How To Play 40 Lands Without Flooding

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## Summary

The creator argues that for Bracket 2/3 social Commander, consistency should be the top deckbuilding priority, and recommends playing a high land count (up to 40 lands) to avoid missing land drops, which makes ramp pointless and leaves you unable to participate. Low land counts only make sense in competitive tournament play where gambling for high rolls is acceptable. A high land count alone isn't enough; the deck must be built to prevent flooding. Their tools: looters (e.g., Shoreline Looter, Malcolm) that loot away excess lands and improve hand quality and fill the graveyard for reanimation; rummaging effects in red (Cycle of Demand-style discard-then-draw) and Embrace the Unknown, valued for retrace casting from the graveyard by discarding lands; other retrace spells (Worm Harvest, Formless Genesis); MDFCs with a spell front and land back, which must be played as lands first; and one-mana cycling lands you toss when flooded. Commander itself mitigates flooding since you always have your commander to cast. Above all, load the deck with broadly-defined card draw to dig past lands and discard excess to hand size. The goal is maximizing participation and minimizing low rolls, not win rate.

## Key Clips

- **[00:55]** Your highest priority in deck building for bracket 2, bracket three, social commander should be consistency.
- **[02:46]** One of the worst scenarios you can run into during a game of Commander is ending up with nothing to do. The most common cases are getting land flooded or land screwed. Getting flooded basically never happens to me because I play cards like Shoreline Looter. I can dig past the lands I don't need and fix up my hand.
- **[05:17]** It's worth playing cards whose whole purpose is to improve the quality of our hand. If there's any takeaway you have from this video, let it be this one.
- **[05:30]** Embrace the Unknown is the first card I add into any red deck. Ideally we discard it, it hangs out in the graveyard, and if we end up with too many lands we turn them into card draw with retrace. A simple inclusion like this makes flooding basically a non-issue.
- **[07:44]** Another great way to ensure consistency are MDFCs — cards with a spell on the front and a land on the back. You have to be ready and willing to play them as a land; that is their primary purpose, the spell is a backup.
- **[08:08]** I include the one mana cycling lands in all of my decks. We cycle them away most of the time and draw a better card, but a terrible land is still a million times better than missing a land drop.
- **[09:14]** The real juice is card draw. So long as your deck can draw cards you can do anything you want. The best way to avoid getting flooded is to draw so many cards that you're discarding excess lands to hand size. Your deck should be absolutely brimming with card draw.
- **[11:13]** You should play 40 lands and then build your deck in a way to make sure those 40 lands don't flood you. Quality of cards in hand is a massive factor that I don't see talked about often.

## Tags

**Archetypes/Strategy:** value-engine, ramp
**Format/Bracket:** Core, Upgraded
**Card Categories:** draw, ramp, recursion

Summary

The creator argues that for Bracket 2/3 social Commander, consistency should be the top deckbuilding priority, and recommends playing a high land count (up to 40 lands) to avoid missing land drops, which makes ramp pointless and leaves you unable to participate. Low land counts only make sense in competitive tournament play where gambling for high rolls is acceptable. A high land count alone isn't enough; the deck must be built to prevent flooding. Their tools: looters (e.g., Shoreline Looter, Malcolm) that loot away excess lands and improve hand quality and fill the graveyard for reanimation; rummaging effects in red (Cycle of Demand-style discard-then-draw) and Embrace the Unknown, valued for retrace casting from the graveyard by discarding lands; other retrace spells (Worm Harvest, Formless Genesis); MDFCs with a spell front and land back, which must be played as lands first; and one-mana cycling lands you toss when flooded. Commander itself mitigates flooding since you always have your commander to cast. Above all, load the deck with broadly-defined card draw to dig past lands and discard excess to hand size. The goal is maximizing participation and minimizing low rolls, not win rate.

Key Clips

[00:55] Your highest priority in deck building for bracket 2, bracket three, social commander should be consistency.
[02:46] One of the worst scenarios you can run into during a game of Commander is ending up with nothing to do. The most common cases are getting land flooded or land screwed. Getting flooded basically never happens to me because I play cards like Shoreline Looter. I can dig past the lands I don't need and fix up my hand.
[05:17] It's worth playing cards whose whole purpose is to improve the quality of our hand. If there's any takeaway you have from this video, let it be this one.
[05:30] Embrace the Unknown is the first card I add into any red deck. Ideally we discard it, it hangs out in the graveyard, and if we end up with too many lands we turn them into card draw with retrace. A simple inclusion like this makes flooding basically a non-issue.
[07:44] Another great way to ensure consistency are MDFCs — cards with a spell on the front and a land on the back. You have to be ready and willing to play them as a land; that is their primary purpose, the spell is a backup.
[08:08] I include the one mana cycling lands in all of my decks. We cycle them away most of the time and draw a better card, but a terrible land is still a million times better than missing a land drop.
[09:14] The real juice is card draw. So long as your deck can draw cards you can do anything you want. The best way to avoid getting flooded is to draw so many cards that you're discarding excess lands to hand size. Your deck should be absolutely brimming with card draw.
[11:13] You should play 40 lands and then build your deck in a way to make sure those 40 lands don't flood you. Quality of cards in hand is a massive factor that I don't see talked about often.