A plain-language walkthrough of fixing — what it is, why some lands beat others, and
how to turn that into a base that casts your spells on curve. Switch to Build a base whenever
you're ready to apply it to one of the 37 identities.
01What a mana base is
The engine room. Boring when it works; the reason you lose when it doesn't.
Nearly every spell in Magic costs mana, and most spells demand mana of specific colors — the
little colored symbols in the top-right corner of the card. A card that costs
needs one blue and one black source available the turn you want to cast it. Your
mana base is the set of cards whose job is to produce that mana: your lands, plus the artifacts
and effects that make or fetch mana. Everything else in the deck is the payoff; the mana base is what
lets the payoff happen.
In Commander, one rule shapes the whole exercise: color identity. Your commander's colors
define which colors every card in the deck — including your lands — is allowed to be. An Esper
(white/blue/black) commander means your base only ever needs to make those three colors. That's why
this Codex is organized by identity rather than by deck: the 37 possible color identities are the 37
different fixing problems you might have to solve.
The core problem, in one sentence: a singleton, 99-card deck can't run four
copies of the perfect land, so consistency comes from stacking many different lands that each
make the colors you need — enough that the odds work out in your favor.
02The one tension: tapped vs. untapped
Almost every fixing land is a trade between speed and cost.
A land that enters the battlefield untapped can make mana the moment you play it. A land that
enters tapped can't be used until your next turn — you've effectively skipped a beat. One tapped
land in an opening hand is rarely a problem; three of them means your turns two, three, and four all
run a mana short, and in a format defined by explosive starts, that adds up.
Untapped
Ready immediately. The premium lands find a way to be
untapped — by paying a little life, by checking a condition, or simply because they're that good.
You pay for the privilege, in life or in money.
Tapped
Enters "asleep" for a turn. Usually cheaper, often carries a
small bonus (scry, life, a surveil, a basic type). Fine in small numbers and in slower decks; a tax
in fast ones.
Most cycles of lands are just different answers to this trade. When you evaluate a land, the first
question is almost always: does this come in ready to use, and what did it cost me to get there?
03Basic land types & fetchability
Why "Watery Grave is an Island and a Swamp" is a bigger deal than it looks.
A basic land — Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest — has a basic land type. Some nonbasic
lands also carry those types: a shock land like Watery Grave is literally an Island Swamp, even
though it isn't a basic. That single fact unlocks two things.
First, fetch lands can find it. A fetch land sacrifices itself to search your library for a
land with a chosen basic type, then puts it onto the battlefield. If your duals carry types, one fetch
can grab whichever one you need right now — turning ten different lands into a single flexible slot,
and thinning the deck as it goes. Second, check lands ("do you control an Island or a Swamp?")
see typed lands as friends and enter untapped alongside them.
Rule of thumb: a dual that carries basic types is worth more than an
otherwise-identical dual that doesn't, because fetches and checklands can interact with it. In this
Codex, that's the Fetchable tag — and it's a big part of why true duals, shocks, surveil lands,
and triomes rank so highly.
04The tier system
A quick read on "how much does this land cost me to play?"
Every land and rock in the Codex carries a tier. It isn't about power level in the abstract — it's
about how painlessly the card does its one job of fixing your mana.
| Tier | Means | Examples |
|---|
| S | Untapped with no real cost. The best fixing in the game. | True duals, shocks, fetches, triomes, Command Tower, Sol Ring |
| A | Untapped with a light condition or small life cost. | Pain lands, fastlands, checklands, pathways, signets, talismans |
| B | Reliable, but enters tapped or is narrow. | Temples (scry), tri-lands, slow lands, battle lands |
| C | Budget or always-tapped filler — the floor of a base. | Gain lands, snow duals, karoo "bounce" lands |
You don't need an all-S base to win. Tiers are a drafting order: fill from the top down, take the
premium pieces your budget allows, and pad the rest with reliable B/C fixing.
05The cycle families
Lands come in cycles — one per color pair. Learn the family, and you know all ten members.
Most fixing lands are printed as a cycle: the same design, once for each color combination.
You don't have to memorize two hundred land names — you learn what a "shock land" does, and that
knowledge applies to all ten of them. The full roster lives in the Cycle catalog tab; here's the
shape of each family in plain terms.
- Original dual lands S
- The oldest and best: untapped, no drawback, and they carry both basic types. Never reprinted, so
they're expensive and collectible.
- Shock lands S
- Enter untapped if you pay 2 life, or tapped for free. Typed and fetchable — the practical premium
dual most decks are actually built on.
- Fetch lands S
- Sacrifice themselves plus 1 life to search out a typed land. They fix, thin your deck, and power up
anything that cares about lands entering or hitting the graveyard.
- Pain lands A
- Always untapped. Free for colorless, or a color for 1 damage to you. No setup, no basic types —
brilliant on turn one.
- Fastlands & slow lands A / B
- Mirror images. Fastlands enter untapped only with few lands (great early); slow lands only with
several (great later).
- Check lands A
- Untapped if you already control a matching basic type — rewarding a base full of typed lands and
real basics.
- Filter lands A
- Spend one mana to filter it into two of the guild's colors. Unmatched for double-colored costs
colorless ramp can't help with.
- Pathways A
- A two-sided card: choose which color it makes as it enters, always untapped — flexible, but only
ever one color per copy.
- Triomes S
- Enter tapped, but make any of three colors, carry all three basic types, and can be cycled
away when flooded. The best three-color land ever made.
- Taplands: temples, tri-lands, gain lands B / C
- The dependable, affordable layer — enter tapped, sometimes with a scry, a point of life, or a
third color.
- Signets & talismans A (rocks, not lands)
- Two-mana artifacts that fix and ramp at once — cheap acceleration that also smooths your colors.
06How to build a base
Two questions: how many lands, and how many of each color?
How many lands
A typical Commander deck runs 36–38 lands, adjusted for artifact ramp and curve. A low,
aggressive curve with lots of two-mana rocks can dip toward 33–34; a top-heavy deck wants 38+ so it
keeps hitting land drops. Start around 37 and tune from there.
How many sources of each color
A source is anything that can make a given color — a basic, a dual, a rainbow land, a rock. The
goal is enough sources that the color you need is reliably there by the turn you want to cast it. The
Consistency Lab in the Build tab runs the exact probability for any source count — these are the
rounded rules of thumb, in a 99-card singleton deck:
| What you're casting | Aim for roughly | Why |
|---|
| A single-pip cost on curve | ~16–18 sources | Clears ~90% by about turn three |
| A double-pip cost | ~20–23 sources | Needs two to show up, not one — a steeper ask |
| A later splash | ~10–12 sources | More turns drawn = more chances to hit |
The tension you'll feel: in one color every target is easy. In three, and
especially with double pips in more than one color, sources start competing for the same ~37 land
slots — exactly what premium duals, triomes, and rainbow lands are for.
07Sequencing, rocks & ramp
A good base is also about the order you play it in.
Play your tapped lands when they cost you nothing. If you have a tapland and an untapped land
and no play to make anyway, lead with the tapland — keep the untapped one for a turn you actually
need it.
Mind conditional lands. Fastlands want to come down early; slow lands and checklands want a
board already built. A checkland played before you control a matching type wastes its whole point.
Fetch with intent. Grab exactly the color you're short on — and, with a shuffle- or
landfall-matters card, at the moment it helps most.
Rocks and ramp
Mana rocks accelerate and fix at once. A near-universal shortlist: Sol Ring everywhere,
Arcane Signet and Command Tower in every multicolor deck, then signets and
talismans for your specific pairs. In three-plus colors, a Chromatic Lantern or
Coalition Relic turns a greedy base honest.
08How to use the rest of this Codex
Everything above, made interactive.
Build a base — pick one of the 37 identities. It raises the recommended base, sorted from the
premium duals down, with production stats and a per-identity sigil. Flip between Gallery and
Ledger; the Consistency Lab underneath is the section 06 math, live. Hover any card name
anywhere in the Codex for its image.
Cycle catalog — the full roster, tiered and searchable; filter by untapped, tapped, fetchable,
or budget, and pin the cycles you rely on. Ages of fixing walks the same data as a history.
Flavor mode surfaces the lore behind each cycle.