Magic: The Gathering — the mana math that wins games
Magic has tens of thousands of cards, but one piece of it is pure, exact math: how many lands you draw. It's a hypergeometric draw from your deck, so your keepable-hand odds, the screw-vs-flood trade-off, and your land-drops on curve are all solvable to the decimal — no simulation, no opinion. A typical 24-land deck keeps a comfortable 2–5 land opener 84% of the time, and a single London mulligan turns that into 98%.
Your opening hand, by the numbers (a 24-land deck)
Exact chance of drawing each number of lands in your 7-card opener. Green = a comfortable keep (2–5), red = one-or-fewer lands (usually a mulligan), amber = flooded (6–7 lands):
Most opening hands are fine — and mulligans fix the rest. About 84% of 24-land openers land in the comfortable 2–5 zone; only 14% have one-or-fewer lands and 1.3% flood out.
How many lands? The exact screw-vs-flood trade-off
There is no single "best" land count — it depends on your curve. But the cost of each choice is exact. As you add lands, mana-screw (one-or-fewer-land hands) falls and flood rises, while your odds of hitting your 4th land by turn 4 climb:
| Lands (of 60) | Comfortable (2–5) | One-or-fewer | Flood (6+) | 4th land by T4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 (27%) | 61% | 39% | 0.1% | 18% |
| 17 (28%) | 65% | 35% | 0.1% | 22% |
| 18 (30%) | 68% | 31% | 0.2% | 26% |
| 19 (32%) | 72% | 28% | 0.3% | 30% |
| 20 (33%) | 75% | 25% | 0.4% | 34% |
| 21 (35%) | 78% | 22% | 0.6% | 39% |
| 22 (37%) | 80% | 19% | 0.8% | 43% |
| 23 (38%) | 82% | 17% | 1.0% | 48% |
| 24 (40%) | 84% | 14% | 1.3% | 52% |
| 25 (42%) | 86% | 12% | 1.7% | 57% |
| 26 (43%) | 87% | 10% | 2.2% | 61% |
Rule of thumb that matches the math: aggressive low-curve decks ~16–18 lands, midrange ~23–25, control ~25–27. The famous "≈40% lands" guideline is the 24-land row.
Hitting your land drops on curve
On the play with a 24-land deck, the chance you've drawn enough lands to make your Nth land drop on time — and the chance you've hit at least 3 lands (enough to function):
| By turn… | Hit your Nth land | At least 3 lands |
|---|---|---|
| Turn 2 | 86% | 59% |
| Turn 3 | 70% | 70% |
| Turn 4 | 52% | 79% |
| Turn 5 | 36% | 86% |
| Turn 6 | 22% | 90% |
| Turn 7 | 13% | 94% |
Curving out past turn 3–4 is not a given. This is why decks that want to hit every land drop run more lands, cheap card draw, or ramp — the raw deck only gets you so far.
The London mulligan is your friend
Because you draw a fresh 7 each mulligan (then bottom cards), a comfortable hand is very likely within a mulligan or two. For a 24-land deck:
Don't keep a broken hand out of fear. One mulligan takes your comfortable-hand odds from 84% to 98% — ship the one-landers and no-landers.
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How we got these numbers
Every number here is exact hypergeometric probability, not a simulation. For a 60-card deck with L lands, the chance of exactly k lands in a 7-card opening hand is C(L,k)·C(60−L,7−k)/C(60,7). We evaluate that across 16–26 lands to show the exact screw-vs-flood trade-off, then derive a one-or-fewer-lands opening (≤1 land), a flooded opening (≥6 lands), the chance of having hit your Nth land by turn N on the play, and how a London mulligan raises your chance of a comfortable opening. We deliberately do not crown a single 'best' land count — the right number depends on your mana curve and archetype (aggressive decks run fewer lands, control decks more). This is universal Magic math: it does not depend on format, colours, or specific cards.
Validation: the distribution sums to exactly 1 and its mean equals the hypergeometric mean
7·L/60 (2.8 lands for a 24-land deck); our P(0 lands) for a
17-land deck is 8.34% (= C(43,7)/C(60,7) = 8.34%). Source code lives
in our sims/ folder (mtg_sim.py). See also the full Magic: The Gathering entry.
Common questions
How many lands should I run in a 60-card Magic deck?
There's no single right number — it depends on your mana curve. The exact math shows the trade-off: more lands cut your chance of a one-or-fewer-land opening (from ~39% at 16 lands to ~10% at 26) but raise your flood risk (from ~0.1% to ~2.2%). As a rule of thumb that matches the numbers, aggressive low-curve decks run ~16–18 lands, midrange decks ~23–25 (a 24-land deck is 40% lands), and control decks ~25–27. Pick for your curve, then read the trade-off table.
What are the odds of a good opening hand in Magic?
For a typical 24-land deck, your 7-card opener has a comfortable 2–5 lands 84% of the time. It has one-or-fewer lands 14% of the time (usually a mulligan) and six-or-more 1.3%. These are exact hypergeometric probabilities, not estimates.
Should I mulligan a one-land or two-land hand?
Mulligan aggressively for a functional hand — the London mulligan makes it cheap. With a 24-land deck a single mulligan raises your chance of a comfortable (2–5 land) hand from 84% to 98%, and two mulligans to 100%. A one-land or zero-land seven is almost always worth shipping; a two-lander depends on your curve and what those cards do.
What's the chance I hit my land drops on curve?
On the play with a 24-land deck, you'll have hit your 3rd land by turn 3 about 70% of the time and your 4th land by turn 4 about 52% — which is exactly why adding lands (or cheap card draw/ramp) matters if your deck needs to curve out.