How Many Lands Should a Commander Deck Run?
Run 38 to 42 lands in a typical casual Commander deck. Go lower with a cheap curve and lots of card draw, higher with a big commander or heavy ramp. The real reason is your opening hand: below 40 lands, a two-land keep is usually a mulligan.
Of 14,597 real opening hands kept 2 to 4 lands.
Longer than the classic "turn 7" assumption, so you draw more cards to find lands.
Average lands in a kept opening hand across tracked Playgroup Live games.
Land calculator
Set your deck size and land count to see your opening-hand consistency and your odds of hitting land drops. The math is hypergeometric, the same probabilities used to build a manabase.
Opening-hand odds assume a 7-card hand. The "by turn" odds assume you are on the play, drawing one card per turn. Extra card draw improves every number.
Most decks want 38 to 42 lands
The single biggest job of your manabase is giving you a keepable opening hand and a land drop every turn for the first few turns. The hypergeometric math peaks for a 2 to 4 land opener at around 42 lands in a 99-card Commander deck, the same figure Frank Karsten's manabase research lands on. Most casual decks run 38 to 40 because they trade a little consistency for more spells.
Count total mana sources, not just lands. Cheap ramp and mana rocks help, but only if you also hit your land drops. A two-mana rock on a missed land drop is just paying two mana for the land you skipped. Treat ramp as a supplement on top of roughly 36 or more real lands, not a replacement for them.
Adjust for your commander and curve
| Deck type | Lands |
|---|---|
| Low curve, lots of card draw | 36-38 |
| Typical midrange deck | 38-40 |
| High curve or a big commander | 40-44 |
| Heavy ramp and landfall | 38-42 |
| Five-color or heavy fixing | 38-40 |
What real games show
Most land-count advice is pure theory. These numbers are ours, measured from games tracked on Playgroup, so you can see what players actually keep and how long games actually run, not just what the math predicts. As far as we know, no one else publishes opening-hand land data at this scale.
Source: Playgroup. 14,597 opening hands from Playgroup Live games, plus 1,306,105 finished games for mulligan and length data. We count the lands in each kept opening hand and the mulligans and round count of every finished game. Updated 28 Jun 2026.
14,597 Playgroup Live opening hands. Most players keep 3 lands.
1,306,105 tracked games. Most keep their first seven.
Rounds per finished game. The long tail means more draw steps to find lands.
Win rate is split by table size because a two-player game has a much higher baseline than a five-player pod. Thin land counts are left out. This is directional, not a verdict.
| Lands in opener | Hands | Win rate (duel) | Win rate (4-6 player) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 52 | — | 18% |
| 1 | 656 | 51% | 30% |
| 2 | 4,256 | 53% | 32% |
| 3 | 5,821 | 54% | 30% |
| 4 | 2,975 | 56% | 33% |
| 5 | 745 | 53% | 32% |
| 6 | 78 | 45% | 18% |
Commander Lands FAQ
How many lands should a Commander deck run?
Do basic lands count toward the total?
How many lands for a two-color Commander deck?
How many lands in a five-color Commander deck?
Should ramp replace lands?
Does my commander's mana cost change how many lands I need?
Test your manabase for free
Goldfish a deck solo in Playgroup Live to see how often it keeps a workable hand and hits its land drops, no account needed.