How many cards in a deck?

[Wekmar]

Im new to magic, but Im having a blast wirh 2014 and 2015 :)

It seems that 60 cards is the optimal amount in a deck?

How many cards do you have in your decks, and is there a minimum and a maximum?

It seems that Lands is about half the deck?

[Puzzlemint]

The optimal number of cards is whatever the minimum is in the format you're playing. In 2015, that's 60. The more cards you have in your deck, the less likely you are to draw the one you actually need in any given situation.

I haven't tested, but I assume 2015 enforces a 100-card maximum. 2014 did, as well. In paper Magic, there's no maximum deck size beyond "you must be able to properly shuffle your deck without aid in a reasonable amount of time".

For most decks, land should be about 2/5ths of your deck, or 24 in a 60-card deck.

[tatewaki]

Old way was general rule of thumb was 60 cards, 20 of which was land. Many seem to go above 20, but unless the deck has a ton of high cost cards, you're usually better off getting the mana from other sources (sorceries to get more land, used to be critters that could be tapped for mana, etc.)

One other thing to recognize is how the game does difficulty, they make the AI have increased chances of drawing their good cards, and screw you over with bad draws. And when you can draw land over and over with 20 one game, then get next to no land the next, adding more land in just doesn't make sense. The game will already screw you either way, it's more at the whims of the AI. So even with adding more land, it doesn't guarantee you more land.

[Puzzlemint]

Originally posted by tatewaki:

Old way was general rule of thumb was 60 cards, 20 of which was land. Many seem to go above 20, but unless the deck has a ton of high cost cards, you're usually better off getting the mana from other sources (sorceries to get more land, used to be critters that could be tapped for mana, etc.)

This hasn't been true since the days of things like Dark Ritual.

Check out some Modern and Standard decklists for paper Magic. The overwhelming majority run 23-24 lands. Some run 21-22, if their entire deck costs 3 mana or less.

The only decks that run less than 21 land are things like Affinity (tons of cheap mana-producing artifacts, and cards that get cheaper if you have more artifacts), Storm (a full 20% of the deck is 1-mana draw spells), and Cascade Combo decks (again, never need more than 3 mana).

And keep in mind that Modern and Standard are both formats with access to higher quality lands, more nonland mana sources, and more ways of fetching/drawing into lands than DotP.

Going under 23 in this game is very bad advice.

Originally posted by tatewaki:

One other thing to recognize is how the game does difficulty, they make the AI have increased chances of drawing their good cards, and screw you over with bad draws.

The game doesn't give you bad draws. That's just bad luck fueling confirmation bias.

What previous versions of the game did do was make it so that the AI was less likely to draw its best cards on lower difficulties. I assume the same is true of this version, but with the new file format, it's difficult to verify.

[tatewaki]

Possibly, but doesn't change the underlining sentiment that there isn't much point to the extra land cards regardless. Might be the game pretends we're idiots that would just scoop the cards up and shuffle them, instead of separating the lands out into your other cards in graveyard battlefield, then stick any extras in amongst the library before shuffling. Doing that, never had an issue with getting too much or too few mana when I played IRL.

Would be nice if they added actual physical mechanics like that into the game, just so we don't draw 5 land 3 times in a row, or 1 or none 3 times in a row.

[Zypre]

Having 20 or lower is usually pretty risky, even in a fast aggro deck, I would run 21

[Zypre]

Originally posted by tatewaki:

Possibly, but doesn't change the underlining sentiment that there isn't much point to the extra land cards regardless. Might be the game pretends we're idiots that would just scoop the cards up and shuffle them, instead of separating the lands out into your other cards in graveyard battlefield, then stick any extras in amongst the library before shuffling. Doing that, never had an issue with getting too much or too few mana when I played IRL.

Would be nice if they added actual physical mechanics like that into the game, just so we don't draw 5 land 3 times in a row, or 1 or none 3 times in a row.

That sounds like you're 'mana weaving' which is actually an illegal move in tournament play, unless you shuffle it a LOT after doing it - making it pointless to do in the first place

[Puzzlemint]

Originally posted by tatewaki:

Possibly, but doesn't change the underlining sentiment that there isn't much point to the extra land cards regardless. Might be the game pretends we're idiots that would just scoop the cards up and shuffle them, instead of separating the lands out into your other cards in graveyard battlefield, then stick any extras in amongst the library before shuffling. Doing that, never had an issue with getting too much or too few mana when I played IRL.

Would be nice if they added actual physical mechanics like that into the game, just so we don't draw 5 land 3 times in a row, or 1 or none 3 times in a row.

Mana weaving is against the rules. Your deck must be randomized. Randomness sometimes results in clumps.

[tatewaki]

Originally posted by A Puzzlemint of Legend:

Originally posted by tatewaki:

Possibly, but doesn't change the underlining sentiment that there isn't much point to the extra land cards regardless. Might be the game pretends we're idiots that would just scoop the cards up and shuffle them, instead of separating the lands out into your other cards in graveyard battlefield, then stick any extras in amongst the library before shuffling. Doing that, never had an issue with getting too much or too few mana when I played IRL.

Would be nice if they added actual physical mechanics like that into the game, just so we don't draw 5 land 3 times in a row, or 1 or none 3 times in a row.

Mana weaving is against the rules. Your deck must be randomized. Randomness sometimes results in clumps.

Had to look up the term, but no it isn't. You separate the land amongst the cards, which would technically fall under the term. And then you shuffle, repeatedly. That is allowed, and there are a specific amount of times shuffling is required. Still meets it, still gets cut, still ends up with better chances of not getting large stretches of all land or no land.

[Zypre]

It shouldn't give you better chances. Not if you shuffle correctly.
And if it does give you better chances, it is by definition against the rules.

[Puzzlemint]

If separating your lands before shuffling consistently produces a noticeable difference in how your deck draws, then you're not shuffling properly, which is against the rules.

Your deck must be randomized. Randomness sometimes results in clumps.

[Barser]

my own decks irl is usually 20 lands because I prefer fast decks and cheap cards.

[tatewaki]

And when I did that method the only thing they asked was that I shuffled a minimum amount of times, and they watched me do the shuffling. This was in a tournament, because some weenie complained when I mentioned that I tended to always have nicely spaced land draws.

The tournament guy watched what I did from beginning to end, and saw no violation. To mock my opponent, I even did an extra shuffle. Still had decent spacing, made sure to smirk at my opponent for raising a fuss when he got land in a row.

Honestly wouldn't have done the little things, if he hadn't raised such a fuss shouting for a referee to come over claiming I had cheated because he lost. The fact he had no issue until he was losing the first game, then the way he decided to try to handle it, made it fun though. Though I was 17, he was in later 30s or 40s, and was complaining basically because he lost.

Originally posted by Barser:

my own decks irl is usually 20 lands because I prefer fast decks and cheap cards.

My main deck that I used for every type of play was a green with 20 forests and two forces of nature. Though I had 4 Llewelyn Elves, or however it's spelled, which basically bumps available mana resources up to 24. Which is what I meant by using other sources for mana. The elves work great as first round harrassers, or can be used to quickly get some more powerful critters out.