MTG Commander: Building a Manabase

 

Mana fixing in Magic

Once you start building a Magic the Gathering deck with more than one colour you run the risk of ending up being mana screwed.  This is when you cannot cast the spells in your hand with the lands you have played.  White Knight and Black Knight both cost two mana of their own colour.  While you can play either of them on turn two you will not be able to play the other on turn three without having a land that taps for both colours.  Multi-colour lands are refered to as dual when they tap for two colours; tri-lands for 3 and rainbow when they can produce all five colours.

Properties of lands

The main properties of lands are if they enter tapped or untapped and if they have basic land types (more on why that is important in a moment).  Most lands that have more than one colour have a condition or cost for entering the battlefield untapped or for producing coloured mana. Most lands come in cycles.  For two colour lands these are either the Allied or Enemy colours.  Three colour lands are either Shard or Wedge groups.  

Lets look at the different dual land types for fixing our mana...

#1 Fetch Lands

Fetch Lands are the reason land types are important.  Everything from the simple Evolving Wilds all the way to Flooded Strand allows you to search your library for another land card and put it onto the battlefield.  Hence the name as you are fetching a card.  Not all Fetches are expensive.  The Panorama cycle are cheap but only get Basic lands.  Krosan Verge is another option that will get none-basic lands if you are playing white and/or green.  Fetches help with colour fixing and deck thinning (although that has little value in commander).

#2 Original Dual Lands

The original dual lands from Magic are the best. They have basic land types, come into play untapped but are incredibly expensive to purchase. Either you are already lucky enough to have these or it is not worth spending hundreds of pounds on a single card.

#3 Shock Lands

Each of the Ravnica Guilds has its own land.  These come into play tapped unless you pay two life, the same amount of damage a shock spell deals (now you know where the name comes from).  They have land types allowing them to be fetched making them the best budget choice for decks.

#4 Crown Lands

These lands are designed for Commander as they come into play untapped if you have two or more opponents. Clearly horrible in 1-vs-1 games but by the time you have only one opponent left in Commander getting an extra untapped land is not likely to matter.  They lack land types meaning they cannot be fetched.

#5 Check Lands

The name stems from the fact that these check if the player controls a land with the associated basic land type in order to enter untapped.  The downside of running too many of these is they lack land types and thus do not trigger off each other.

#6 Other Dual Lands 

At this point it starts to be much more subjective which are the lands to pick.  There are so many choices there is not enough room to list them all.

  • Pain Lands - These deal 1 damage each time you want coloured mana
  • Man-lands - Lands that turn into creatures (some are better than others)
  • Filter Lands - These take 1 mana and produce two mana 
  • Canopy Lands - These can be sacrificed to draw a card but always cause damage when used for mana.


 Tri-Lands

Both the Shard and Wedge groups have had a cycle of lands.  The Wedge colours have had another cycle, called Triomes, which are much better having both cycling and land types.   Any deck with 3 or more colours should include some of these.

Rainbow Lands

Ranging from Command Tower to Unknown Shores there are lots of cards that can tap for any colour of mana.  Most pre-con decks include a few of these.  I also include cards such as Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth here as while not technically rainbow they help with overall mana fixing.

Utility Lands

Once we are happy their is enough colour mana in a deck we can add some utility lands.  These may occasionally produce colour but are usually here for their other effects.  Examples are -

Example Manbase

Esper manabase

Our starting point for a Commander deck is 35 lands.  Depending on our theme we may want to adjust this up or down a little.  For a three colour deck I break this down as follows.

  • Duals - 3x5 = 15 - Fetch, Original Dual, Shock, Crown and +1 Other
  • Basics 3x3+1 = 10 - 3 of Each Basic and 1 extra Fetch
  • Rainbow 4 - Command Tower, Tri-land, +2 Depending on Colour
  • Utility 6 - The choice here will again depend on the colours and deck theme.

It will upset some people that I do not use a full cycle for my last dual land but I like to mix it up a single Check, Canopy and Man-land or possibly a Filter land spread across the three colour combinations.  I am currently short on Crown Lands, most people will be missing Original dual lands in which case you just have to substitute with whichever you have available.

With my Esper deck I added Vault of the Archangel and Cabal Coffers as part of my utility lands.  I also use Ancient Tomb for acceleration and Reliquary Tower as there is potential for a lot of card draw.

Finally basics and rainbow land slots. If your deck focuses more on one or two of the colours then the ratio may need changing.  I might go 5:2:2 or 5:3:1 depending on how many spells of each colour I have in the deck.

A budget Bant Mana base.

Using the same breakdown as above.

15 Duals 3x5

  • GW - Temple Garden ;Overgrown Farmland; Sunpetal Grove; Grasslands*; Horizon Canopy
  • WU - Hallowed Fountain, Deserted Beach; Glacial Fortress; Celestial Colonnade; Flood Plain*
  • GU - Breeding Pool; Rejuvenating Springs; Hinterland Harbor; Lumbering Falls; Yavimaya Coast

10 Basics - 3x Island; 3x Plains;3x Forest; Fabled Passage
6 Rainbow - Command Tower; Exotic Orchard; Path of Ancetry; Opal Palace; Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth; Seaside Citadel
4 Utility - Hall of Heliod's Generosity; Gavony Township; Scavenger Grounds; Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree

If going past 35 lands we can add - Bant Panorama; Mishra's Factory; Adakar Wastes


*These are the budget fetchlands that come in the starter deck.
 

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