Balanced

Crop Rotation card art

Back on the land focus for the month (I've already covered their inherent nature and basic vs non-basic), today I look at how to determine how many (and which kinds) of lands to put in your deck. I'll use 60-card decks for example purposes, but the ratios discussed here can hold true for decks of any size, from 40-card limited to 100-card commander.

There are only two things you need to determine how much of your deck should be land cards: the land/non-land balance and the types of land.

The Land/Non-Land Balance

The general rule of thumb: your deck should be 40% lands. For a 60-card deck, that means 24 cards should be land cards. However, this is only a recommendation; a typical range is more like 18-30, for reasons I discuss below. Other types of decks (those that feature gimmicky cards like treasure hunt) may have 80% or more lands, but I will omit niche strategies from the discussion.

The number of lands depends on your deck strategy and mana curve. 

• Aggressive decks typically have a lower mana curve (more low-cost spells) and fewer lands (18-22). The point with them is to hit hard and fast before your opponent can set up defenses; in that case, you need fewer lands (and want more spells) to increase the possibility of drawing playable cards early.
• Control and midrange decks tend to run more in the 22-26 land range, with a typical mana curve. 
• Stompy or landfall decks may hit 26-30 lands, as they have a higher mana curve (more high-cost spells) or require lands (in a landfall deck) to execute their strategy.

What's right for your deck? It depends. While impossible to be prescriptive for every scenario, if you have no idea what to do, I recommend you put 22 lands in an aggro deck, 24 in a control or midrange deck, and 26 in a stompy or landfall deck. If you're new to Magic or don't know how to classify the deck you have, run with 24 lands. 

The only way to verify the balance? Playtest your deck. A lot. Look for trends: do you have too many land cards in most games? Too few? Just right? This will tell you how you need to adjust the balance, if at all. The key here is trends: every deck has that game where you experience mana flood (too many lands) or mana screw (too few). But if you play 10 games and you have too few lands in 8 of them, you can bet that you need to re-balance your deck by adding a few land cards (or cards that let you fetch lands).

Of course, you can run fewer lands if you include spells that let you fetch lands (search for them in your deck).

Types of Land

In addition to land/non-land balance, multi-colored decks must consider the types of land to include. For mono-colored decks, this is easy. You can use just one type of basic land card and be done. For multi-colored decks, it gets trickier. We'll go with two colors (white/green) for example purposes.

Let's say you have a white/green deck, and decided on 24 lands. How many should produce white mana? Green? This comes down to your card selection on the non-land side. One easy way to do this is count the white mana symbols in all the non-land cards in your deck. Now count the green. Add those totals and figure out the percentage of white to green, then put in lands accordingly. If your 36 non-land cards have a total of 20 white mana symbols and 30 green, your land base should be 20/50=40% white and 30/50=60% green. Once that is determined, you have to figure out how to make that happen. There are a few options:

• The easiest (but not necessarily best) way: use only basic lands. Put 10 plains and 14 forests in your deck and call it a day. This is easy (and cheap) but inflexible—for example, if you have all white cards in your hand but only green lands, you are out of luck.
• You could use some dual-colored lands (those capable of producing white or green mana), like the two examples below. These give flexibility but often come into play tapped, slowing down your deck.
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• You could use fetch lands (lands that let you find the type you need), like Evolving Wilds (below). This is flexible but slow, too. Cards like this can be useful in 3- and 4-colored decks, giving you access to the type you need.
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You can use the above strategies in any combination, using a mixture of basic, dual, and fetch lands into your deck. Most competitive players do just that.

Choosing the right balance (and types) of lands is part art, part science. The basics above are a starting point, but the ultimate answer comes through playtesting.