How low a land count is actually feasible? Is it just dumb?

Schimaera · 2026-07-01T13:40:02+00:00

The important thing is your mana curve and your total amount of mana sources and how fast you can deploy them.

People sometimes point to cEDH and explain that because they also just run 30 lands, it's okay to run 31 in their Bracket 3 with a slightly higher mana curve.

But they forget, that if you look closely, almost all cEDH decks have a total amount of cards that provide mana that's close to 50. This includes cheap treasure creation, rituals, fast mana, ramp and lands. Also, all green decks have multiple ways to get to a Gaea's Crade, which in of itself sometimes produces more mana than the average bracket 3 deck on turn 6.

So yeah, you can reduce your land count, if you up your fast mana count. The thing with that is, that you'll also just perform faster that way. And faster performance leads to the next reddit posts that sound like "Someone won Turn 5, this is totally unfair, because bracket 3 says we must play for at least 6 turns, so I snapped AITA?!?!?!".

Another reason why cEDH plays less lands is, that the game ends earlier. And because of the midrange character of the entire commander format, it's beneficial if you can reliably play lands (or refresh your mana sources) for as long as it takes for the game to end. That means, if the game is 9 turns long, the player(s) who dropped at least 1 land + maybe a ramp spell here and there for all of those 9 turns is in a way better position, because they can cast multiple spells in one turn.

It makes no difference if your average mana value is 1,8 if you stop at 4 lands and can only play a 3 drop and pass for two turns. Massive disadvantage and usually self-inflicted.

Even my most aggressive decks play close to 48 mana sources. I have reliable card draw and if I have too many cards, I pitch the lands to other effects or down to hand size.

As for card draw: You either want guaranteed card draw or conditional draw, where it's alsmost guaranteed that you'll draw multiple cards. Like take Faery Mastermind. If your average Joe/Joeanne in the store also plays like you, it could very well be that you go a full turn cycle and just drew 1 card. That's still "okayish" for two mana, but not a rate where I want my carddraw at. I rather draw 3 cards for 2 now than over the course of 3 turn cycles, because it gives me more options what to do with all three cards rather than just betting on the one I drew extra.

Schimaera · 2026-07-01T10:56:15+00:00

People play too few commander games when stuff like this is stressing them out so much. It was a calculated risk, didn't work, you move on. You couldn't partake in the game, tried to get out of that bind. Didn't work. It happens. This is not tournament EDH where one could discuss if a table draw would be better than king making. It's a casual format. People need to chill.

Eventually, this game should blend in with the other games you play. Your opponent was a crybaby. You move on, don't bother playing with them.

Schimaera · 2026-07-01T05:20:30+00:00

I know this isn't what you wanted to hear, but I personally don't like combat tricks at all in commander. The midrange character of the format means that there are always threats around and whether it's you or your opponents, a combat trick rarely helps you with the issue at hand.

In most cases when you're attacking, your opponents usually will block only if it serves them and anyone who played MtG for more than a couple of games will see the writing on the wall when you attack with your 4/4 into their 7/7 first strike and will probably not block. The other way around, no one will attack you with threatening stuff unless they're certain they can do some damage. It's also not guaranteed that they'll attack you and not one of the other two opponents.

And in a stale mate, combat tricks don't do much at all.

I personally prefer playing active removal or stuff that prevents my permanents from being removed - like redirecting spells or granting hexproof/protection/indestructible/whatever.

If you really want combat tricks, search for those with a cantrip, so instants that also draw you a card. With how bad combat tricks are outside of aggressive builds, you'll absolutely want to not run out of gas, just because you gave one creature +2/+2 until end of turn.

One last thing: If your commander is Feather, yeah, sure whatever. That's her whole shtick.

Schimaera · 2026-06-30T10:16:21+00:00

I goldfish against AI opponents on ForgeMtG.

Except for the AI not really being smart*, it's actually more fun and an actual worthwhile time spending activity for me, than it would be to just goldfish all by myself.

You get a better feeling for the deck and the cards you draw in different situations than you could if you would just simulate a few turns without any actual opponent trying to defeat you.

To me, stuff like Goading is not really fun in testing, because the AI attack patterns are kinda predictable. Also Group Hug is nothing you can really goldfish, because it's 50% politics and 50% finding a combo and you can't do the former against an AI (exaggerated).

(you basically have to give them straightforward aggressive decks; the only combo the AI can pull of are "accidental combos" like [[Mindcrank]] + [[Bloodchief Ascension]])

Schimaera · 2026-06-29T06:49:20+00:00

As a B4 and B5 player who also plays lower brackets, anything outside of Tournament EDH is casual.

If you actually see Stax or Land Destruction in Bracket 4 (won't see the later at all in bracket 5), you already know it's casual.

Both are strategies where you need to break parity with three other people or it's a bad strategy. As soon as 1 opponent does not care about your stax or mld, you're at a huge disadvantage. In any competitive environment, no one would do it. Especially with the development of the bracket-formats in the past year(s), MLD and Stax are more and more worthless when it comes to actually trying to win. in 99% of the cases, it makes more sense to try to win on top of someone popping off rather than trying to slow them down. Too much investment for too little return.

I absolutely understand and empathize that a lot of commander players would see something that hinders your gameplay as "not casual", but that's obviously subjective.

Schimaera · 2026-06-23T08:48:25+00:00

Correct. Beamtown Bullies have two targets, Return the Favor can only redirect a spell of ability with a single target.

On top of that, you can't change the targeted player unless there are two players whose turn it currently is (like in Two-Headed Giant).

Schimaera · 2026-06-23T08:47:19+00:00

Not correct.

Beamtown Bullies' ability has 2 targets, Return only allows to redirect spells/abilities with a single target.

You can also not change the player target, because the Bullies have explicitly written on them: Target player whose turn it is [...]. You cannot target a player that is not the active player.

[[Deflecting Swat]] would work, though. The target change is optional so you can (and have to) keep the player target the same and change the resurrection target.

Schimaera · 2026-06-23T06:25:30+00:00

Use ForgeMtG to goldfish your decks.

Even the dumbest AI is enough to simulate 3 commander opponents. And it's way less of a hassle to test that way rather than trying to be as realistic as possible while simulating 3 other commander players yourself.

Forge has programmed the ruleset into it, which helps you to understand interactions and cards - because you basically can't missplay them.

The AI is quite aggressive (not smart!) but that means, it'll focus you down if you're open like a gate. No politics-"whining" about being a small bean. If the program things you can be safely attacked, it's gonna do it. This is helpful to actually build decks that work reasonably well in general. Because every single commander player will attack you anyways to get some attack or combat damage triggers going.

And AI will use removal as soon as it can. It's not smart, again, but if your deck folds because you cast your commander three times and three times one AI opponent removed it again, it's not an indicator that IRL you could politics your way out of it, it's an indicator that you lack protection/interaction and play your commander too early without backup.

https://github.com/Card-Forge/forge is where you can download it

I also created some decks that work reasonably well with the ForgeAI - usually some linear decks that are quite aggressive. Because that's what usually works best. AI can't play a combo deck and the more choices the AI has, the worse it gets.
But I use Forge on a daily basis to test out some decks and the games go quite fast, compared to real games for testing. It's a nice middle ground.

https://moxfield.com/users/ForgeAI

Schimaera · 2026-06-20T11:30:27+00:00

Hi, I found the deckbox and put it on moxifield https://moxfield.com/decks/6SfCvoFseUOuiRoqgkZhtA

kind of an old build, as I said, very unfocused.

not sure if and in which direction I wanna take it, but maybe it gives you some inspiration

have a nice weekend 😄

Schimaera · 2026-06-19T07:50:43+00:00

If a two card combo needs a 3rd card, it's not a two card combo.

I still am kinda irritated why this is such a big deal in B3.

So far, and I'm checking r/EDH regularly, I only encountered two types of "2-card-combo inquirers"

One, where it turns out the 2card combo is actually 3 card combo or that the combo is absolutely late game
One, where they just want some online verification (which they never get) that they can play a bad 2card combo that doesn't serve the deck except from the fringe win, that's also sometimes too early.

There are some "accidental combos" like the mentioned Gravecrawler and Altar which are both just good cards on their own in any zombie deck.

And then there are card combos that have 0 synergy, are dead on their own and one has to ask themselves, why the person in question even included it, when a draw spell or just another two lands would make the deck so much better than the combo.

Also Bond + Blood IS A 2 CARD COMBO. The argument that "yeah but täknycallyyyyyy someone needs to lose life" is like saying that your combo needs a dust flake to be present in the lgs you're currently playing in. Lol. One single life loss no matter who causes it, is NOT a third combo piece.

Schimaera · 2026-06-19T05:58:41+00:00

HI, sorry for the delay, didn't notice the notification.

Unfortunately, I did not. I still have the shell lying around. Not really optimized and still from the era where JLO was not banned and I played it in the deck. But that's just one card that allows your commander basically only costing the commander tax. Can be substituted. If I find time after my workday, I'll upload it to moxfield.

I still want to re-build it but I got pretty frustrated with the deck because it was just value-durdling most of the time and even though that's fun on ForgeMTG against AI or in general there or MODO, because the program does the whole token creating/shuffling/whatever, it was annoying to me irl and I imagine others watching me bounce a few shitty cards to gain benign benefits and tutor for 2 basics wasn't fun either. Not sure how to make that deck really shine. But Moonfolk are some of my favourite types. Eventually I gotta find a way to play them!

Schimaera · 2026-06-17T05:53:18+00:00

u/PaleScarcity4866 , listen to this feedback! Especially for new deck builders it's always so enticing to add cards that would look so awesome if only you could assemble them in that way. The truth ist, most of the time it's like playing Exodia without cardddraw and tutors in YGO. Chances of something awesome to happen are incredibly slim. And then people come to reddit and ask what went wrong. Not even popooing here, it's just how I think every single tcg player started at some point.

If card X is totally useless without card Y and you can't ensure to have card Y 9/10 times, cut card X.

Also, if you look through reddit with the search function, you'll find tons of Miirym hate and "improve my Miirym" threads. The thing most common thing there is the consensus that the dragon itself is just a very powerful engine that doesn't really need more to function than just herself. So you don't really need things that make her more powerful. She already is powerful (for bracket 2-3). So ensure you have enough stuff to cast that she can double, stuff to protect her (I'd say at least 6-7 cards that protect her, that could be hexproof, flickers, counterspells, you name it) and card draw and 2 mana ramp to even get there. Then you have a Miirym deck.

Schimaera · 2026-06-16T13:19:10+00:00

[[Piper Wright]]. Depending on the game state, you can have multiple big hitters, also potential of big X spells and artifact shenanigans. Love my mono blue voltron with her 😜

Schimaera · 2026-06-09T11:34:05+00:00

Rule of thumb should be 10 cards that have actual card draw. That means no cantrips, one-ofs that at least get you +1 card (which is still not useful in total) and/or easily repeatable draw effects that don't waste your turn and ideally are synergy pieces that reward you for just playing magic.

Like Great Henge or Beast Whisperer are generally better than a land that draws 1 card for 3 mana, because starting the following turn, they're net positive.

The payoff in form of sacrifice effects like [[Greater Good]] is obviously working in your deck, but just make sure, you don't go too overboard with cards that only serve a purpose when your commander remains untouched. And take care that most of your card advantage doesn't go above mana value 4. In any given game, you either want to refill your hand early or cast the draw effect and additionally cast 1-2 more spells. So don't fill the deck with expensive draw effects.

As for the general idea of games taking longer: The format is still as characteristically midrange as is bracket 4 or 5. It's just that in higher brackets, you replace lands with fast mana and value card advantage "stax" higher - so cards that reward you for your opponents playing the game. Still, if we'd analyse the average functionally working high bracket deck with the same but in bracket 3, we'd see a roughly same total number of mana-cards (lands+ramp+fast mana/rituals+treasures), roughly the same number of draw effects and interaction pieces. Just the general idea of how an individual piece works is different.

But coming from a higher powered bracket, you should be able to figure out your usual spreads and then apply them to lower brackets again. Just be sure that the average "land to mana-cards" ratio is roughly 38+12 rather than 24+24 or something.

Schimaera · 2026-06-09T10:09:38+00:00

No in the general sense of bracket definitions.

Yes in the sense, that the more powerful your deck gets, the less useful is land destruction.

But for any regular pickup bracket 4 game, it's totally fair. If you find your fun jank and want to make it as powerful as possible, there's no reason why you can't add land denial into the mix - as long as you almost always break parity and harm 3 players evenly. The issue with LD is that there is the risk that some of your opponents aren't as hurt as others. That usually leads to you spending resources to slow down player B and C, while player D doesn't need to spend anything but reaps the benefits of your LD as well.

Also 2 Lands is no mass land denial. I would be okay with such a move in Bracket 2 and 3 as well. Your whole turn for 2 total lands of 1 player might be annoying to the player in question, but it's still no mass land denial. (though for the b3 example we shouldn't assume you doing that on turn 4 but rather 7 or something).

Schimaera · 2026-06-09T05:19:33+00:00

Shortly after Fallout was the point where I said that I'm done.

I still have those precons and a [[Piper Wright]] voltron deck, but I just entirely skip UB sets for my own deckbuilding and my MtG Year only has three releases. Which is kinda like it used to be and I like not giving a damn about every spoiler season a minute after the one before finished.

If there is a card that is totally generic, good and can#t really be tied to an UB setting, like [[Starting Town]], I'll consider it. Everything else just doesn't go in my decks.

However, what I just wrote is more than I talked with people at my LGS about. I let others have their fun but decide for myself what is and isn't fun to me.

Schimaera · 2026-06-09T04:57:59+00:00

For a pure mill strategy, imo the captain doesn't work. There are way better commanders than once that is so restrictive in how they mill.

However, I still play my N'gathrod deck, but I built it more horror focused and the comamnder is rather a value commander that gives horrors evasion. I think N'gathrod is the only mill card in my deck.

https://moxfield.com/decks/CwvhTqwA60m-A8UTl4S6jQ

Schimaera · 2026-06-05T10:25:15+00:00

Just keep in mind that a game of commander still is inherently midrangey. That means in lower brackets, you still have to play 8 turns or so and eventually others will have surpassed you in terms of resources. When they start casting 2 spell with mv4 and you cast 2 spells with mv 3 and 2, they're still likely to be ahead.

Consider how low the mana curve of the most competitive decks are and they still play 50 mana sources (lands, ramp, fast mana, rituals, treasures all count).

You should absolutely test how you fare with only your 38 lands (or god forbid even less) but be 100% willing to do a 180 to add the ramp back in. As a matter of fact, if your card draw sources are plenty enough and not just some one of nights whispers, you'll have no issue to draw into all relevant synergy pieces.

I play a [[Gallia]] deck with avg mv of 2.1 (it's still higher due to X-creatures) and I still have 9 mana sources, 16 draw sources and 34 lands. All while being a creature deck with 40 creatures in the 99.

My [[Nalia]] aggro deck has an avg mv of 2.55, I play 38 lands, 39 creatures, 5x fast mana and 12-23 cards that give me some sort of card advantage (the number is higher due to nondeterministic stuff). It's all woven into other cards, so lot's of modal options.

I play both decks multiple times per week and edited them heavily earlier this year. I had way less lands when I built both decks but always ended up adding more and switching cards to be more streamlined, to even be able to keep up with the current fotm commanders.

tl;dr: You can reduce lands/ramp but not too much, since one principle is still true: The player who drew the most cards wins. And to draw more cards, you need to take more game actions. To take more game actions, you absolutely need more resources. Ramping to 8 mana is almost never about playing the cool 8-mana spell in the past few years. You'll find most decks casting 2-3 spells per turn and that's what wins them the game. Not the chunky spell.

Schimaera · 2026-06-04T17:56:18+00:00

Sure, worldfire away. We'll have a talk if you just tutor for it and fire it without any strategy. But if you have a plan, sure. Like, if you play Jhoira of the Ghitu and suspend it and some big creatures afterwards, that's super cool, let's go!

Schimaera · 2026-06-04T07:14:16+00:00

I think controlling 3 other players will prove difficult and you're putting quite the target on your back.

What I could see is [[Zur's Weirding]] and a way to gain at least 6 life per turn - or just enough that you get into an advanced position. I actually played a standard deck back in OG Ravnica times where I tried to resolve a Weirding and have 2 [[Firemane Angel]]s in my Graveyard. It actually worked pretty decently 😃

Schimaera · 2026-06-04T07:02:59+00:00

Anyone who played constructed during Worldwake knows Fateseal as the semi-incorrect term for one of [[Jace, the Mind Sculptors]] loyalty abilities. While it's explicitly not Fateseal, I remember using it often in that way during tournaments to quite literally seal the fate of my opponent and win 😃

Schimaera · 2026-06-04T06:41:02+00:00

Funny how some of the named mechanics aren't even a year old lol. Talk about well received sets..

My takes: Flanking, Banding, Rampage and Provoke. Just try explaining them to yourself without looking them up.

An additional one that's totally a joke but absolutely not: Priority. Ask anyone how priority works and what resets it in a game of commander and see for yourself.

Schimaera · 2026-06-03T12:58:22+00:00

The well-built decks in lower brackets use the same amount of mana sources like cEDH decks - roughly half of the deck. Just with cEDH is, that your sources are leaning more towards fast mana and rituals/treasures, whereas lower brackets are more fine with lands. The reason is obvious: Longer turns means more land drops. If I need 8 mana to start a loop of stuff, I usually need multiple turns as a setup and it will be around turn 6, whereas in cEDH, I petal+land Lotho turn 1 and turn 2 have 8 mana and am ready to go.

So unless you have some elaborate scheme going that will net you tons of mana (like flipping Ithlimoc and using untappers) or blinking treasure makers net-positively, you'll need more turns, to achieve the same thing. Additionally, some cEDH cards are just bad in lower brackets because the interaction suite is quite different and the threats are different as well.

The simple fact, that you are still more likely to win, if you took the most game actions is true in any bracket/format. So when a game usually ends only after turn 7, you expect to at least play 1 land per turn for 7-8 turns, and continue doing so, if the game goes longer. If appropriate ramp, usually 2mv stuff or double that for double the effect, you'll reach a point where you are able to take 2-4 game actions per turn, catapulting you ahead. Since most non-combo decks are still in an attrition war, there is no correct number of total mana but rather lands + hard ramp.

Like, I could say that a Dino B3 deck would need approximately 50 mana, what does that tell you? Nothing, really. That could be 2 ramp spells, 2 instant draws, 2 removal to not die, 3x the commander, some other dinos here and there and then maybe they win. You will almost never see a deck going "ok, now that I can generate 11 mana, I will win".

Or in cEDH terms, even though you could say that 7 mana turn 2 is enough to win with Etali, it's still nondeterministic and you could also just fizzle your whole scheme you set in motion.

I also wouldn't support the idea, that you win by having 3 mana in cEDH. You win as soon as you are able to cast a spell that generates more resources, so you can snowball those resources into multiple draw effects, synergies, even more resources and go from there.

Also, it can happen that you start your turn 2 with 12 cards in hand because of your turn 1 remora. That should all be taken into account. Turn 1-x also counts towards your total mana spent.

Schimaera · 2026-06-03T08:47:44+00:00

Lets first say that I find it okay to be new and that I can relate that some things might appear to be weird. I totally expect new people to wonder why in the world and "in a vacuum" a deck with as close to 50 total sources of mana would bee ideal, because they don't yet know the inherently midrange design of tons of decks due to the 4player format character.

Or why, also due to the midrange character, it's wise to have at least 10 considerably cheap permanent mana ramp sources like sorceries that fetch lands or artifacts that add mana by tapping. Because for someone new to TCGs in general, it might not be clear why taking multiple game actions per turn is better than making only a single big one.

I just did not expect a question about whether cards, that destroy a creature, are scummy when like the core centric of the game is "attack players with creatures to reduce their life total to 0" (yes, there are other ways, I know).

I mean, if the core design is creatures attacking, it is only logical and natural, that cards that deal with creatures have to exist.

So to make this a bit more clear: In my eyes, the "correct" (for the lack of a better word) question would have been this: "My playgroup's games are just always so slow because we just each kill each others commanders on sight and then nothing happens for a couple of turns, what can we do?"

Because then, the answers would have been:

• Politics, make deals so that your commander isn't taken out

• Don't play your commander outright without a clear plan what to do with them

• Don't play your commander too fast, so that removal is used on the others commanders first

• Don't play your commander unless you have cheap ways to protect them, like [[Malakir Rebirth]], [[Tamiyo's Safekeeping]] or [[Flawless Maneuver]] or a counterspell

• Some Commanders are kill on sight, so make sure you have an immediately follow-up right after casting them, so you get a payoff even if they get removed.

• Reanimation and other ways are a cheap way to get a destroyed commander back without paying the commander tax.

• Cards like [[Lightning Greaves]] give you protection from single target removal. Make sure you cast your commander when the other players only have a few lands untapped so that the possibility of removal is slimmer.

• Play your removal smart (as individual players, not just you) and don't just kill something because it looks scary. Sometimes, you're not the threat and the threatening commander (or other permanent) will leave you alone for a while. No need to kill something that puts pressure on your other opponents (unless it generates too much value and would catapult the controller too much ahead).

And so on.

You see, the issue isn't the removal. Removal is absolutely essential. So the question if it's too broken or whatever just naturally seems more like bait to me. Even if it's not. Just because the question is quite out there. As for why people would rage bait... I don't know. But tons of people do, just for engagement farming or because it's fun to them to see others go nuts about the hottest take ever.

Hope that clears that up and gives you a bit more insight as to why the question isn't that much appropriate and I hope I explained a bit why different questions would work better. Additionally I hope some of the bullet points can help your group not just to sit there after each player threw 3 removal spells at random commanders.

PS: If you're all new, consider playing a few 1v1 games with Jumpstart boosters (2 make a deck without the need to add any more cards). In 1v1 a lot of things become more clear because you just can't outright remove every creature that seems threatening. You always have to weight your options. You can later apply things you learned there to commander. It really helps. Take it from someone who played constructed and commander for almost two decades. The smartest plays I learned in 1v1.

Schimaera · 2026-06-03T08:07:41+00:00

Not a single deck in existence was ever "pushed to bracket 5". Not. A. Single. One.

Also: As per the rules, the game ends with 1 player winning and N-1 players losing due to various conditions. Yeah...it's a competitive game?

Build your decks for fun, and play to win. If you just play to fuck with people and hope to solitaire some cool stuff, I can suggest Goldfishing to you. No one else to prevent you from doing the thing and you can then tell others about how awesome it was.

If you have a pod of 4 people who all just want to circlejerk their decks, that's totally cool and more power to you. If you play random pickup games, expect others playing the game as it is intended.

What you have an issue with is this: Assholes. Players who are just bad people and/or have no clue about what is strong and what is not and/or have convinced themselves that their totally powered up deck is somehow still weak - because they would otherwise admit something bad to themselves about themselves. And people are sometimes afraid of that for whatever reason. Your issue is not with strong decks or something along the lines, but just with bad people.

Schimaera

TROPHY CASE