Land/Mana Question
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on March 1, 2020, 12:12 p.m. by Riveyn
In the deck I'm building (it's my first), I keep getting told that I'm lean on mana. I have 37 cards that provide mana, and can have a total of 47 mana available to me if all land and mana producing cards are tapped. In addition to this, I have Mirari's Wake in my deck to almost double the amount of mana on the field. In addition to this, I have cards like As Foretold and Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma to reduce spell cost. I am planning on getting rid of my counter spells, so I will be replacing those spots soon. So my question is: Am I really running a lean mana deck?
Currently, I have cards that provide up to 12 , 14 , 23 , and 10 . (This is before Mirari's Wake comes into the equation; I am not including its ability to any equation so far. Without Mirari's Wake, I would have up to the total list of mana above.)
Estrid go Brách is the deck I'm working on, if you want to see the specific cards.
1x Azorius Chancery - (2)
1x Command Tower - , , or (3)
1x Field of Ruin - (4)
1x Flooded Grove - : or , : , , or (5)
6x Forest - x6 (11)
1x Glacial Fortress - or (12)
1x Hinterland Harbor - or (13)
1x Incubation Druid - : or (if +1/+1 is on Incubation Druid (16)
4x Island - x4 (20)
1x Jungle Basin - (22)
1x Karn's Bastion - (23)
1x Myriad Landscape - (24)
1x New Horizons - : Add two mana of any one color (25)
1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood - (26)
4x Plains - x4 (30)
1x Reliquary Tower - (31)
1x Seaside Citadel - , , or (32)
1x Selesnya Sanctuary - (34)
1x Simic Growth Chamber - (36)
1x Sol Ring - (38)
1x Sunpetal Grove - or (39)
1x Temple of Enlightenment - or (40)
1x Temple of Mystery - or (41)
1x The Great Henge - (43)
1x Treetop Village - (44)
1x Weaver of Currents - : (46)
I miss counted earlier. Up to 46 total mana available
March 1, 2020 1:14 p.m.
LordBlackblade Not too sure about that formula since 31 + a six cmc commander like Aurelia, the Warleader already brings you to 37 then adding 2 for the color identity will bring you to 39 which is way too high for most decks unless you are running a lands matter deck. Another option is let's say Selvala, Heart of the Wilds so it would be 31 + 3 + 1 = 35 which is a decent amount. I just feel like that way for determining the # of lands you want is only good for low cmc commanders or commanders with only 2 colors. I've always felt that 35-37 lands are always the spot I want to hit for my decks and then addling 8-10 or so ways to either grab lands or ramp is a good amount.
March 1, 2020 1:46 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #5
With my decks I go for approximately 47-50 mana cards. This includes lands plus rocks/dorks/land ramp. Since I can not afford the really good rocks this means that it is usually 35 lands and 12-15 other sources.
March 1, 2020 1:57 p.m.
bushido_man96 says... #6
33 is usually too few lands. 37 is a good starting point, and then you can adjust based on mana curve.
March 1, 2020 2:01 p.m.
GhostChieftain says... #7
29-33 lands is right around the area that cEDH decks go. It all depends on your average cmc, so if you are 1.5 to 2.5 avg cmc with a bunch of fast mana (rocks and dorks) then 33 is perfectly fine. With your build I would say you want 35-36 lands.
March 1, 2020 2:09 p.m.
Okay, so I realize that the number of lands is low, but that's why I added Mirari's Wake to the deck. Does that make up for my lack of mana? If I'm reading it correctly, Mirari's Wake will give me an extra 32 mana maximum because for the double mana lands, it would only add one mana of any type that land produced. So in addition to the 46 possible mana available, I would add 32 to that total with Mirari's Wake for a total of 78.
March 1, 2020 3 p.m.
Your list you added has more than just land. Mirari's Wake only cares about land. Does nothing for mana dorks etc. So if you have all 32 lands in play it gives you 67 or 8 mana.
March 1, 2020 3:30 p.m.
Question though, how often to you have 5 mana on turn 5? I tested your deck 10 time (5 turns each time) and only managed 5 mana once.
March 1, 2020 3:34 p.m.
Ghosthunter39 I'm aware of that. That's why in my last post, I only included the 32 land cards in my deck in my equation. I have 5 lands that produce double mana, but with Mirari's Wake that would only produce 5 extra mana when those lands are tapped. So 27 single mana lands are doubled by Mirari's Wake (27x2=54), then the double mana, plus the extra mana from Mirari's Wake (10+5=15). Flooded Grove needs to give double mana, so I lose one there (15-1=14) So far we have (54+14=68), plus the 10 mana from non-land spells (69+10=78). So I should have a grand total of 78 mana possible, yes?
March 1, 2020 3:42 p.m. Edited.
Don't count anything but your lands for your base mana which needs to be somewhere at 35-37 everything else is just ramp and meant to make you go faster is what I think people are trying to say. It doesn't matter if you can make a total of 78 mana in one turn by the end of the game if you can't make 5 land drops by turn 5. After you have your lands in order then count your mana ramp being mana rocks, mana dorks, land enchantments, mana doublers, etc.
Lands and mana ramp are two separate things and shouldn't be mixed together unless you are in some CEDH environment and running the low 0 drop mana rocks like Mox Opal or Lotus Petal
March 1, 2020 4:38 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #13
Maximum mana able to be created in the deck is not how you should evaluate your mana. The two helpful ways to think about it is "X mana by turn X percentage" as Ghosthunter39 put forward. Another way to look at the same thing is "average turn for X mana". I prefer this method.
Like in Xenagos, God of Revels I commonly want to be able to cast my commander on turn 3-4. He has 5 mana on average at turn 3.4 (in my estimation, I haven't actually counted). This means that I will commonly be swinging a big dumb beater on turn 4-5, threatening to eliminate a player on turn 5-6, and threatening to win the game by turn 10. This is about the right speed for my playgroup. If your playgroup is slower than turn 10 wins you might not want to consistently have 5 mana until later in such an aggressive deck.
with your commander being 4 mana and it being a less blatantly aggressive deck, I would say that you want to have 4 mana on turn 3 very consistently. This would allow you to have your commander out and start using her abilities to build your board during the stage of the game that most playgroups are building their boards. Again it may be fine to have your commander come out later if your playgroup is slower, but for the most part I find that 47-50 sources allows you to play nice consistent games without too much flooding or screw.
March 1, 2020 7:28 p.m.
bushido_man96 says... #14
Agree with all the above. Mirari's Wake is ramp, but you can't bank on it as a guaranteed source of mana in a game. It's a target when it comes down, and you may not have it very long. As mentioned above, you need to count your land sources, which should run 35-37, but can run as high as 40 depending on the deck's focus.
If you dont play cEDH, then you probably dont have the rocks to run a cEDH mana base, and probably shouldn't look to them as an example.
March 1, 2020 7:46 p.m.
I’m beginning to understand what everyone is saying now. Thank you for helping a very new and confused player.
March 1, 2020 8:37 p.m.
multimedia says... #16
You're playing Estrid, mana should not be a problem because of the interaction with land auras. Estrid's +2 can untap all enchanted lands to make even more mana with those lands. Fill your deck with land auras which make ramp when you tap the enchanted land.
- Wild Growth
- Fertile Ground
- Overgrowth
- Utopia Sprawl
- Dawn's Reflection
- Market Festival
- Weirding Wood
- Wolfwillow Haven
- Gift of Paradise
Enchanted lands are good with Mirari's Wake. Land auras as ramp with Estrid have interaction with Enchantresses since these auras are enchantments. Being able to draw when casting ramp is nice.
March 2, 2020 4:23 a.m.
I've never seen someone define the amount of Mana in their deck by counting how many pips the cards included could generate if they were in play. It doesn't feel as useful of a measurement as just actual card counts of lands and ramp. I've only ever seen people count individual cards to determine the amount of mana in the deck.
If I measured it your way my elf deck would have like 900 Mana sources....
I like having lots of ramp so I would keep the land count and go up on ramp. And Henge isnt really ramp: it costs 9 mana. Producing mana isnt the only requirement to be ramp, it must also be a spell you cast early. Henge is more of a card draw engine that gives you a 2 mana discount on the first creature you cast each turn, not a ramp spell that sets up the early game.
March 2, 2020 7:17 a.m.
PickleNutz says... #18
Mirari doubles mana sources but shouldn’t be considered a mana source on its own. If you draw it on turn three it has no value to you as a mana source if you have two lands and don’t draw into some. Good rule of thumb I have used that may vary from others is to start at 40 lands, yeah.. 40. Then work down as I add in mana rocks. So put one sol ring in, take one land away down to 39. Add 3 signets, take away 3 lands down to 36. Depending on the deck style and CMC averages you can tweak it after you playtest it a few times. The way I have been doing it almost always guarantees good land draws or mana sources under 3 cmc. Cards greater than a 3 cmc for mana are half values in my formula. So something like gauntlet of power or Mirari is .5 mana and takes two for me to remove one land. They really don’t help much without setup like a fetch and enough available mana to play. At 32 lands and 1 true rock you’re at a dangerous position where you might average 4 or 5 mana after 8 turns. My formula I can usually output 10+ mana on turn 8 between rocks and lands. Good luck.
LordBlackblade says... #2
I found a formula that I really like for land number. It has given me pretty solid results, and no matter how you slice it, I believe it to be a solid starting point.
The formula is 31 + Commander's CMC + # of colors in commander's identity.
For your deck it would be 31 + 4 + 3 = 38 lands.
After that, the rule of thumb is around 10 non-land mana sources.
Again, these are general guidelines, not hard and fast rules.
March 1, 2020 12:46 p.m.