Ultimate Dual Land Guide For EDH

Getting the best dual lands for EDH, can require some research. The price range of MTG lands is enormous, ranging from an expensive and superior Tropical Island ($230.32), to a cheap and poor Woodland Stream ($0.06). There are numerous lands in between though, many of them are great budget options.

In this guide we have selected and ranked the best dual lands for EDH, that enter the battlefield untapped.

Speed In EDH

Why untapped lands? Because EDH as a format is getting faster and faster these days, speed is becoming the name of the game. Are tapped lands like Coastal Tower completely useless? No they are not, however in aggro decks that need to come out swinging, drawing 1 tapland at the wrong moment can really hinder your gameplan. In more mid-range or control decks running a few is acceptable, but not more then 3 or 4, because the chances of drawing them consecutively becomes too high.

Color Selector

Select the colors that your EDH deck is in.

Tier A

Condition: pay 1 life, search a land. Best dual lands ever printed in MTG. Running these in combination with lands that have dual lands types like Hallowed Fountain is the most optimized you can get, but it will hit your wallet hard.

Condition: pay 2 life. After the fetch lands, shock lands are the most beloved by EDH players. Shocks have the land types and come into play untapped whenever you want to pay the 2 life.

Condition: 2 or more opponents. The Battlebond Lands don’t have land types, but they come into play untapped unconditionally in multiplayer EDH games.

Condition: 1 damage to add colored mana. Can still make colorless for free, so the occasional 1 damage is not really relevant in EDH.

Condition: pay 1 life for a color. Unlike the original Pain Lands, these cannot make colorless and will always hurt you. The draw is great utility.

Tier B

Condition: control plains/island/etc. You can meet this condition with basic lands, good for 2/3 color decks. Otherwise you should be running enough lands that have the land types.

Condition: control two or more lands. Since EDH is a slower format, these are great dual lands for EDH. Just hold on to one until turn 3 and you’ll get an untapped dual.

Condition: filter one color into two. Has to be played on later turns to make colors, but can still make colorless early.

Condition: control two basics. Fantastic dual lands for 2, maybe 3 color EDH decks that run enough basics. They also have the land types.

Tier C

Condition: control a swamp. Auto-include if you have a 2 color deck with black in it, especially at their price point. They get worse as the number of Swamps in your deck go down.

Condition: Tap for blue if you have a plain, tap for white if you control an island. Sadly WOTC only released the Azorius (white/blue) version of this cycle. It’s a great EDH dual land option for an Azorius deck.

Condition: reveal plains/island/etc. Because it gets tricky to meet this condition, not recommended outside a 2 color deck.

Condition: choose a color side. Great in 2 or 3 color decks for fixing your colors, gets worse with more colors.

Condition: Control 2 lands or less. Statistically this is going to enter tapped most of the time. However, if you have a very explosive deck that cares about the first 3 turns and not so much about the mid/late game, they are good. Prices are on the higher end because they weren’t printed as much.

Condition: Filter generic into two colors. Although you need mana before you can use these, they’re still perfectly playable as budget dual lands. Just don’t run more than 1, max 2.

Conclusion

As is probably clear by now and good to keep in mind when choosing your next commander, a fast mana base in more than 3 colors can get really expensive. The fact is that there are just more viable untapped budget dual land options for 2 or 3 colored decks. If you’re looking to built a 5 color mana base please check out our guide.

Some noteworthy exclusions from this list are the orginal duals like Tropical Island due it’s price, Storage Duals like Dreadship Reef because we think basic lands are better and Grove of the Burnwillows because we don’t want to give our opponents life. The tribal lands like Gilt-Leaf Palace are on our maybe list.

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