Commander Mana Tables
Commander changes two things about mana maths, and they pull in opposite directions. The deck is 99 cards rather than 60, which dilutes everything. But it is also singleton, so redundancy has to come from cards that do similar jobs rather than from copies.
All odds assume a 99 card deck (the commander sits in the command zone) and that you are on the play, so by turn T you have seen your opening seven plus T−1 draws. Extra draws from card advantage, which Commander decks generate heavily, are not modelled and push every number up. Every figure is an exact hypergeometric probability computed at build time.
Hitting land drops
| Lands | Turn 2 | Turn 3 | Turn 4 | Turn 5 | Turn 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33 | 81.6% | 63.2% | 44.1% | 28.0% | 16.3% |
| 34 | 83.2% | 65.7% | 47.0% | 30.7% | 18.4% |
| 35 | 84.7% | 68.1% | 49.8% | 33.4% | 20.7% |
| 36 | 86.1% | 70.4% | 52.7% | 36.2% | 23.1% |
| 37 | 87.4% | 72.7% | 55.5% | 39.1% | 25.6% |
| 38 | 88.6% | 74.8% | 58.3% | 42.0% | 28.2% |
| 39 | 89.7% | 76.8% | 61.0% | 45.0% | 30.9% |
| 40 | 90.7% | 78.8% | 63.6% | 47.9% | 33.7% |
The commonly recommended 36 to 38 lands holds up well here, but notice what it actually buys: at 36 lands you hit your fourth land drop on turn four about 53 percent of the time and your fifth on turn five about 36 percent. Commander decks reach six and seven mana routinely not because their land counts are high, but because the format gives you extra turns and extra draws. The land count keeps you alive long enough for the ramp and card draw to work.
This is the argument for counting your mana rocks and ramp spells as part of the mana base rather than as spells. A deck with 34 lands and eight ramp pieces behaves very differently from one with 34 lands and none, even though the tables above see them identically.
Coloured sources
Odds of having drawn at least one source of a colour by a given turn:
| Sources | Turn 1 | Turn 2 | Turn 3 | Turn 4 | Turn 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | 69.6% | 74.5% | 78.7% | 82.3% | 85.3% |
| 20 | 80.5% | 84.8% | 88.1% | 90.8% | 92.8% |
| 25 | 87.9% | 91.2% | 93.6% | 95.4% | 96.7% |
| 30 | 92.8% | 95.1% | 96.7% | 97.8% | 98.6% |
| 35 | 95.8% | 97.4% | 98.4% | 99.0% | 99.4% |
| 40 | 97.7% | 98.7% | 99.3% | 99.6% | 99.8% |
Three, four, and five colour decks are where this bites. Splitting 37 lands across five colours leaves each colour badly supported, which is why heavily multicoloured Commander decks lean so hard on lands that produce any colour, and why an early ramp piece that fixes is often better than a more powerful spell.
The singleton problem
This is the table every Commander player should see once. It gives the odds of having drawn at least one card from a group of a given size, which for a singleton format means: how likely am I to find this effect?
| Cards with the effect | Turn 1 | Turn 3 | Turn 5 | Turn 7 | Turn 10 | Turn 15 | Turn 20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7.1% | 9.1% | 11.1% | 13.1% | 16.2% | 21.2% | 26.3% |
| 5 | 31.2% | 38.6% | 45.2% | 51.3% | 59.4% | 70.5% | 79.0% |
| 10 | 53.7% | 63.3% | 71.0% | 77.3% | 84.4% | 91.9% | 96.0% |
| 15 | 69.6% | 78.7% | 85.3% | 89.9% | 94.4% | 98.0% | 99.3% |
The first row is the important one. A specific single card in a 99 card deck is in your opening hand about 7 percent of the time, and you have still only seen it about 16 percent of the time by turn ten. You will not draw your one-of. Most games, that card may as well not be in the deck.
Which explains three things Commander players are told constantly, and gives the reason behind each:
- Play more card draw. Extra draws are the only way to move down the rows of this table, because the singleton rule forbids moving across them.
- Play redundant effects, not favourites. Ten cards that all ramp is a real plan at roughly 60 percent by turn five. One perfect ramp spell is not.
- Tutors are stronger here than anywhere else. A tutor converts a 7 percent card into a card you can actually build around, which is why they command the prices they do.
Related: the general mana tables, lands by curve, and drawing your cards. Spotted an error, or want a table this page does not cover? Write us at contact@bopmtg.net.