What's this site?
Commander.land is a tool designed to help veterans and new players alike build a better mana base. It's inspired by Frank Karsten's "How Many Sources Do You Need to Consistently Cast Your Spells?" articles, and it aims to convert those concepts into something actionable.
Turns out, there's a lot of information about how to build an effective mana base, but very little of that information is comfortably available for players. So, what the site does, is put an interface in front of the math so that you can focus less on the "my deck keeps screwing me" part of the game and more on the "I cast Progenitus" part.
Who are you?
My name is Martín Davico; I go by NirDine on the internets. I'm a student from, and currently living in, Argentina. Right now, I'm working as a QA Tester for various games, and previously I made some TTRPG content.
How does the site work?
We have the essential data of every land stored, courtesy of the Scryfall API, which we use to determine color identity and added colors. This is the data that we use to keep track of the number of colored mana sources you're adding to your list and to populate the buffet.
When you provide us with a decklist, we make a request to Scryfall, and they give us all the data from cards on your deck. First, we check if you have any lands in the mix, and if you do, we make sure to add them to the selected cards list.
After that, we use the mana value of each card to determine its color weight. For each mana symbol in its casting cos, we assign the card a corresponding weight that we'll use to recommend how many colored sources of that color you need. So, for example, a 1 card will always have a lower color weight for white than a card, which will affect how many white mana sources you need in your deck to consistantly cast these cards.
After that, we just give you the numbers.
Why did you make it?
This site is actually my university final year project. I had to make an online tool and decided to go with Magic.
Why this specifically? Well, Magic is a complicated game, and having a good mana base is one of the most intricate aspects of it. The information is all there, but there's a huge leap between knowing that you can technically build a better mana base with the information provided and actually doing it. Having an interface—and a good-looking one, if I do say so myself—does wonders to help people breach that gap.
My aim with this is just to provide a tool that makes deck construction easier so that people can enjoy the game more. Also, my friends suck at building mana bases, and I'm tired of winning games because they don't draw enough lands.
How do I contact you?
You can reach me at hi@nirdine.com or via our Discord server.