How many overall lands in an EDH deck?

[WWolfe]

I thought there was previously a discussion of this, but I went back about 7 pages and couldn't find it, so...

In reviewing decks on the site, I'm noticing more and more decks running 31-33 lands. Some have low mana curves, some don't. Some seem fairly competitive, some are clearly not.

What do you think is the reason for this recent decrease in lands per deck?

[Soren841]

Solid 27 lands

[Morganator 2.0]

I don't have time right now to run an in-depth analysis (stay tuned!) but I can make some predictions.

• Inexperience: Newer players might think it's a good idea.
• Overexperience: Competitive commander tends to use that many lands, because the ramp packages of these decks are more powerful.
• EDHREC: if it's your first time building a certain commander, it's not a bad idea to go with the average number of lands.

It would help if I had a link to the decks you've seen (if you don't want to call these people out, send the list as a private message).

[Soren841]

35 is a good casual number. For cEDH we start at 30 and go up or down. Usually 28-32

[Judaspriester]

I usually run ~35 now, usually +/-1. But I think this depends on the mana curve and other options to get mana/lands.

[ApothecaryGeist]

I play casual games.  I want to be able to cast the spells in my deck, and yet still have cards that do cool things in my decks.

I usually run 33-35 lands in a mono-color deck;
34-36 lands in a two-color deck;
35-37 lands in a tri-color deck
I've only ever made one deck that was 4 colors.  It had 37 lands.
I have yet to make a 5-color Commander deck.

That is where I start when I build the decks.  I modify after playtesting.
I run ample ramp - around 10 non-land mana sources - in every deck.

Happy Brewing!

[WWolfe]

I start around 35 and adjust after play-testing. Most of mine stay in the 34-37 range while running 7-10 ramp sources. However I have had decks with as few as 31 lands and one that had 44 but there were specific reasons for it (44 in Omnath, 31 in Rishkar).

[robort]

I start with previous suggestions from Command Zone and I forget the other one but it is normally

37-40 Lands/10 Mana rocks/Ramp making that 50% or close to 50% of my deck for the other one(that I forgot)
38 Lands 10 rocks/ramp with the command zone suggestion.

I then adjust accordingly to how/what the deck is supposed to be and do. I then check the avg mana drop for the deck and also adjust accordingly. Nothing to fancy but does the trick for me anyway.

[Morganator 2.0]

Do you know what my favorite thing about Deckstats is? The stats.

First, lets see what EDHREC has to say about the ideal number of lands.

Top 10 commanders (this week):

• Teysa Karlov, 36 lands
• Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, 37 lands
• Lord Windgrace, 42 lands
• Muldrotha, the Gravetide, 37 lands
• Edgar Markov, 36 lands
• Niv-Mizzet, Parun, 37 lands
• Animar, Soul of Elements, 35 lands
• Aminatou, the Fateshifter, 37 lands
• Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow, 36 lands
• Meren of Clan Nel Toth, 36 lands

Side Note: Teysa's entry is broken as hell, and says everyone uses 99 lands.

So across the board, decks hover around 36 lands, independent of color. I kinda expected green decks to use less. Lord Windgrace sticks out like a sore thumb, but it makes sense why he has an abnormal number of lands. Even the decks that were posted recently hover around these numbers.

So far, it doesn't look like people are starting to use less. Maybe WWolfe was hallucinating again. Dru^gs are _fun!

Back to the analysis, let's look at some of the decks that were recently posted to forums on Deckstats.

Nin and Brudiclad take over the world: 37 lands
Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund: 38 lands
Wizard Control: 34 lands
Teysa Control: 38 lands
Dimir Mill: 35 lands
Sapling of Colfenor (Creatures only): 37 lands
Karametra Battle-Tested: 33 lands
Yeva Draw-Grow combo:31 lands
Shalai angel tribal deck: 38 lands
Vannifar Hulk: 30 lands
Commander: Marwyn: 35 lands
windgrace lands: 42 lands
I Am One With the Force, the Force is With Me: 35 lands
Golgari - Glissa, the Traitor - Black Mold: 33 lands
Adaptive Enchantments Tune-up: 39 lands

Now this is interesting. The average rests at 35.53 lands, but we see that in some cases, there are decks that are using less lands. The Glissa deck has no mana ramp, but but does have a low mana curve. Vannifar and Yeva both have lots of mana ramp, and were made for competitive commander.

As far as I can tell, there isn't a shift in the number of lands in decks, but when people do use less lands, it is due to low mana curves and/or heavy mana ramp.

[ApothecaryGeist]

Drugs are fun!

Stats are fun too.  But you have to know how to read them.

If we're looking at an average number of lands per deck (lets call that N) ... Then that means that for every deck running N+3 lands, there is a deck running N-3 lands.  The same is true for every number.  (For each deck running N+X lands, there is a deck running N-X lands.)  This statistic incorporates new players playing with lots of lands and seasoned players playing with a few lands. And everyone in between.

Statistically speaking, "average" does not mean "ideal".

As far as I can tell, there isn't a shift in the number of lands in decks,

A shift from what?  I'm not sure what you're comparing to nor what point your trying to make with this statement.

Happy Statistics!
 


 

[Soren841]

He means from EDHREC to here I'm assuming. Also, when deckbuilding, the average is probably an ideal start. Most people at N+/-X start around N and it changes with tuning. Land based decks should likely be excluded because they are outliers to this rule.

[Morganator 2.0]

Yeah, I suck at concluding statements. I also said "ideal" when I meant to say "average". Drugs are not fun.

Let me try again.

EDHREC tends to have the majority of decks in the 36-37 range for number of lands. This is consistent across almost all commanders, even newer ones like Teysa Karlov and Aminatou the Fateshifter. After much searching, only a few commanders deviated from this (Notably, Edric, Spymaster of Trest, Marwyn the Nurturer, Seton, Krosan Protector, and Ezuri, Renegade Leader were at 34 lands). The great thing about EDHREC is it is a huge database across multiple websites, so it gives a large sample size to work with. So decks tend to hover around the 36-37 lands mark.

Now, WWolfe said:

In reviewing decks on the site, I'm noticing more and more decks running 31-33 lands. Some have low mana curves, some don't. Some seem fairly competitive, some are clearly not.

What do you think is the reason for this recent decrease in lands per deck?

So I'm first checking to see if there has been a recent change. From the decks popular on forums right now (the ones that likely would have been viewed) there are only two decks that are in the 31-33 land range, and one that goes to 30 lands. While these are recent decks that use less lands, these outliers always exist (as do ones like Lord Windgrace). Furthermore, other decks that were posted this week (I looked in-depth at the top 10 commanders on EDHREC) also hover around the commander's average. So there hasn't been any significant shift to less lands in decks.

Then I look at reasons why decks would use less lands. Generally, decks with high mana ramp and a low mana curve use less lands, which is a surprise to no one. If you have lots of mana ramp, you can cast bigger spells (which is what Marwyn, the Nurturer does). If your deck has a low mana curve, you can use less lands (Edric, Spymaster of Trest).

[Soren841]

You forgot to mention that you can run less lands if the RNG gods hate you and you still draw hands with 4 lands while on 27 lands..

[WWolfe]

Maybe it was just a one day aberration from one person entering a lot of their decks. Idk, but the vast majority of lands that day or two I was looking at decks for random ideas the vast majority of decks had around 32 lands. 

I do remember one of them was a Skullbriar deck with 30 lands, very little ramp (Sol Ring & maybe a Signet with no creature or spell ramp), & a mana curve around 3.4 (which was somewhat distorted because it had several X-cost cards in it). Which by EDHRec is low, their average Skullbriar deck has 35 lands.

ETA- edhrec stat

[Judaspriester]

You forgot to mention that you can run less lands if the RNG gods hate you and you still draw hands with 4 lands while on 27 lands..

8% chance for that, assuming you're shuffling right. 
thats not a that big chance, but no mathematical anomaly.