I think a lot of the disagreement could've been abated if there were clearer lines for what qualifies a card for which tier. I liked C tier being the dividing line of it is a little bit better than a basic. I think any time budget comes into consideration, that should make it C tier at best from a pure power ranking compared to the rest of the lands in s, a, & b tier respectively
I think there's two completely separate tier lists getting mixed up here. One that's pure power level and one that is more about how it affects the meta. I think the extreme price discrepancy of those duals and even shocks and fetches could be argued to be "bad" for the average game experience and cost them a tier or two.
They should have simply made 2 different lists. Budget and CEDH. Also stuff like tribal lands shouldn't be their own card but instead be placed with the lands that you'd replace with them in the case where their conditions apply.
@@josepharmstrong6852 The ABUR duals are so far away from the cost of anything else that they don't even fit in "does price matter" IMO. If I'm playing a 3-color deck and want a trio each of fetches & shocks, that might run about $150. That's not what I'd call budget magic, but that's six cards that should make a notable difference in the deck's mana base. Between various cyclers, "get a X type land" effects, and the fetchlands themselves it should be a pretty measurable improvement in my ability to get the color pips I want. If I wanted even one of the cheaper ABUR duals (let's say a Revised Edition copy of Taiga) I'm going to pay 2-3 times that much for a Damaged or Heavily Played one, and it's just going to be a single card in my 99. That's such an expense for such a marginal upgrade that I think it lands outside the "budget magic or no" discussion.
@@josepharmstrong6852 ehhhh Id say alphas are the second best cycle. Fetches are and will continue to be the greatest land cycle ever printed barring crazy circumstances. They're 5 color lands that activate grave synergy, double landfall, and shuffle. The synergy they have with other cards is just lunacy
i think Dana killed this list, i agreed with 95% of his takes. great video tho! honestly i wish we had more lands to choose from. I liked the temples, wish we had a few more options for lands that etb tapped but are more specific to some archtypes. Itd make building mana bases a bit more interesting. i only play stuff thats in the S and A tier, and a bit of B tier
I do not expect to agree with content creators 100%, but I have no idea what was going on with Joey and Matt this episode. Dana was the only saving grace in this episode.
I feel the same way. While they were talking about manlands, I was worried no one was going to mention how good manlands are in equipment decks, but Dana came and saved the day. lol
In normal application yes. And I know exactly what you are saying... I think its important to point out in landfall/ sacrifice decks they function the exact same way.
@@danaroach29 that's totally fair too. It was nice to see so many differing opinions even among just the three of you, it was a great video! I like to run Fabled Passage but not Vista, and I even like the cycling lands in some decks so it's all a creative expression of playstyle at the end of the day.
I really like the capenna fetches, if im not wrong you can even tap it with the trigger on stack if you have urborg, yavimaya or dryad of the ilysian Grove. Love them
they're also immensely valuable for landfall decks, plenty of things recur lands tapped and since they sac regardless they still get you two landfall triggers then and there
@@pierceherron6768exactly. The new capenna Fetches are superior to the actual fetchlands which require being untapped to sac. Especially with recursion tools like aftermath analyst, and Undergrowth Recon.
Basics enter untapped, make coloured mana, have the land types, are fetchable, are immune to a handful of crippling effects, and are the next-best thing to free. They qualify for all kinds of effects like Sword of the Animist, a lot of green ramp, Land Tax, and so on. With the MH3 spoilers now showing a lot of nonbasic hate, I think "use basics" is going to be more true than ever. From an EDH perspective running 4-color and 5-color decks that are more reliant on fancier lands to fix themselves will not just be a "I can spend a bit of life and a lot more cash for reliable mana", it's also opening the door to getting blown OUT by nonbasic hate. Colorless "utility" lands that round out a lot of mana bases just got a lot more iffy as well.
They work 100% of the time... as long as you want that specific color. Always a feelbad when you have to take the mull since you drew all lands from one color and all lands from the other color in your opening hand.
The big thing that is missed with the New Capenna lands is that they do not tap before they sac. This gives them a huge utility in decks that run cards that allow your lands to tap for mana of other colors, such as Urborg and Chromatic Lantern. While this does not rank them super high, I would say it could put them at a low C.
I really had never thought about that pretty dope actually. I'm a brewer more like Dana where budget isnt really a concern to me luckily so I immediately take lands like that out. Mix between playing for a long time getting to pick up good lands early and being solely into EDH eventually where proxies are pretty widely accepted. I quickly adapted the whole mantra of you only need 1 copy for your collection then proxy the rest. Not only does this allow me to build decks the way I want them and play a deck the way it was meant to but I also get to use the extra money Not buying 20 copies of the same card on buying the Fanciest version of the card like the Kaladesh Masterpiece Sol Ring.
Wait are you taking about the ones that go find one of 3 types of basics? Those sacrifice on etb, so how does that work? Can you tap them in response to the sacrifice trigger? I will say those lands are very good if you are playing a deck that cares about lands in the graveyard and cares about reanimating the lands, as a lot of mass land réanimation states “return to the battlefield tapped” but the capenna sac lands will still immediately sacrifice on etb that way. Good in decks like Titania
@@lordpokesmoke What I mean is that they enter play untapped, then sac to find a land. They don't need to tap to do this, so you can tap them for mana as well before their trigger goes off. And yes, they also even sac themselves if they enter tapped, so that helps as well.
I appreciate the respect put on bouncelands. I keep them in my commander cube because there's so few other lands out there that straight up card advantage with no help. To those wincing at the turn 2 discard, that's one of the most powerful moments for a bounceland and it's so easily overlooked. You just looted a land into your hand on turn 2; you're not going down a card. When you think about it as looting it becomes SO much better in that moment. You just guaranteed hitting your third land drop in a two land hand; no other land will do that.
100% correct. Some number of those 8 cards you won't be casting that game anyway. You have to decide with very little information which one that is, which you're going to be wrong about some number of the time, but it's more of a feels bad, than has a wide effect on your win%. The win% of your casual deck is going up a lot when you have a land that says one turn you play off curve and draw a card, especially if you have other etb tap lands in your deck already. A bounce land should be the first one. Bounce lands are likely S tier.
I had bounce lands ruined for me by playing against blue players in 60 card Magic. Having a bounce land bounced really hurts, but I guess you probably encounter that less often on turn 2 in Commander.
i’m of the opinion that slow lands come into play untapped 90 even 95% of the time: when resolving mulligans, you roughly want to keep 3 lands in hand anyway, if one of them is a slow land, that’s your turn 3 land. and the 5% of the time you have like 3 of these in your opening hand, turns 1-2 tend to be the most forgiving about playing tapped lands in casual games
I think one has to be playing a pretty high-power table before their "might enter tapped" clause starts being relevant. You need to have turn 1 plays consistently (otherwise, slowland tapped is a fine play) AND have your other land in hand be a tapped land with a relevant 2-mana play? Maybe if your mana base is super greedy and you keep a 2-lander with a slowland and another tapped land & need to Rampant Growth or something... then it hurt you. But it sounds like the deck has larger problems at that point.
@@51gunner yea absolutely, i did mention that turns 1-2 tend to be the most forgiving in casual for playing a tapland. I’m just doubtful that most of the time that these end up entering tapped to begin with. even in a hand of 3 tap lands, you play this one last so it ends up not being one at all. But i do think, even in casual games, dropping your 2 mana ramp/starter spells on time is still relatively important, so while I agree it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t, this land being pretty decent at avoiding that situation all together is pretty great
@@ryrysamurai92 Absolutely! I think the real tell is that Standard has been running these slow lands extensively (although they're about to rotate). If a 60-card 1v1 format with real aggro decks is willing to run 4-of these, 99-card singleton multiplayer can absolutely take the miniscule risk.
I’m a quarter of the way through the video and I agree with Dana on everything. He should make his own definitive tier list! With blackjack, and hookers!
Yes! Can't believe how one person is so incredibly based and objectively correct about everything (except the temples I kinda like those in 2 color decks)
This episode feels like you have 3 fathers, and somehow, they're fighting for something really not that important, and the whole situation got way sillier than you thought it would. Love it.
Gotta say, almost agree 100% with everything Dana said this podcast, much prefer colour-fixing lands to be untapped at almost any cost. In almost all of my decks I don't run more than about 2 tapped fixers, as all my tapped slots go towards the really good utility lands that exist. Main thing is if haste is so game changing for creatures, the statement "who cares if the come in tapped, just wait a turn" is never true at my power level, as so much can happen in one turn
It is interesting to see, even with three super strong deck builders, that evaluations on lands can vary. Keep up the great podcasts and thanks for making content for us to enjoy.
I agree, slow lands are better than check lands, check lands require a very expensive particular mana base outside green to function in 3+ colors. Tiller Engine is also a nice budget option that helps if you're like me and play too many MDFC's. I also always run one bounce land in every casual deck, the utility is just invaluable given how powerful MDFC's are. There's been so many times I've bounced an Ondu Inversion or Bala Ged to clutch a situation. I'm surprised you guys didn't mention the depletion lands, they see play in Cedh and are absolutely insane in any kind of proliferation or land reanimation deck.
I think that is very situational. While paying for life for convenience, you are also adding that life loss up to signal that you are gaining advantage from it. SSmart opponents will see the player losing life from getting their fetch/shocks in play and likely target you.
I feel that lands being fetch-able matters so much less in budget decks. If you're on a budget you're a lot less likely to have ways to fetch the lands outside of specific green cards.
Bad River and/or Rocky Tar Pit in Grixis colors can fetch a Smoldering Marsh or Sunken Hollow, untapped in ideal scenarios. In white (and especially Azorius) you can use Flood Plains, Knight of the White Orchid, Kor Cartographer, and/or Scholar of New Horizons to fetch Prairie Stream and Irrigated Farmland or any of the non-green dual types from Khaldeim and Dominaria. No doubt green gets a buff in budget but don't give up on the other colors, especially white.
@@MGone3 Oooh, that is a good one. I love that the Tainted lands are all Black+ for the flavor reasons, but I also kind of wish we had other ones for gameplay reasons.
I agree with everyone saying that the criteria made this list very unclear. Making the list focused on whether the lands are good or not regardless of price would have made it more clear then players can see what they can afford. Now some lands are higher up only because they are great if you don't have a lot of money.
Evolving Wilds is interesting in that it's actually better in 3+ colours than it is in 2 colours. In the latter, you might as well run a gate or similar tap land, as your land is coming in tapped anyway so it might as well tap for both your colours. But in a 3+ colour deck, that gate might be the one that's of colours you already have, while Evolving Wilds gets you exactly the colour you're missing. Obviously if you come into some money and get the big name fetches that let you fetch "gates" that come with an additional colour in addition to exactly the one you need, Evolving Wilds is an easy cut, but most players aren't part of that upper class of budgets.
i am so happy to see the lorwyn filters in A, they are my FAVES! i have used them to get out of sticky color situations more than they hindered me, super big fan of them!
Couple other lands not mentioned. Unclaimed Territory, Secluded Courtyard, and Plaza of Heroes. A tier because just like path of ancestry, even if you are not in a typal deck, they can help cast your commander. Cavern of Souls can be grouped here too (yay for reprinting in a standard set!) These are definitely underplayed. Tarnished Citadel is an interesting one. I think the more powerful deck you are playing, the better it gets. But 3 life is so painful and there are enough lands now that can tap for any color and are also untapped, that I no longer run this one and would place it at D tier. The last one I think should be mentioned is Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. It is interesting for two reasons. One, similar to OG duels, I do NOT think it is worth it when it comes to the best bang for your buck. It is so expensive. But the other and more important thing is that duel lands are supposed to help with color fixing and are more important the more colors you run, but this is the one land that while it can be used for any color, the more colors you run, the worse it gets because it has synergies mostly with mono color decks. I do not run it in 3+ color decks at all, and usually would only run it in 2 color deck if the deck heavily favored one color and splashed the other. With all that said I would place Nykthos in C tier. Slow fetches and Panoramas being graded so much less than their untapped counter parts compared to other budget cycles always surprises me. Most people I know cannot afford more than 1 cycle of true fetch lands so we use slow fetches and panoramas in their place. The ability to fetch is so important. That utility is worth the etb tapped or what they fetch for being tapped, just like scry lands coming in tapped or bounce lands being tapped is worth their utility. True fetch lands are just so powerful that people push back harder on slow fetches and panoramas in comparison than I think they should.
@@timbombadil4046except they literally are not. Shocks are fetchable (fetchlands, wood elves like effects), synergistic with random cards that require land types, commanders or cards that even reward you for taking damage/ losing life(Greven, Vilis, new Rowen to name some off the top of my head).
Joey is right about bounce lands, they are probably actually S tier at casual tables. Outside of cEDH they are basically enters tapped draw a card. Even without landfall synergies they are S-tier.
I love em and wish I used them more. Use a bounce land on a Mystic Sanctuary and get a second thing out of your graveyard. Modal lands, channel lands, I didn't know how to use them at first because I was always playing them and then bouncing untapped lands back and wasting the acceleration they give you. Bounce a land you already tapped for mana, now you have a land in hand and from here on out that land is going to tap for 2, which increases its value the longer it's out. Especially good if used as the last land in your hand because then you get to know you hit your land drop next turn.
It's against my religion to buy expensive cards, especially lands. So, for me, any mana fixer that has a remote chance to enter untapped is as good as an OG dual.
I think there are by now a bunch of REALLY solid duals that have a good chance of not coming into play tapped. The checklands (basicland in hand or play) are absolutely valid in a lower budget deck. I love that WotC has put out so many options.
• Fetchlands >>>>> OG duals > Shock / Battlebond • Pain / Filter (Lorwyn) / Slow --- 3 color cut off --- • Bounce / Pathway / Check / Horizon / Tango (Battle) --- Basic --- • Filter (Odyssey) / Bicycle / Temple / Fast / Typed Tap / Snarl / Bridge • Man / Campus / Sac-Draw • Gain / Basic Tap / Freeze Only covered dual lands, but this works as my baseline before deck specific considerations enter. Budget not considered. Don't necessarily like cards below the 3-color cut off less, but those above perform well in all situations.
The canopy lands are the cycle of lands i want to see completed more than anything. In high powered 2 colored decks, these just replace the 5 color ping lands, and do so much more by being able to be cracked and replaced for sometimes a game winning draw. Its a wild set of lands that need to be finished. A borderline S tier
The pizza metaphor bothered me because unlike a magic card, "more" doesn't equal better when it comes to food. I love sausage pizza and pepperoni pizza, but wouldn't eat a meat lovers' pizza because I don't like them together.
I'm with Matt on the Thriving Lands. They're what I call great low power cards. Yeah, you're not playing them in your stronger decks. But if you're that newer or budget player, they're great cards for you. And if you're a more experienced player, they're great cards for you to have in decks to play against that newer or budget player. They've replaced Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse in my lower power 3+ color decks.
you can open on them, draw poorly and getting beaten by your own manabase, I cut them off green decks, but will throw them in decks that A) regain the life or B) are 2 colors so I can worrry less about needing to take 5 dmg
my big stink with exotic orchard is that it gets worse as you knock out your oppenents. i was 1 colored mana short due to exotic orchard not being able to produe a colored mana i needed due to 2 players being knocked out that had the mana i needed
My argument against pathways is the general double face card argument and its annoying that some sleeves dont really let you run them without hoping through hopes.
I played them a couple times lately and I was surprised how LITTLE it bothered me. I thought it would be way more annoying to unsleeve/switch/sleeve but it was an absolute non-issue for me. Otherwise Pathways easy A-Tier and it's not even close. Always make the deck. Yeah, you have to make a decision once but that's simply exactly enough in dual colored decks and arguably still absolutely fine in a three colored deck. The only point when you WOULDN'T run these is when you have so much basic-land ramp that you're at risk of not having enough basic lands left in your deck when you play your third Rampant Growth-Effect of the game. But other than that (and non-basic hate), why would I ever NOT run a pathway land over a basic land?
@@PaulSzkibik I don't even unsleeve 'em. My go-to card sleeves are Dragon Shield's Clear Matte sleeves, so I just use a forest with Pathway written on it, so I can show it, and put one of the two sides of the Pathway on the tbale.
I'm surprised there wasn't more discussion of modes of the way these synergize with ramp cards. The etb tapped duals with two basic types in particular. Nature's Lore, Three Visits, Skyshroud claim, Farseek. All exist! Sometimes your tempo means you don't want to fetch your shock. Heck, just cracking a turn 1 fetch to find a Radiant Grove is a perfectly fine move when you have no turn 1 play. I put basic land type fetchable etb tapped duals in every 2 color green deck I have, and in some 3 or 4 color that have access to green ramp. Easily deserve to be higher than C tier for that.
I think Reflecting Pool becomes better the better your mana base is. I have it in about twenty of my 3+ color decks, but those all start with fetches, shocks and triomes. So it will tap for 5 of my colors on turn three in 95% of all games.
40:27 Joey brought it up: the ability to, late game, set up your next draw where you couldn’t care less is huge. Very few land cycles will provide a benefit for you that late into the game apart from mana generation
Noticed that some channels (or was it jus EDHrec?) grade down the Shadowmoor-Eventide filter-lands & Odyssey “signet” lands but from my xperience, they’r basically autos in 2-colored decks with practically 0 problem & all upsides. Also found ‘em to b very very useful in 3-color decks with 3 MV Commanders that wish to b playd soonest possible. Even beyond, I think filter lands can still pull their weight (& mayb even pleasantly surprising at times filtering into double Y color when U haf only single X mana on board), assuming the remainder of your mana base is already solid. Slope goes down real fast for “signet” lands beyond 3-color but man, I also hope WotC jus take the time to fill out the enemy-color 1s. Budget players will b so so grateful for these.
I've just noticed how much of my deck building and EDH player mentality comes from 5 years of listening to you guys (7 years of Dana). This is absolutely close to what would be my tier list. I don't care if it's the echo chamber effect, this podcast brings me joy everytime.
Joey hit the nail on the head with his fetchland analysis. I would only run a fetchland in a 4 or 5 color deck outside of synergies, like in my Minthara and Obuun decks.
This looks pretty accurate to me. The first three lines are where most of the cards I play land anyway. The fillers are a tier lower. Over all great job. Dana seemed to agree with most of the stuff I was placing on the list, right down to the landfall comments.
This was great! I've been thinking a lot about lands recently while building my Dakkon Blackblade deck. Take away - check lands, slow lands, battle lands (tango), land-type taplands & LT snow/bridge.
Technically you can reveal a typed dual when it comes to the reveal lands, as they say a [swamp] or [forest], not basic. [Necroblossom Snarl] (I would still only run them in a two color deck with a good amount of basics, though; there are only so many typed duals)
The one place I play and like Capenna fetches is in my Zask, Skittering Swarmlord deck, where circumstances are almost ideal. My commander has a Crucible of Worlds attached to it, so I want lands in my yard, but I also run lots of Exploration effects, so the life gain adds up. I can also keep playing it for landfall triggers even after I run out of basics. And if I have Urborg, Yavimaya or Dryad of the Ilysian Grove out, I can even tap it for mana before it goes away.
1:21:23 So Forbidden Orchard in a Toshiro Umezawa deck absolutely slaps. If you have Illness in the Ranks in play you have an on demand Toshiro trigger. And sometimes your oponets will deliberately play around putting creatures into play so you can't get Toshiro triggers (its rare but I have seen it more than a handful of times) this can give you a target of say Tragic slip so you can recast a vamp tutor from your graveyard.
As someone who runs off-color fetches and ABU duals in most of my decks, i fetch triomes more often than duals. There's a lot of times you don't need an untapped land on a specific turn, being able to get perfect mana in an instant puts it solidly in S tier. I don't run shocks in 4-5 color decks. I do run triomes.
I agree with your tiering of most of the fetches. Just give an example of where I play the capenna fetches, they are an absolute all-star in soul of windgrace, netting me a meaningful amount of life each game as a useful target for windgrace.
I think the Pathways are unplayable in three or more colors, but I'm slamming them in every two color deck. Edit: Also, the always tapped typed dual lands (Radiant Grove/Snow Duals) are okay in enemy colors because enemy colors don't have the "two basic lands" or the "cycle 2" lands, so they have fewer fetch targets. With that being said, we did just get those Surveil lands and thankfully, there are 10.
I absolutely love them for two-color decks because they make either color I want and come in untapped. Just whichever color I have less of at the moment, I play the Pathway. Late game, I probably just play it as an untapped land on whichever face is the "top" one, which puts it WILDLY ahead of all the conditional tapped lands. I do seem to build most of my decks two-color though.
Awesome video! I feel like I trust y'all more over some of the other dual land tier lists out there. I'd be curious to see y'all make videos on mana bases, tho! Some of the comments you made about what shouldn't go into a 3-4-5C deck seemed to conflict with other things I've seen/read/heard, so would really love your takes!
I completely agree with Dana on basically every land. The lorowyn filters are A for sure. If you have one of them and a basic, you can still produce 2 of a color diffrent from that basic and no other dual land can say that.
Vivid lands, I slid into my Atraxa energy deck. Good to get her out, and they're effectively all colors after she hits the board. I love how even bad lands have really narrow uses that are fun.
Vivids in five colors are also nice if you are playing a bunch of "tap for any color" effects alla chromatic lantern. They help bridge your colors until you get one of those online.
I personally really like the flexibility of the Panorama's for 3 color decks as an additional fetch and it can tap for mana which is really nice. I'd say it's like B or C tier worthy to me
To me, either you put the shocks in A OR BB lands in A. It depends on if you really want to go life loss or not. Personally, I do not run fetches and shocks as often, because I know going such lower in life can be detrimental. Opponents pay attention to who is getting their advantage by paying life for convenience.
I really like Shadowmoor/Eventide filters in part because they support higher pip count cards in 3+ color decks. In contrast, the fact that the Odyssey signet lands don't make mana without filtering has screwed me on several occasions. Lorwyn filters>Signet lands.
I use the tapped fetchable lands in my Maelstrom Wanderer big mana deck because it allows my ramp spells that look for forests (or Farseek) to still hit dual-color lands into the mid-game instead of just getting a basic land, which allows me to cast a variety of color-intense spells easily (also why I run Chromatic Lantern in that deck).
Slow lands come into play untapped way more than 80% of the time for me. Unless I’m keeping a two land hand and whiff on three draws, it’s coming in untapped.
Bounce lands are A tier for me specifically for 3 color decks. 2 color decks you don't need the extra color fixing. For 4-5 color decks it's too much of a tempo loss to include them all. They basically draw you a land upon entering so I count them as two lands in my land count. They help me justify running less lands than I should lol.
I love the signet filter lands. The ability to turn colorless mana or convert mana of other colors into different colors on a netting mana land is so useful. They turn rocks like mindstone into a talisman, and especially in higher color counts in 5 color your two main colors you can rock their filter land so the extra say red you are splashing can turn back into your green/blue as an example. Especially in the early game being able to turn 1 an esper sentinel turn 2 hold up an izzet charm type of situation ive just found that specific type of interaction very good.
I definitely agree that Battlebond lands should be A tier instead of S tier. Wizards really dropped the ball when they didn't give these basic land types. In EDH, they would be the "ABU duals" that people otherwise couldn't afford, and in 1v1 they would be no better than the common cycle of duals from Dominaria United. I love the filter lands, but I would put them in B tier, if only because they become weaker the more colors you run. That being said, I have a 5-color deck that features filters (it's actually Temur with Orzhov splash, and all of the filters have at least 1 Temur color). I used to run man-lands (ALL of them) in my creatureless Superfriends deck, but I wound up pulling them out when I found too many other lands that I wanted to add. I still have them all set aside until I find another deck for them. I'll keep looking. C tier works. I've been playing Magic since 1994, and I still have singletons of the ABU duals. But I love most of the budget fetches, including the Mirage ones. In a casual format like EDH, I'm not concerned with fully optimizing and making sure that all of my mana is accounted for every turn. So having extra fetches to search for my ABUs/Shocks, or being able to pick my basics, is important to me. I would put them high on C tier, with a few of them even bottom B tier (Fabled Passage, Ash Barrens). I agree with Dana that the life gain lands should be in D tier. They don't have the same upside of the Snow/Artifact/fetchable duals, but are not as bad as the old "enter tapped and nothing" lands.
Dana is right. Bond lands are A, not S. Can't fetch them and they can enter tapped once you're in a 1v1 scenario. (It isnt relevant often but it has hindered me on occasion). Especially if Check lands are B. Bond lands are better than Check lands but worse than Shocks.
The KHM & DMU typed duals are nice in decks with green simply because they can be targeted for stuff like Farseek or other ramp that gets you a Forest tapped. These are pretty much all upside as targets for that kind of effect. I'll often look for my Tangled Islet over my Breeding Pool if game circumstances allow, simply so I can draw the Breeding Pool later. I like that those are acknowledged too, as it feels like they get overlooked a lot.
Prismatic vista seems pretty awesome. I can’t afford it, but I’ve recently been counting how often I’d love an evolving wilds that brought an untapped land in my 3 color decks. It’s frequent. Usually when I’m fetching, I tend to be looking for one color most of the time. There’s definitely times where grabbing 2+ colors in a 4-5 color deck is incredible though. I’d value Prismatic Vista like a triome in a 3 color deck.
On the creature lands, they're not all great but Lavaclaw Reaches is awesome. Esp in Rakdos or Jund decks where you make a ton of mana where it can and will just kill people. I love it most after someone else's boardwipe.
Really interesting video and helpful for me even as someone who's been playing for a few years now. Biggest shift for me in thinking was that I rate the campuses highly, but that's (I tend to run one if it's 2-3 colours), but that's largely because I liked them so much in limited, and in arena brawl I have wanted the utility of being able to scry in need. So to me I'd include them above the etb scry lands. I hadn't really realised how much it'd skewed my view of the lands though.
The occasional colorless mana requirements has hosed me enough to bump the pain lands up for me too. It's also bumped up ash barens for me. Gotta say I agree with Dana on most of the arguments except for bounce lands and fabled. I love that there are a lot of options these days, temples for scry synergies, life gain lands, artifact duals, snow duals, etc. Next I'd like to see fetchable pain lands
I appreciate Matt's perspective. As somebody who makes a ton of commander decks, I just can't afford to put shocks and fetches in many of them. I'm often reaching for those tapped duals with land types and thriving lands because I have so many of them and they save so much money. They tend to work well too, even if its undeniably a manabase with untapped lands runs the smoothest.
Even after playing for a couple of years I can't bring myself to pay tons of money for the land base of my decks. Would rather create a new and interesting deck that drop $20 per dual land to improve the power level. Budget really comes into play for this analysis for me.
The filter lands from Lorwyn and Shadowmoor are excellent. They turn basics into 2 color lands. They create wedges with other duals. In 2 and 3 color decks they're auto-includes IMO. They work great in 3+ color decks that have a heavy color bias towards something (blue, black, etc). I think they fit somewhere between A and B Tier.
Exotic Orchard is near S tier IMO. I play it in any deck that is not mono colored and it is almost always an untapped dual land or better. In 3+ color deck it's absolutely S tier.
The Artifact Lands are better in Artifact decks, the Snow Duals are better in Snow decks, but in every other deck they’re definitely the best. There’s a reason most 2-color Pauper decks run them.
47:10 im a bit confused on the pathways. In a 2 color deck they are very similar to a fetch. It’s essentially fetching for a basic without paying life.
The slow fetches can get typed utility lands like Mystic Sanctuary and Witch’s Cottage, I think that gives them a ton of utility in specific decks, especially in specific decks on a budget.
So, I have quick-and-dirty way to score mana-producing lands for EDH that I use (though I don't have a clean way to include fetches in my scoring), and it has been pretty flexible and helpful, especially when it comes to evaluating cycles of duals/tri-lands. Because even my casual meta skews to the faster end of play, it actually takes into account how the lands play on Turn 1, and again how they play on Turn 3 (assuming the requisite land-drops from good mulligan practice). Then it looks at the fixing potential of the lands, followed by accounting for significant upsides and downsides (besides entering tapped or untapped), and is something you can adjust based on synergies or the number of colors you're in. It's something that also can be used to compare these multi-lands to basics, which sometimes leads to surprising results and makes me realize I need to add more basic land instead. The ratings it produces generally jive with the assessments in this video, but not entirely. Since I don't think that UA-cam will let me add a link in the comments here. I will attempt to tweet the link at you gents. Good discussion here! Cheers! 😁👍
The tapp for all lands (CT, ExO, RP) are awesome! S tier. Untapt lands that will tap for all your colores 80% of the time at least. ExO can sometimes not tap for your color (mainly in 2c decks) but do not forget that even if no one is playing your colores CoB MC and co let it tapp for any color. (Two ExO also work like an RP) PoA and FO are realy good A tier. Because scrys are always good and the 1/1 hardly matters (because you choose who to give them to) also it lets you make freinds. But all of those are by far better than temples at least
I only play 3 colors decks 95% of the time. Here are the lands I will run no matter what: Command Tower (x1) Exotic Orchard (x1) (It will statistically count as 3 colors or more) Fabled Passage (x1) Triome (x1) (The ONE tapped land with the exception of MDFC or a Utility Land) Battlebond Lands (x6) Shock Lands (x6) (Even without fetches, I can grab these with fetch effects) Slow Lands (x6) Check Lands (
I know people really hate on the snarls/reveal lands (I use to be one of them) but they are solid in dual color decks. You can get away with literally running only basics in 90+% of games. Sub in some of the basics with
Why would I make my dual color deck worse to run bad lands, if you just swap to the better dual lands, those are bad, and then it's more consistent. Like sure If they are the only ones you have sure.
@@aaronwindham6065 Budget is a huge factor in constructing mana bases for most players. My argument is based on cost vs consistency. The benefit of dual color decks is that the mana is incredibly consistent regardless of the quality and cost of the lands in the deck. I cannot stress enough how well a mana base of literally just basic lands will perform in a dual color deck. The most optimal two color mana base is only a very minute upgrade over a budget mana base. Because of that I personally prefer using the dime store lands to build dual color decks and think other players should do the same since the consistency you gain for buying the more optimal lands just isn't worth the cost. Afterall, it's pumpkin spice season and we could all be a little more Basic.
The problem with reveal lands is that after something like turn 3, they almost always come into play tapped because you just don't have *any* other lands in your hand. 2 color decks work *fine* with only basics, as long as you stay away from triple pip cards. Throw a pain land, slow land, dual faced, filter land, command tower, check land, tango land.... And you're a really pretty good for very minimal outlay.
The gainlands are great in (some) lifegain decks, not because of the amount of life but due to the TRIGGER. Draw a card off of drogskol Reiver? gainland. Put a 1/1 counter on your entire board with archangel of thune? Gainlands. Trigger the infinite loop off of Sanguine Bond/Excquisite Blood? gainland I will not run them in any other deck unless I'm on a budget. But I have cut other untapped duals for these just for the Synergy.
I don't see how exotic orchard isn't S tier. It costs like no money at all, wotc is super pushing 3 color or more Commanders, and you have 3 opponents. I find that it tapes for 3 colors minimum and often taps for 4 if not all 5. All while entering the battlefield untapped.
Given that we have various commamders that animate lands to attack, we should start getting creature lands that get an attack trigger without the need of paying mana for them. Example: "Dude land" You may pay 3 mana and Dude land becomes a 3/2 creature. When Dude land attacks it gains menace. This would allow for these creature lands to find home on these land animator commanders and would give much more flavor to them.
I think a lot of the disagreement could've been abated if there were clearer lines for what qualifies a card for which tier.
I liked C tier being the dividing line of it is a little bit better than a basic.
I think any time budget comes into consideration, that should make it C tier at best from a pure power ranking compared to the rest of the lands in s, a, & b tier respectively
I think there's two completely separate tier lists getting mixed up here. One that's pure power level and one that is more about how it affects the meta. I think the extreme price discrepancy of those duals and even shocks and fetches could be argued to be "bad" for the average game experience and cost them a tier or two.
They also needed to decide at the beginning of price matters because it kills the duals rank but everyone knows they are the best.
They should have simply made 2 different lists. Budget and CEDH. Also stuff like tribal lands shouldn't be their own card but instead be placed with the lands that you'd replace with them in the case where their conditions apply.
@@josepharmstrong6852 The ABUR duals are so far away from the cost of anything else that they don't even fit in "does price matter" IMO.
If I'm playing a 3-color deck and want a trio each of fetches & shocks, that might run about $150. That's not what I'd call budget magic, but that's six cards that should make a notable difference in the deck's mana base. Between various cyclers, "get a X type land" effects, and the fetchlands themselves it should be a pretty measurable improvement in my ability to get the color pips I want.
If I wanted even one of the cheaper ABUR duals (let's say a Revised Edition copy of Taiga) I'm going to pay 2-3 times that much for a Damaged or Heavily Played one, and it's just going to be a single card in my 99. That's such an expense for such a marginal upgrade that I think it lands outside the "budget magic or no" discussion.
@@josepharmstrong6852 ehhhh Id say alphas are the second best cycle. Fetches are and will continue to be the greatest land cycle ever printed barring crazy circumstances. They're 5 color lands that activate grave synergy, double landfall, and shuffle. The synergy they have with other cards is just lunacy
I’d love to see a similar thing for utility lands and mana rocks!
mana rocks shoudl be done by separate mv, 2 and below are totally differetn world than 3 mv and above
About ten seconds after we finished recording this we came to the same conclusion 🤣
@@danaroach29 love it, I cannot wait 😂
@@danaroach29 I am sure ther i'll agree with you on more than 2 lands.
@@W4llh4k 3 mana rocks could be a whole episode. Then one for more and less.
i think Dana killed this list, i agreed with 95% of his takes. great video tho! honestly i wish we had more lands to choose from. I liked the temples, wish we had a few more options for lands that etb tapped but are more specific to some archtypes. Itd make building mana bases a bit more interesting. i only play stuff thats in the S and A tier, and a bit of B tier
I do not expect to agree with content creators 100%, but I have no idea what was going on with Joey and Matt this episode. Dana was the only saving grace in this episode.
I was about to say the same thing. His opinions on all the lands were how I felt.
I feel the same way. While they were talking about manlands, I was worried no one was going to mention how good manlands are in equipment decks, but Dana came and saved the day. lol
I 100% agree on his take on the signet lands. A tier is absolutely where they belong
#DanaWasRight I think he was right on just about every placement. Except for the Filterlands. Those are bad.
If you think Terramorphic, Fabled, and Prismatic are all in the same group for tiering, you have not read these cards.
In normal application yes. And I know exactly what you are saying... I think its important to point out in landfall/ sacrifice decks they function the exact same way.
Fabled Passage and Prismatic Vista at the very least should be evaluated separately
@@samcates5308I think that’s true , but I also think I’m still prob not running either
I would go one step further and say that if you run only one filter Land, it's S tier
@@danaroach29 that's totally fair too. It was nice to see so many differing opinions even among just the three of you, it was a great video! I like to run Fabled Passage but not Vista, and I even like the cycling lands in some decks so it's all a creative expression of playstyle at the end of the day.
I really like the capenna fetches, if im not wrong you can even tap it with the trigger on stack if you have urborg, yavimaya or dryad of the ilysian Grove. Love them
they're also immensely valuable for landfall decks, plenty of things recur lands tapped and since they sac regardless they still get you two landfall triggers then and there
@@pierceherron6768exactly. The new capenna Fetches are superior to the actual fetchlands which require being untapped to sac. Especially with recursion tools like aftermath analyst, and Undergrowth Recon.
I think the lesson here for everyone is... run more BASICS. They work 100% of the time.
Basics enter untapped, make coloured mana, have the land types, are fetchable, are immune to a handful of crippling effects, and are the next-best thing to free. They qualify for all kinds of effects like Sword of the Animist, a lot of green ramp, Land Tax, and so on.
With the MH3 spoilers now showing a lot of nonbasic hate, I think "use basics" is going to be more true than ever. From an EDH perspective running 4-color and 5-color decks that are more reliant on fancier lands to fix themselves will not just be a "I can spend a bit of life and a lot more cash for reliable mana", it's also opening the door to getting blown OUT by nonbasic hate.
Colorless "utility" lands that round out a lot of mana bases just got a lot more iffy as well.
They work 100% of the time... as long as you want that specific color.
Always a feelbad when you have to take the mull since you drew all lands from one color and all lands from the other color in your opening hand.
The big thing that is missed with the New Capenna lands is that they do not tap before they sac. This gives them a huge utility in decks that run cards that allow your lands to tap for mana of other colors, such as Urborg and Chromatic Lantern. While this does not rank them super high, I would say it could put them at a low C.
I really had never thought about that pretty dope actually. I'm a brewer more like Dana where budget isnt really a concern to me luckily so I immediately take lands like that out. Mix between playing for a long time getting to pick up good lands early and being solely into EDH eventually where proxies are pretty widely accepted. I quickly adapted the whole mantra of you only need 1 copy for your collection then proxy the rest. Not only does this allow me to build decks the way I want them and play a deck the way it was meant to but I also get to use the extra money Not buying 20 copies of the same card on buying the Fanciest version of the card like the Kaladesh Masterpiece Sol Ring.
Wait are you taking about the ones that go find one of 3 types of basics? Those sacrifice on etb, so how does that work? Can you tap them in response to the sacrifice trigger?
I will say those lands are very good if you are playing a deck that cares about lands in the graveyard and cares about reanimating the lands, as a lot of mass land réanimation states “return to the battlefield tapped” but the capenna sac lands will still immediately sacrifice on etb that way. Good in decks like Titania
@@lordpokesmoke What I mean is that they enter play untapped, then sac to find a land. They don't need to tap to do this, so you can tap them for mana as well before their trigger goes off. And yes, they also even sac themselves if they enter tapped, so that helps as well.
I appreciate the respect put on bouncelands. I keep them in my commander cube because there's so few other lands out there that straight up card advantage with no help.
To those wincing at the turn 2 discard, that's one of the most powerful moments for a bounceland and it's so easily overlooked. You just looted a land into your hand on turn 2; you're not going down a card. When you think about it as looting it becomes SO much better in that moment. You just guaranteed hitting your third land drop in a two land hand; no other land will do that.
100% correct. Some number of those 8 cards you won't be casting that game anyway. You have to decide with very little information which one that is, which you're going to be wrong about some number of the time, but it's more of a feels bad, than has a wide effect on your win%. The win% of your casual deck is going up a lot when you have a land that says one turn you play off curve and draw a card, especially if you have other etb tap lands in your deck already. A bounce land should be the first one. Bounce lands are likely S tier.
I play a lot of MDFCs/channel lands. Every time cards like these get printed bounce land stock goes up
I had bounce lands ruined for me by playing against blue players in 60 card Magic. Having a bounce land bounced really hurts, but I guess you probably encounter that less often on turn 2 in Commander.
Thanks for the insight
On top bounce lands are great when mulled down to six cards. And make sure you can make your land drops during mid game. @@nathand6467
i’m of the opinion that slow lands come into play untapped 90 even 95% of the time: when resolving mulligans, you roughly want to keep 3 lands in hand anyway, if one of them is a slow land, that’s your turn 3 land. and the 5% of the time you have like 3 of these in your opening hand, turns 1-2 tend to be the most forgiving about playing tapped lands in casual games
slow lands are beast in commander fo sure
I think one has to be playing a pretty high-power table before their "might enter tapped" clause starts being relevant. You need to have turn 1 plays consistently (otherwise, slowland tapped is a fine play) AND have your other land in hand be a tapped land with a relevant 2-mana play?
Maybe if your mana base is super greedy and you keep a 2-lander with a slowland and another tapped land & need to Rampant Growth or something... then it hurt you. But it sounds like the deck has larger problems at that point.
@@51gunner yea absolutely, i did mention that turns 1-2 tend to be the most forgiving in casual for playing a tapland. I’m just doubtful that most of the time that these end up entering tapped to begin with. even in a hand of 3 tap lands, you play this one last so it ends up not being one at all.
But i do think, even in casual games, dropping your 2 mana ramp/starter spells on time is still relatively important, so while I agree it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t, this land being pretty decent at avoiding that situation all together is pretty great
@@ryrysamurai92 Absolutely!
I think the real tell is that Standard has been running these slow lands extensively (although they're about to rotate).
If a 60-card 1v1 format with real aggro decks is willing to run 4-of these, 99-card singleton multiplayer can absolutely take the miniscule risk.
I’m a quarter of the way through the video and I agree with Dana on everything. He should make his own definitive tier list! With blackjack, and hookers!
same!
Yes! Can't believe how one person is so incredibly based and objectively correct about everything (except the temples I kinda like those in 2 color decks)
Yeah and then there is Matt, whos opinions are just baffling.
Dana is the man
Agree on 95% of Dana's takes, but Prismatic Vista and Fabled Passage are good in 3+ color decks.
Love the show, personally my favorite magic podcast!
This episode feels like you have 3 fathers, and somehow, they're fighting for something really not that important, and the whole situation got way sillier than you thought it would. Love it.
Gotta say, almost agree 100% with everything Dana said this podcast, much prefer colour-fixing lands to be untapped at almost any cost. In almost all of my decks I don't run more than about 2 tapped fixers, as all my tapped slots go towards the really good utility lands that exist.
Main thing is if haste is so game changing for creatures, the statement "who cares if the come in tapped, just wait a turn" is never true at my power level, as so much can happen in one turn
Forbidden Orchard at D tier is by far the hottest take in this podcast. Especially considering where the other "5-color" lands were placed.
It is interesting to see, even with three super strong deck builders, that evaluations on lands can vary. Keep up the great podcasts and thanks for making content for us to enjoy.
I agree, slow lands are better than check lands, check lands require a very expensive particular mana base outside green to function in 3+ colors. Tiller Engine is also a nice budget option that helps if you're like me and play too many MDFC's. I also always run one bounce land in every casual deck, the utility is just invaluable given how powerful MDFC's are. There's been so many times I've bounced an Ondu Inversion or Bala Ged to clutch a situation. I'm surprised you guys didn't mention the depletion lands, they see play in Cedh and are absolutely insane in any kind of proliferation or land reanimation deck.
Remember folks, printer ink is much cheaper than ABU Duals ;)
Man, im so glad my last six decks have been two colour, 30 basics plus whatever 6 duals/utilities i find that fit, job done.
My hot take is that fetches are more impactful on your win rate than OG duals due to the extra utility
fetches are far and away the best lands every printed and its not close.
Esp in a 4-5 color deck, and even more so with the creation of triomes.
there's no way this is a hot take lol. fetch lands enable so many things. every single word on a fetch land can be used for an advantage.
Luke warm take. Fetches are better. Its not really even close I don't think.
I think that is very situational. While paying for life for convenience, you are also adding that life loss up to signal that you are gaining advantage from it. SSmart opponents will see the player losing life from getting their fetch/shocks in play and likely target you.
I strongly agree with Dana a lot this episode with regard to his card tier placements.
I feel that lands being fetch-able matters so much less in budget decks. If you're on a budget you're a lot less likely to have ways to fetch the lands outside of specific green cards.
Bad River and/or Rocky Tar Pit in Grixis colors can fetch a Smoldering Marsh or Sunken Hollow, untapped in ideal scenarios.
In white (and especially Azorius) you can use Flood Plains, Knight of the White Orchid, Kor Cartographer, and/or Scholar of New Horizons to fetch Prairie Stream and Irrigated Farmland or any of the non-green dual types from Khaldeim and Dominaria.
No doubt green gets a buff in budget but don't give up on the other colors, especially white.
Next podcast topic, "Land Cycles we wish they would finish out". Or I suppose, card cycles in general.
I wish they would finish the nimbus cycle
@@MGone3 Oooh, that is a good one. I love that the Tainted lands are all Black+ for the flavor reasons, but I also kind of wish we had other ones for gameplay reasons.
@ethanglaeser9239 I would love having the "Tainted" cycle completed. Nothing like having a 20 card cycle 😆
Prismatic vista is slept on. Worth it in even 3 color! I dont think you should bunch vista and fabled passage with the slow fetches though.
At $25? 🤮
It's not slept on at all it's the pricetag. If it wasn't so expensive it would be an auto include
@@VexylObby now $30
I agree with everyone saying that the criteria made this list very unclear. Making the list focused on whether the lands are good or not regardless of price would have made it more clear then players can see what they can afford. Now some lands are higher up only because they are great if you don't have a lot of money.
Evolving Wilds is interesting in that it's actually better in 3+ colours than it is in 2 colours. In the latter, you might as well run a gate or similar tap land, as your land is coming in tapped anyway so it might as well tap for both your colours. But in a 3+ colour deck, that gate might be the one that's of colours you already have, while Evolving Wilds gets you exactly the colour you're missing. Obviously if you come into some money and get the big name fetches that let you fetch "gates" that come with an additional colour in addition to exactly the one you need, Evolving Wilds is an easy cut, but most players aren't part of that upper class of budgets.
i am so happy to see the lorwyn filters in A, they are my FAVES! i have used them to get out of sticky color situations more than they hindered me, super big fan of them!
Couple other lands not mentioned. Unclaimed Territory, Secluded Courtyard, and Plaza of Heroes. A tier because just like path of ancestry, even if you are not in a typal deck, they can help cast your commander. Cavern of Souls can be grouped here too (yay for reprinting in a standard set!) These are definitely underplayed. Tarnished Citadel is an interesting one. I think the more powerful deck you are playing, the better it gets. But 3 life is so painful and there are enough lands now that can tap for any color and are also untapped, that I no longer run this one and would place it at D tier. The last one I think should be mentioned is Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. It is interesting for two reasons. One, similar to OG duels, I do NOT think it is worth it when it comes to the best bang for your buck. It is so expensive. But the other and more important thing is that duel lands are supposed to help with color fixing and are more important the more colors you run, but this is the one land that while it can be used for any color, the more colors you run, the worse it gets because it has synergies mostly with mono color decks. I do not run it in 3+ color decks at all, and usually would only run it in 2 color deck if the deck heavily favored one color and splashed the other. With all that said I would place Nykthos in C tier.
Slow fetches and Panoramas being graded so much less than their untapped counter parts compared to other budget cycles always surprises me. Most people I know cannot afford more than 1 cycle of true fetch lands so we use slow fetches and panoramas in their place. The ability to fetch is so important. That utility is worth the etb tapped or what they fetch for being tapped, just like scry lands coming in tapped or bounce lands being tapped is worth their utility. True fetch lands are just so powerful that people push back harder on slow fetches and panoramas in comparison than I think they should.
I love Dana's stance on Battlebond lands 😂😂 They shouldn't be in S tier 😊
Big agree
I play a lot of 1v1 commander so they aren't S tier
@garrisonfrost5377 I agree. Anytime I 1v1 with these, they are the ULTIMATE feelsbadman.
Either they're S or shocks aren't S either because they're on the same power level.
@@timbombadil4046except they literally are not. Shocks are fetchable (fetchlands, wood elves like effects), synergistic with random cards that require land types, commanders or cards that even reward you for taking damage/ losing life(Greven, Vilis, new Rowen to name some off the top of my head).
Joey is right about bounce lands, they are probably actually S tier at casual tables. Outside of cEDH they are basically enters tapped draw a card. Even without landfall synergies they are S-tier.
Agreed - enters tapped, draws a land. When you start adding modal lands like Bala Ged Recovery, Boseiju or even Mosswort Bridge they just get better.
I love em and wish I used them more. Use a bounce land on a Mystic Sanctuary and get a second thing out of your graveyard. Modal lands, channel lands, I didn't know how to use them at first because I was always playing them and then bouncing untapped lands back and wasting the acceleration they give you. Bounce a land you already tapped for mana, now you have a land in hand and from here on out that land is going to tap for 2, which increases its value the longer it's out. Especially good if used as the last land in your hand because then you get to know you hit your land drop next turn.
The lorwyn filters get better if you have some decent amount of double pips or multicolored cards.
like, that's the point of polishing manafixing, I prefer avoiding filter lands altogether as I play too many 1 mv cards to play them comfortably
It's against my religion to buy expensive cards, especially lands. So, for me, any mana fixer that has a remote chance to enter untapped is as good as an OG dual.
I think there are by now a bunch of REALLY solid duals that have a good chance of not coming into play tapped. The checklands (basicland in hand or play) are absolutely valid in a lower budget deck. I love that WotC has put out so many options.
Just a correction: you can reveal any of the required land types for the snarls, it doesnt need to be a basic
• Fetchlands >>>>> OG duals > Shock / Battlebond
• Pain / Filter (Lorwyn) / Slow
--- 3 color cut off ---
• Bounce / Pathway / Check / Horizon / Tango (Battle)
--- Basic ---
• Filter (Odyssey) / Bicycle / Temple / Fast / Typed Tap / Snarl / Bridge
• Man / Campus / Sac-Draw
• Gain / Basic Tap / Freeze
Only covered dual lands, but this works as my baseline before deck specific considerations enter. Budget not considered. Don't necessarily like cards below the 3-color cut off less, but those above perform well in all situations.
The canopy lands are the cycle of lands i want to see completed more than anything. In high powered 2 colored decks, these just replace the 5 color ping lands, and do so much more by being able to be cracked and replaced for sometimes a game winning draw. Its a wild set of lands that need to be finished. A borderline S tier
The pizza metaphor bothered me because unlike a magic card, "more" doesn't equal better when it comes to food. I love sausage pizza and pepperoni pizza, but wouldn't eat a meat lovers' pizza because I don't like them together.
I'm with Matt on the Thriving Lands. They're what I call great low power cards. Yeah, you're not playing them in your stronger decks. But if you're that newer or budget player, they're great cards for you. And if you're a more experienced player, they're great cards for you to have in decks to play against that newer or budget player. They've replaced Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse in my lower power 3+ color decks.
If you loose a significant amount of life to Pain Lands, in Commander, you tap like a heedless chicken.
you can open on them, draw poorly and getting beaten by your own manabase, I cut them off green decks, but will throw them in decks that A) regain the life or B) are 2 colors so I can worrry less about needing to take 5 dmg
my big stink with exotic orchard is that it gets worse as you knock out your oppenents. i was 1 colored mana short due to exotic orchard not being able to produe a colored mana i needed due to 2 players being knocked out that had the mana i needed
My argument against pathways is the general double face card argument and its annoying that some sleeves dont really let you run them without hoping through hopes.
For some cheap cards I just get them twice to not have to switch but thats still annoying as hell, yeah.
I use Dragon Shields clear matte sleeves. I used marker on a few basic forests in a Boros deck to signify the MDCF carda Im running in it
I played them a couple times lately and I was surprised how LITTLE it bothered me. I thought it would be way more annoying to unsleeve/switch/sleeve but it was an absolute non-issue for me.
Otherwise
Pathways easy A-Tier and it's not even close. Always make the deck. Yeah, you have to make a decision once but that's simply exactly enough in dual colored decks and arguably still absolutely fine in a three colored deck.
The only point when you WOULDN'T run these is when you have so much basic-land ramp that you're at risk of not having enough basic lands left in your deck when you play your third Rampant Growth-Effect of the game.
But other than that (and non-basic hate), why would I ever NOT run a pathway land over a basic land?
@@PaulSzkibik I don't even unsleeve 'em. My go-to card sleeves are Dragon Shield's Clear Matte sleeves, so I just use a forest with Pathway written on it, so I can show it, and put one of the two sides of the Pathway on the tbale.
This is right on time for my friend who is looking to refine his mana base for his Kaalia deck.
I'm surprised there wasn't more discussion of modes of the way these synergize with ramp cards. The etb tapped duals with two basic types in particular. Nature's Lore, Three Visits, Skyshroud claim, Farseek. All exist! Sometimes your tempo means you don't want to fetch your shock. Heck, just cracking a turn 1 fetch to find a Radiant Grove is a perfectly fine move when you have no turn 1 play. I put basic land type fetchable etb tapped duals in every 2 color green deck I have, and in some 3 or 4 color that have access to green ramp. Easily deserve to be higher than C tier for that.
I think Reflecting Pool becomes better the better your mana base is. I have it in about twenty of my 3+ color decks, but those all start with fetches, shocks and triomes.
So it will tap for 5 of my colors on turn three in 95% of all games.
Matt apparently does not agree with the maxim "life is a resource". Mana Confluence and City of Brass are AMAZING in 3+ color decks.
40:27 Joey brought it up: the ability to, late game, set up your next draw where you couldn’t care less is huge. Very few land cycles will provide a benefit for you that late into the game apart from mana generation
Noticed that some channels (or was it jus EDHrec?) grade down the Shadowmoor-Eventide filter-lands & Odyssey “signet” lands but from my xperience, they’r basically autos in 2-colored decks with practically 0 problem & all upsides. Also found ‘em to b very very useful in 3-color decks with 3 MV Commanders that wish to b playd soonest possible.
Even beyond, I think filter lands can still pull their weight (& mayb even pleasantly surprising at times filtering into double Y color when U haf only single X mana on board), assuming the remainder of your mana base is already solid.
Slope goes down real fast for “signet” lands beyond 3-color but man, I also hope WotC jus take the time to fill out the enemy-color 1s. Budget players will b so so grateful for these.
I will defend specifically murmuring bosk. It's a fetchable tri land that can come into play untapped.
I've just noticed how much of my deck building and EDH player mentality comes from 5 years of listening to you guys (7 years of Dana).
This is absolutely close to what would be my tier list. I don't care if it's the echo chamber effect, this podcast brings me joy everytime.
Joey hit the nail on the head with his fetchland analysis. I would only run a fetchland in a 4 or 5 color deck outside of synergies, like in my Minthara and Obuun decks.
This looks pretty accurate to me. The first three lines are where most of the cards I play land anyway. The fillers are a tier lower. Over all great job. Dana seemed to agree with most of the stuff I was placing on the list, right down to the landfall comments.
This was great! I've been thinking a lot about lands recently while building my Dakkon Blackblade deck.
Take away - check lands, slow lands, battle lands (tango), land-type taplands & LT snow/bridge.
Technically you can reveal a typed dual when it comes to the reveal lands, as they say a [swamp] or [forest], not basic. [Necroblossom Snarl] (I would still only run them in a two color deck with a good amount of basics, though; there are only so many typed duals)
The one place I play and like Capenna fetches is in my Zask, Skittering Swarmlord deck, where circumstances are almost ideal. My commander has a Crucible of Worlds attached to it, so I want lands in my yard, but I also run lots of Exploration effects, so the life gain adds up. I can also keep playing it for landfall triggers even after I run out of basics. And if I have Urborg, Yavimaya or Dryad of the Ilysian Grove out, I can even tap it for mana before it goes away.
The check lands and the Sunken Hollow lands actively hold back your upgrading. They get worse the better your mana base gets.
1:21:23 So Forbidden Orchard in a Toshiro Umezawa deck absolutely slaps. If you have Illness in the Ranks in play you have an on demand Toshiro trigger. And sometimes your oponets will deliberately play around putting creatures into play so you can't get Toshiro triggers (its rare but I have seen it more than a handful of times) this can give you a target of say Tragic slip so you can recast a vamp tutor from your graveyard.
Love the tier list podcast! It would be cool to see more of these on various different topics.
Based on experience, I would put Triomes at S tier
I would argue that because they enter tapped, they could never be S.
A tier. A+ being generous. Etb tapped always makes them not possible for s tier.
As someone who runs off-color fetches and ABU duals in most of my decks, i fetch triomes more often than duals. There's a lot of times you don't need an untapped land on a specific turn, being able to get perfect mana in an instant puts it solidly in S tier.
I don't run shocks in 4-5 color decks. I do run triomes.
I agree with your tiering of most of the fetches. Just give an example of where I play the capenna fetches, they are an absolute all-star in soul of windgrace, netting me a meaningful amount of life each game as a useful target for windgrace.
I think the Pathways are unplayable in three or more colors, but I'm slamming them in every two color deck.
Edit: Also, the always tapped typed dual lands (Radiant Grove/Snow Duals) are okay in enemy colors because enemy colors don't have the "two basic lands" or the "cycle 2" lands, so they have fewer fetch targets. With that being said, we did just get those Surveil lands and thankfully, there are 10.
I absolutely love them for two-color decks because they make either color I want and come in untapped. Just whichever color I have less of at the moment, I play the Pathway. Late game, I probably just play it as an untapped land on whichever face is the "top" one, which puts it WILDLY ahead of all the conditional tapped lands.
I do seem to build most of my decks two-color though.
Thank you Joey for validating all of my Guildless Commons purchases
Awesome video! I feel like I trust y'all more over some of the other dual land tier lists out there. I'd be curious to see y'all make videos on mana bases, tho! Some of the comments you made about what shouldn't go into a 3-4-5C deck seemed to conflict with other things I've seen/read/heard, so would really love your takes!
I truly enjoy that you are all able to see your own biasis and make a list that is usefull for MOST players :)
I completely agree with Dana on basically every land. The lorowyn filters are A for sure. If you have one of them and a basic, you can still produce 2 of a color diffrent from that basic and no other dual land can say that.
Vivid lands, I slid into my Atraxa energy deck. Good to get her out, and they're effectively all colors after she hits the board.
I love how even bad lands have really narrow uses that are fun.
Vivids in five colors are also nice if you are playing a bunch of "tap for any color" effects alla chromatic lantern. They help bridge your colors until you get one of those online.
I personally really like the flexibility of the Panorama's for 3 color decks as an additional fetch and it can tap for mana which is really nice. I'd say it's like B or C tier worthy to me
To me, either you put the shocks in A OR BB lands in A. It depends on if you really want to go life loss or not. Personally, I do not run fetches and shocks as often, because I know going such lower in life can be detrimental. Opponents pay attention to who is getting their advantage by paying life for convenience.
I really like Shadowmoor/Eventide filters in part because they support higher pip count cards in 3+ color decks. In contrast, the fact that the Odyssey signet lands don't make mana without filtering has screwed me on several occasions. Lorwyn filters>Signet lands.
I use the tapped fetchable lands in my Maelstrom Wanderer big mana deck because it allows my ramp spells that look for forests (or Farseek) to still hit dual-color lands into the mid-game instead of just getting a basic land, which allows me to cast a variety of color-intense spells easily (also why I run Chromatic Lantern in that deck).
As someone who REFUSES to play tutors and barely plays fetch. The battlebond lands are S tier.
I rely on what I draw to get me to the win.
Slow lands come into play untapped way more than 80% of the time for me. Unless I’m keeping a two land hand and whiff on three draws, it’s coming in untapped.
Mana Confluence and City of Brass allow 5 color decks to be a thing, so they're much better than the Horizon lands.
Bounce lands are A tier for me specifically for 3 color decks. 2 color decks you don't need the extra color fixing. For 4-5 color decks it's too much of a tempo loss to include them all. They basically draw you a land upon entering so I count them as two lands in my land count. They help me justify running less lands than I should lol.
On with Joey about the bounce lands. I do like them a lot. Getting back boseijus or other mdfcs. Making sure to hit landdrops. I like them a lot. 👻
I love the signet filter lands. The ability to turn colorless mana or convert mana of other colors into different colors on a netting mana land is so useful. They turn rocks like mindstone into a talisman, and especially in higher color counts in 5 color your two main colors you can rock their filter land so the extra say red you are splashing can turn back into your green/blue as an example.
Especially in the early game being able to turn 1 an esper sentinel turn 2 hold up an izzet charm type of situation ive just found that specific type of interaction very good.
I definitely agree that Battlebond lands should be A tier instead of S tier. Wizards really dropped the ball when they didn't give these basic land types. In EDH, they would be the "ABU duals" that people otherwise couldn't afford, and in 1v1 they would be no better than the common cycle of duals from Dominaria United.
I love the filter lands, but I would put them in B tier, if only because they become weaker the more colors you run. That being said, I have a 5-color deck that features filters (it's actually Temur with Orzhov splash, and all of the filters have at least 1 Temur color).
I used to run man-lands (ALL of them) in my creatureless Superfriends deck, but I wound up pulling them out when I found too many other lands that I wanted to add. I still have them all set aside until I find another deck for them. I'll keep looking. C tier works.
I've been playing Magic since 1994, and I still have singletons of the ABU duals. But I love most of the budget fetches, including the Mirage ones. In a casual format like EDH, I'm not concerned with fully optimizing and making sure that all of my mana is accounted for every turn. So having extra fetches to search for my ABUs/Shocks, or being able to pick my basics, is important to me. I would put them high on C tier, with a few of them even bottom B tier (Fabled Passage, Ash Barrens).
I agree with Dana that the life gain lands should be in D tier. They don't have the same upside of the Snow/Artifact/fetchable duals, but are not as bad as the old "enter tapped and nothing" lands.
Dana is right. Bond lands are A, not S. Can't fetch them and they can enter tapped once you're in a 1v1 scenario. (It isnt relevant often but it has hindered me on occasion). Especially if Check lands are B. Bond lands are better than Check lands but worse than Shocks.
The KHM & DMU typed duals are nice in decks with green simply because they can be targeted for stuff like Farseek or other ramp that gets you a Forest tapped. These are pretty much all upside as targets for that kind of effect. I'll often look for my Tangled Islet over my Breeding Pool if game circumstances allow, simply so I can draw the Breeding Pool later.
I like that those are acknowledged too, as it feels like they get overlooked a lot.
Prismatic vista seems pretty awesome. I can’t afford it, but I’ve recently been counting how often I’d love an evolving wilds that brought an untapped land in my 3 color decks. It’s frequent. Usually when I’m fetching, I tend to be looking for one color most of the time. There’s definitely times where grabbing 2+ colors in a 4-5 color deck is incredible though. I’d value Prismatic Vista like a triome in a 3 color deck.
I was too down on Vista, prob due to the fact that I primarily play two color decks.
On the creature lands, they're not all great but Lavaclaw Reaches is awesome. Esp in Rakdos or Jund decks where you make a ton of mana where it can and will just kill people. I love it most after someone else's boardwipe.
Really interesting video and helpful for me even as someone who's been playing for a few years now.
Biggest shift for me in thinking was that I rate the campuses highly, but that's (I tend to run one if it's 2-3 colours), but that's largely because I liked them so much in limited, and in arena brawl I have wanted the utility of being able to scry in need. So to me I'd include them above the etb scry lands. I hadn't really realised how much it'd skewed my view of the lands though.
The occasional colorless mana requirements has hosed me enough to bump the pain lands up for me too. It's also bumped up ash barens for me. Gotta say I agree with Dana on most of the arguments except for bounce lands and fabled. I love that there are a lot of options these days, temples for scry synergies, life gain lands, artifact duals, snow duals, etc. Next I'd like to see fetchable pain lands
I love playing nurturing peatland with yavimaya and urborg. It's good by itself but if you have one of those you don't lose any life.
I appreciate Matt's perspective. As somebody who makes a ton of commander decks, I just can't afford to put shocks and fetches in many of them. I'm often reaching for those tapped duals with land types and thriving lands because I have so many of them and they save so much money. They tend to work well too, even if its undeniably a manabase with untapped lands runs the smoothest.
Even after playing for a couple of years I can't bring myself to pay tons of money for the land base of my decks. Would rather create a new and interesting deck that drop $20 per dual land to improve the power level. Budget really comes into play for this analysis for me.
The filter lands from Lorwyn and Shadowmoor are excellent. They turn basics into 2 color lands. They create wedges with other duals. In 2 and 3 color decks they're auto-includes IMO. They work great in 3+ color decks that have a heavy color bias towards something (blue, black, etc). I think they fit somewhere between A and B Tier.
Exotic Orchard is near S tier IMO. I play it in any deck that is not mono colored and it is almost always an untapped dual land or better. In 3+ color deck it's absolutely S tier.
Bounce lands are unequivocally the best taplands.
The Artifact Lands are better in Artifact decks, the Snow Duals are better in Snow decks, but in every other deck they’re definitely the best. There’s a reason most 2-color Pauper decks run them.
@@janmelantu7490 wellll, ever since ponza has shown back up in pauper they’ve been less popular, but yes
47:10 im a bit confused on the pathways. In a 2 color deck they are very similar to a fetch. It’s essentially fetching for a basic without paying life.
Tango lands are amazing for budget decks since they run a lot of basics
Ash Barrens can be a life saver in a 3-color deck where you need to make sure you get at least one basic of each color.
"Absolute dookie-butter" -Matt Morgan, 2023
The slow fetches can get typed utility lands like Mystic Sanctuary and Witch’s Cottage, I think that gives them a ton of utility in specific decks, especially in specific decks on a budget.
So, I have quick-and-dirty way to score mana-producing lands for EDH that I use (though I don't have a clean way to include fetches in my scoring), and it has been pretty flexible and helpful, especially when it comes to evaluating cycles of duals/tri-lands. Because even my casual meta skews to the faster end of play, it actually takes into account how the lands play on Turn 1, and again how they play on Turn 3 (assuming the requisite land-drops from good mulligan practice). Then it looks at the fixing potential of the lands, followed by accounting for significant upsides and downsides (besides entering tapped or untapped), and is something you can adjust based on synergies or the number of colors you're in. It's something that also can be used to compare these multi-lands to basics, which sometimes leads to surprising results and makes me realize I need to add more basic land instead. The ratings it produces generally jive with the assessments in this video, but not entirely. Since I don't think that UA-cam will let me add a link in the comments here. I will attempt to tweet the link at you gents. Good discussion here! Cheers! 😁👍
The tapp for all lands (CT, ExO, RP) are awesome! S tier. Untapt lands that will tap for all your colores 80% of the time at least. ExO can sometimes not tap for your color (mainly in 2c decks) but do not forget that even if no one is playing your colores CoB MC and co let it tapp for any color. (Two ExO also work like an RP)
PoA and FO are realy good A tier. Because scrys are always good and the 1/1 hardly matters (because you choose who to give them to) also it lets you make freinds.
But all of those are by far better than temples at least
I only play 3 colors decks 95% of the time. Here are the lands I will run no matter what:
Command Tower (x1)
Exotic Orchard (x1) (It will statistically count as 3 colors or more)
Fabled Passage (x1)
Triome (x1) (The ONE tapped land with the exception of MDFC or a Utility Land)
Battlebond Lands (x6)
Shock Lands (x6) (Even without fetches, I can grab these with fetch effects)
Slow Lands (x6)
Check Lands (
I know people really hate on the snarls/reveal lands (I use to be one of them) but they are solid in dual color decks. You can get away with literally running only basics in 90+% of games. Sub in some of the basics with
Why would I make my dual color deck worse to run bad lands, if you just swap to the better dual lands, those are bad, and then it's more consistent. Like sure If they are the only ones you have sure.
@@aaronwindham6065 Budget is a huge factor in constructing mana bases for most players. My argument is based on cost vs consistency. The benefit of dual color decks is that the mana is incredibly consistent regardless of the quality and cost of the lands in the deck. I cannot stress enough how well a mana base of literally just basic lands will perform in a dual color deck. The most optimal two color mana base is only a very minute upgrade over a budget mana base.
Because of that I personally prefer using the dime store lands to build dual color decks and think other players should do the same since the consistency you gain for buying the more optimal lands just isn't worth the cost. Afterall, it's pumpkin spice season and we could all be a little more Basic.
The problem with reveal lands is that after something like turn 3, they almost always come into play tapped because you just don't have *any* other lands in your hand.
2 color decks work *fine* with only basics, as long as you stay away from triple pip cards. Throw a pain land, slow land, dual faced, filter land, command tower, check land, tango land.... And you're a really pretty good for very minimal outlay.
The Odyssey filters are excellent in three color decks where you're splashing a color. But not in many other places.
One thing about the bridge cycle is that they are indestructible. It can help when someone is running land destruction...
The gainlands are great in (some) lifegain decks, not because of the amount of life but due to the TRIGGER.
Draw a card off of drogskol Reiver? gainland. Put a 1/1 counter on your entire board with archangel of thune? Gainlands. Trigger the infinite loop off of Sanguine Bond/Excquisite Blood? gainland
I will not run them in any other deck unless I'm on a budget. But I have cut other untapped duals for these just for the Synergy.
I don't see how exotic orchard isn't S tier. It costs like no money at all, wotc is super pushing 3 color or more Commanders, and you have 3 opponents. I find that it tapes for 3 colors minimum and often taps for 4 if not all 5. All while entering the battlefield untapped.
At least A tier for me. It's a command tower most of the time.
Given that we have various commamders that animate lands to attack, we should start getting creature lands that get an attack trigger without the need of paying mana for them.
Example: "Dude land"
You may pay 3 mana and Dude land becomes a 3/2 creature.
When Dude land attacks it gains menace.
This would allow for these creature lands to find home on these land animator commanders and would give much more flavor to them.