Summary
When building yourMagic: The Gatheringdeck, you’ll often be swayed by all the creatures, enchantments, artifacts, and planeswalkers. But there is one card type that is core to what makes it work, and those are land cards.
Lands are your source of mana, and in Commander, they are more important than ever. What lands you include can make or break a deck, so it’s important to think ahead when deck building. Making sure to include some lands that you’re able to tap for any color will give you more chances and more options.
10Cavern Of Souls
Protecting Creature Spells
Cavern of Souls is a land that not only provides any color mana but can also protect you against counters when casting a creature spell. Once in play, Cavern of Souls can be tapped for one mana of any color, but there’s a catch. This mana can only be used to cast creature spells of a specific type that you choose when casting the land.
This might seem like a huge flaw, but you will find that it benefits you. Making Cavern of Souls your source of creature spell mana protects you, as when they are cast using this mana, it also blocks them from being countered. This land is perfect for any creature spell-focused deck as it makes almost all of your spells protected against common counter plays.
9Exotic Orchard
Your Land Is My Land
With Exotic Orchard in your deck, you get to make use of your opponents' lands to generate mana colors. This land can be tapped to generate a single mana which matches the color of one of your opponents' controlled lands. In a one-on-one setting, this land is unfortunately not the greatest, as the fewer players there are, the more limited you are to what mana you can tap for, but it is handy in other formats.
Exotic Orchard cannot produce colorless mana, even if your opponent’s land can.
In Commander, you can have up to three other players you are facing in one game, giving you plenty of options as to what mana you can get. This will likely make it so that one of the lands will be the same color as your commander’s identity, which tends to be more useful than any color, and it is one of the best lands that allows for easy mana fixing in any deck.
8Gemstone Mine
Mine Until The Mana’s Dry!
If you don’t want your early game mana-generating land to stick around in your late game, Gemstone Mine is a great option that can sacrifice itself. Gemstone Mine is unique in that it has a limited number of taps due to relying on mining counters that reduce every time it is tapped, it enters with three counters and gives one mana of any color when tapped.
When it runs out of tokens, Gemstone Mine will be sacrificed, which many decks can actually benefit from. Specifically, if you are runninga sacrifice commander, such as Korvold, Fae-Cursed King who grows stronger with each sacrifice. Sacrifice decks often tend to run ways to retrieve cards from their graveyard, so you can keep reusing this land to get excellent mana fixing while empowering your board.
7Three Tree City
Creature Mana Generation Is Valid
This land card looks like it would work well as agreen manaland, but, it’s able to provide its scaling mana for any color. If you pay two generic mana when tapping Three Tree City, you’re able to generate a ton of mana for any color equal to the number of creatures you control that are a certain type.
This land can be a solid addition as long as your deck contains enough creatures of the same type to make its tapped ability work. The cost can be very easily offset and earn you more mana than you could ever need each turn if you build your deck all around kindred creatures that all share the same creature type.
6Gond Gate
The Gate Land Champion
Gate lands are often some of the strongest and with Gond Gate, it plays off your other Gate lands to give you an advantage. Gond Gate has the ability to make your Gate lands more powerful by allowing them to enter untapped, and when it is tapped, it also grants you a single mana that one of your controlled Gate lands could produce.
The only issue Gond Gate has is that it does require you to control other Gate lands with the mana color you want in order to tap it for that specific color. Since there are plenty of ways to get lands from your library for Gond Gate to use to its benefit, it is easy to get value, and it is an excellent way to make Gate land-focused decks stronger.
5Nykthos, Shrine To Nyx
Legendary Mana Generation
Legendary lands often have powerful effects that require mana to be tapped, but with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx you can easily get the mana you spend back from the tap. For two generic mana when tapped Nykthos, Shine to Nyx allows you to choose a color and adds mana equal to your devotion to that color to your mana pool.
This land works excellently in decks that run many permanents, as color devotion scales with each permanent that you currently control that has the respective color. So, with many permanents active, you’re able to make Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx generate a huge amount of mana very easily to ramp quickly.
4City Of Brass / Mana Confluence
Pay With Your Life
These two lands have been grouped together as they share similar effects, both giving any color mana at the cost of life. City of Brass makes you take one damage when it is tapped and can give you one mana of any color in return and, likewise, Mana Confluence adds one mana of any color but has the requirement of paying one life.
Mana Confluence has its life tax baked into the tap text itself, whereas City of Brass has it separated as a standalone ability that deals one damage whenever it becomes tapped. These are key differences that affect many interactions with either card.
In most formats, losing life can be detrimental, but in Commander it is much more easily worked around, making the drawbacks of both cards not bad. One benefit of Mana Confluence over City of Brass is that when opponents tap it you will not take damage, and it is overall considered the better card, but both are very consistent.
3Reflecting Pool
The Lands Empower The Lands
Reflecting Pool will have you reflecting on which other lands you include alongside it, as it requires other lands to take advantage of its potential. This land is simple in that, when tapped, you may add one mana to your pool that any of your other controlled lands could add to it.
The power of Reflecting Pool really depends on your own land cards, but it can actually be very versatile in mana fixing. Where it really shines is in decks that have three or more mana types, as Reflecting Pool can help manage the many mana colors alot easier by giving an additional mana of the specific color you need.
2Command Tower
Taking Command
This land is iconic in Commander for its humble mana generation, which makes it a must include for anyone.Command Toweris one of the most reprinted lands of all time, as its simple ability to be tapped for any mana color your deck has is useful in every Commander deck.
While it can tap for any color, Command Tower can only give you mana that your commander has in their color identity. However, since all cards in your deck must include these colors anyway, Command Tower can give you all the mana types you need without any drawbacks. This land is a Commander staple for a reason, and it is a card that creates mana like no other.
1Path Of Ancestry
A Better Command Tower? For Some Decks, Yes
While many players opt to use the easy-to-obtain Command Tower to generate their mana, some prefer to use an alternative that has a similar effect. Path of Ancestry is a land which can give you any color of mana in your commander’s identity when tapped, but it enters the battlefield tapped, which delays its first mana gain by one turn.
However, it does have a bonus effect and that is, when you spend the mana created to cast a creature spell, you get to scry one. This allows Path of Ancestry to not only provide mana fixing but also library filtering, which is hugely beneficial, especially with kindred decks, and in many cases it can provide more value than Command Tower.
