Overview

By default every deck gets exactly 35 lands regardless of CMC curve or color density. Smart Lands replaces that fixed number with a profile-driven calculation that asks three questions:

1. How fast is the deck? (commander CMC + pool average → speed category)
2. How color-intensive are your spells? (double-pip and triple-or-more-pip counts by color)
3. How many colors does the deck run? (1-color gets more basics; 5-color gets more fixing)

From those three signals it picks a land count (33–39), a basics count, and an ETB tapped tolerance, then passes those targets to every existing land-selection step — no other logic changes.

Enable Smart Land Bases per-build via the Smart Land Bases checkbox in the Preferences section of the New Deck modal (checked by default). Disable it for a single build by unchecking the box.

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Speed Categories & Land Counts

Smart Lands applies a speed offset to your configured ideal land count rather than overwriting it with a fixed number.

Speed	Effective CMC	Offset from your ideal	Example (ideal = 40)
Fast	< 3.0	−2	38
Mid	3.0 – 4.0	±0	40
Slow	> 4.0	+2 to +4 (scales with color count)	42–44

Effective CMC is a weighted blend: commander_cmc × 0.6 + pool_avg_cmc × 0.4. This means a 1-CMC commander leading a mid-range pool will show an effective CMC around 1.9, which still lands firmly in the "fast" band.

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Land Profiles

Basics-Heavy

Recommended for 1–2 color decks and decks with low pip density (< 5 double-pip cards, 0 triple-or-more-pip cards). Also forced automatically for budget builds with < $50 allocated to lands in 3+ color decks.

• Basics: ~60% of land target
• ETB tapped tolerance: reduced by 4 percentage points vs. bracket default
• Good for: mono-color aggro, 2-color tempo, budget lists

Balanced (Mid)

The default for 2–3 color decks with moderate pip density. Keeps existing bracket-level ETB tapped thresholds unchanged.

• Basics: current default ratio
• ETB tapped tolerance: bracket default (unchanged)
• Good for: most 2–3 color Commander decks

Fixing-Heavy

Triggered by 3+ colors with high pip density (≥ 15 double-pip cards or ≥ 3 triple-or-more-pip cards), or automatically for 5-color decks.

• Basics: color_count × 2 (minimal, roughly 6–10)
• ETB tapped tolerance: raised by 4 percentage points vs. bracket default (slow decks can afford tapped sources)
• Good for: 4–5 color goodstuff, high-pip Grixis/Abzan builds, decks relying on colored activations

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Pip Density

Pips are the colored mana symbols in a card's mana cost. Smart Lands counts them per color across your full card pool:

• Single-pip: one symbol of a color (e.g., {1}{W})
• Double-pip: two symbols of the same color on one card (e.g., {W}{W})
• Triple-or-more-pip: three or more symbols of the same color on one card (e.g., {B}{B}{B} or {5}{R}{R}{R})

Cards with pips outside your commander's color identity are ignored (they would never be selected). Lands are excluded from pip counting.

When pip density pushes the profile away from the color-count default, the build summary explains this in the Smart Lands notice.

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Build Summary Notice

After each build, the Land Summary section shows a Smart Lands banner when the analysis ran:

Smart Lands adjusted your land targets: 35 lands / 8 basics — Fixing-heavy (extensive duals/fetches) profile, Mid-paced deck.

The Why: section explains in plain English what drove the decision — single color, 5-color identity, heavy pip density, light pip density, or moderate pip density based on color count. Double-pip and triple-or-more-pip counts are only shown when pip density was the deciding factor.

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Overrides

Variable	Values	Effect
LAND_PROFILE	basics, mid, fixing	Force a specific profile, skip auto-detection.
LAND_COUNT	integer (e.g. 36)	Force total land count, skip curve calculation.

Env overrides are applied after the analysis, so they always win over the calculated values. For headless/CLI builds these are the primary way to control land behaviour.

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Budget Interaction

When Budget Mode is active and the land budget is under $50 with 3+ colors, the profile is automatically overridden to basics-heavy and a warning is logged. This prevents the tool from recommending expensive fetch/shock lands you cannot afford. Override with LAND_PROFILE=mid if needed.

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Slot Earmarking

After Smart Lands sets the land target, it proportionally scales down non-land ideal counts (creatures, ramp, removal, etc.) so they fit within the remaining 99 − land_target deck slots. This prevents spell phases from consuming land slots before lands get a chance to fill them.

For example, with a 43-land target the non-land budget is 56 slots. If the combined non-land ideals sum to 63, each category is scaled down proportionally (e.g. 25 creatures → 22, 10 removal → 9, etc.).

A backfill step at the end of all land phases adds basics from the color identity if any land phase still falls short — so the deck always reaches the configured target.

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Notes

• Smart Lands only adjusts counts — the existing land-selection steps (duals, fetches, triples, ETB optimization, etc.) run unchanged on the updated targets.
• Colorless commanders fall back to mid profile with 35 lands (no color identity to analyze).
• If the analysis fails for any reason, it silently falls back to mid profile and fixed 35-land target — builds are never blocked.

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See Also

• Build Wizard — land base options in the context of the full build workflow
• Budget Mode — price filtering that affects which lands are available in the pool
• Quick Build & Skip Controls — skip specific land stages if you want to handle lands manually