Commander Mana Base - 5-Colour
Updated: Apr 6, 2019
Greetings Fans, Subscribers and Family,
Today I am going to go over a 5 Colour Mana base including fetches that would be Idea for running those 5 Colour decks. All prices in this blog will be priced in Canadian (CAD). This will go over both budget cards that aren't very idea to the expensive dual and fetch lands. Say you just bought the Dragon's pre-con commander deck. Well this deck already comes with the Vivid lands which are a budget option that can mana fix you on short notice. Outside of this deck they are in fact depending on the number of stores in your area becoming harder to find, as they tend to end up in bulk bins.
The deck also comes with the Khan's Tri-Lands. These are lands that tap for three-specific colours such as White, Black and Green. These are also called by their arch-type such as Abzan.
Since the mana base for this deck pretty much includes the basics for any 5-colour budget set up, lets get into lands that will start to cost money. Such as Fetch lands, check lands, Shock Lands, Pain Lands and the most expensive ones Dual Lands. At the time of this writing, the cost for Pain lands is reasonable with the Shivan Reef being the most at $7.00, the rest come in between $2 -4.00, making them a nice upgrade. There are 10 of each of these lands, so you may want to run ones that most associate with your colours.
The next upgrade would be check lands. Like above these are most reasonably price due to most recent printings in Dominaria and Ixilan, however with that being said the current meta have driven up the Blue/Red and Green/Black ones. these are currently running $4 to $15.
These are not the only check lands however. People have recently shunned away from the Battlebond ones. These lands come into play if you have 2 or more, so they work best in the mid-range game, however this effect would be negligible if you dropped it Turn 1 in a multi player game. they currently run $5 - $7.00.
Now we get into the bread and butter, the expensive lands. I will start with the shocks and work up, as while there are expensive fetch lands we also have budget options. Now these to have seen a reprint recently. with the second set to appear in the upcoming set Ravnica Allegiance.
From here we go to the best lands. the ones you buy once a year with your tax income, or the soul of your first born. Dual Lands. These lands are hard to get and very costly so from a MTG Finance standpoint what you would be looking for is High-Play (HP) from the Revised set, that is in relative good condition as it will be the best value for your money. You could however buy the Mint/near-mint and run proxies, however that will be up to you, your LGS and Play group. I don't condone the use of proxies. The most expensive one right now is $1200-$1600 CAD
From here we have to go to the fetches. This is an interesting one because there is a good number of fetches from your slow lands to you pain lands. If you managed to buy the Dual lands I am sure you will be using the budget ones for a while, I know I have and still do. With them being reprinted recently the Buddy and Enemy fetches are more reasonably priced then they have been in a while, with the most expensive clocking out at $110.00.
The importance of fetch land's can not be stressed enough as each fetch land has a possible six-land combo, thus mana fixing you for any situation. The mirage fetch lands while are becoming harder to get all but one have been reprinted recently.
The next ones that are the Panorama's from Alara. These too have not seen many reprints and are getting hard to get, however I do use them myself in a few test decks. They most certainly do come in handy. They don't run more than $1.00 ea. making them worth picking up, if not to use then to have a commander play-set. The only draw back is they fetch only Basic land's
The last two I wish to talk about have been reprinted unto oblivion. they are Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds. While these to only fetch for Basic lands, they are a lot easier to get and most people have so many that they tend to just give them away. Pay close attention though, there are some promo and alternate art ones, that can be worth $2-3.00. I usually run these two cards in all decks to help filter lands out and fix shortages.
If you have made it this far you are almost there. If you feel like this is a lot, it is. Five-Colour mana bases require a lot of tuning especially with the release of new sets. For basic lands it depends on where your primary colour is, for me I usually go Selesnya (White / Green) since most of the good exile and mana ramp spells are in those colours. I recommend 14 basic lands.
For me it would be 4x Plains, 2x Islands, 2x Swamps, 2x Mountains and 4x Forest. Since I run the dual lands you can get away with the low numbers on the rest.
When playing five-colour its best to dedicate 4 slots to mana that can produce any colour, this is called "mana fixing. This can also get expensive however a budget version would consist of the following:
Command Tower is an auto include, and is easy to find. While it does go for $1.25 currently this should not deter you from getting it since it should be in any multi coloured deck.
When it comes to mana rocks, you usually want about Six - 8 cards dedicated to that. I personally don't like to use Birds of paradise in most decks mostly because it tends to get off'd really quickly. The list of Mana rock are to numerous to list however the some of the most budget ($1 to $5.00) friendly, easy to find ones are as follows:
i) Sol Ring ($2.50),
ii) Commanders sphere ($1.00),
iii) Mind Stone ($0.50),
iv) Wayfarer's Bauble ($0.25),
v) Ur-Golem's Eye ($1.50),
vi) Darksteel ingot ($1.00),
vii) Gilded Lotus ($5.00),
viii) Manalith ($0.50),
ix) Prismatic Lens ($0.50),
xi) Sphere of the Suns ($0.25).
There are so many (Mana Rocks) that are under $1.00, and a few that are $30.00 or more. These upgrades determine on what you plan to do. and since you have access to green don't forget your mana ramps. I tend to run 8 total ramp cards. I split this between artifact's and spells.
Like with artifact's there is also an exuberant amount of green ramp. from the old-school Rampant Growth to the more expensive Kodama's Reach.
the choice is yours, for the sake of saving you time to look I will list the top 10 budget ramp green cards for between $1-5.00:
i) Llanowar Elves ($0.50),
ii) Birds of Paradise ($5.00),
iii) Nissa's Pilgrimage ($0.25),
iv) Wood Elves ($0.25),
v) Kodama's Reach ($2.00),
vi) Rampant Growth ($0.25),
vii) Solemn Simulacrum ($3.50),
viii) Search for Tomorrow ($0.25),
ix) Farseek ($1.00),
x) Sakura-Tribe Elder ($1.25).
This will conclude my thoughts on five-colour mana fixing. as I learn more and see more and as new sets are released I will revisit this in the future to make the associated amendments.
Thanks for taking the time to read this post, as always, if you thing something should be added or something is a better choice then what I have listed I would be happy to review it.
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