Five-Color Lands On A Budget

Posted on February 14, 2009
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Conflux is going to make casual players want to play five colors.

However, really good five-color lands can set you back quite a bit. If you’re just playing casual Magic, City of Brass might seem a little expensive. Even just one Gemstone Mine, which only taps for any color a few times, will set you back at least a couple of dollars.

There are ways to play five colors with just basic lands, of course, mostly involving using green as a base and search cards to get out the missing colors. Or you can use Terramorphic Expanses, Terminal Moraines and Armillary Spheres to find the missing basics.

But on the off chance that you’d like to play five colors using nonbasics, so that you don’t have to devote your deck to a search engine, we decided to compile a list. What we’ve done is search for nonbasic lands that, first, tap for any color of mana, and second, should cost you less than a dollar.


Vivid lands — The poor man’s Gemstone Mines. They come into play tapped, and they only make other colors two times, but you don’t have to sacrifice them when they’re done doing that. You should be able to get these for less than a dollar. They should be worth a lot less, really, but they actually get played quite a bit with Reflecting Pool, which drives up the price. The Pool sees them as able to tap for any color — so the Pool taps for any color as well. But even without that trick, the Vivid lands can help play a five-color or off-color card.


Odyssey Sack lands — After seeing Vivid lands, you might be asking yourself, why in the world would they print these? Aren’t they terrible? Well, remember, this was Odyssey block (except for the Dig, which was the prototype for the others). In a draft, getting threshold was a big deal. These lands could help you get threshold in Limited and surprise the opponent with a nasty off-color splash trick at the same time. Essentially, they existed to help you get threshold. They will make another color in an emergency. They’re super-cheap — you should be able to get four of them for less than a dollar, except maybe for Archaeological Dig, which should still be less than a dollar for one. The Dig was actually used in the occasional combo deck. The thinking was, who cares about sacking it if you’re killing the opponent? Anyway, these lands are pretty bad except in specific situations.


Mirrodin’s Core – This is also a poor man’s Gemstone Mine. It’s nearly unplayable in any deck that needs colored mana over and over. But if you only need that extra color once or twice, then it can be pretty good. Not coming into play tapped means that it can help with a main-color spell right away. So, Mirrodin’s Core isn’t very good in a true five-color deck, but can be good in a deck splashing a few cards.


Tendo Ice Bridge — For the deck that truly splashes just one deadly off-color card, Tendo Ice Bridge is lightning fast. It makes the off color right away, unlike Mirrodin’s Core, and you don’t sack it after it does it. You might consider this card in your quicker decks that have to count on an off color early on.


Grand Coliseum — Now this is the poor man’s City of Brass. Much cheaper to purchase, it has the drawback of coming into play tapped. But then it doesn’t ping you when you use it for colorless. For casual play, this really should pass as a City of Brass most of the time.


Tarnished Citadel — We’re really only including this one for completeness. It’s pretty terrible.


Shimmering Grotto — This land might work, if you think you’ll need an off color or five-color but not at the top of your mana curve. Basically, you’re asking yourself, is it worth Sphere of Resistancing myself in order to play this off-color or five-color card? If the answer is yes, then Shimmering Grotto is the budget card for you. Four should be less than a dollar. Note that we wanted to show you Henge of Ramos and School of the Unseen so that you could see how terrible they are by comparison.


Rupture Spire — The turn you play this is going to be the nightmare turn from Hell. Comes into play tapped, and then tap another one of your lands besides? Yikes. However, after that, you’re good to go. This land might work in a deck where most of the spells are cheap but the few five-color or off-color spells are expensive. If nothing in your deck costs three or four, then playing this as your fourth land might not be so bad. It’s very inexpensive to purchase. That’s the main thing it has going for it.


Gemstone Caverns — OK, now we’re just getting silly. This land only makes five colors if it was in your opening hand. And if you were playing second. And if you pitched a card to it! We really only included it for completeness. It’s not good. You might have two mana on your first turn, though! Tantalizing!


Rainbow Vale — Is awful. We only included it to be complete. Maybe you could make this work if you used it to Mindslaver the opponent, and then during his turn, made him give it back to you. Wait, that’s still terrible. Hmm. Another way to maybe make it work is, you use it to pay for Obliterate. Actually, that sounds halfway funny.


Forsaken City — This land has one purpose. To pay for Stasis. That’s it.

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