Pauper EDH



Sticking It To The Mana



Mana Bases Pt. 1: Lands





Regular readers of this blog may recently have read my article highlighting Sludge Strider as a Pauper EDH Comander. As one viewer pointed out, though, something was missing: how do we fix the mana base?

Sludge Strider is happy to have you casting bunches of little Artifact spells. But thanks to its ability, you want two mana open when you cast a one-drop Artifact, plus one more mana when you sacrifice it. Suddenly, an Origin Spellbomb turns into a six mana investment: one to play, one to drain, one to sac, one to drain from the token, one to draw, one to drain. I don’t often use exclamation points in editorial writing, but yikes!

And what about our Commander itself? Sure, it’s only four mana, but it mandates three different colors, and our deck can’t use any of that oh-so-helpful ramp from green. We need something color-agnostic for fixing. A colorless helping hand. Mana for all seasons.

Let’s get digging.







Orzhov Guildgate art by John Avon

Mana for All Seasons: Lands

If you are building a deck, you’re going to need Lands (shocking, I know). In Pauper EDH, as in most casual formats, those will mostly consist of Basics. But if we need color fixing, we can offload a surprising amount of it onto nonbasic Lands.







Dimir Guildgate art by Cliff Childs

Guildgates

Return to Ravnica block took Pauper by storm, by providing a cycle of straightforward enter-the-battlefield-tapped Common dual-lands. Since RTR block is still in Standard at time of writing, Gates should be easy enough to come by.







Azorius Chancery art by John Avon

Bouncelands

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ravnica: City of Guilds also has a cycle of Common dual-lands, though they tap for two mana at once, come into play tapped, and require that you return a Land to your hand (a.k.a. “bounce”). This makes them slightly harder to play around, but as long as you bounce a tapped Land, you can stick to your mana curve.







Evolving Wilds art by Cliff Childs

Fetchlands

For most, the term “fetchland” calls to mind cards like Misty Rainforest and Scalding Tarn. Of course, our choices at Common are not as versatile, but we do have choices, and that’s what matters.



From Shards of Alara, we have the Panoramas, which tap for one colorless, or can be sacrificed to search for one of three Basic Lands. Here’s the cool part: since they don’t use colored symbols in their rules text, you could, for example, include a Grixis Panorama in your Sludge Strider deck, and have access to two relevant colors.



Though they don’t generate mana themselves, Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse are welcome pieces of fixing through fetchlands.







Transguild Promenade art by Noah Bradley

Five-Color

You may be surprised to learn that Command Tower, everyone’s favorite EDH Land, is Common, so if you happen to have one lying around, you can’t go wrong tossing it into your deck. It’s a rare violation of Wizards’ rule that no Land can be (too close to) strictly better than a Basic Land, because it’s Commander-exclusive, and is only one of your 40ish Lands. While we’re on the topic of Lands-that-tap-for-any-color, Transguild Promenade and Rupture Spire are slower than Command Tower (naturally), but still very much worth your time.

The other sort-of five-color Lands we have are the converters: they tap for one colorless, or take in one colorless mana to spit out one mana of any color. They are Opal Palace, Shimmering Grotto, and Unknown Shores. I can’t reccommend these as easily as the previous Lands, but it’s more fixing if you find yourself in need of it.







Shimmering Grotto art by Cliff Childs

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

Now for the big question: how do we know how much fixing we need? Let’s examine a few scenarios and hammer out some answers. Remember, as a general rule: too much color-fixing on your Lands means a slow game, but too little means an unplayable game.





Monocolor

Silly monocolor, you don’t need fixing! (Uh, right? I hope you don’t. Are you sure you’re playing monocolor?)





Two-Color

For the most part, two-color decks can get away with running nothing but Basic Lands. However, if you find that many of your spells involve two or more of the same colored symbol, a Guildgate or bounceland might be in order.





Three-Color

Three-color sits in a sweet spot that comfortably fits three of each Gate, three of each bounceland, and whichever five-color Lands you care to add. I would also recommend as many fetchlands as possible: certainly Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, and the appropriate Panorama, and maybe one or two Panoramas besides.





Five-Color

There’s something vaguely satisfying about the idea of using all ten Gates, or all ten bouncelands, but I can’t advise that in good conscience. Rather, I believe the best approach is to skew the deck towards green, and take advantage of green’s ample color-fixing and ramp. On the Land side, though, consider using all of the fetchlands, five-color Lands, and converter Lands mentioned, since they allow more flexibility than the dual-lands.







Boros Garrison art by John Avon

Touching Base

Looking back at our earlier discussion of Sludge Strider, we still have a problem: we have the right colors to cast it, sure, but how do we compensate for having a Commander who demands such large quantities of mana? I’m glad that I asked (I usually am), because next time, we’re going to look at ramp and land-securing, for both green and non-green decks. Until then, happy planeswalking everyone.