When it comes to designing your deck, making sure you have the land base to optimize your deck is essential. We've seen the price tags on land bases for some formats, which cost more than the deck itself. Thankfully for us, this is a pauper format, so that price tag will always stay low.
But what lands are at your disposal? What's worth considering for your deck? In a commons-only format, many of us aren't aware what exists. That's what I aim to show you now.
Keep in mind, I will also identify essential land cycles, as well as individual lands. This list should give you a great start to building your base. In no particular order, lets get started.
1. Command Tower
If you are running more than one color in your deck, this EDH staple should be an automatic include. The particular beauty with this one, is that it won't come in tapped.
2. Opal Palace
This land is particularly great with lower cost commanders. It's multiple functions make this an excellent addition to your mana base.
3. Tax Towers
Lands that function like Command Tower are always an absolute must, but not many are available. Having one of these during your first few turns will pay off late game.
4. Shard Fetches, aka the Panoramas
These multi-use fetch lands are really handy. Giving utility at any point in a game, the option for fetching color or just having generic is great.
5. General Fetches
I have always felt a soft spot for Evolving Wilds, as you may notice in my future articles. However, in a budget land base, anything that will grab a basic land of any color is never something to ignore. I would always recommend at least one of these.
6. Life Duals
For those who remember the release of Khans of Tarkir, this juggernaut of a set offered something new to everybody. The Pauper community was no exception, with this full cycle of basic duals. There are several other budget dual cycles, including the Guildgates from the Return to Ravnica block, but these life-gain duals should always be the first pick.
7. Bounce Lands
With the above mentioned life-gain lands, bounce lands are always nice addition. With several other lands with ETB (enter the battlefield) effects, these lands help create a renewable resource.
8. Bojuka Bog
Speaking of ETB lands, let's talk about an excellent piece of graveyard hate. Graveyard utility is still quite strong in Pauper EDH, and it should not go unchecked, especially with a giant like Psychatog in the format.
9. Crumbling Vestige
I particularly like this land for 3+ color decks, especially if you get caught in a jam for a particular. Something like this can help if your plan is meant to be aggressive.
10. Desert
Just like standard EDH, most people tend not to plan for land destruction. This will give you a lot of utility, especially for dealing with token generating decks.
This is not everything at your disposal, by any means. However, this is your best start to structuring your mana base to be as efficient as possible. To find more information about the cards mentioned above, or to continue your research as to what you need, try out the MTG Gatherer. It's a great tool for discovering less known commons in the format.
-Kyle
@PDH_Homebase