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IDK, depends on your mana curve and overall deck composition. If you need the lands and don't have any way to ramp up your lands via spells, creature abilities, or what have you, and are running a deck with a higher mana curve, more lands are necessary.

It all depends, but the 'in' thing is rush decks, so if you're waiting for lands you've probably lost.

I run anywhere from 20 to 26 mana, depending on the deck composition.

With only 20 lands I tend to starve a great deal of the time. With 26 I feel flooded... So somewhere in between would work well I'm sure.

Again, all based on the deck.

I hope this helps.

My rule of thumb is to start with 24 for most decks, and add or subtract as I get a better feel for the deck. Aggro decks tend to whittle down to lower counts, but control decks often end up sticking with a higher number, if not adding some additional mana sources.

Some people advocate that for every 4 cantrips you run (cards like Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, ect), you can afford to cut one land from the deck. This is because the low-cost search allows you to pick the cards you see early on, and make sure you have a land to drop every turn you need it. Mana producing creatures and artifacts work in a similar fashion.

Depends on the deck, what you're doing, etc. I use 20 land tops in my elf deck because of the sheer amount of ways to get mana, draw cards, and search out lands in that deck but I run 26 lands (12 basic) in my painbow cascade deck because the sheer breadth of colors i need can at times choke me even if I'm still playing lands.

1/3 of the deck land seems about right, but the best way too see exactly how much land is to play a few times and adjust. I prefer 75 card decks, and I have exactly 25 lands, which works just fine for me.

i do 22-24

I've run decks with as many as 43 lands and as little as 12, it really depends on what you're doing. If it isn't anything terribly out of the ordinary, 24-26 tends to be a good starting number.

43 lands? Is that a normal deck or an EDH or Farmville special case?

there is a legacy deck called 43 lands (i think) that works well.
there are popular tounament decks (in legacy and vintage) the use from 1 land to 53 lands. (charbelcher and an old 43 lands varient)
i've seen decks play 56 lands. for standard there was a pt top 8 deck that had 16 lands, in a ptq many times there was a 29 land five color control (back with shadowmoor).

Yeah, 43 lands in legacy was the one I was talking about, 12 lands was Legacy Dredge (I've played 11 to some success as well). It really depends on what your deck's doing, if you're not pulling shenanigans like Seismic Swans did back in the day, you're probably playing anywhere from 23-26 lands in Standard. Legacy's a different beast as far as mana's concerned since the curve's a lot lower and you have much more deck manipulation.

Legacy is a different beast for pretty much everything and vintage is basically as alien as cthulhu.

Other decks with weird land-counts:

Manaless Ichorid- http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35200.0
10-12 Land Stompy- http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=363
Randy Buehler's Draw Go- http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/rb63
1-Land Belcher- http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/185

26 land doesn't seem weird at all. But yeah, Manaless Ichorid and Belcher are good examples of manabases outside the norm.

you have to do the math for each deck you build

for a 60 card deck:

if you play a mana curve of 1 to 2CC spells play 16-18 land
if you play up to 3CC spells play 20-21 land
...
if you have casting cost 5 stuff in your deck that is crucial and you want it on turn 5 you play 24-26 land.
...
If you play mana acceleration you can lower your land count
if your meta runs a lot of land destruction you up your land count
if you use lost of cantrips you lower your land count

etc...

[QUOTE=NightLoki]26 land doesn't seem weird at all. But yeah, Manaless Ichorid and Belcher are good examples of manabases outside the norm.[/QUOTE]

He's also got the four Wastelands in the side, for the mirror match. That's thirty lands, which I consider a fairly weird amount.

Mostly though, I included it because it was one memorable deck that really emphasizes some decks do vary a lot in the number of lands they want to run. And it doesn't have to be simply because you have a combo or gimmick in there; the thirty lands is more a consequence of strategy, rather than the cards themselves.