Deck Tech - How Many Lands Should I Use In A 60 Card MtG Deck?

Deck Tech - Helping You To Build Stronger Magic The Gathering Play Decks

MtG Mana Mouse Pad

How Many Lands Should You Use For A 60 Card Magic Deck?

Having the proper amount of land in your Magic the Gathering play deck can greatly help to prevent problems with not getting enough land (Mana Screwed), getting too much land (Mana Flooded), or the wrong color lands (Color Starved).  Nothing can fully prevent land / mana issues from happening occasionally, but having a proper land to card ratio for your Magic deck will be a major factor in limiting those mana problems.

How Many Lands To Use In A 60 Card Deck?

The short answer is 24.  If you have no clue what you are doing, go with 24 lands in your 60 card deck.  There are many factors that can figure into adjusting your land ratio, but a common starting place is 24 lands.  You will learn the most about whether you have the proper amount of land and the proper mix, by simply playing with the deck.  As you play your Magic deck, you will better be able to tell whether you have too much, too few, or the wrong mix of lands in your deck.  

Here are some factors to consider when adjusting the amount of land for your deck:

1. Mono or Multicolored Deck? - Is your deck all one color?  If you are running a single color, you can get away with few lands in your deck, because you will never be colored screwed.  On the opposing end, if you are running more than 2 colors, you may want to have a few extra lands in your deck.
2. Mana Fixers - Mana Fixers are cards that allow you to pull out lands out of your deck.  These can include fetch lands (the lands that produce no mana and just tap and sacrifice to go hunt a land and put it into play tapped), spells that allow you to pull lands out of your deck and either into your hand or on the play field, or creatures that give you the ability to pull out lands as well.  The more colors you have in your deck, the more important it becomes to have these mana fixers in your deck to help pull out the colors that you need.
3. Casting Costs Of Your Deck's Cards - If you are running a speed weenie deck that doesn't take much to cast anything in your deck, you can drop the number of lands in your deck significantly.  I've seen decks run plenty efficient on as low as 18 lands, but nothing in the deck cost over 3-4 casting cost and the deck was a single color.  I wouldn't go down below 22 lands without a deck that includes creatures that provide mana as well.  On the other end, if you are running a deck with a lot of high casting cost spells or are using a lot of spells that require 3-4 mana of a specific color within their casting costs, you may want to add extra lands in to lower the risk of getting stuck with a hand of cards you can't even cast.

• So as a rule of thumb I would go with 24 lands in a deck.
• If the deck is all one color, take out 1 land.
• If the majority of your spells are over 3-4 costing cost, add a land or 2 (especially if multi colored and large casting costs).
• If you are playing with multiple creatures that produce mana and have multiple mana fixers, then take out 1-2 lands.
• Never go below 20 in a single color or 22 in a multi-colored deck.
• Playtest your deck with practice hand draws until it starts to feel right.
• Continually adjust your amount of land and color ratio as you play until you feel it is perfect.

**********

Check out The Magic the Gathering Store on Amazon where you can find boosters packs, individual cards, playmats, deck protectors, life counters, Magic clothing, and more!

MtG Deck Tech: How Many Cards Should I Use In My Deck?

MtG Deck Tech 

"How Many Cards Should You Use In A MtG Deck?"

One of the most basic necessities of Magic the Gathering is building your play deck.  Whether you are playing tabletop Magic, Magic 2014 Duels of The Planeswalkers, or Magic on iPad or another tablet, you still have to tweak and tune your play deck to make it competitive.  This starts with the first lesson on Deck Size.

There are 2 minimum deck requirements depending on what format of MtG you are choosing to play.

Constructed Format - In the Constructed format you build your deck from your card pool of cards you own, or in the case of Magic 2014 Duels of the Planeswalkers, from the base deck of cards and the cards you have unlocked for possible addition to your deck.  This format has a minimum requirement of 60 cards per deck.

Sealed / Draft Formats - In the Sealed and Draft formats you are only allowed to use cards from the provided packs allowed for the event.  In the Sealed deck format you only use what you open in your own packs. In draft format you open a pack, pick a single card out, then pass that pack to the player next to you and continue picking one card from each pack passed to you.  There is no Draft format in Magic 2014 Duels of the Planeswalkers, but the 2014 edition of the game did just add the Sealed format to the game.  In both Sealed and Draft formats you have a minimum requirement of 40 cards.

Choosing The Correct Amount Of Cards For Your Magic Deck

Regardless of which format you are playing in, you should always use the bare minimum of cards required to build your play deck.  That means no more than 60 cards for a normal Constructed deck and no more than 40 cards for a Sealed or Draft format deck.  

Why only use the bare minimum of cards for your deck?

You only want to use the bare minimum requirement for MtG deck size because of two simple concepts - Consistency & Probabilty  When building a deck to be competitive, you want the slimmest, most efficient, leanest deck possible so that it will perform consistently.  The more cards you add to a deck, the less efficient and less consistent it will become.  

Having a slim deck means that you have a better chance (or Probability) of drawing a nice opening hand, better chance to prevent getting mana screwed (not having enough lands to cast your spells), and a better chance at drawing what you need when you need it!  The more cards you add into your deck the less probability you will have of drawing what you need, thus your deck will suffer from what I like to call "Deck Bloat".  You deck is bloated when it has more cards than needed to run consistently as your deck probability suffers.

So remember when building or tweaking your deck - Run Slimmer & Run Stronger!

If you are playing on Magic 2013 or Magic 2014 Duels of the Planeswalkers, the game is set up to automatically bloat your deck!  As you unlock cards they are automatically added to your deck, so be aware and slim that deck back down to 60 as you unlock new cards.

**********

Check out The Magic the Gathering Store on Amazon where you can find boosters packs, individual cards, playmats, deck protectors, life counters, Magic clothing, and more!