Hey guys I know people will have different feelings about the lands bit. But heres where I was coming from. Last week at the shop I played some 1v1 at the end of the night with a guy since we were short on a time. He grabbed a Meren deck and people said it was pretty good. In 2 games he mulliganed 6 times and had been complaining about his deck not working properly and not drawing lands. I asked him how many lands he was running and he said 34. I suggested that maybe he needed to up his land count, but he believed that could not possibly be the issue. I cast utter end on Meren both games and he shame scooped both since he couldn't recast his commander. DONT BE THAT GUY. Anyway that was fresh on my mind while doing the land segment for this video. It may have been overly dramatic, but thats what this channel is good for right? If you are running 36 or less and not having problems, that is fine. But especially if you have 6 and 7 drops in your deck I firmly believe you should be at 37+.
I found that cutting lands in favor of ramp can be a good way to speed up your deck. By default, I run 36 lands and 8 ramp cards, which works well for anything with a midrange-ish curve. If I want to be more competitive, I'll usually swap out 1 or 2 lands and put in 2 to 4 extra ramp spells. The ramp can smooth out missed land drops later and significantly boosts your early game.
@@Isolanporzellator true, but it does mean you significantly increase the chance you need to mulligan becaus eyour opening hand has too few lands. also lands are free, meaning late game if you are a turn 6 and need 7 mana a land beats mana ramp because else you have to wait an extra turn cycle to play that 7-drop remember kids, mana ramp is only ramp if you have a turn to spare, else its a dead draw the third reason not to over-do ramp is that it increases the susceptibility to being boardwiped. if you have watched this mans videos enough you'l notice often people play a sol ring or mana crypt and they simply scoop or do nothign the rets of the game because someone blows that rock up in their turn. and if the ramp does stick it paints a target on their forehead from whatever they play with the mana, and in EDH you NEVER want to be the first target, the first target olmost never wins, usually its the second or third
@@jevry4307 Depends on the kind of ramp you're running, if we're talking stuff like Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, playing these late won't give you any tempo disadvantage, but playing them early gives significant tempo advantage, often enough to simply win the game before missing land drops become an issue. With the free mulligan you get in EDH, it's also really not hard to get at least 2 lands in your opening hand (I'm recommending 32-36 here, so it's really not that big a cut), which is enough to play your ramp and get more mana if needed. I also wouldn't say running 12 ramp cards is overdoing ramp.
@@Isolanporzellator if you are running only sol ring as your unfair mana rock 37+ lands is the way to go. In my opinion you need 3 lands in your opener to contribute to the game. I have about 25 edh decks and 1 deck has 35 the dest has 37 or more. The one deck is teshar deck full of 1 to 3 drops.
I always tell people new to commander to enjoy that window of time they have when 100 cards seems like so many because one day you’ll wake up and be like “100 CARDS!? I NEED 350 OR THIS DECK WILL NEVER WORK”
Lol yeha I remember when I thought I had 100 cards to work with. Its more like 35 now :/ Not actually that different from a standard deck in terms of overall cars choices...just that everything else is. Oh yeah ever try to cut down a mono black deck? Theres easily 300 cards that go into those decks.
I dont agree with 37 in any scenario. In my casual decks i default to 33. Then i add or take away depending on whats going on with the rest of the deck. Its really all about your average cmc. I wouldnt go below 27 lands regardless, but if your average is like 2.2 you can probably get away with 31 depending on what your ramp looks like
Cutting high CMC to keep a low curve is typically my highest priority when making cuts to a deck. Also planeswalkers are the lowest priority in many of my decks, so they generally the first cuts I make
Yeah im not a big planes walker player either. Probably because I'm usually focused on combat so I'm not always leaving up blockers to protect to my PW. As far as cutting high curve stuff, the main point i was trying to get to was that you want some number of them, i would look to keep them around those target numbers. You still want some options to go to when the game gets big, but yeah too many of them is certainly a problem.
@@CommanderReplay The best planeswalker that I play is Venser, the Sojourner in a Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer deck. The deck has a stax build and Venser is great for blinking cards like Presence of the Master or Damping Matrix to break the symmetry of those effects. And Gwafa Hazid is great at keeping opponents from attacking into Venser
Warping wail is ok in your opener - can still ramp off it. Cards with options I'd generally rate higher when making cuts. Was tweaking Jor Kadeen last night and kept Boros Charm in over Teferi's Protection, as that double strike will also win me the game. Like the commander said, it all depends what your deck needs to do.
I try to run both cards. They both just do so much. Teferi's protection is never not useful. In a game, someone will either try to attack you, target you, or blow up your stuff. Boros charm is slightly less useful than 100% of every game, but is still absolutely incredible. The double strike, and the every once in a long while you get to shoot a player. Funny Teferi's protection story... I was playing the other night against some random players on MTGO (didn't film), one guy was playing Unesh extra turns. I put him to like 13 or something, then he started the extra turn loop. I was faced with a weird choice before my turn ended, 2 open mana plus about 5 mana from Neheb. I decided to teferi's protection since I wouldn't have the mana during opponents turns, and I felt like the turn loop was about to start. It did, and he played every extra turn spell and cast every creature in his deck, but couldn't do anything because i was phased out. I was lucky that he didn't put lab manic or the similar PW in the deck and 30 minutes later he lost. Wasn't exactly a gratifying win, or one that I'm looking to repeat, but the protection from almost everything on Teferi's is just so good.
@@CommanderReplay It certainly made it into every other white deck. And you're right there's a lot more utility to it than just wipe protection. Valorous Stance I suppose could go, though it's nice leaving him in play in response in my turns to get the attack in. Losing the spot removal can be outweighed by the other bonuses of the Protection, another to escaping combo-win being 2-3 turns of kill effects getting thrown at other creatures. I hear what you're really saying though, it's good enough to cut a land for ;)
Mayael the Anima wants somewhere close to 30+ creature cards in the deck. In many cases they run as a replacement to removal/control non-creature spells as well.
Honestly I think the land count is highly dependent on the deck style and is preference on how comfortable the deck feels with its mana cost. I usually start my decks at 36 lands and then go from there based on what I'm doing. Plus different styles of ramp/cost reduction can help influence that too. All in all I don't think 37 is wrong, I just think you ran into a case where maybe the guy/girl didn't know how to really build the deck around a good mana curve with everything else I said. Love your stuff either way keep up the good work.
I understand that theres some variables there. For time reasons I didn't go deep on commanders that cheat mana or cost reduce and things like that but that can affect the number of lands that you need. On the other hand, I see people consistently running too few lands, and if you haven't already read the story that I pinned as the top comment, people are really resistant to running the right number of lands for their deck, so I just needed to make a bold statement to try and get through peoples stubborness. So long story short, if I say usually 37 with some exceptions everyone is going to think to themselves "my deck is the exception" when it probably isn't. Anyway If your deck is working properly at 36 then I wouldn't change anything, I was just trying to break through the more stubborn of magic players.
Thank you so much. You don't know how much this helped me (but maybe you'd do if you knew that I have 4 decks in process with over 200 cards.) But thank you so much.
I ussually go for 36 lands total, but I agree about not cutting lands. Only my Narset superfriends list (yes I'm that guy) runs less then 36 lands and that is because she exiles the lands with her trigger, I found it is more efficient to run mana rocks since I can cast those of her trigger. But this is a very specific example. Great tips btw, I was having trouble with my Aurelia deck of late and I started decreasing the mana curve, but now I think I'll add more ramp and up the top end of the deck a little bit more.
Yeah that is a different kind of deck though, and also falls into the competitive exclusions. When you literally cast the spells for free, mana is much less relevant.
I recently realized I play 31 lands in my og jhoira edh deck, but sentimental reasons stop me from cutting so many cards to make place for additional lands. I just tell myself that her mana cheating suspend ability justifies my low land count. I will take another look at it with your tips in mind and see if I can make some positive change.
31 is extremely low. If there isn't a lot of removal in your play group you can probably get away with that. But if they either blow her up before you untap, or you don't make enough lands to cast her and leave up the suspend ability in 1 turn it seems like you might be in some trouble mana wise. So yes the suspend ability does allow you to cheat mana more than you would for a deck full of 8+ drops but man 31 still feels really low to me. 37 is comfortable for me. I feel like 37 comes through when I really need to make that 4th or 5th land drop off the top of my deck.
@@CommanderReplay you are absolutely right about 31 lands not being enough. The deck was made when I started playing commander with my best friend. So we both had almost no idea how to build a good edh deck and since we played 1vs1 with infinite mulligans land count and my commander surviving for one full rotation was never much of a problem. But when I decided to try the same deck in a multiplayer round I bricked more often than not. All my other decks are running 35+ lands and work much more reliably.
I’d love to see an updated version of this video today or if you think things have really changed? This is an interesting video that I’ve been using for a long time but I personally think things have changed at least a little. Thanks for the great content
Yeah it probably is getting to be about that time to do an updated version. Largely the same advice still applies, to be safer i would probably heir on the lower side of things, at least until you have a feel for what you are doing. I am planning to do a 10 tips style video very soon...ive just been short on time....maybe with some luck I can get that filmed this weekend.
That is a lol play, i love it. I used to run Wild Ricochet in standard to stop Cruel Ultimatum and that actually worked out pretty well even though i couldn't change control of the first copy. Was just enough to force the scoop.
Hey Very Nice tips, and will help me remake many of my paper edh decks (mostly tribal and funky stuff :D). A question regarding a weird brew i'm having. I'm planing to make a Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis soldier tribal deck. but looking at most cards regarding the tribe. It feels like the tribe tends to go for make a lot of creature tokens to attack. But many of the token producers are really sorceries or enchantements. Should i try a spellslinger type deck (basicaly copy and return form graveyard my token producers) and have some creatures to supports the tokens, or stick will the normal 26 creatures and reduce the number of token producing sorceries? (pet cards i want to include is a Tajic and a Lavinia).
Sounds interesting. It could certainly work, but it might take some trial and error to get the balances right. If you have token producing sorceries I would definitely cut the number of creatures. In k&t I would probably use the early part of the curve to ramp into the bigger token spells, so I would avoid cards like precinct captain for that particular build tho it’s a cool card. Lena, captain of the watch, that kor spell with rebound all seem like a good starting place. I forget which other spells make soldiers specifically.
The 4-5 mana slot is where i have troble making cuts. Some of my deck feel extremely cluncky and i know it mainly because of land count or little to no ramp. I can stare at all the card in the deck for hours and never figure out what to cut for what i need. Another thing define removal would it be artifact& enchantment hate, spot creature removal, or mass removal?
What do you think about the 8x8 guideline? Is it useful in telling what to put in your deck and what not? I know it would break your 37+ lands rule, but it could be a helpful start at least.
@@CommanderReplay You pick 8 sets of 8 cards each. Each with a theme that'll help your EDH deck. There's three standard themes: mana ramp, card draw and removal. You're encouraged to use a fourth set to put personal favorites in. Then you can pick four more sets based on the goal of the deck. By the end you'll have 64 cards. Add a commander and your lands and you have a complete EDH deck.
Great video and agree with your points. I make sure to lower overall average CMC but also look at my curve and see if I have a glut of cards at any given CMC. My personal land count is 36+ and I find that this has been an effective number. All my decks run quite a bit of ramp and draw to help smooth out those land drops
So last week I was at the shop and I played a little 1v1 at the end of the night since there wasn't enough time for full games. Guy had a meren deck, he and his buddy next to him said it was pretty good. So I got out my Edgar Markov deck (about 80% of full power right now) So he mulliganed 3 times between both games he played and complained his deck hadn't been working right. I asked him how many lands he had and he said 34, so I suggested he needed more lands, but he said no thats not the problem. I played utter end in his commander in both games he couldn't afford to recast and basically just shame scooped both games. Also of note his win condition involves It That Betrays....but it couldn't be possibly be the fact that he runs 34 lands. Ive had a tough time decided whether I should do a little story about this guy. But theres some chance he may see the video but who knows. Anyway that was fresh on my mind when I did the land segments. SO I may have been overly dramatic. But thats what this channel is good for right?
@@CommanderReplay , I definitely hear ya. 34 is definitely too low unless you're doing CEDH with very, very low curve. Some people just seem so resistant to the idea of putting in a couple more lands! I know they aren't sexy, but they are the foundation of making a deck function.
It depends. Like you saw in the video creatures can vary pretty heavily. However, when I think of a standard good stuff Sultai build, I'm thinking about 10-15 high quality creatures. Things like Avenger Craterhoof and Grave titan. However, if you wanted to be more creature based you could certainly get up around 20 or 25, but Sultai does have a lot of really good spells so you would need to give up on some number of those. It just depends on how you want your deck to play. To feel more like a creature deck thats gonna be 20-25, something in the middle is probably 15-20, and something more spell based is probably 10-15. Hope this helps!
See my problem isn’t usually any of this stuff! It’s isually “what’s more awesome” and I can’t decide which card to take out because they are all awesome
Yeah that can be tricky. Generally that just comes down to play testing. I find that that one is usually way better than the other, you just need to figure out which.
I have a question for you hoping I will not get bullied once again as I usually do from commander players..With my friends we prefer brawl versus commander..We try to play a faster and cheaper commander so this is the reason we follow this format... Si my simple question is about cmc. What are the values for a small version of 60 deck that kind of works like commander ? Most of the times I fall to this specific insect. I buy a preconstructed 100deck and try to cut it to a 60 single tone deck but most of the times I don't know which cards to cut while I do know how to categorize them. Could you please help ?
Hi, sorry I don't have specific numbers for Brawl. I don't play very much Brawl so I'm really up to date on how that format is playing right now. If i had to guess I would say maybe max 4 6CMC cards, and like 2-3 7CMC. I would say you probably want as much of the deck as possible to be at 2 and 3 CMC. Maybe 8 4CMC and maybe 3-4 5CMC? Im not sure though, these are just guesses. The card pool makes Brawl play very differently. Anyway hope these help, and hope you can find some answers.
@@CommanderReplay Thank you very much for your big answer. You are one of my favourite youtubers concerning magic..I really look forward for your new content. .they are all totally excellent.I would love to see your decklist every time you use a deck like on the descr or an other site (excuse me if you already do it, sometimes android's utube doesnt show the details below..) I will tell you my cmc conclusion for a 60 singletone deck so you will tell me your opinion. X (Cmc)= Y (Number of Cards) Creatures 1-2 = 5 3-4 = 10 5-? = 5 + 2 wherever I want/need Non Creatures 1-2 = 3 3-4 = 6 5-? = 3 +2 wherever I want/need When I want to play control, I use the first values vice versa. When I want to play midrange I use this table for both creature and non creature cards (×2 ofc) 1-2=4 3-4=8 5-?=4 +1 wherever I want 25 Lands ×11 (multicolors) ×2 3 triple color mana ×3 double color mana (for every pair of color in a 3 colored deck) ×6 hybrid mana ×12 monocolored (×4 / color) ×3 utility mana lands with effects) What's your oppinion (if you want to share it with me) ?
I bloody never know how to trim my EDH decks, that helped me a lot ! (I laughed a lot at the 37+ lands part, I play cEDH Baral with 30 lands and it always confuses me how many lands I should run) A bit of criticism : the video might be a little too long, and you sometime repeat your-self. Very good video tho.
Yeah Cedh is a bit different. If the games only going 4 or 5 turns you only need that many lands. Also Baral has built in looting and cost reduction, so you just gotta feel it out. If its working at that count then leave it, but if you're having issues increase the count. Yeah every time i come up with an idea for a "short video" its always 60 minutes of talking. Then I aim to get it down somewhere around 20-30.
white sun's zenith is a creature spell a good one at that, id prefer it over the white finale because the instant speed = ambush block/haste change my mind on another note should i replace my goblin diplomats for something else in an aurelia deck, i never really had the oppertunity to test how good it is so far so im not sure if being able to force an attack is very usefull. especially since goad appearently is good i can't decide if its better to just run a better creature that can do good dmg on its own vs a puny 2/1
White's suns is a fantastic card. I mean its still an instant. Relevant when things like blink and reaniatmion enter the picture thats when it will feel like a spell. Diplomats are a weird card, it can be reasonable. But Aurelia has flying so the blockers aren't usually too much of an issue. Main problem is that its slow, it has to go around for a turn cycle first. Its an odd card. Id probably just run disrupt decorum for that type of effect, or master warcraft.
Yeah I wouldn't make changes if everything is operating the way you want. But I needed to make a bold statement to reach the more stubborn of commander plays.
the same 37+ . Different mulligan isn't an excuse to run less lands. Besides the player with the most lands is most likely to win, why run less of them?
My backup plan for my UR Dragon is skithiryx the blight dragon or tainted strike but I can also win with the inf combat steps combo or just put bear umbra on the UR dragon and swing that way.
31 seems low. 40 is great. My ashling deck runs 40 and I can pretty much guarantee my first 7 land drops even if I'm living off the top of the deck. More if i start getting some card draw.
Hey PJ, if you want to be click-baity, put that part ("you won't believe #4") in the thumbnail. While scrolling through the feed, "5 Easy Tips To Cut Your Deck Down to 100 Cards" is long enough of a title and the rest isn't even displayed. (At least for me, I don't know how responsive the youtube page works on huuuuge displays.)
Thanks for the heads up. Ill probably just leave it. Its not so much that I want to be click baity, its just that I want people to actually stick around for number 4 since its a longer video, and attention spans and all.
You dont get the quantity of view for your quality!!! Plz make more tutorials video your game play are handsome however as a balance deck your channel should be too ;P love your work !!!!
Thanks man I appreciate that! I will slowly be working in more tutorial and deck building kind of stuff. For a while I was doing 1 non game play a week, but Im gonna be on a vacation next week so ill have to wait until i get back before I do more of them. But I will keep that in mind when I decide on future videos to make.
16:26 CLEARLY you haven't seen 6-drop Tribal. . . . . . no really. it's a thing. www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-commander-6-cmc-tribal-50-100-budgetless
Yeah thats a great starting place. I actually find myself running too many mana cards now. Ill be running like 15 ramp and other cards that care about lands (land tax tithe etc). This does allow me to a big a top end on my decks which is cool, but am i starting to think that i might be over doing it a bit.
I have a Marwyn the Nurturer deck that runs 30 forests, Wirewood Lodge, and Reliquary Tower. Do not ask me how I never get Mana screwed because I do not have an answer for you.
Well like 50% of elves are mana dorks anyway so that easily solves that problem plus Marwyn so yeah. Elf decks can run significantly lower lands than most. Do I understand that there are decks that can run less than 37, absolutely. But if I say that on camera im then I wont get through to the people that im trying to reach, which are those who dont run enough lands. They will just be like "oh im the exception" when they are not. And yes certain decks can run more than 30 creatures, its just a general guideline of what works most of the time.
Only reason I run 36 in Slimefoot is because I run a lot of dorks and my main strategy is Aristocrats so the end game there is I want them to die. Please wipe the board. I would love to win the game because my opponent cast a Wrath spell. In my Marwyn deck I run 35 because I have a ton of mana dorks and a handful of ramp, but I also run it as a combo deck where all I really need is 3 creatures that have a tap ability, something to give unblockable like Rogue's Passage, a way to pump them with X or Umbral Mantle because I can tap them for things and then use my ridiculous amounts of mana to keep uptapping them and making them +2/+2 bigger each time. I also have the option of going wide in that deck. I only run 32 in my Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain deck and I'm always getting flooded, but then a quarter of my deck is dorks/rocks and things to reduce artifact/colorless spell costs and I've got so many 1-2 drop artifacts to search up lands/protect things that I never run into a problem of not having the mana to do everything I need to. Usually what ends up happening is I get a land draw which, when you're trying to combo off, is a dead draw especially when your draw engine depends on you being able to endlessly cast cheap historics. It's actually rare for me to miss a land drop in that deck since I'm usually sitting on extra lands from missed draws. It helps having things that basically allow me to cycle them away (Daretti, Scrap Savant, Quicksmith Genius, etc.)
It all depends on the deck. Lowest Land count: 34 for Marwyn Elves. Highest: 41 + 1 Dark Depths for 5c Lands While I uphold the 37+ lands rule most of the time I'll break it if needed. Havn't I mentioned it? I'm ruthless when it comes to cutting cards.
But funny story. Somone played his Sedris against one of mine and after he had mana problems in 3/4 games I asked him about the land count. 31 We had a long conversation about the importance of more lands, since he blamed it on bad luck - while I blamed it on his low land count.
Lol yeah. See the Meren story i posted in the top comment. Ive been debating on whether its appropriate to share it in video form. More or less same story....essentially they say "IT CANT POSSIBLY BE THE LOW LAND COUNT"
Commander Replay see I’ve seen many deck techs on the locus god and many of the use 32 lands. I guess I makeup for it with artifacts. Currently trying to refine my list. Probably will end up adding 2 more lands.
I still don't get why players play their deck with 37 lands. For me there's no chance to use less than 39. Maybe because you mostly play in mol, I noticed people constantly quit in you videos, so if people get mana screwed they just quit the game. If you play only in paper (like me) you can't do that. Besides, it's no anything worse to get Mana screwed in a Commander game.
huh interesting, for my first draft of feather i have 37 lands and a total of 50/51 mana cards (depending if you count land tax) (no i don't count path to exile) sure, with like sol ring and 2 signets you shouldn't go that low on lands, but i feel like 37 isn't that much of a problem
Unless I run like 15 ramp cards for some reason (hello Kozilek), I usually end up with 40 lands (45 in Windgrace, but you want extra lands to discard there). I just missed too many early land drops when running lower land counts.
Yeah that would be an exception. Animar obviously likes having lots of creatures. Its not that these are black and white rules, its more just general patterns that I've recognized over my years doing the channel. Just something to help those who may be struggling.
Where you would need to be careful is if someone blows up your varina early. 34 lands...its gonna be tough to recast her. Speed of your meta will matter also. If the games are going 12 or more turns there plenty of time to catch up. But in 8 turn meta, there may not be. So it just depends.
I'm sorry, but I just can't get past how much of this feels like opinions. I know you are stating them as "tips" and not "facts", but a tip would be a range of lands, like 35-45 depending on deck type, or base lines, like always run at -least- 5 ramp and 5 card draw spells. Yes, there are some solid "tips", like going heavy on a plan A and not so much on plan B, but a lot of this just feels like personal moments you've had. Even your land count suggestion is justified by a recent game you've had, rather than how a game normally pans out.
Yeah these are just meant to help other players. Do they apply to every single situation? No. But overall this information will help people with their deck building.
Hey guys I know people will have different feelings about the lands bit. But heres where I was coming from. Last week at the shop I played some 1v1 at the end of the night with a guy since we were short on a time. He grabbed a Meren deck and people said it was pretty good. In 2 games he mulliganed 6 times and had been complaining about his deck not working properly and not drawing lands. I asked him how many lands he was running and he said 34. I suggested that maybe he needed to up his land count, but he believed that could not possibly be the issue. I cast utter end on Meren both games and he shame scooped both since he couldn't recast his commander. DONT BE THAT GUY. Anyway that was fresh on my mind while doing the land segment for this video. It may have been overly dramatic, but thats what this channel is good for right? If you are running 36 or less and not having problems, that is fine. But especially if you have 6 and 7 drops in your deck I firmly believe you should be at 37+.
I tell the same things to my buddies. NEVER cut your lands.
I found that cutting lands in favor of ramp can be a good way to speed up your deck. By default, I run 36 lands and 8 ramp cards, which works well for anything with a midrange-ish curve. If I want to be more competitive, I'll usually swap out 1 or 2 lands and put in 2 to 4 extra ramp spells. The ramp can smooth out missed land drops later and significantly boosts your early game.
@@Isolanporzellator true, but it does mean you significantly increase the chance you need to mulligan becaus eyour opening hand has too few lands. also lands are free, meaning late game if you are a turn 6 and need 7 mana a land beats mana ramp because else you have to wait an extra turn cycle to play that 7-drop
remember kids, mana ramp is only ramp if you have a turn to spare, else its a dead draw
the third reason not to over-do ramp is that it increases the susceptibility to being boardwiped. if you have watched this mans videos enough you'l notice often people play a sol ring or mana crypt and they simply scoop or do nothign the rets of the game because someone blows that rock up in their turn.
and if the ramp does stick it paints a target on their forehead from whatever they play with the mana, and in EDH you NEVER want to be the first target, the first target olmost never wins, usually its the second or third
@@jevry4307 Depends on the kind of ramp you're running, if we're talking stuff like Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, playing these late won't give you any tempo disadvantage, but playing them early gives significant tempo advantage, often enough to simply win the game before missing land drops become an issue.
With the free mulligan you get in EDH, it's also really not hard to get at least 2 lands in your opening hand (I'm recommending 32-36 here, so it's really not that big a cut), which is enough to play your ramp and get more mana if needed.
I also wouldn't say running 12 ramp cards is overdoing ramp.
@@Isolanporzellator if you are running only sol ring as your unfair mana rock 37+ lands is the way to go. In my opinion you need 3 lands in your opener to contribute to the game. I have about 25 edh decks and 1 deck has 35 the dest has 37 or more. The one deck is teshar deck full of 1 to 3 drops.
I always tell people new to commander to enjoy that window of time they have when 100 cards seems like so many because one day you’ll wake up and be like “100 CARDS!? I NEED 350 OR THIS DECK WILL NEVER WORK”
Lol yeha I remember when I thought I had 100 cards to work with. Its more like 35 now :/ Not actually that different from a standard deck in terms of overall cars choices...just that everything else is. Oh yeah ever try to cut down a mono black deck? Theres easily 300 cards that go into those decks.
Let’s just make Battle of Wits decks commander legal. Lol
Im in. Lets do it.
I feel that in my soul
I dont agree with 37 in any scenario. In my casual decks i default to 33. Then i add or take away depending on whats going on with the rest of the deck.
Its really all about your average cmc. I wouldnt go below 27 lands regardless, but if your average is like 2.2 you can probably get away with 31 depending on what your ramp looks like
Cutting high CMC to keep a low curve is typically my highest priority when making cuts to a deck. Also planeswalkers are the lowest priority in many of my decks, so they generally the first cuts I make
Yeah im not a big planes walker player either. Probably because I'm usually focused on combat so I'm not always leaving up blockers to protect to my PW. As far as cutting high curve stuff, the main point i was trying to get to was that you want some number of them, i would look to keep them around those target numbers. You still want some options to go to when the game gets big, but yeah too many of them is certainly a problem.
@@CommanderReplay The best planeswalker that I play is Venser, the Sojourner in a Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer deck. The deck has a stax build and Venser is great for blinking cards like Presence of the Master or Damping Matrix to break the symmetry of those effects. And Gwafa Hazid is great at keeping opponents from attacking into Venser
I like it. Runs through guidelines and processes rather than just picking individual cards. Keep it up.
Hope to give everyone some tools to help them build their decks easier.
Warping wail is ok in your opener - can still ramp off it. Cards with options I'd generally rate higher when making cuts. Was tweaking Jor Kadeen last night and kept Boros Charm in over Teferi's Protection, as that double strike will also win me the game. Like the commander said, it all depends what your deck needs to do.
I try to run both cards. They both just do so much. Teferi's protection is never not useful. In a game, someone will either try to attack you, target you, or blow up your stuff. Boros charm is slightly less useful than 100% of every game, but is still absolutely incredible. The double strike, and the every once in a long while you get to shoot a player. Funny Teferi's protection story... I was playing the other night against some random players on MTGO (didn't film), one guy was playing Unesh extra turns. I put him to like 13 or something, then he started the extra turn loop. I was faced with a weird choice before my turn ended, 2 open mana plus about 5 mana from Neheb. I decided to teferi's protection since I wouldn't have the mana during opponents turns, and I felt like the turn loop was about to start. It did, and he played every extra turn spell and cast every creature in his deck, but couldn't do anything because i was phased out. I was lucky that he didn't put lab manic or the similar PW in the deck and 30 minutes later he lost. Wasn't exactly a gratifying win, or one that I'm looking to repeat, but the protection from almost everything on Teferi's is just so good.
@@CommanderReplay It certainly made it into every other white deck. And you're right there's a lot more utility to it than just wipe protection. Valorous Stance I suppose could go, though it's nice leaving him in play in response in my turns to get the attack in. Losing the spot removal can be outweighed by the other bonuses of the Protection, another to escaping combo-win being 2-3 turns of kill effects getting thrown at other creatures. I hear what you're really saying though, it's good enough to cut a land for ;)
Stubborn Denial is fantastic in an Ur-Dragon deck, btw. Just putting that out there. You can protect your board with 1 mana.
Ill pass that one a long. Thanks!
I can protect my board with zero mana.
Great tips, PJ. The cmc layout was nice for most decks.
Thanks! Yeah its really helped me a lot. When you know a deck can't really support more than X of certain CMC it makes cuts so much easier.
Mayael the Anima wants somewhere close to 30+ creature cards in the deck. In many cases they run as a replacement to removal/control non-creature spells as well.
Honestly I think the land count is highly dependent on the deck style and is preference on how comfortable the deck feels with its mana cost. I usually start my decks at 36 lands and then go from there based on what I'm doing. Plus different styles of ramp/cost reduction can help influence that too. All in all I don't think 37 is wrong, I just think you ran into a case where maybe the guy/girl didn't know how to really build the deck around a good mana curve with everything else I said. Love your stuff either way keep up the good work.
I understand that theres some variables there. For time reasons I didn't go deep on commanders that cheat mana or cost reduce and things like that but that can affect the number of lands that you need. On the other hand, I see people consistently running too few lands, and if you haven't already read the story that I pinned as the top comment, people are really resistant to running the right number of lands for their deck, so I just needed to make a bold statement to try and get through peoples stubborness. So long story short, if I say usually 37 with some exceptions everyone is going to think to themselves "my deck is the exception" when it probably isn't. Anyway If your deck is working properly at 36 then I wouldn't change anything, I was just trying to break through the more stubborn of magic players.
Thank you so much. You don't know how much this helped me (but maybe you'd do if you knew that I have 4 decks in process with over 200 cards.) But thank you so much.
Awesome, thats what this video is for. Glad its helping. Whenever I build a mono black deck, easily starts at 150 cards.
I ussually go for 36 lands total, but I agree about not cutting lands. Only my Narset superfriends list (yes I'm that guy) runs less then 36 lands and that is because she exiles the lands with her trigger, I found it is more efficient to run mana rocks since I can cast those of her trigger. But this is a very specific example.
Great tips btw, I was having trouble with my Aurelia deck of late and I started decreasing the mana curve, but now I think I'll add more ramp and up the top end of the deck a little bit more.
Yeah that is a different kind of deck though, and also falls into the competitive exclusions. When you literally cast the spells for free, mana is much less relevant.
I recently realized I play 31 lands in my og jhoira edh deck, but sentimental reasons stop me from cutting so many cards to make place for additional lands.
I just tell myself that her mana cheating suspend ability justifies my low land count.
I will take another look at it with your tips in mind and see if I can make some positive change.
31 is extremely low. If there isn't a lot of removal in your play group you can probably get away with that. But if they either blow her up before you untap, or you don't make enough lands to cast her and leave up the suspend ability in 1 turn it seems like you might be in some trouble mana wise. So yes the suspend ability does allow you to cheat mana more than you would for a deck full of 8+ drops but man 31 still feels really low to me. 37 is comfortable for me. I feel like 37 comes through when I really need to make that 4th or 5th land drop off the top of my deck.
@@CommanderReplay you are absolutely right about 31 lands not being enough. The deck was made when I started playing commander with my best friend. So we both had almost no idea how to build a good edh deck and since we played 1vs1 with infinite mulligans land count and my commander surviving for one full rotation was never much of a problem.
But when I decided to try the same deck in a multiplayer round I bricked more often than not.
All my other decks are running 35+ lands and work much more reliably.
I’d love to see an updated version of this video today or if you think things have really changed? This is an interesting video that I’ve been using for a long time but I personally think things have changed at least a little. Thanks for the great content
Yeah it probably is getting to be about that time to do an updated version. Largely the same advice still applies, to be safer i would probably heir on the lower side of things, at least until you have a feel for what you are doing. I am planning to do a 10 tips style video very soon...ive just been short on time....maybe with some luck I can get that filmed this weekend.
Back in the 2hg extended days I used Wild Ricochet on a Time Stretch. Cloudposts were very common so huge spells were common.
That is a lol play, i love it. I used to run Wild Ricochet in standard to stop Cruel Ultimatum and that actually worked out pretty well even though i couldn't change control of the first copy. Was just enough to force the scoop.
If you cut lands You’re Gonna Have A Bad Time
I've made that mistake a couple times. I put them back after.
Thanks, now I can solve my messy Rakdos decklist
Awesome I hope it works out :)
Hey Very Nice tips, and will help me remake many of my paper edh decks (mostly tribal and funky stuff :D). A question regarding a weird brew i'm having. I'm planing to make a Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis soldier tribal deck. but looking at most cards regarding the tribe. It feels like the tribe tends to go for make a lot of creature tokens to attack. But many of the token producers are really sorceries or enchantements. Should i try a spellslinger type deck (basicaly copy and return form graveyard my token producers) and have some creatures to supports the tokens, or stick will the normal 26 creatures and reduce the number of token producing sorceries? (pet cards i want to include is a Tajic and a Lavinia).
Sounds interesting. It could certainly work, but it might take some trial and error to get the balances right. If you have token producing sorceries I would definitely cut the number of creatures. In k&t I would probably use the early part of the curve to ramp into the bigger token spells, so I would avoid cards like precinct captain for that particular build tho it’s a cool card. Lena, captain of the watch, that kor spell with rebound all seem like a good starting place. I forget which other spells make soldiers specifically.
The 4-5 mana slot is where i have troble making cuts. Some of my deck feel extremely cluncky and i know it mainly because of land count or little to no ramp. I can stare at all the card in the deck for hours and never figure out what to cut for what i need. Another thing define removal would it be artifact& enchantment hate, spot creature removal, or mass removal?
What do you think about the 8x8 guideline? Is it useful in telling what to put in your deck and what not? I know it would break your 37+ lands rule, but it could be a helpful start at least.
I’m not familiar with the 8x8 guideline. What is it?
@@CommanderReplay You pick 8 sets of 8 cards each. Each with a theme that'll help your EDH deck. There's three standard themes: mana ramp, card draw and removal. You're encouraged to use a fourth set to put personal favorites in. Then you can pick four more sets based on the goal of the deck. By the end you'll have 64 cards. Add a commander and your lands and you have a complete EDH deck.
Great video and agree with your points. I make sure to lower overall average CMC but also look at my curve and see if I have a glut of cards at any given CMC. My personal land count is 36+ and I find that this has been an effective number. All my decks run quite a bit of ramp and draw to help smooth out those land drops
So last week I was at the shop and I played a little 1v1 at the end of the night since there wasn't enough time for full games. Guy had a meren deck, he and his buddy next to him said it was pretty good. So I got out my Edgar Markov deck (about 80% of full power right now) So he mulliganed 3 times between both games he played and complained his deck hadn't been working right. I asked him how many lands he had and he said 34, so I suggested he needed more lands, but he said no thats not the problem. I played utter end in his commander in both games he couldn't afford to recast and basically just shame scooped both games. Also of note his win condition involves It That Betrays....but it couldn't be possibly be the fact that he runs 34 lands. Ive had a tough time decided whether I should do a little story about this guy. But theres some chance he may see the video but who knows. Anyway that was fresh on my mind when I did the land segments. SO I may have been overly dramatic. But thats what this channel is good for right?
@@CommanderReplay , I definitely hear ya. 34 is definitely too low unless you're doing CEDH with very, very low curve. Some people just seem so resistant to the idea of putting in a couple more lands! I know they aren't sexy, but they are the foundation of making a deck function.
Woohoo 2nd
I had a lot of trouble cutting down my saskia deck. It's a naya beast tribal with alittle black.
Sweet! Keep your creature count high. Probably around 25 maybe 27. Cut the more situational spells, then I would cut by CMC. Hope that helps!
What about the creature count for a value/good stuff deck? I need some help with Tasigur.
It depends. Like you saw in the video creatures can vary pretty heavily. However, when I think of a standard good stuff Sultai build, I'm thinking about 10-15 high quality creatures. Things like Avenger Craterhoof and Grave titan. However, if you wanted to be more creature based you could certainly get up around 20 or 25, but Sultai does have a lot of really good spells so you would need to give up on some number of those. It just depends on how you want your deck to play. To feel more like a creature deck thats gonna be 20-25, something in the middle is probably 15-20, and something more spell based is probably 10-15. Hope this helps!
See my problem isn’t usually any of this stuff! It’s isually “what’s more awesome” and I can’t decide which card to take out because they are all awesome
Yeah that can be tricky. Generally that just comes down to play testing. I find that that one is usually way better than the other, you just need to figure out which.
I have a question for you hoping I will not get bullied once again as I usually do from commander players..With my friends we prefer brawl versus commander..We try to play a faster and cheaper commander so this is the reason we follow this format...
Si my simple question is about cmc. What are the values for a small version of 60 deck that kind of works like commander ?
Most of the times I fall to this specific insect.
I buy a preconstructed 100deck and try to cut it to a 60 single tone deck but most of the times I don't know which cards to cut while I do know how to categorize them.
Could you please help ?
Hi, sorry I don't have specific numbers for Brawl. I don't play very much Brawl so I'm really up to date on how that format is playing right now. If i had to guess I would say maybe max 4 6CMC cards, and like 2-3 7CMC. I would say you probably want as much of the deck as possible to be at 2 and 3 CMC. Maybe 8 4CMC and maybe 3-4 5CMC? Im not sure though, these are just guesses. The card pool makes Brawl play very differently. Anyway hope these help, and hope you can find some answers.
@@CommanderReplay Thank you very much for your big answer. You are one of my favourite youtubers concerning magic..I really look forward for your new content. .they are all totally excellent.I would love to see your decklist every time you use a deck like on the descr or an other site (excuse me if you already do it, sometimes android's utube doesnt show the details below..)
I will tell you my cmc conclusion for a 60 singletone deck so you will tell me your opinion.
X (Cmc)= Y (Number of Cards)
Creatures
1-2 = 5
3-4 = 10
5-? = 5
+ 2 wherever I want/need
Non Creatures
1-2 = 3
3-4 = 6
5-? = 3
+2 wherever I want/need
When I want to play control,
I use the first values vice versa.
When I want to play midrange
I use this table for both creature and non creature cards (×2 ofc)
1-2=4
3-4=8
5-?=4
+1 wherever I want
25 Lands
×11 (multicolors)
×2 3 triple color mana
×3 double color mana
(for every pair of color
in a 3 colored deck)
×6 hybrid mana
×12 monocolored
(×4 / color)
×3 utility mana lands with effects)
What's your oppinion
(if you want to share it with me) ?
I nearly always run 35 lands with 14 ramp cards (1-3 cmc ramp). I curve heavy at 3/4 cmc too. 37 lands... it's not 100% set in stone.
I'm actually in the camp of 35 lands, 37+ if more then 4 colors and 33 if mono.
I bloody never know how to trim my EDH decks, that helped me a lot ! (I laughed a lot at the 37+ lands part, I play cEDH Baral with 30 lands and it always confuses me how many lands I should run)
A bit of criticism : the video might be a little too long, and you sometime repeat your-self. Very good video tho.
What about some common ressources of your own, like a googledoc or spreadsheet of "Commander Replay's Tips" or something like that ?
Yeah Cedh is a bit different. If the games only going 4 or 5 turns you only need that many lands. Also Baral has built in looting and cost reduction, so you just gotta feel it out. If its working at that count then leave it, but if you're having issues increase the count. Yeah every time i come up with an idea for a "short video" its always 60 minutes of talking. Then I aim to get it down somewhere around 20-30.
white sun's zenith is a creature spell
a good one at that, id prefer it over the white finale because the instant speed = ambush block/haste
change my mind
on another note should i replace my goblin diplomats for something else in an aurelia deck, i never really had the oppertunity to test how good it is so far so im not sure if being able to force an attack is very usefull. especially since goad appearently is good i can't decide if its better to just run a better creature that can do good dmg on its own vs a puny 2/1
White's suns is a fantastic card. I mean its still an instant. Relevant when things like blink and reaniatmion enter the picture thats when it will feel like a spell. Diplomats are a weird card, it can be reasonable. But Aurelia has flying so the blockers aren't usually too much of an issue. Main problem is that its slow, it has to go around for a turn cycle first. Its an odd card. Id probably just run disrupt decorum for that type of effect, or master warcraft.
White Sun's Zenith isn't a Creature spell because it's an Instant spell.
Did I change your mind?
I run 36 in any deck with avg cmc of 3 or more and 35 in decks with cmc less than that. Never have any issues...get flooded sometimes even.
Yeah I wouldn't make changes if everything is operating the way you want. But I needed to make a bold statement to reach the more stubborn of commander plays.
34 lands seem fine in paper( i still try to hit 34 or so lands + utility lands depending on the deck)
how many lands would you recommend on average using the sculpt mulligan ?
the same 37+ . Different mulligan isn't an excuse to run less lands. Besides the player with the most lands is most likely to win, why run less of them?
Who else paused the video and read his notes when they showed up for a second only to listen to them again?
Do you think I need like a recap or a cheat sheet? Its something I thought about.
I paused to read them, and then hit play and zoned out to my own personal thoughts.
My backup plan for my UR Dragon is skithiryx the blight dragon or tainted strike but I can also win with the inf combat steps combo or just put bear umbra on the UR dragon and swing that way.
Solid back up plans right there. Tainted does require a creature which isn't the best, Bear umbra solid all the way around though as well as skittles.
Always cut the lands MUHAHA!!! I have some with 31 up to 40. I like to think I know what I'm doing haha
31 seems low. 40 is great. My ashling deck runs 40 and I can pretty much guarantee my first 7 land drops even if I'm living off the top of the deck. More if i start getting some card draw.
Hey PJ, if you want to be click-baity, put that part ("you won't believe #4") in the thumbnail.
While scrolling through the feed, "5 Easy Tips To Cut Your Deck Down to 100 Cards" is long enough of a title and the rest isn't even displayed.
(At least for me, I don't know how responsive the youtube page works on huuuuge displays.)
Thanks for the heads up. Ill probably just leave it. Its not so much that I want to be click baity, its just that I want people to actually stick around for number 4 since its a longer video, and attention spans and all.
I love how the annotations come up right before my name does for the Patreon supporters....
Oh I must have mistimed it. Thats an easy fix! Should have that done momentarily.
should be fixed now!
You dont get the quantity of view for your quality!!! Plz make more tutorials video your game play are handsome however as a balance deck your channel should be too ;P love your work !!!!
Thanks man I appreciate that! I will slowly be working in more tutorial and deck building kind of stuff. For a while I was doing 1 non game play a week, but Im gonna be on a vacation next week so ill have to wait until i get back before I do more of them. But I will keep that in mind when I decide on future videos to make.
16:26 CLEARLY you haven't seen 6-drop Tribal. . .
. . . no really. it's a thing. www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-commander-6-cmc-tribal-50-100-budgetless
You're right, I don't believe.
which part?
@@CommanderReplay I was making fun of the title.
Whenever I build a deck it starts with 37 lands, sword of the animist, mask of memory, and sol ring
Yeah thats a great starting place. I actually find myself running too many mana cards now. Ill be running like 15 ramp and other cards that care about lands (land tax tithe etc). This does allow me to a big a top end on my decks which is cool, but am i starting to think that i might be over doing it a bit.
I like 12 or more pieces of Ramp. But I include stoneforge mystic and Steelshapers gift as Ramp too.
I run 30 lands in a Stax deck. It shouldn't work, but it does BeCaUsE sTaX
whose line is it anyway
I have a Marwyn the Nurturer deck that runs 30 forests, Wirewood Lodge, and Reliquary Tower. Do not ask me how I never get Mana screwed because I do not have an answer for you.
Oh yeah and 50 creatures.
Well like 50% of elves are mana dorks anyway so that easily solves that problem plus Marwyn so yeah. Elf decks can run significantly lower lands than most. Do I understand that there are decks that can run less than 37, absolutely. But if I say that on camera im then I wont get through to the people that im trying to reach, which are those who dont run enough lands. They will just be like "oh im the exception" when they are not. And yes certain decks can run more than 30 creatures, its just a general guideline of what works most of the time.
@@CommanderReplay I know all of that and your list was very helpful on a pillow fort deck I'm making that had like 85 to many cards.
good vid!
You wont believe #4 lol really
It’s a little click baity I know, but I wanted people to stick around for that one since it’s quite a ways in.
Very clickbaity, yeah. It's *won't*, BTW.
Only reason I run 36 in Slimefoot is because I run a lot of dorks and my main strategy is Aristocrats so the end game there is I want them to die. Please wipe the board. I would love to win the game because my opponent cast a Wrath spell.
In my Marwyn deck I run 35 because I have a ton of mana dorks and a handful of ramp, but I also run it as a combo deck where all I really need is 3 creatures that have a tap ability, something to give unblockable like Rogue's Passage, a way to pump them with X or Umbral Mantle because I can tap them for things and then use my ridiculous amounts of mana to keep uptapping them and making them +2/+2 bigger each time. I also have the option of going wide in that deck.
I only run 32 in my Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain deck and I'm always getting flooded, but then a quarter of my deck is dorks/rocks and things to reduce artifact/colorless spell costs and I've got so many 1-2 drop artifacts to search up lands/protect things that I never run into a problem of not having the mana to do everything I need to. Usually what ends up happening is I get a land draw which, when you're trying to combo off, is a dead draw especially when your draw engine depends on you being able to endlessly cast cheap historics. It's actually rare for me to miss a land drop in that deck since I'm usually sitting on extra lands from missed draws. It helps having things that basically allow me to cycle them away (Daretti, Scrap Savant, Quicksmith Genius, etc.)
It all depends on the deck.
Lowest Land count: 34 for Marwyn Elves.
Highest: 41 + 1 Dark Depths for 5c Lands
While I uphold the 37+ lands rule most of the time I'll break it if needed.
Havn't I mentioned it? I'm ruthless when it comes to cutting cards.
But funny story.
Somone played his Sedris against one of mine and after he had mana problems in 3/4 games I asked him about the land count.
31
We had a long conversation about the importance of more lands, since he blamed it on bad luck - while I blamed it on his low land count.
Lol yeah. See the Meren story i posted in the top comment. Ive been debating on whether its appropriate to share it in video form. More or less same story....essentially they say "IT CANT POSSIBLY BE THE LOW LAND COUNT"
Lol my yidris deck is the opposite of that mana curve
Love it!
I’m at 32 lands in my locust god deck.
This just seems too low. Might be ok if you have like 20 pieces of ramp, but id probably up that count a bit.
Commander Replay see I’ve seen many deck techs on the locus god and many of the use 32 lands. I guess I makeup for it with artifacts. Currently trying to refine my list. Probably will end up adding 2 more lands.
I still don't get why players play their deck with 37 lands. For me there's no chance to use less than 39. Maybe because you mostly play in mol, I noticed people constantly quit in you videos, so if people get mana screwed they just quit the game. If you play only in paper (like me) you can't do that. Besides, it's no anything worse to get Mana screwed in a Commander game.
huh interesting, for my first draft of feather i have 37 lands and a total of 50/51 mana cards (depending if you count land tax)
(no i don't count path to exile)
sure, with like sol ring and 2 signets you shouldn't go that low on lands, but i feel like 37 isn't that much of a problem
Unless I run like 15 ramp cards for some reason (hello Kozilek), I usually end up with 40 lands (45 in Windgrace, but you want extra lands to discard there). I just missed too many early land drops when running lower land counts.
Lmao what is this? Title sounds like a crappy ad online
BUT WAIT THERES MORE.
I ran an Animar deck once with like 50 creatures
Yeah that would be an exception. Animar obviously likes having lots of creatures. Its not that these are black and white rules, its more just general patterns that I've recognized over my years doing the channel. Just something to help those who may be struggling.
@@CommanderReplay of course. There's really no right or wrong answer to build a deck unless it really doesn't work at all.
my varina deck has 34 lands and i managed to cast a finale x = 11
Where you would need to be careful is if someone blows up your varina early. 34 lands...its gonna be tough to recast her. Speed of your meta will matter also. If the games are going 12 or more turns there plenty of time to catch up. But in 8 turn meta, there may not be. So it just depends.
1st
Just remove lands lol
sometimes i troll my discord, and tell them to cut lands. they know I'm kidding though.
I'm sorry, but I just can't get past how much of this feels like opinions. I know you are stating them as "tips" and not "facts", but a tip would be a range of lands, like 35-45 depending on deck type, or base lines, like always run at -least- 5 ramp and 5 card draw spells.
Yes, there are some solid "tips", like going heavy on a plan A and not so much on plan B, but a lot of this just feels like personal moments you've had. Even your land count suggestion is justified by a recent game you've had, rather than how a game normally pans out.
Yeah these are just meant to help other players. Do they apply to every single situation? No. But overall this information will help people with their deck building.