Commander: Top 10 Best Budget Manabase

Hello Commander people! Today I bring you a list of 10 budget land cycles from several different Magic sets, organized by my personal taste, to help you fix your Commander's color.

This budget list had the criterion of being selected cards with an average price of $2 or less, and of entering untapped. I particularly don't like lands that come into play tapped, I think they get in the way by slowing down your game, so this list only has cycles that enters untapped, with just one exception that you'll see below.

Before we go to the first place, I want to show you two honorable mentions of tapped lands, but are very interesting and not so well known.

Tempest and Kamigawa's Pause Lands

Our first honorable mention is an exception because they're lands that enter untapped and can add colorless mana, but if you need to use their colored mana, they won't untap on your next turn. These lands are an allied color cycle on Tempest, which was also printed under different names in the first Kamigawa block.

Even though I don't like lands that stay tapped, this is a cycle that I find fascinating because, in addition to costing pennies, most times you can use them to add colorless mana and untap them later, while helping out if you need a specific color.

Invasion's Tri-lands

This Invasion cycle is land that comes into play tapped and has no exceptions, like the previous cycle, there's nothing to do, it comes in tapped and period. But I like them a lot because they can add two different mana of the color they generate if you sacrifice them.

Usually in commander games when we want to do some crazy play, a synergy, a combo, or sequencing several cards, often we only need one mana to put our plan into practice, and this Invasion cycle can help us at this time.

10 - Time Spiral's Storage Cycle

This land cycle is awesome because you can pay 1 mana and put a storage counter on it, and you can pay 1 and remove X storage counters to make X mana.

So, in addition to being able to generate 1 colorless mana, you can also generate a lot of mana, but you don't have to remove all counters at once, so these lands can also work to filter your deck.

The only flaw in this cycle is that we only have 5 of them, which are the allied colors.

9 - Odyssey's Filter Lands

The classic filter lands, with the allied colors in Shadowmoor and the enemy colors in Eventide, are lands that see tons of play in Commander since, as the name implies, they filter colors. But many people forget that there was a cycle of filter lands of the allied colors in Odyssey, and they are very cheap.

The bad part is that they don't filter as well as the most recent cycle. See the example of a Mystic Gate that in addition to 1 colorless, it can also generate two equal mana from its combination.

8 - Lorwyn's Tribe Lands

Lorwyn's rare land cycle are great as, if you reveal a specific type of creature from your hand, they enter untapped and add either color of mana. Each creature you need to reveal with these lands are well-known tribes in Commander.

The downside is that Auntie's Hovel and Gilt-Leaf Palace are out of our budget (mainly Auntie's Hovel) due to the popularity of the goblin and elf tribes respectively.

7 - Morningtide's Murmuring Bosk

Here we don't have a cycle, but just a Morningtide card, and it follows the same pattern as the last placement with Lorwyn's tribal lands.

With Murmuring Bosk you must reveal a Treefolk card for this land to enter untapped, but what's wonderful about this card is that besides it being able to generate 3 different colors, you don't necessarily need to make a Treefolk tribal Commander to run it.

If your Commander has all 3 colors of this land, you can fetch it with some green spell like Nature's Lore since it is a Forest!

6 - Mirage's Slow Fetch Lands

Besides its exception due to entering tapped, the Slow Fetch cycle is a great way to find certain dual lands on your deck and putting it into play.

5 - Torment's Tainted Lands

The Torment lands are focused on black mana, so they cycled 4 lands, which adds colorless mana, and if you control a swamp, each of these lands will add another specific color.

So if your Commander has black, consider running these lands.

4 - Battle for Zendikar's Tango Lands

The cycle of rare lands of the allied colors of Battle for Zendikar are known as Tango Lands because it takes two basic lands for them to enter untapped.

Another important point of these lands is that they have land types in the card, so you can get them with the Mirage fetch lands I described above..

3 - Nimbus Maze from Future Sight

Again we only have one card because Future Sight, instead of bringing a full cycle, brought five types of lands from cycles that would still be released in the future.

Nimbus Maze is from a cycle, which at the time of writing this article, has not been released. It's a great card that in addition to generating colorless mana, it can generate white mana if you control an island, and blue mana if you control a plains.

2 - Pain Lands

Our number 2 position needs no introduction. Pains Lands is a term given by players since, in addition to being able to generate a colorless mana, these lands deals 1 damage when generating the mana of its two specific colors. As in Commander we have 40 life, this 1 damage doesn't affect us as much as in other formats.

Cards like Adarkar Wastes, Sulfurous Springs, Brushland and Underground River are out of our budget restriction, but they aren't that much steep either.

Also, these lands were reprinted at Dominaria United and The Brothers' War. Therefore, it is a great opportunity to purchase these lands that have risen beyond our budget for this article.

1 - Basic Lands

That's right, number one is basic land!

I see that many Commander players who want to build a budget mana base run them in large quantities. At the tables where I play, it's even relatively common for someone to take a path to exile and not have a basic land to fetch, take a Ruination or any nonbasic sweeper and lose all their lands, unable to come back to the game later on.

It seems that these players are worried about building their cheap manabase and think that the basics are bad, but on the contrary, they are good and efficient. In the green color, you can play several spells that search any type of basic land, and in the white color you can easily search for plains, in addition to the existence of several artifacts that do this service like Burnished Hart or Pilgrim's Eye. Solemn Simulacrum is a format staple as well.

I mostly prefer to play a basic land instead of playing those lands that come in tapped, generate two colors and do nothing. If you are going to generate two colors and enter tapped, at least have some ability, like Botanical Plaza that makes you draw cards or a Lorehold Campus that scries.

We received a lot of feedbacks and here I plan to showcase more budget manabases you can use:

Specific cards

Kaldheim Snow dual

Checklands

Temple or Scry Lands

Bounce lands

Vivid Lands

I hope you enjoyed this top 10. Do you agree with my opinion about the first place being basic lands? Write down your opinions and budget lands that you like, and see you next time.