How Many Dual Lands do I Need?
Deck Help forum
Posted on Jan. 19, 2025, 3:45 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I have 10 two-colored 60-card decks, and I have eight dual lands in each of those decks: four copies of the appropriately-colored shocklands (i.e., Godless Shrine
, Sacred Foundry, and so forth) and four copies of the appropriately-colored "checklands" (i.e., Glacial Fortress, Hinterland Harbor, and do forth), but I am wondering if I should put additional dual lands into those decks, such as the "slow lands" from Innistrad (i.e., Shattered Sanctum, Sundown Pass, and so forth) or the filter lands from Shadowmoor and Eventide (i.e., Cascade Bluffs, Rugged Prairie, and so forth), or if eight dual lands are sufficient, for each deck.
What does everyone else say, about this subject? Should I put additional dual lands into my 60-card decks, or are eight dual lands sufficient, for each deck?
There are a lot of fine details here. How much money are you willing to spend for each deck, if budget is a concern? Are any of the decks intended for competitive tournaments or for casual play? How much color weight does each deck have for each color in it? Are the deck intended to be balanced with each other for power level or aesthetics?
My broad rules of thumb:
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Include enough basic lands to pay any mana cost in the deck, whether to cast a spell, activate an ability, or anything else. You never know when a Blood Moon or whatever will come out to ruin your day.
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Unless a deck is intended to be at least semi-competitive, do not include any lands more expensive than the highest non-land card. It's easy to shove a $200 land base into a $20 deck in the name of optimizing, but I would rather put that land base in a deck of equivalent value.
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Advice is theoretical, playtesting is empirical. Using your deck in live play will give you a lot of information, and the more you use it, the more you learn.
January 20, 2025 2:34 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #4
It's dependant on the spells you try to cast. If you need to cast Ayara, First of Locthwain and Linden, the Steadfast Queen in the same deck, you'll need a lot more than if your heaviest color requirement is Yahenni, Undying Partisan and Elite Spellbinder in the same deck.
January 20, 2025 4:30 a.m.
wallisface says... #5
As others have mentioned, this is a question which requires more specifics, and can’t be solved with a generic catch-all answer.
I can say, from a modern perspective, that both "slow lands" and “checklands” are awful, and the “filter lands” are almost always terrible too. If you’re looking to branch out from the shocklands, i’d suggest “fast lands” (i.e. Blooming Marsh), and 1-2 surveil lands (i.e. Underground Mortuary). Generally speaking though, the more important/impactful thing for a deck is not the quantity of duel-lands, but the quantity of fetch-lands (i.e. Verdant Catacombs). Decks become a LOT more powerful and consistent with a strong fetchland-base, and if you’re looking to improve your landbase, adding in 8-12 fetches is almost always the strongest improvement you can make.
January 20, 2025 4:32 a.m.
wallisface says... #7
Icbrgr I just tried using that tool to see what it was doing, and I have to say it seems to give some really terrible advice
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it’s tooltips are super inaccurate. Specifically it states ”Typical 1v1 decks have an average CMC of about 3” which couldn’t be further from the truth… even in standard or casual formats this would lead to a deck being waaay too slow/clumsy.
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I input the values of a modern deck and it suggested I should only be running a measly 10 lands… where the deck clearly wants to be running closer to 22-23.
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The questions it asks feels far too generalised and non-specific to ever provide an accurate output.
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The output is mainly just suggested colour-ratios, but gives zero insight into duel-lands vs fetches vs basics etc… so entirely unhelpful. Furthermore, the ratio of colour-suggestions seems to just roughly mirror the input of total colour-pips, which is super lazy and misleading.
I would really advise against that tool
January 20, 2025 3:07 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #8
I appreciate the feedback that everyone here has given me, and I admit that my question was a rather broad one, since no two decks that I have are exactly the same, so it would be wrong to use a "one size fits all" approach to them, so it would be better to examine each deck individually, instead.
veritablecvn says... #2
I don’t think there is an easy answer to that question, especially when you are asking about multiple decks. Building a mana base is one of the hardest parts of Magic deck building and it’s also why Magic is an amazing game. You can build your mana base off of statistics by adding up all the colored mana pips and doing the math to see the percentage of each color, you can ignore math and go off of personal preferences, for example, always wanting the same number of basic land types in a deck, or you can put in the lands you have on hand and see what happens. I think you should test out each of your decks with your friends or by yourself and see what works best and makes sense. Take notes on how often you get flooded out, how often you are short a specific color, and how often you wish the land you just drew was a dual land or a different basic land type and then adjust as needed. Personally, I have put hours of practice into each of my decks and even after playing them for years I still find myself analyzing the mana base to see if I can streamline anything.
January 19, 2025 5:46 p.m.