Ten Lands That You Might Have Overlooked in Commander

Well guys (and gals), it has finally arrived. This will be the last article in this series Lands! In case you missed out on all the other articles, here are the links: Gold, Green, Red, Black, Blue, White, Artifact.

This one was the most challenging because any good lands would have been discovered! Right? This article covers those niche cards that aren’t staples but can be VERY good in the right circumstances and in some cases, might even be highly underappreciated.

While researching this article I stumbled across the decklists from the 2000 World Championships. I was amazed at the creativity displayed in such a degenerate standard environment (five cards were banned in the format and several others probably should have been!) to make it to the top back then. People are like, “Only five? That’s nothing…” but to remind that Crop Rotation, Frantic Search, Gaea’s Cradle, Grim Monolith, Gush, Replenish, Tinker, Vampiric Tutor, Voltaic Key, Yawgmoth’s Will, and even Dark Ritual were all legal at the time!

10. Rainbow Vale - This reserved list card is quite powerful in one-on-one games and can be kind of fun in multiplayer games. Sure, it helps your opponent sometimes, but the usefulness of a land that enters untapped and produces any color of mana is pretty good. Plus, you might get it back right away! It can be a neat tool in a very political match as well. A reminder that it changes control (to a player of your choice) at the end step, so if it is used during your turn (before the end step), it will untap on the next player’s turn, this could allow for some very quick/interesting games where everybody ramps if everybody has one (or three via Vesuva and Thespian’s Stage)!

9. Halls of Mist – Another reserved list gem, the Halls help slow the damage that you receive by preventing attacks early on cheaply. With some land recursion, this gets more interesting, then if you add cards that help this one produce mana (such as Riftstone Portal or Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth), you have even more options.

8. Glacial Chasm – Many folks have already seen how this card helps. I was introduced to this bad boy decades ago in an early incarnation of Turbo Fog (all green), using Anvil of Bogardans and Howling Mines along with Hurricane (hence the Chasms). After that, the potential for abuse with Crucible of Worlds and Life from the Loam were unmistakable. It being colorless doesn’t hurt either (can be played in any deck).

7. Terrain Generator – Card advantage is a nifty thing in commander and drawing a lot of cards is cool, but what do you do with all those extra lands that yer drawin'? Well…this card only allows you to plop an extra basic land out every turn but that’s gotta be useful right? It is in a monocolored deck! And it doesn’t even matter which color right? Think Yawgmoth’s Bargain/Necropotence, Fecundity, blue decks, the guy playing ‘group hugs’, that sort of thing.

6. Grand Coliseum – Basically a balanced City of Brass, but not as expensive dollars-wise. It can be a bit painful, plus it ETBs tapped, but otherwise, it ain’t too terrible. It is a very good fit in any four- or five-color deck, but there are plenty of better choices in decks that don’t run as many colors.

5. “Bad Fetches” from Mirage (Bad River, Flood Plain, Grasslands, Mountain Valley, and Rocky Tar Pit) – These lands ETB tapped but provide pain-free fetching of lands with the appropriate types be they basic or non-basic. If used alongside the better fetches, they provide consistency in mana variance and deck-thinning.

4. Crystal Vein – When I see this card, I think “City of Traitors, but a whole lot less money.” In commander, it doubles up your City of Traitors/Ancient Tomb count (if you have them), and with Crucible, it makes the drawback of cracking the second ability less painful. It works great for a turn-one Howling Mine as well.

3. Lairs (Crosis’s Catacombs, Darigaaz’s Caldera, Dromar’s Cavern, Rith’s Grove, and Treva’s Ruins) – These lands have the ‘drawback’ of bouncing a non-lair land you control. This ends up working in the favor of landfall abilities, but they also ETB untapped while bouncing any land (even tapped ones), so you don’t lose much except a bit of tempo in exchange for mana flexibility.

2. Karoo lands (Coral Atoll, Dormant Volcano, Everglades, Jungle Basin, and Karoo) – These lands were largely shunned back in the late ‘90s as they are not a very good trade. Over time, they have gained power due to the cardbase becoming more varied over the years. As non-basics they have many enemies, especially in commander, but with so many man-lands available, land destruction often has other targets to blast. You know your metagame better than me, but these are a good option if you need to break your own lands, run Crucible (to get them back), or have some other way to abuse the extra mana by untapping lands, etc.

1. Ice Floe – This was an odd choice, but as the least expensive (money-wise) card on this list, it has a good ability, especially against non-flying commanders and can be versatile until better choices become available in your deck for control. The fact that this is a land makes it a fairly safe choice to use as spot creature control in just about any deck.

Honorable Mentions

Teferi’s Isle – A reserved list card, while the Isle is legendary this is not really a big deal in commander. With phasing, this has an advantage if you do nasty land board wipes such as Armageddon, Epicenter, or Sunder. The phasing is offset marginally by the fact that it produces two blue mana. For flavor, it is **Teferi’s** Isle so it does bear some coolness factor. If you were to use a Wellspring on an opponent's Isle, things get a little interesting...

Sorrow’s Path – This reserved list card used to be considered the very worst card in Magic. It was the only card rated at zero stars back in the day and Inquest magazine constantly poked fun at it. Now it has combo potential based on giving it away to your enemies or in your deck with enrage. Pinging you and your own dudes used to be a bad thing, but now, sometimes it is desirable! Donate, Harmless Offering, and Political Trickery all allow you to give away this treacherous land to an unsuspecting rube, then with tap effects like Icy Manipulator or Ring of Gix it can be a painful experience for your adversary.

Tainted Lands (Tainted Field, Tainted Isle, Tainted Peak, and Tainted Wood) – These are some cheap duals with low drawback potential. I list them here because despite the fact that they are only ‘black and…’ lands they don’t ETB tapped, and the only other thing you need is a swamp for them to make colored mana. They still tap for mana even if you don’t have a swamp, only that it is colorless.

Riftstone Portal – The main benefit for this land only makes sense when it is in the graveyard! The limitation is relatively high, but the payoff is pretty nice. Making all your basic lands into two- or three-color lands is a nice treat, especially when all it takes is to dump this into the yard via discard, Entomb, mill, or by sacking it from the battlefield.

So that’s it, the series is complete. I will look into some standard Arena stuff after this for a while as I futz around on there with some deck ideas. With my avoidance of game stores lately, Arena has been my lone bright spot during the pandemic. I recently played the Historic Pauper event and was a tad underwhelmed, though I have never been particularly fond of pauper. I will probably delve a bit further into some Commander stuff when I feel inspired again and hopefully play a little at the Lair, sharing my experiences. Until then, stay cool!

“If you constantly underwhelm, they will eventually ignore you.”