Mana Base Analysis
Optimize your manabase
Paste or import a decklist for cast rates, a tipping-point turn, a full land-type breakdown, and smart upgrade suggestions tailored to your budget.
Tip: put your commander on the first line — the first legendary card is treated as the commander.
How to Analyze and Upgrade a Commander Mana Base
A Commander manabase decision usually comes down to one question: what are my realistic options in these colors, and what's the tradeoff between speed, cost, and consistency? The Mana Base Analysis tool answers that with real numbers instead of gut feel — cast-rate probabilities per color and per turn, a tipping-point estimate for when your deck can reliably start casting spells, a Karsten-style source requirement and deficit for every color, a recommended land count, a full breakdown of every land type in your list, and upgrade suggestions targeted at whichever colors are actually short.
Why Cast Rate Matters More Than Land Count
Two 37-land decks can play completely differently if one has twice as many sources of its splash color. Cast rate accounts for that: it's the probability, by a given turn, of actually holding a source of each color you need — the same hypergeometric math used to evaluate combo consistency, applied to your manabase instead.
Karsten Math, Solved Live for Your Deck
Frank Karsten's mana-source research is the standard reference for how many colored sources a spell's pip count actually demands. Most calculators apply his published 60-card table directly. This tool re-derives the same hypergeometric math from scratch and solves it against your deck's real size and real cards — so a 99-card Commander deck, a partner-commander build, or an unusual library size all get numbers computed for that exact deck, not interpolated from someone else's table.
Targeted Upgrades, Not Just a Wishlist
The upgrade engine doesn't just point you at the best card in a vacuum — it respects the budget tier you select, so a Under $5 search surfaces real, affordable fixing (Gates, gain lands, basic-land fetches) instead of Reserved List duals you're not going to buy.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is the Tipping Point turn calculated?+
Using a hypergeometric distribution over your deck's actual size and land count — the same math behind hand-simulation and combo-probability calculators. It's the earliest turn where you have at least a 90% chance of holding enough lands to cast a spell at your deck's average mana value, assuming a 7-card opening hand and one draw per turn.
What counts as a mana 'source' for a color?+
Any land or nonland permanent (mana rocks, dorks, etc.) that can produce that color, detected from Scryfall's own produced-mana data and each card's oracle text — not just basic land types. A Command Tower or a Sol Ring both count toward your source totals.
How does the upgrade suggestion algorithm work?+
It's targeted, not generic: for each color, we first solve for exactly how many sources you need (see Source Requirements below) and where you're short. The engine then searches real nonbasic lands producing two or more colors in your exact color identity, scores each one by how much outstanding deficit it actually fixes, and only falls back to speed/popularity ranking once every color's requirement is met. Suggested cuts always come from a color you already have spare sources of, so a swap never makes a different color worse.
What is 'Source Requirements' and how is it different from a static Karsten table?+
Frank Karsten's widely-used mana math answers 'how many sources of a color do you need to reliably cast an X-pip spell by turn Y' — but the published numbers are a 60-card-format table. We implement the same hypergeometric logic ourselves and solve it live for your deck's actual size (99 cards, a partner commander, whatever it is), against the toughest pip requirement any card in your list actually has. That means the numbers are computed for your deck, not read off someone else's table.
How is the recommended land count calculated?+
From Frank Karsten's published 99-card regression formula (lands = 31.42 + 3.13 × average mana value − 0.28 × ramp pieces), with mana rocks given partial credit toward the ramp term since — unlike lands — they can be removed or drawn late. If your actual land count is 3 or more away from the recommendation, the Lands card flags it.
Does Budget mode guarantee the cheapest possible upgrades?+
It caps every suggested land at your selected price ceiling (Under $5 / $20 / $40) using live Scryfall pricing, then ranks within that ceiling by deficit coverage, speed, and popularity — so you get the best fixing available at that budget, not just the cheapest card that qualifies.
Can I use this for a deck I haven't finished building?+
Yes — paste any decklist, even an early draft. The land breakdown and mana curve are useful before you've locked in a manabase, and the upgrade suggestions will point you toward real fixing options in your colors from the start.
Related: Land database·Mulligan calculator·Deck tester·Pack simulator·Random commander·Price checker