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A standard draft deck has 40 cards in it; a 4-booster sealed deck has 30 cards. How many lands should I put in each of these formats? And why do I need this ratio?

The conventional wisdom that I received for a 60-card constructed deck is to have 20 lands, suggesting that 1/3 of the deck should be land. However, I was also told to include 17 lands in a draft deck, which is higher than 1/3. But a smaller draft deck will have a lower variance (fewer ways to shuffle a deck and get mana-screwed), so shouldn't you be able to get away with fewer lands than the 1/3 ratio?

Hackworth
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JSBձոգչ
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    "20 lands in a 60-card constructed deck" is a dangerous and almost certainly wrong piece of "conventional wisdom". Unless there's something unusual going on (lots of mana creatures, for instance), I'd anticipate 26 lands being a good number for a 60-card deck. – thesunneversets Oct 03 '11 at 14:16
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    I think there's a lot more flexibility in a 60-card deck, as you are able to tune it more than a limited deck and depending on the deck's strategy, you may not need a large mana base. I believe "conventional wisdom" is anywhere from 18 to 28 lands. Most people I know run 23-25 lands in a 60 card constructed deck. – ghoppe Oct 03 '11 at 15:15
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    FYI, all the Innistrad and New Phyrexia Intro Packs run 24 lands, three out of five of the Magic 2012 Core Set Intro Packs run 24 lands, with the other two running 25. – ghoppe Oct 03 '11 at 15:25
  • Thanks @ghoppe. It looks like the conventional wisdom I learned was wrong. Not surprising, really :). – JSBձոգչ Oct 03 '11 at 15:28
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    @ghoppe, great idea to look at the Innistrad precons. I think that mana curves are a little bit lower than they were in my day, due to today's card packing more bang for their buck! In my day we got 1 power for 1 mana and 2 power for 3 mana and counted ourselves lucky... – thesunneversets Oct 03 '11 at 15:42
  • @JSBᾶngs: perhaps just outdated. Back in 1998-ish a lot of decks ran about 21 lands. Of course back then, the average CMC of a spell in one of these decks was probably less than 2, which is somewhat harder to get away with today. Even at that time, control decks and others that had more expensive spells would normally use 24-26 lands. – David Z Oct 03 '11 at 22:14
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    The 1/3 land makes sense as a baseline if you think that in your first 3 turns you see 9-10 cards (depending if you go first), and you'd like to play 3 lands. That'd be great if most of what you wanted to play has CMC < 4, but as @David points out, that probably doesn't cut it anymore, so you'll probably want to see 4 lands in your first 4 turns (10-11 cards), which is getting up to 24 lands in your deck (ignoring variance). Bolster against a little bad luck, add another land or two depending on how bad you need it. Add a little mana fixing and take some out. – Gregor Thomas Nov 03 '11 at 19:20
  • "Why do I need this ratio?" is discussed in more detail here: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/a/7592/1910 – Alex P Aug 05 '15 at 19:17

1 Answers1

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Conventional wisdom is to run around 40% lands in Limited. This means around 12-13 lands for a 30-card deck, and 16-18 lands for a 40-card deck.

Typically, you see three variations. Aggressive, low-curve decks (which curve out at at four or five) will run as few as 11/16 lands. Typical decks (one or two colors, curve out around six or seven) will typically to run 12/17 lands. Slower decks (and decks in slower formats) will often run 13/18 lands, especially if they're three-color or hitting a third or fourth land drop is very critical.

Mana fixing is always very important - anytime you can run a mana creature/artifact or filter lands of some kind, it's likely in your favor to do so.

As far as why, in Limited your reliance on never missing a land drop in the first four-six turns is much higher than usual. That consistent ramp up to four-six lands means dropping those higher-cost creatures and game-winning bombs.

EDIT: On the subject of mana acceleration, as I previously mentioned, it's almost always in your favor to run what you can (mana fetch spells, mana creatures and artifacts, filter lands, etc.), but depending on how many of them you run, you can sometimes decrease your land count. Some people reduce by one land per mana/land-generating spell, others say one land per two spells - however, this is usually to a minimum of 15-16 lands in 40-card and 11 lands in 30-card (11 is very uncommon).

Ian Pugsley
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  • So what's the magic number for a 30-card sealed deck? – JSBձոգչ Oct 03 '11 at 13:53
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    @JSBᾶngs 30-card sealed deck isn't a standard format, so there is no "magic number". I would just go with a similar percentage: 12-13 lands. – ghoppe Oct 03 '11 at 14:11
  • @JSB, a Sealed deck should run to the same number of cards/lands as a Draft deck: 40 cards, of which 17-18 are lands. – thesunneversets Oct 03 '11 at 14:11
  • I agree with this answer, although you could drop it by one if you have 2 or more mana producing artifacts or land fetching effects. – ghoppe Oct 03 '11 at 14:13
  • Oh, okay, if 30-card Sealed is some strange new format I've never heard of, then my comment doesn't apply. You'd be looking at the same ratio as a 40-card deck: 12-13 lands out of 30 cards? – thesunneversets Oct 03 '11 at 14:14
  • @thesunneversets, 4 boosters to make a 30-card deck is the standard for sealed swiss tournaments: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75846/25006917/New_Sealed_Format_Discussion_Thread – JSBձոգչ Oct 03 '11 at 15:12
  • Edited for 30-card Sealed. – Ian Pugsley Oct 03 '11 at 15:30
  • @JSBᾶngs - Wow! That format managed to completely escape my notice, despite having been around for a year now. I guess it's not exactly common, existing only for Sealed Swiss queues on Magic Online? Still, a very interesting option for making Sealed more of a cost-effective proposition compared to draft... – thesunneversets Oct 03 '11 at 15:39
  • @thesunneversets: Yeah, looks like that's MTGO-only (as least for now.) – adamjford Oct 03 '11 at 16:21
  • For 40-card limited, I start with 17 as a base then shift up or down a land based upon mana fixers and curve. – Hyppy Jun 13 '12 at 23:23
  • Just to add another data point, in 30-card sealed i usually start with 14, and adjust from there, only if i my curve is higher or lower than the norm, or i have some other reason. N.b 15 is my most common adjustment. Hitting your land drops is important; if you have 7 drops you will need 15 land! – esoterik Aug 05 '15 at 19:25