Which Lands Should you Play in Commander? | Literally Everything you Need to Know About Lands in EDH

[@zotmaster]

"Most turns are not the first 2 turns of the game." If you ever sell NN shirts, put this on one :)

[@maxheath1158]

@ turn 1, 2, and 3 wins outside of CEDH are so rare they might as well never happen

@@maxheath1158 your first turns affect the following turns. They matter a lot and you cannot be skipping them if you want to win.

[@maxheath1158]

@ i agree in theory. However, in an awful lot of EDH games, turn 1 and 2 amount to something like "birds, go" and "signet, go" respectively. Missing either of those plays (and still getting to attack and draw and get any trigger if you have any) is a disadvantage, but having a consistent manabase is a HUGE advantage

[@F3A5T]

Depends on the powerlevel

[@F3A5T]

Turn 1 and 2 are the most important turns in cEDH

[@weirdproq]

One colorless utility land you forgot that is sweet is Deserted Temple. It taps for colorless, and has pay 1, tap: untap target land. It's great with Gaea's Cradle, Nykthos, Cabal Coffers, and Serra's Sanctum.

[@Grooove_e]

Not too bad, $37 for regular version. Only ever printed in Odyssey so of course the foil is about $300 lmao

[@Migalosos]

Combine this with Vesuva and Thespian Stage and you have crazy mana

[@jdogbemple1]

For when Joe is talking about reliquary tower and he asks, “what’s a commander that always draws a bunch of cards every game?” The answer is basically every simic commander ever.

[@maxleveladventures]

That, and my fucking roommate's overpowered Wyleth deck. I hate that deck so god damn much...

[@Bezoldz]

@@maxleveladventures wyleth op deck?🧐🧐

[@nealcrabtree3647]

Aesi needs the Tower badly.

[@davestier6247]

@@nealcrabtree3647 wizard class waves hello

[@nealcrabtree3647]

I play Wizard Class also

[@ozmond]

THANK YOU. Lands are my favorite part of Magic.

[@mileshorner8886]

could you guys please do deck tours - we’ve heard so much about beezy’s two karador decks but i’d love to see the actual lists and hear the thinking about the cards in them

[@NitpickingNerds]

They are on the horizon!

[@ConstanceMists]

Its just 99 copies of Grave titan

[@p1k4nurxp13sr]

Urza’s Saga is probably even more wild than you give it credit for. It can grab certain infamous combo cards, notably LED.

[@TheUltimateRey]

There’re not a Cedh channel so not really relevant to them

[@elipetrou9308]

And top and skull clamp, pretty darn good

[@satansamael666]

Fetches for Aether Vial in creature decks.

[@poofypeanut0221]

@@TheUltimateRey you don’t have to play cedh to play an LED

[@TheUltimateRey]

@@poofypeanut0221 what casual game/deck are you putting an LED and not having it combo? That’s pretty much all it’s used for in Cedh

[@shaunsie]

This is one of the most helpful and informative videos you guys have made to help refine decks. You're really upping your game. I've been lacking skill in honing and refining land bases, and I'm working on updating and fine-tuning my 10 decks right now. Thanks for your experience and insight.

[@NitpickingNerds]

Thanks, glad to hear that!

[@patrickboswell4399]

I have started auto including emergence zone in almost all of my decks especially 2 or less colors. The ability to know a board wipe is happening and hold your turn back and rebuild faster is great and also the "i need this card right now but its not an instant" is sooo good

[@fulgurobaboon1321]

I love how Joe got all excited when he explains the reveal-lands can reveal a non-basic to enter untapped, made me think of me when I made my Esper budget manabase. Anyway this episode was really helpful, thanks mates

[@zackthedrummer87]

Tolaria West is a great utility land. It's a tutor. You can get any land, zero cost artifacts, and even suspend cards that don't have a mana cost

[@z4t3k21]

I am surprised that it took so long for this video.... lands are literally the most important part of MTG basics... love you guys

[@wolframflorian]

I already know, that I will come back to this video again and again. This is one of your most useful videos! Congratulations.

[@HomeCookinMTG]

Another good budget replacement for Ancient Tomb is Crystal Vein. Loved this video!

[@Oakenbull]

Winding Canyons can still be had for around $30, seems like a good price for a reserved list playable utility land

[@selkokieli843]

sweet but quite situtational card, I would only invest 30$ worth of cards for such an effect if I already had 500$ budget for every deck and missing only fine tuning. Can't say I can afford that in my life. thinking of downsizing my collection anyway and turning to proxies in the future. no offense, just made me reflect on how I appraise cards these days

[@jonathanmellette8541]

I think he was really just correcting the guys because they said it was a $100 card.

[@jerryloiselle8507]

It took me one week to decide to watch the video, but honestly thanks a lot for all the tips, I was asking myself which dual lands to put in my 2-3 colors and you answered very well. Really need to upgrade my skullbriar landbase. I still have vivid grove/vivid marsh in it x)

[@hatsikujimayonez]

You've been appearing in my recommendations for ages. Finally decided to press the subscribe button, keep up the good work!

[@NoobN00b]

I run Yavimaya in my mono green Elf deck. It's nice because it also guarantees a forest walk trigger even if they don't have green.

[@fluff0000zz]

This is the video I needed my whole life. Thank you

[@xdavid00]

I'm here to nitpick! Forbidden Orchard was mentioned by some other people, but also Thran Quarry and Glimmervoid for the very brave of heart. Also, fast lands enter tapped after the THIRD turn, not the second turn.

[@orfeo-7_]

I love hall of heliod and academy ruins in my white/blue control. So nice for the solitary confinement/blood clock combo if some one counters solitary confinement I just draw it back. Good vid guys.

[@erikohman2294]

I like lotus vale in white or boros, because of how often white count your lands. Also you can put in Flagstones of trokair for hardly any cost.

[@ryanweston6182]

Another awesome video guys. I have always been so hesitant to pay a lot for lands even though they are so important. I have recently smartened up to the fact that lands are very important to a good deck.

[@sabelaine6044]

I loved listening to an hour of you two talking about lands ❤

[@54m0h7]

I don't think I heard these lands, but worth mentioning: Battlebond duels, all good imo. Kor Haven, like a Maze of Ith but taps for mana, but needs to be paid, pretty good imo. and super honorary, the Artifacts from Ixalan that transform into lands, like Thaumatic compass is great.

[@Pandahboymtg]

Battlebond lands are now referred to as Crowd lands because of the ones that came out in Commander Legends.

[@lawrencelamontagne328]

This is one of the best videos you've done. Every land I but will be through you tcg link.

[@gizzad]

I love hearing you guys talk about stuff.

[@danielvanginkel7081]

16:53 there's this card that says snow permanents ETB tapped. That is the only time you would be bummed out if your deck would be full of snow basics. Other than that snow basics can be put into an Extraplanar Lens so you get the benefits and your opponents don't.

[@DracoMagna]

I like how you guys have chapters for the video!

[@victorgbs]

As a long time Magic player, who played a lot of Legacy and Modern, it always seems funny to me that you guys would consider lands that add mana like a basic but have some minor utility to be a "freeroll". Shows how unused (and to be honest, a little bit spoiled) Commander players are from having to deal with Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, Back to basics, Wasteland, Fulminator Mage and to a lesser extent Field of Ruin. Blood moon and Back to basics in particular, but Wasteland + Crucible + Extra land drops can work too (although, to be fair, this format has Strip Mine). Commander even has Mana crypt. I've done Mana Crypt, Mountain, Blood moon, go on turn 1 playing Winota. It was kind of funny because it just completly shut off the highest powered deck and the lower powered ones got to play basically normally. There were entire decks in older formats dedicated to turbo shutting out your opponent from casting their spells by turning their manabase worth thousands and thousands of dollars into mountains, or into wasteland food. I remember in legacy, one of Miracles' biggest strengths was how well it played with just 2 Tundras in the deck, Fetches, and a ton of basics. It allowed them to run Back to basics, made turbo blood moon decks MUCH weaker, Wasteland recursion pointless, and shut off a significant portion of Delver's gameplan. You don't know pain in Magic until you can do nothing but stare uselessly at your lands desperately hoping your deck gives you one of your two basics. You guys say it's a freeroll, I say if you don't need the land to be a nonbasic (either because of mana fixing, very high utility, tainted pact or some specific synergy), just play basics. Don't rely on never meeting opponents who want to wreck your greedy manabase as a gameplan.

[@Necrozma_LifeYT]

Just got my dual matte orchid dragon shield sleeves (I did not use your affiliate link because at the time I ordered them tou guys didnt have it) and I cant complain

[@Dreisgen]

Hi guys, nice video, but you forgot some important lands IMHO, all in budget (as an old player): Tarnished citadel/Forbidden orchard/Gemstone caverns : played in a majority of high powered decks; Mishra's Workshop : insane in anything artifact heavy, and underrated in high powered; Bazaar of Baghdad : more specific, but deserves a line in budget; The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale : I have never understood why this card is the priciest in Legends, but you HAVE to put this in your I'm never playing this section :) Basic lands :) Island of Wak Wak : I'd put this in the same sentence as Maze of Ith!

[@WeaponXYZ]

A good budget land I feel doesn't get talked about are planeshift lair cards like Dromar's Cavern, if you can use them. Yeah, you're bouncing a non lair land back but comes to play untapped.

[@quantum6637]

Thank you so much for the spoiler alert on Spider-Man. Avoiding spoilers has been infuriatingly difficult, so this was a nice change of pace.

[@enemene22]

You guys freakin' KILLED IT!! That was awesome!

[@NitpickingNerds]

THANK YOU!

[@KVFD1723]

Great video as always gentlemen. I was wondering if Mishra's Workshop would be mentioned. Not surprising as it's hella expensive, but it's really powerful in the right deck.

[@WarpstonePainting]

Slime plush in the background, so proud of you two.

[@ConstanceMists]

All this talk about shuffle scuffle has me HYPED for the nerds gameplay

[@haunter27]

Maze of Ith is good in “when this commander attacks” decks, like Jorn, God of Winter.

[@elipetrou9308]

Oh that’s actually a neat interaction

[@Phavahg]

I respect their opinion, but they're wrong about Maze of Ith. It's an attack card as well as a defense card. There are one-turn win combos with it.

[@elipetrou9308]

@@Phavahg there are turn one wins with hundreds of combos, replacing your land drop with a purely defensive card isn’t optimal, especially in metas where combos are more prevalent, it’s okay in lower power but unfortunately the price doesn’t reflect that

[@Phavahg]

@@elipetrou9308 Our play group is very much casual. Several of us have been playing since 1994 and so a Maze of Ith is nbd.

[@elipetrou9308]

@@Phavahg that’s fair

[@dutchdronefootage]

Urza's Saga, besides it being an incredibly good card it has so much else going for it. From the lore behind it to the unique art from Titus Lunter and all the hidden lore pieces he put into the piece, it's one of the coolest cards in magic in my opinion.

[@kenerwin5716]

4:58 - bonus - the shadow moor foil reflecting pool also taps for white... check it out!

[@LinkThinks]

See, the problem with this video is that I need to go to work in ten minutes and therefore cannot watch it right now. Looking forward to it, though. Thanks for the daily Magic themed birthday celebrations!

[@NitpickingNerds]

No problem, happy birthday to all!

[@kingginger3335]

My absolute favorite land is Valakut Awakening. Idc that it enters tapped. In Windgrace or any deck that can recur lands from the grave, it quickly becomes the best land in the deck. If you have Crucible of World's on the field, you can cast it then play it from the grave, then bounce it to your hand, the cast it, then play it from the grave and cast it as many times as you can recur it. The best part is if you have a Nyxbloom Ancient and Amulet of Vigor you can tap it to float 3 red mana, bounce it to your hand and then use that 3 mana to cast the spell. It's insanely good and it can easily have you drawing 14 cards per turn

[@ragingtempestus6566]

I’m sorry, but I don’t think that works. The land Modal side of valakut is the non dominant side, so when in any zone other than the stack or battlefield, it counts as a spell. This means it can’t be recurred by crucible

[@kingginger3335]

@@ragingtempestus6566 it is how it works.

[@kingginger3335]

@@sensei470 according to a judge and everything I'm reading on the internet, I'm correct. The card is called "Modal Double Face". Double face means you can play either side at any time. The card is either played as a land or as a spell. You can even play them off the top of your library as a land with Courser of Kruphix. Idk what yall are talking about

[@kingginger3335]

@@sensei470 I understand that it goes to the graveyard with its spell side up. But according to the rules on the Magic the Gathering Website, you can still choose to play it as a land. You can't use Crucible to cast Valakut Awakening from the graveyard, but you can play it as a land from your graveyard if you have legal land drop available. Then all you have to do is return it to your hand with a Bounce land or something and you can recast the spell side of the card.

[@kingginger3335]

@@sensei470 you guys can keep playing the cards incorrectly if you want, I'm just trying to help

[@pauldyson8098]

Dudes, I've been hating Maze of Ith since the 90s. I'm so with you here.

[@antfayden]

You forgot about Forbidden Orchard in the non budget rainbow lands! Unless it's mentioned later in the video and I'm commenting prematurely, I'm only halfway through so far 😜

[@headshiphero]

It's really interesting hearing about things being "strictly better" than other things. OG duals: I can see why they are considered strictly better, but it does depend on what you're including. A tropical island is better than an island EXCEPT if opponent has something with forestwalk, or if you need to fetch a basic. "Strictly better" mostly seems to mean "almost always better than". But yes, OG duals = amazing

[@jaredwright1655]

Sounds like me after getting blood mooned

[@orlandovasquez1409]

Great episode! There is actually a butterfly exhibit you can walk through in the San Antonio Zoo in Texas.

[@connerferguson1667]

Ok, hear me out, Lair of the Hydra has easily become one of my favorite green cards of all time (and probably my favorite land). I was not impressed with it at first, but no card has single handedly won me more games of commander. It easily goes undetected as a land (also making it hard to remove) and fits with greens ramp super well as an X spell. Pesky late game board wipe? No worries, just throw the ton of mana you have (because you’re in green) into a huge hydra that basically has haste to finish things off!

[@superdopicecream]

I'm making a deck right now taking good advantage of the vivid lands but I think like you said they are only useful in a very small amount of decks. But the atrax superfriends I am building they fit very nicely

[@maxwellnichols3873]

Y'all should do a full-length video listing potential taglines for Dragon Shield.

[@22freedom33]

Basic lands are a great pick

[@MTG69]

WOTC should stop printing basic lands. There has been enough printed to sustain demand for the next 20 years.

[@ixchel3330]

@@MTG69 Then everyone has to use buy them secondhand. Also precons will always have them

[@MTG69]

@@ixchel3330 I wonder how many basic lands are in landfills. No pun intended.

[@Phavahg]

Did I miss Mishra's Workshop and the Urza's Tower/Mine/Power-Plant lands in your listings?

[@MTG69]

Does Mishra's Workshop even exist? Have you seen one, with your own eyes?

[@ixchel3330]

Who's playing tron lands in commander?

[@Phavahg]

@@MTG69 yup. Sold one I got way back in the day a couple of years ago. Nice investment.

[@cursedinfinity]

Just shipped out a Christmas gift to you guys today! I hope you like it. Merry Christmas you guys!

[@NitpickingNerds]

Oh wow, thank you and Merry Christmas!

[@VulcanGray]

It's my birthday. I'm 30! The best gift I got from you guys was taking out Phyrexian Arena

[@Turkin4tor]

The Manlands are great in any deck that has Mutate, after a board wipe it can ensure you can still get that mutate trigger off

[@reesercliff]

unclaimed territory is actually pretty good budget dual land for elf tribal decks

[@spreadablefruit6953]

Always feels good to use Into The North to fetch a snoodle and double up on the entering tapped requirement.

[@legendaryandrewsouth]

what is shuffle scuffle? i want to watch this!!

[@dennismarinos2129]

The coreect awnser is any duel land you have

[@thomasbeachy1626]

I'm a big fan of Magistrate's Tower. Stops an equip on a creature, and further equipsto it that turn. Clears a targetable voltron. Random pro artifact for removal, attacking and blocking shenanigans for the equivalent of 2 mana and its repeatable.

[@ozmond]

Fetching a triome turn one is a pretty good option I find

[@reggietheanarchistrat8805]

I got three commander legends packs for Christmas, I ended up getting a jeweled Lotus, a scroll rack, and a foil golgari crowd land

[@NitpickingNerds]

Oh wow, those are insane pulls!!! Congrats

[@zacharyfreese7758]

sounds almost as crazy when I kept trying to sell one of the triple booster packs of ultimate masters. Nobody wanted to buy it sealed so I eventually opened it up about 2 months later and opened a snapcaster mage, lilianna of the veil, and a foil phyrexian alter.

[@contrerasjesus90]

My friends and I call crowd lands homie lands ,because if u got homies it comes in untapped

[@ExaltedWarrior]

I'm just realizing how freakishly huge those microphones are.

[@sothisis1962]

Halmair depths is I think very useful. Etbs tapped (taps for blue) but you get to look at and organize the top 3. Sort works out to most of ponder I really like it

[@distantpressure]

I hope you guys can answer this question but anyways, I know you guys said to literally never play Halimar depths but what about in a Runo Stromkirk deck? I know a tapped island is absolutely bad but I feel like having an extra way of being able to control what’s on the top of your library would be very beneficial in order to transform Runo. Obviously I’d have something like brainstorm as well but having that little extra synergy might be a good idea what do you guys think? Is it worth the tapped island? Also I don’t even own a commander deck lol, I can’t afford one. But I love sea monsters and the mystery’s of the deep dark ocean so once I’m able to I want to make my very first commander deck being a badass Runo deck😎👊

[@sothisis1962]

I find that card incredibly useful. Playing a tap land on turn 1 usually won’t impact you. So you play one land tapped. You play a land untapped but you have no one mana interaction. Or the likelihood of needing that interaction

[@greekPharaoh666]

My cosima landfall deck is one of my most favourite deck! Cosima is love.

[@mr.mammuthusafricanavus8299]

Some budget favorites: - Quicksand - Emergence Zone - Lairs - Endless Sands - Safe Haven :P

[@sophieharris4448]

thoughts on bounce lands? getting basically a lay of the land that doesn't cost you a card seems great to me

[@narc8835]

pro tip if your budget can’t keep up with your playgroup land-wise, they all lose to blood moon

[@jimmyzphillips5885]

High Market comes in handy against control magic type spells and effect like the dreaded Gilded Drake. Nah, I'll just sac it, gain 1 and send it to the command zone.

[@vinnypb33]

Was really hoping to hear your opinion on lake of the dead and serras sanctum

[@imprisonedmike]

I started the video on I knew that Beezey wouldn’t want to talk about field of the dead at all!

[@NitpickingNerds]

Yeah I NEVER hype that card up

[@The_Grimsun]

Appreciate the spoiler warning. Was a little zoned out and it actually alerted me :P

[@kingginger3335]

I try not to run any etb's tapped lands unless the have the ability to untap per some stipulation. That way you're almost never missing out on mana. It sucks when I have no lands in hand on turn 4 or 5 and draw a tapped land. It's almost like missing a land drop for the turn

[@Shadeslayer-tp4nu]

Evolving wilds and terramorphic expanse are a nice budget option for titania at least

[@youngmeIIy]

Bojuka bog is my favorite land in commander, so I always put in dual bounce lands in multicolored black secs to hope for multiple bojuka bog activations. Otherwise I hate bounce lands.

[@totakekeslider3835]

Nothing about MtG, but I 100% agree with Cherries that Into the Spider-verse is the best Spider-man movie. Really hyped for the second one!

[@cobaltbluemaru]

In all my decks that are Naya, Grixis, Jund, Bant or Esper, I always include Lair lands (Darigaaz's Caldera, Treva's Ruins, Dromar's Cavern, Crosis's Catacombs, Rith's Grove) as additional mana fixing land. Also good if you have a landfall mechanic in the deck.

[@NitpickingNerds]

That bouncing a land is a pretty big downside, in nonbudget I think there's so many rainbow lands that you won't need to go there but if they work for you that's cool also

[@chall3ng33v3rything]

Today is my birthday! Thank you :)

[@NitpickingNerds]

Happy b day!

[@riccardocalosso5688]

My rule of thumb is: Does it enter untapped and gives you at least 1 of your color? Stick it in Does it enter untapped, but it's colorless? Does it do something powerful, or they do something you deck usually can't? Maybe 2 or 3 spots Do they enter tapped? They better fix you really good, or it's a no.

[@teddymason6069]

Love the longer vids

[@michelemichienzi934]

I'm surprised hall of the bandit lord didn't make it into the video. It's a really harsh land, but in some deck it's also super scary for the opponent. I play it whenever it makes sense, albeit it doesn't happen ofthen.

[@pocmocpocmoc]

I wondered the same! They mentioned some other haste lands, but with Hall of the Bandit Lord, you can play the creature on curve AND give haste at the same time which makes Hall so much better than the other haste lands (at least in my opinion). Also, it can be played in non-red decks.

[@NonEntityDan]

No mention for the 3-color Dragon Lairs from Planeshift? They enter untapped and you can turn the required bouncing of another land to your benefit with landfall

[@NonEntityDan]

Pretty much all of the common "commander" lands have their perks. Forge of Heroes, Opal Palace, Study Hall

[@MTG69]

Man I love these videos.

[@golgariguy]

What do you think about Vesuva and Thespian's Stage? Unless I missed them, they aren't in the video I believe?

[@golgariguy]

@@CKarasu13 Ok! I got distracted

[@burkegiordano2231]

I was hoping to hear y'alls take on Tolaria West!

[@merrickhart3543]

Big fan of the content

[@mfitkin]

Butterfly exhibit at the San Diego zoo is off the chain. It is seasonal though which I guess is implied by their very nature

[@thomasscheck2070]

What do you guys think of City of Shadows in a Commander token flood deck? It builds value exiling token/s that would have died anyway after attackers / blockers are declared; however you’d probably want a flash enabler like leyline of anticipation to decide at the last possible moment between tapping it to build mana or for mana. While those steadily accumulating counters might make it a target of land destruction, many better targets were presented in this video (Nykthos, Gaea’s Cradle, Urborg, World Tree, Yavimaya, etc.); yet if those cards return to play it’s at full strength whereas with City of Shadows all those counters are gone. Evaluating the payoff is tough because this seems niche playable; but is it really? A timely video with lots of useful info, thanks very much for covering lands in detail and for any additional insights.

[@cloudycalcifer7799]

As a noob. Isnt evolving wilds and terramorphic okay in a 5 colour deck, to get triomes (fixing colour ) ?

[@MareczqZglos]

They cannot finde Triomes.... only basic ;P

[@cloudycalcifer7799]

@@MareczqZglos ooo i thiought itsays island and swamp etc in the text so you could fetch em. Well time to get em out of my deck then and tell the others i was wrong XD .. p.s. Thanks

[@flukenukeem]

They’re ok in budget but since 5 color has access to green, I’d prob rather use ramp spells/creatures to grab basics

[@dakodastevens8972]

I think unclaimed territory is okay in 3+ color tribal decks, and ancient ziggurat is even playable in 5 color tribal, at least as budget options.

[@the_names_rob]

At the oregon they have a whole walk in butterfly exhibit were they give you nectar and butterflies will land on you. They also have a lot of bugs. They oregon zoo is also one of the top zoos in the nation imo and it is in charge of the elephant breeding for north america

[@Farfetchd.]

How I build my landbase is typically just keyword search stuff like, "tapped unless", "1 damage", "pay 1 life", typed lands, and pathways.

[@christiansmith1640]

What a great resource this is

[@NitpickingNerds]

Glad to hear that!

[@mikeowens40]

My windgrace's -3 loves evolving wilds and terramorphic expance, although I am an advocate for running basics haha

[@nickhughes8179]

Me too. Budget friendly, and conducive to my Aesi lands deck. I run Snow basics to use Sunstone which is a budget Fog on a Rock.

[@RedCometNurse]

Birthday is six days ago. *Sits out in the snow as Sarah McLachlan music plays*

[@NitpickingNerds]

Happy belated birthday

[@Teratologue]

In your opinion, what's the max number of utility land giving coloreless mana you should generally put in your 1,2,3 colors deck? I know it depends on the synergy but would something like 1:10; 2:7 and 3:5 make sense?

[@noahpatch1483]

Good sleeves. Good video.

[@NitpickingNerds]

good comment

[@uphillwalrus5164]

For mono colored decks that aren't green, I'm a big fan of depletion lands and the sac land cycle from Fallen Empires