How many Lands in a Commander deck in MTG?

In Magic: The Gathering, lands are essential for every deck. You can’t play your spells without lands to produce mana with after all. In constructed formats, lands are usually played at 24 copies, but in Commander, that is not the case. In the Commander format, there are 99 cards in your deck and one commander you can play at any point. Because of the larger deck sizes, the amount of lands you should be playing in your Commander deck differs from constructed 60-card formats and you play much more land in Commander decks. It’s a good idea to consider how many lands you have in the best precon Commander decks so you can upgrade accordingly.

The amount of lands you play is a bit different depending on what your commander is. This is how many lands you should play in a Commander deck in Magic: The Gathering.

How many Lands to play in Commander?

The number of lands you should play in a Commander deck generally ranges from the 33 to 37 range. The exact number you should be playing depends on a few factors. For starters, whether or not your deck can ramp.

Decks running green have access to ramp cards that let you search your library directly for lands and put them onto the battlefield. It is the colour that has the highest density of ramp cards that can search for both basic lands and any lands with the Forest typing to fetch duals as well. White has a few ramp cards, but much less while black, blue, and red don’t have access to such spells.

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The Best Ramp Spells:

Ramp spells come in many variations, but the best ones are the ones that cost two or less mana. Ones that cost three mana are also commonly played in decks that need a lot of mana. The most played ramp spells are Cultivate, Rampant Growth, Kodama’s Reach, Nature’s Lore, and Three Visits in green. Gift Of Estates and Land Tax are ramp spells available in white.

Consider Mana Dorks when choosing how many lands belong in your Commander decks

There is another factor when determining the right amount of lands in your deck, and that is based on how many mana dorks your deck runs. Mana dorks are creatures (usually one-drops) that can tap themselves to add a mana to your mana pool. These help you essentially have an extra land to deal with since that’s what they act as. 

There are mana dorks for decks of every colour, though as with ramp spells green is the one with the most. For example, Llanowar Elves, Fyndhorn Elves, and Elvish Mystic are all identical. While every colour can play mana dorks, most only have access to a select few that are worth playing. 

How many Mana Rocks should you play in Commander?

The last factor to consider when determining the number of lands you play is how many Mana Rocks your deck plays. Mana rocks are artifacts (usually colourless) that can be tapped to any mana. In Commander, most mana rocks that cost more than two mana aren’t worth playing, with minor exceptions for cards like Commander’s Sphere. 

Decks that cannot ramp with spells tend to go high on the mana rock count. These can give you access to more mana quickly, and are a vital part of Commander decks as they essentially act as a land once they untap. 

However, as with every spell, both mana rocks and mana dorks still need mana to cast them. You can’t rely on just opening with the right amount of lands in your hand, so you still need an amount to ensure lands are in your opening hand.

How many Basic Lands belong in a Commander deck?

For decks that play a lot of ramp and mana dorks, having 33-34 lands is a good number. This gives you a high chance to open with lands when the game starts and lets you play out your mana dorks and mana rocks to keep ramping up your available mana while drawing into more lands. This also lets you cast your ramp spells to get even more lands out directly from your library. 

However, if your deck doesn’t let you play too many ramp spells or mana dorks, you will want to compensate by playing a higher density of lands. 35-38 is the magic number in these cases, which ensures you can keep drawing lands so you can play your bigger spells. 

Regardless of whether you’re playing with ramp or not, the mana rocks in your deck can help compensate for the lack of this ability. Decks that don’t have access to green benefit from a higher mana rock count so they have access to excess mana to cast their higher cost spells. 

For any Commander deck, you never want to go under 33 lands, and that can be stretching it unless your deck is all about ramping such as if you’re playing with a Tatyova deck where you’ll half a quarter of your deck ramping. Otherwise, 34 is the sweet spot for decks with a lot of ramp. Otherwise, 35 is a good amount for your deck to play if you have a lower casting curve, otherwise, you will want to push up to 36.

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That is how many lands you should play in a Commander deck in Magic: The Gathering. There are a lot of minor nuances to the total amount of land you should be playing, both based on how high your mana curve is and what colours your commander gives you access to. Decks that have green available to them can get away with running a lower amount of land, while others without green can struggle with lower land counts so you should take that into account when deciding how many lands to put into your decks. Ultimately, you want 34 on the lower side of mana curves and 36 if you have a lot of high-mana costing spells. Remember, when deciding what amount of land you want, take into account how many mana dorks and mana rocks you are playing and factor those in when you want to go on the higher or lower side of things. Some decks play better with fewer lands while others are better with more, so experiment with your land count with your Commander decks to find the right number for you.