In part 1, we looked at lands that produce colored mana. In part 2, let's look at utility lands.
Producing colored mana is the main job of your manabase. Unless, of course, your commander is Kozilek. Then, all bets are off.
But, there are a lot of lands in Magic that we can use for reasons other than producing mana. These utility lands can often play the role of producing mana when you need it, but also do something extra to spice things up a bit.
In general, utility lands fall into three main groups. The first group is lands that produce a certain color of mana. The second group is lands that produce colorless mana. And the third group is lands that don't even bother to produce mana.
Let's check out a few examples.
Up first, lands that produce a certain color of mana.
Tranquil Thicket is part of a cycle of lands, one for each color, that produce mana of a specific color but come into play tapped. Why would I want to run these lands? Because they cycle. Early game, I can drop this land into play without worrying too much about it coming into play tapped. Mid-to-late game, I can spend one measly mana to trade it in for a new card. This kind of thing will make your deck more consistent.
Cabal Coffers produces mana of a specific color, under the right conditions. When those conditions are met, the amount of mana you can generate off this utility land is game-changing. As long as you are playing mono-black or have a lot of swamps (thanks, Urborg), you will easily meet the condition of this card.
Halimar Depths is another utility land that makes your deck more consistent. It comes into play tapped, but lets you manipulate the top three cards of your library. Knowing what you are going to draw, and stacking your library, can lead to all kinds of wondrous benefits.
Up next, lands that produce colorless mana.
Reliquary Tower is a simple example of a land that produces colorless mana without coming into play tapped, but gives you a little bump. In this case, climbing the tower means that you get to ignore the maximum hand size rule. Fun stuff.
Rogue's Passage let's just about any creature break on through to the other side, but still taps for colorless mana when you need it. Isn't that nice?
Myriad Landscape is a relative newcomer to the scene, but does a pretty good job of tapping for mana when you need it and ramping when you don't. There are plenty of decks that can benefit disproportionately by dropping a couple of lands directly into play.
And finally, lands that don't even bother to produce mana.
The Tabernacle and Pendrell Vale is a ridiculous card, with a ridiculous price-tag to go along with it. Like a lot of the utility lands printed back in the day, this land doesn't even bother with tapping for mana. In the right deck, the utility it provides is tough to beat.
Thawing Glaciers is another card from back in the day that didn't bother with tapping for mana. Instead, the utility it provides is the ability to search up (and put into play!) basic lands. In a slower format, like Commander, it's entirely possible to work this thing pretty hard and get some serious value over the course of a game.
Maze of Ith is a land only by definition. Again, it's old school, and doesn't bother tapping for mana. But the utility it provides is oh-so-sweet. I like to drop this land out front just to make sure that everyone can see it clearly. I don't know how many times I've heard, "I'll attack you... oh, wait, Maze of Ith... no, I'll attack someone else."
Most of my decks support somewhere between 5-8 utility lands depending on how many colors I'm packing. Utility lands that tap for colored mana are easier to include. From there, it all depends on what abilities I am looking for in that particular deck.
It's entirely too easy to get needlessly fancy with utility lands, though. Start cramming too many in your deck and you'll end up with something unworkable. As an experiment, try taking a deck you've been using for a while and swap out the utility lands for plain ol' basic lands in your colors. Making your lands drops with lands that tap for the color you need the turn they come into play is a beautiful thing.
I also see a lot of decks running utility lands that don't really work, just because they are "on color" or "in theme." A good example is Nephalia Drownyard. It does come into play untapped and produces colorless mana, so it's not horrible. But, the utility it provides is fairly narrow in this format. Dumping the equivalent of four mana into the card just to mill someone for three isn't that exciting. Using it on yourself might be more useful, but you can't count on it. The artwork is beautiful, though.
Compare this to a similar utility land for blue/red, Desolate Lighthouse. It comes into play untapped and taps for a colorless mana, so we've got those bases covered. But the utility it provides is actually pretty darn useful. For the equivalent of four mana, you can replace the worst card in your hand with something else. This is doubly handy if for some reason you actually want to put said card in your graveyard, since you get to choose the card that gets shipped off to the lighthouse.
