Mana Base Guide: Lands for Graveyard Decks — Bojuka Bog, Cycling Lands, and Self-Mill Slots

Graveyard decks ask their lands to work twice: produce mana early, then become graveyard interaction, self-mill, or recursion later. The best of them cost the mana base almost nothing — a land that cycles away, a land that exiles a graveyard on entry, a land you can sacrifice when the game has moved past needing mana.

Real lands, real text

Bojuka Bog (Land; rarity: common; most recent printing listed by Scryfall: Secrets of Strixhaven Commander): This land enters tapped.
When this land enters, exile target player's graveyard.
{T}: Add {B}. Dakmor Salvage (Land; rarity: uncommon; most recent printing listed by Scryfall: Edge of Eternities Commander): This land enters tapped.
{T}: Add {B}.
Dredge 2 (If you would draw a card, you may mill two cards instead. If you do, return this card from your graveyard to your hand.) Barren Moor (Land; rarity: uncommon; most recent printing listed by Scryfall: Duskmourn: House of Horror Commander): This land enters tapped.
{T}: Add {B}.
Cycling {B} ({B}, Discard this card: Draw a card.)

Build from examples like these rather than from ratios copied off the internet. Count the coloured symbols in your spells, look at which turns your deck must cast what, and let those two facts choose the lands — then test, count your stumbles honestly, and adjust.

Build and check your list with the MTGBrew AI deck builder, and browse every card mentioned here in the MTGBrew card database on MTGBrew.

If this topic is on your bench, keep going with Rules: Eminence, Command Zone Abilities, and Why Edgar Markov Plays Differently — it covers the neighbouring decisions from a different angle, and the two pieces together give you a fuller picture than either one alone.

Keep reading

Keep reading: Rules: Eminence, Command Zone Abilities, and Why Edgar Markov Plays Differently and Coming Soon: Play Magic: The Gathering Right on MTGBrew.

The numbers that keep you honest

Protect the plan, but do not smother it. A small protection package earns its keep when your commander is the engine; beyond that, extra protection spells dilute the very strategy they are guarding. The same discipline applies to interaction: run enough answers to stop a game-ending threat, and spend the remaining slots on cards that move your own plan forward.

Most Commander decks start their thinking somewhere in the mid-thirties for land count and adjust for curve, ramp, and card draw — treat that as a starting hypothesis about your deck, never as a law. A low-curve deck with real draw needs fewer lands than a top-heavy deck with none, and five games of honest notes will tell you more than any formula.

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