you still get to shuffle up for the next one, and you didn't lose your shot at a prize or a seat at the top table or anything. I think that explains the seeming disconnect between articles by Commander authors which state, clearly (often citing Frank Karsten's work): Commander players aren't running enough lands, and they need to work to put more lands in their decks - and the next week they're right back to building with 37 lands. They're not wrong about either point. If they want to win more, they'd run more Land, hit more drops, spend more mana, cast more spells, and win more games. But they're willing to take the risk of not hitting all their drops because the deck is more fun with a few extra action cards and nothing bad happens if they mana screw.

One last thought. Right before his Conclusion, Frank talks about how for the last three Pro Tours (at the time in 2017), all the decks that won ran more lands than the average. A deck with an average Mana Value of 2 ran 24 and one with an average of 2.6 ran 26! He points out the Pro Tour winners didn't skimp on their land counts. He finishes with this sentence: "Take that as an indication when you're in doubt, you're probably better off adding that extra land instead of that extra spell to your deck."

I'm going to continue to advocate for 40 lands, because I feel being relevant in the game and having a deck which reliably casts its spells is superior to the alternative. But my position comes with a cost. I play fewer spells than other decks. I have fewer explosive starts, because I'm more likely to draw a 4-mana version of a spell with an Activated Ability I can use later than the 2-mana version which would leap me ahead if I got lucky. And I do get flooded sometimes; not every Commander has an Activated Ability, and sometimes I'm just going to draw nothing but land. Players running fewer lands are playing a high risk/high reward game, and sometimes with high risk you're going to lose your gamble. Only you can decide what concessions you're willing to make.

I hope this has been helpful to some of you. I'd love to hear from you in the comments. Thoughts? Observations? Why do you run the land count you run? Also, I'd really like to hear how you feel about this type of article: would you like more content like this, with general guidelines and theory rather than decklists and specific Commanders? Should I do one about mana rocks next? (I might have to get Frank to do more math for me if I'm going to do that!)

Thanks for reading.