Welcome back, dear reader. Today’s topic is building a Budget Commander 2 Color Land Base – not always the sexiest topic, but a crucial one. A proper landbase is an essential part of every functioning commander deck. It’s one of those things that if it’s working well, you don’t even notice it. But if you’re getting land flooded – or, more commonly, land screwed – it can put a real hamper on your game. How often are you staring at a hand of excellent cards that you can’t play? Have you found yourself playing a turn behind because all you’ve got are tap lands? How many times did you say “I can probably replace a land for this sweet 5 mana spell?” Have you played Bojuka Bog on turn 1 to exile an empty yard? Has Temple of the False God produced 0 mana for you more times than you can count?
Well, fear not dear reader, today we’ll go over the basics of building a landbase as well as highlighting some of the best budget 2 color lands you can use for your commander deck. Let’s keep our deck feeling nice and quick with lands that all have the potential to be played untapped!
As a quick reference, find a link to our Archidekt list of Budget Commander 2 Color Lands here, broken down by each color pairing.
2 Color Land Philosophy
There are a ton of lands to pick from. There are various online resources that help you identify lands – for example, check out https://managathering.com/ – a great website highlighting every land in MTG. But which lands should you pick?
We want to focus on lands that have an opportunity to enter the battlefield untapped. There are a ton of lands that enter the battlefield tapped and they are almost all cheap because they are slow. While you might need to run some taplands for color fixing in 3+ color decks, in most 2 color decks you can get away with playing primarily basic lands. To ensure consistency, we still want to run a few lands that tap for both colors. There are a handful of choices available to us for 2 color lands that don’t break the bank. We’ll focus on those below.
Keep in mind all the lands mentioned here are split into color identity for your convenience on our Archidekt page here: Budget Commander 2 Color Lands
Budget 2 Color Lands
Tango Basic Check Lands
This recently nearly completed cycle of lands enter untapped if you control two or more basic lands. They get their name from the mantra, “It Takes Two to Tango.” These lands are also typed – meaning they are fetchable by spells like Farseek. Still missing an Orzhov and Izzet version of these.
$0.25 
$0.37 
$0.22 
$1.71 
$0.37 
$0.52 
$0.36 
$0.44
One MTG trick regarding Typed lands is that they can be fetched by spells like Farseek, Nature’s Lore, Three Visits, and even the expensive Fetch lands like Scalding Tarn. You can grab lands like these from your deck with spells and effects as long as they don’t specify the land needs to be ‘basic’ like Terramorphic Expanse! This also makes it easier to play 3+ color decks that include green, as these spells and effects can color fix you pretty easily.
Filter Lands
There are two complete cycles of Filter lands. The original filter lands have recently seen a bunch of reprints, sending most of them under $5 – some even under $1. The only one that’s still very pricey is Wooded Bastion. Sorry Selesnaya players! These are strictly better than the Odyssey filter lands, as they can always at least tap for colorless and give you more flexibility in the colors it ends up producing.
$0.45 
$0.34 
$0.38 
$0.59 
$8.25 
$8.61 
$3.90 
$3.71 
$0.38 
$14.77
Odyssey Filter Lands
Odyssey Filter Lands are all super budget, under $1. They cannot tap for mana by themselves, but pay 1 mana into the land to produce both of your colors.
$0.30 
$0.38 
$0.23 
$0.30 
$0.26 
$0.58 
$0.26 
$0.18 
$0.32 
$0.23
Reveal Lands
Another full cycle of budget friendly lands are the Reveal lands. They require you to reveal one of two types of lands in your hand to enter untapped. Those lands do not need to be basic. Find them all for under $1 each.
$0.34 
$0.29 
$0.24 
$0.30 
$0.32 
$0.45 
$0.18 
$0.31 
$0.22 
$0.26
Tainted Lands
There is a 4-card technically complete cycle of tainted lands. These tap for colorless or tap for one of two colors if you control a Swamp. There are no other cycles that tap for two colors if you control a plains, forest, etc, sadly. All of these are budget friendly. All under $1.
Check Lands
There is a full cycle of ‘Check Lands’ printed in various sets. These lands will produce two colors and ‘check’ to see if you have at least one of two specific land types to determine if it enters tapped or not. These lands are generally budget friendly as they’ve been reprinted a few times. Note that they do not check for basic lands, so having the aforementioned Tango lands out would meet this criteria. You can get all of them for less than $2.50 each, with about half being under $1.
$0.34 
$3.86 
$0.30 
$0.43 
$0.40 
$0.36 
$0.74 
$0.39 
$0.39 
$0.34
Pain Lands
These lands have seen numerous reprints sending most of their prices below $1. These tap for colorless or tap for one of two colors and deal 1 damage to you. There is a full cycle available of Pain Lands. These lands are particularly useful for decks that require more than 2 colors as they do not require you to have other specific lands in play.
$0.39 
$0.31 
$0.81 
$0.81 
$0.40 
$0.58 
$0.34 
$1.89 
$1.36 
$0.31
Arguably Budget 2 Color Lands
Depending on your definition of budget, these lands may or may not make the cut. If they are included on our Archidekt link then they can be found for less than $5, many times less.
Slow Lands
These enter untapped if you control 2 or more other lands, doesn’t matter what those lands are. However, these lands are also excellent for 3+ color decks, as they do not care what your other lands are. This is partially why they command higher prices. These are creeping up in price as they don’t get printed as often, taking some out of budget territory. If they’re cheap, snag a couple!
$8.91 
$5.46 
$0.65 
$7.47 
$2.27 
$1.90 
$4.42 
$6.27 
$3.91 
$6.21
Horizon Lands
Similar to Pain Lands, these lands tap for two colors and cost you 1 life. There are only 6 lands in this incomplete cycle. You cannot tap these for colorless but you can pay 1 colorless and sacrifice them to draw a card. Lands that can sacrifice themselves to draw cards are good for decks that risk mana flooding.
$5.49 
$5.22 
$5.93 
$5.89 
$3.02 
$1.66
Pathway MDFC Lands
These flexible MDFC lands always enter untapped but you must select which side to play them as. Their lack of reprints is causing their price to creep up, many now over $5. Keep an eye on reprints for these and pick some up when you can. Scryfall link to the full set.
Fast Lands
I generally do not recommend playing fast lands in commander unless you need to get your commander out very early. Most of the time, these will end up coming into play tapped as you find them later in the game, making them actually pretty slow. Thus, they are not listed in the Archidekt link. However, all are under $5 and can potentially enter untapped and tap for two colors:
This covers our list for Budget 2 Color lands. There are plenty of lands out there that are budget depending on your deck. Kindred lands, equipment lands, etc – but those are not applicable to any deck, so they are not included here. However, playing the lands outlined here will add consistency to your deck and often not slow your deck down at all.
Land Base & Deck Building Philosophy
The intersection between ramp, card draw, and lands typically lies somewhere in your deck’s average mana value and your commander’s mana value.
The general guideline to building a commander deck is to have roughly 45-50 cards be mana sources and about 10 sources of card advantage. This mana source breakdown is typically about 37 lands and 10 ramp spells. If you’re considering playing less lands or ramp, you need to consider your mana curve as well as your commander’s mana value. If your commander costs more than 3 mana, it is quite dangerous to drop below these threshholds. The higher your commander’s base mana value, the more ramp you’ll want to play and the more consistently you’ll want to hit your land drops.
The number of lands you play is also impacted by how many cards you’re drawing. Having consistent card draw makes it easier for you to make your land drops. This allows you to get away with having fewer lands, or playing more tap/utility lands. Depending on the pacing you’re looking for in your deck, increased card draw may not impact how much ramp you play. Note that this philosophy works much better with slow consistent draw compared with infrequent bursty draw.
When including utility lands or tap lands, you could consider them as a half-land for the purposes of your deck building. This means if you’re playing Bojuka Bog and Ghost Quarter you could consider these combined to be 1 land out of your 37. This actually means you’re playing 38 lands, but it also means you’re less likely to use the Bog when you don’t need to or be missing colors for your spells.
As I am advocating for you to play more lands, you may occasionally find yourself land flooded. In this case, you could consider playing lands that cycle. These are all taplands but in a pinch you can trade them in for a new card. You should also consider these as half-lands for your land count. There’s a partial set of budget dual typed cycle lands you could play in your decks.
These also pair well with cards like Farseek – since you’re fetching for a land that will enter tapped anyways, playing a tapland isn’t always so bad. You just don’t need to cram your deck with them – be aware of how many fetch effects you have and adjust accordingly. There are also other lands that can be traded for cards – for example, Lonely Sandbar or the Hidden Cave Discover cycle from Lost Caverns of Ixalan.
With tens of thousands of cards and hundreds of commanders to choose from, there are a endless caveats to how to build your deck. Follow the guidelines – 45-50 cards for mana sources – and you’ll be able to play your deck to determine which adjustments need to be made. If you go lower than this, you’re risking building a sweet deck that doesn’t have the mana to play its cards.
Remember, if your landbase is solid, Temple of the False God is a playable card!
Thanks for stopping by, dear reader, and happy brewing! Remember to visit our Archidekt link for Budget Commander 2 Color Lands.