Choosing Lands for Commander Decks

At the heart of Magic (and every game) is that players make tradeoffs. We accept constraints (the rules) to make the game work. Imagine Magic with no rules. That would be lame, right? Mark Rosewater, one of Magic's designers, understands this well. Constraints are what make the game exist at all. The right constraints are what make the game fun.



To explain how to select the right mix of lands for your Commander deck, let's look at how these tradeoffs work in the context of the lands themselves. Way back in the original set, Richard Garfield put in five land cards. These basic lands formed the foundation of Magic. From these lands, we get mana. From the mana, we cast spells. But right from the get-go, he cleverly introduced a constraint. Players had to choose the right lands to go with the spells they wanted to cast. Building a deck with only one color meant that your deck could more consistently cast the spells you wanted. Adding additional colors meant that the consistency of your deck went down. But I see a lot of Commander decklists out there where people are adding inconsistency for no good reason.

So, let's use the basic lands as our "benchmark" to see how the designers introduce choices. These are the choices that we - as players - have to make when building a deck. So, it's important to see how they force us to make tradeoffs. Plus, we can save some money if we don't buy cards we don't end up wanting.

If a basic land is the "standard," then we can compare everything else to this standard. For example, look at a Swamp. It's great for a mono-black deck. Not as good for a mono-white deck. A Plains would be an objectively better card in that same deck slot. That, my friends, is what we call obvious. But how about an Underground Sea? Is that better than a Swamp?



In the original set, the designer included a set of so-called "dual lands." These lands, like the Underground Sea, tapped for two different colors of mana. The only drawback was that they were not "basic" lands. For our purposes, this meant that you were limited in the number you could put in your deck. (It didn't work this way at the very beginning, but the four-of rule ended up creating this constraint.) The supposed drawback wasn't much of a drawback at all. There weren't many cards that affected non-basic lands (if any) at that time. But making a distinction between "basic" and "non-basic" lands did open up design space that was later explored with cards like Blood Moon, creating a bigger risk for running non-basic lands.

The real issue is that the original dual lands are "too good." The real drawback was that they were more rare, a constraint that steps outside of the rules and play of the game. Don't get me wrong: dropping big money on the original dual lands is a drawback, just not one that happens in the game.

Okay, so evaluating lands for your Commander deck might look something like this:

My Commander is Wrexial, the Risen Deep. He's blue / black (UB) so my deck is full of blue and black spells I want to cast. What are my options?



Island (this is the standard, so not much going on here)
+produces blue mana

Underground Sea
+produces blue mana
+produces black mana
+counts as a swamp
+counts as an island
-is a non-basic land

Forgetting the price of buying the card for a moment, this looks like a good deal. Too good. I would automatically include one in the deck if I had access to this card. The drawback of it being non-basic is a drawback I can accept. There are a handful of cards that might see play that would hurt me for running a non-basic, but otherwise it's all good. I don't expose myself to much risk for running the Underground Sea over the Island, and I get access to two colors of mana right away.

That's an easy one. Let's look at something more interesting.

The designers started to wise up as the game developed. To get access to more than one color of mana on a single land card, players were going to have to make a tradeoff that mattered. The two biggest tradeoffs are "comes into play tapped" and "lose some life." For example, let's compare an Island to an Underground River. (See, it's a river, not quite as big as a sea.)

Island (same as before, the standard)
+produces blue mana

Underground River
+produces blue mana
+produces black mana
+produces colorless mana
-does 1 damage to you when it produces colored mana
-is a non-basic land



In this example, the Underground River doesn't count as a Swamp or and Island. Since there are other cards that "care" about these basic land types, this could be important. More on that later. What we have here is a real choice. Do we accept the tradeoff of taking damage each and every time we want to produce colored mana with this land? What about this one? Is this any better?

Salt Marsh
+produces blue mana
+produces black mana
-comes into play tapped
-is a non-basic land



The Salt Marsh doesn't count as a Swamp or Island either. It offers the same "risk" since it is also non-basic. But this time, instead of taking damage to get mana, I have to wait a turn to use it. That's like giving my opponent(s) a mini-Time Walk. There are times where your lands coming into play tapped is no big deal. There are other times where it makes the difference between winning and losing. Imagine that your opponents lands come into play untapped and ready for action. Now imagine that all of your lands come into play tapped. Who is likely to win that game? If you start including lands that come into play tapped, you are creating a version of that game. It's a raw deal. Avoid lands that can't be used right away.

How about the new dual lands? Should we run those? The new dual lands work just like the original dual lands except they include an additional choice. Instead of coming into play untapped with no drawbacks, you can choose to pay 2 life for that privilege or allow the land to come into play tapped instead.

Watery Grave
+produces blue mana
+produces black mana
+counts as a swamp
+counts as an island
-comes into play tapped unless you pay 2 life
-is a non-basic land



In other words, Watery Grave is exactly like Underground Sea except for that pesky "pay 2 life" clause. Still, this gives us the most options. It produces two colors of mana. You have the choice of paying the life or letting it come into play tapped when it is most opportune for you (not your opponent). And, it counts as the basic land types we care about. Looks like a good deal! But is there a better deal out there?

I couldn't quite believe it when they printed the "fetch lands." They are incredibly good. But don't take my word for it. Let's look at how this works.

Polluted Delta
+(effectively) produces blue mana
+(effectively) produces black mana
+(effectively) counts as a swamp
+(effectively) counts as an island
-costs 1 life to use
-is a non-basic land (but the drawback is mostly nullified)



That's right. Polluted Delta is all that and a bag of chips. If I had to choose between running Underground Sea or Polluted Delta, it would be a close call. Blasphemy, I know. But with the Polluted Delta, I can shuffle my library on command. I can thin my deck (slightly). Since it ends up in my graveyard, I can replay it with Crucible or Worlds. I can activate it to get the color of mana I need, even when my opponent is threatening me with a Wasteland or Strip Mine. It effectively gives me the color of mana I need the turn that I play it. I can use Rings of Brighthearth on it. And, since it doesn't use the word "basic," I can fetch my dual lands (old or new). Woah, hold the phone.

The reason my mind was blown when I saw the fetch lands is that they actually printed something that made the original dual lands even better. I can crack my Polluted Delta to make all those technical plays listed above, and then go and get my Underground Sea for my trouble. For comparison purposes, let's look at another fetch land that's not as good.

Terramorphic Expanse
+(effectively) produces any color of mana
-is a non-basic land (but the drawback is mostly nullified)
-target land must be a "basic" land
-target land comes into play tapped



The only benefit this has over Polluted Delta is that you don't have to pay a life to use it. Otherwise, it doesn't get dual lands (only basics), and the land that it gets comes into play tapped. It's the worst of all worlds. But it's not the only fetch land out there. The Panorama lands might be decent. Let's see.

Grixis Panorama
+(effectively) produces blue, black, or red mana
+produces colorless mana
-is a non-basic land (but the drawback is mostly nullified)
-target land must be a "basic" land
-target land comes into play tapped
-costs one mana to activate



Another way to look at this is that when comparing the Grixis Panorama to the Terramorphic Expanse, you can't get quite as many of the basic lands since you are limited to only three, but you can tap it to make a colorless mana the turn it comes into play. That's much better because it doesn't create a mini-Time Walk for your opponent. It does have an additional drawback, though. When you tap it to finally fetch the land you want, you have to pay a colorless mana. So, in effect, it takes your land drop for the turn and it takes one of your other mana you might use for something else, and then the land it gets comes into play tapped. Still, it's better than the Terramorphic Expanse because you choose when these terrible things happen to you.



There are, of course, many other lands that tap for more than one color. There are even other fetch lands. Examples include: Drowned Catacomb and Bad River. You can do the same analysis on these to see if they are something you'd want into your Commander deck. Pro-tip: they're not.

The truth is that most of us don't have access to every card ever listed. We have to make tradeoffs about what cards to spend our money on. So, using a decision-making framework to make choices before you buy the cards can keep costs in line with budget. Important stuff. What I've found is that the the value of a card (the price) is the intersection between scarcity and perceived value. Classic supply and demand. Players may not know why a card is better, but based on intuition, experience, and practice, some cards rise to the top.

If I was choosing lands for my Wrexial deck that produce more than one color of mana, here's my buy list in order:

(Command Tower, of course: all relevant colors, no real drawback)
Polluted Delta
*Underground Sea
Flooded Strand
Bloodstained Mire
Marsh Flats
Misty Rainforest
Scalding Tarn
Verdant Catacombs
*Watery Grave

And here's the dirty secret. That's it. That's the list. It's the old dual land, the new dual land, and all of the fetch lands in my colors. Every other land that I can think of, when I do the analysis, isn't worth running over a basic land. The times when the other lands come into play tapped or damage me far outweigh the times where I am missing the color of mana that I need.

Part of that comes from deck-building, too. Don't get my wrong. If you cram a bunch of BBB and UUU spells into your deck, expect to run into a little trouble getting the right color of mana on turn three. But take note before you go out and buy a bunch of lands that aren't doing much to help you. Just save up for the fetch lands. You'll spend less in the long run. And have a more consistent deck.

Believe it or not, running only basic lands is going to get you most of the way there. Try it. Unsurprisingly, one-color decks will do just fine. Two colors, you'll do just fine too. Three colors, you might run into some cases where you are searching for a land you need to cast a spell. Four colors and you start to need fetch lands and dual lands to make it work. Five colors and you will be in a world of hurt without them (but you can try a green mana base).

The dual lands (old and new) and the fetch lands make a good deck even better. They add consistency and open up other technical lines of play (shuffling, reusing lands, playing defensively to keep access to a color, etc). The other lands make you deck worse.