The 63 Best Colorless Lands in Magic Ranked

Last updated on April 29, 2025

Library of Alexandria | Illustration by Mark Poole

Lands are a crucial part of the game, and every deck has to have them. Well, 99.9% of them do, for all you nitpickers. The main function of those lands is to generate mana to cast spells, which is one of the first things you learn when picking up the game.

But there are some lands that are included not only for their mana function, but also for their abilities. These are called “utility lands,” and every Constructed format has its staples. They usually tap for colorless mana, and today we’re focusing on that as I rank the best colorless lands in MTG.

Ready? Let's get started!

What Is a Colorless Land in MTG?

Blast Zone | Illustration by Jorge Jacinto

Colorless lands in MTG are land cards whose color identity is colorless. These are lands with no colored pips on the entire card, so they’re fair game for Commander decks with colorless commanders like Zhulodok, Void Gorger or Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter. It’s true that all land cards are colorless within the rules of the game, but any lands that tap for specific colored mana or have activated abilities requiring colored mana are out of the running – apologies to any fellow Desolate Lighthouse enjoyers.

Notably, this does include lands that tap for “any color,” since the card's color identity isn’t affected by anything but the colored pips in the text.

Honorable Mention: Fetch Lands

The everlasting staples of Eternal format mana bases technically fit the criteria of this list. Polluted Delta and its brethren are the strongest land cycle ever printed, easily. The innate synergies with graveyard strategies even push fetch lands above the original dual lands in power. It’d be wrong not to mention them, but their explicitly 2-color nature makes them feel like a strange inclusion on the list proper, so they’re an honorable mention.

#63. Animal Sanctuary

There are some typal EDH decks that like Animal Sanctuary, especially cat– and snake-themed ones. It also works with changelings.

#62. Crystal Grotto + Conduit Pylons

Crystal Grotto is a bit underrated, or at least it was at the beginning of Wilds of Eldraine Draft. It lets you peek at the top while still being able to cast a colored 2-drop, which is alright. It also can filter mana, which isn't a completely useless upside. This was already a strict upgrade over Zhalfirin Void, and many would say the surveil from Conduit Pylons further improves the card.

#61. Cathedral of War

Cathedral of War is the only land in the game to feature the exalted mechanic. Dedicated exalted decks can play up to four copies, and it’s okay to play one in EDH depending on your deck.

#60. Reflecting Pool

A land that generates mana from all colors you can produce is a very good combo with lands like Vivid Creek. Reflecting Pool was heavily played in its Standard format and is also a staple of EDH and 5-color decks.

#59. Arch of Orazca

Another heavily played land when it was in Standard, it’s easy to get the city’s blessing in long games and squeeze out card draw from a colorless source with Arch of Orazca.

#58. Blinkmoth Nexus

Lands that turn into creatures are interesting, and Blinkmoth Nexus is even an artifact creature to boot for decks that care about that. But there’s an almost strictly better version in Inkmoth Nexus.

#57. Forbidden Orchard

Creating a 1/1 creature for your opponent every time you tap a land for mana is horrible, but you get a mana of any color, so there’s that. The thing that makes Orchard so good is that there are certain decks that want your opponents to have creatures, like Oath of Druids combo, so the downside is actually an upside.

#56. Ghost Quarter

Ghost Quarter was once the premium way to get rid of problematic lands like the Urza Tron lands in Modern and Standard. But Field of Ruin and Demolition Field have taken its place.

#55. Haven of the Spirit Dragon

Decks with lots of dragons have Haven of the Spirit Dragon as their color fixer, and the ability to get a card from your graveyard is also very relevant. A very dominant card in its Standard era.

#54. Inventors’ Fair

Inventors' Fair is a tutor for artifacts that gains some life in a dedicated artifact deck. Yeah, it’s as good as it sounds.

#53. Boseiju, Who Shelters All

A hate card against counterspell decks, Boseiju, Who Shelters All makes it so that your instants and sorceries can’t be countered, which is key in resolving a combo spell or winning a counter war. Kids nowadays have their Teferi, Time Raveler and Dovin's Veto, but it wasn’t always this way.

#52. Exotic Orchard

A land that’s nice in EDH since your opponents usually play at least three colors combined. The problem is that Exotic Orchard probably won’t always give you the colors you need, but it’s nice to play in 4- or 5-color decks.

#51. Karn’s Bastion

Karn's Bastion is a way to proliferate repeatedly for cheap. It's very good in decks with +1/+1 counters and planeswalkers.

#50. Maze of Ith

Untapping a creature and taking it out of combat is good, but unfortunately Maze of Ith doesn’t have a mana ability so using a land drop to play this can be a liability. It's useless against hexproof creatures, but it can also be directed at your own creatures if a combat goes poorly.

#49. Spire of Industry

Spire of Industry is mana fixing for artifact decks. It's also playable in lots of strategies, like Modern affinity and EDH artifact builds.

#48. Glimmervoid

Similar to Spire of Industry, Glimmervoid represents more opportunities for mana fixing in artifact decks, but you won’t take damage. It backfires hard if you have to sacrifice it, but you can insolate yourself from that by running indestructible lands.

Glimmervoid decks won’t like the existence of cards like Farewell, though.

#47. Abstergo Entertainment

Abstergo Entertainment is exactly the type of graveyard hate more Commander decks need. A lot of graveyard hate is too narrow in its application. This land completely dodges that problem by acting as a Regrowth for historic permanents before it cleans out the table’s graveyards.

#46. Three Tree City

Three Tree City is like an amalgamation of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Gaea's Cradle. This works best in typal strategies that flood the board with one creature type, but beware of board wipes significantly reducing the mana you have access to.

#45. Rogue’s Passage + Access Tunnel

I’m ranking Rogue's Passage and Access Tunnel together because they serve a similar purpose, particularly in Commander where you want to win via commander damage or draw a card from a saboteur ability. But the Passage is much better because there’s no restriction of power.

#44. Escape Tunnel

Escape Tunnel is decidedly better than most similar effects since it doesn’t cost mana to activate. Note that you have to choose between the basic land or the unblockable creature – sometimes it’ll have to do an Evolving Wilds impression. But in the late game, this’ll help make sure that those small creatures can still get their combat damage triggers in.

#43. Soulstone Sanctuary

Soulstone Sanctuary is like a Mutavault that doesn’t lose its creature status at the end of turn. Like most of the cards in this vein, it’s best suited for typal decks that can make good use of an otherwise unremarkable creature. Examples include Magda, Brazen Outlaw and Nalia de'Arnise.

#42. Bonders’ Enclave

Paying 3 mana to draw a card isn’t the worst, except you have to have big creatures in play. Expect to see Bonders' Enclave played in decks aiming for aggression and big creatures.

#41. City of Brass

The original pain land, City of Brass was heavily played in MTG’s early years. It made it easier to play more than three colors in a time before fetch lands.

#40. Mariposa Military Base

Mariposa Military Base’s card draw comes cheap, since you don’t have to sacrifice the land to activate it. You’ll want to make sure you can get rad counters or proliferate the ones that it gives you. When you have four or five rad counters, this is a Black Friday style bargain on card draw.

#39. Mana Confluence

Mana Confluence is usually an upgrade over City of Brass for a couple reasons. It’s legal in more formats and it hurts the user only while tapped for mana, while City of Brass can be tapped by your opponent with Fire // Ice or something similar and hurt you in the process. Either way it’s a somewhat painful way to generate mana of all colors, which is good in 4- and 5-color decks.

#38. Sliver Hive

Five-color fixing for slivers is very good, and there’s always an EDH sliver deck lurking around. Sliver Hive‘s ability to make a 1/1 for 5 mana is good enough, and it’s even better because it’s a sliver for typal purposes.

#37. Blast Zone

Blast Zone is an interesting way to convert a land into a sweeper. It can’t be sacrificed to wipe out tokens in the same way that cards like Ratchet Bomb can since it already comes with a counter. This works wonders with proliferate and counter manipulation.

#36. Sunken Citadel

Utility lands are only getting stronger and more plentiful, so Sunken Citadel exists to help those cards get their heavy lifting done. This can activate your Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Fountainport, or Thespian's Stage by itself, for example.

#35. Eye of Ugin

Eye of Ugin was responsible for a surge of power in Eldrazi decks. The card needed to be banned in Modern because of its explosive potential with Eldrazi Mimic, Matter Reshaper, and Thought-Knot Seer.

#34. Temple of the False God

Temple of the False God makes the list because it’s strong in EDH, a format where it's easy to have lots of lands in play. I'd avoid it in 60-card Constructed formats.

#33. Fabled Passage

Although it only fetches basics with downside, fetch lands are very good in the formats where they’re legal. Fabled Passage is good because it’s the only one available in formats like Pioneer and Explorer, on top of being a cheaper fetch if you want to play it in EDH.

#32. Reliquary Tower

Drawing lots of cards is very meaningful to EDH players, and a land that says “you have no maximum hand size” has to be good, right? Reliquary Tower is probably played too much, but it excels in decks designed to draw tons of cards.

#31. Talon Gates of Madara

Don’t let the card type fool you here; Talon Gates of Madara plays more like a spell than a land. Four mana is a lot to make one creature phase out, but you’re also playing an untapped land at instant speed. Plus, unlike Slip Out the Back or similar effects, this isn’t a spell, so it can’t be targeted with traditional counterspells. It’s just a plain difficult effect to interact with that’ll save your behind more than you might expect. Alternatively, play it in your first main phase, phasing your best creature out for free, and then cast a sweeper like Wrath of God. The creature you phased out is completely protected!

#30. Thespians’ Stage

Like Vesuva, Thespian's Stage sees play in decks like Dark Depths because you can copy the land without the counters, allowing you to have a 20/20 Marit Lage faster than normal. Otherwise, you can copy a utility land you like, or even a 5-color fixing land like Reflecting Pool.

#29. Vesuva

See Thespian's Stage above. Vesuva doesn’t have to be activated to copy a land. It doesn’t combo with Dark Depths, though, since it would enter with the counters.

#28. Aether Hub

Energy decks have become significantly more powerful since the release of Modern Horizons 3, so Aether Hub has gotten stronger as a result. Whether it’s accelerating the gameplan of your Guide of Souls in Modern or your Satya, Aetherflux Genius in Commander, this colorless utility land is one you won’t want to miss in decks that generate energy counters.

#27. Rishadan Port

“Upkeep Port your Port” is a sentence that ‘90s players used to hear, alongside “EOT Fact or Fiction.” Jokes aside, Rishadan Port is good because tapping things is good, but it’s hard to tap lands. When you have this in a land you can delay your opponent significantly and also tap their key dual land.

#26. The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale has an interesting ability. Taxing aggro players keeps their board from developing further. This effect is also present on Magus of the Tabernacle and Pendrell Mists.

Note that the Tabernacle doesn’t tap for mana, as some older lands do. It’s also an extremely expensive card thanks to being on the Reserved List.

#25. Prismatic Vista

A much cheaper fetch land for formats like Modern. Prismatic Vista only fetches basic lands, but this is still great if you aren’t playing too many colors.

#24. Field of Ruin + Demolition Field

Not a format-warping card by any stretch of the imagination, but Field of Ruin is like Duress. It’s never unfair when it does its thing and it keeps formats like Standard and Pioneer less vulnerable to powerful lands and manlands. Demolition Field is essentially the same card in 1v1, but doesn't ramp your other opponents in multiplayer like Field of Ruin does.

#23. Basilisk Gate

Basilisk Gate is so high on this list because it's been making waves in Pauper and adds another tool to Gates decks. If you have a flying creature and you pay 2 to give it, say +3/+3 or +4/+4, you’ll convert each little flying creature into a game-ending threat.

#22. Inkmoth Nexus

Inkmoth Nexus is a manland that can kill anyone out of nowhere thanks to the infect mechanic. And your deck doesn’t even need to be all in on infect. Turning a land into a 1/1 flying infect works wonders with equipment and combat tricks, too.

#21. Cavern of Souls

As it turns out, adding uncounterable to creatures on top of fixing five colors of mana for a certain type of creature is very good. Legends has it that WotC was worried Snapcaster Mage/Delver of Secrets decks would be too powerful in the metagame so Cavern of Souls was printed to help defend against the blue menace.

One of the best typal support cards in Magic, Cavern is the backbone of 5-color typal decks like humans or slivers in Eternal formats, and it’s certainly playable in typal EDH decks.

#20. Faceless Haven

Lands that become creatures are powerful, and Faceless Haven is no exception. A 4/3 hits hard enough, and WotC thought that the activation cost would be high enough or restrictive enough to keep Haven in check, but it wasn’t, causing it to be rebalanced. The fact that it has every creature type helps with typal synergies too.

#19. Fomori Vault

In decks with a high density of artifacts, Fomori Vault can provide some incredible card selection and utility. It’s a bit expensive and doesn’t count as card advantage due to the discard, but this can convert bunk top decks into a 5+ card deep search to help you find what you need to finish the game.

#18. Urza’s Cave

In Commander, Urza's Cave sits on the battlefield until you know what you need with it. It often finds that third Tron land or one half of a Thespian's Stage combo. There’s also definitely times where you’ll want to find Bojuka Bog, Shifting Woodland, or Urza's Saga. Outside of Commander, you’ve already got four copies of the important lands, so this expensive land tutor isn’t likely to make the cut.

#17. The Mycosynth Gardens

There’s tons of powerful use-cases for The Mycosynth Gardens, especially in singleton formats like Commander where there aren’t tons of opportunities to double up on powerful permanents. With such a wide-open effect, the sky's the limit when considering what to use it with. You could do some fun stuff with two copies of Simulacrum Synthesizer or double up on an oppressive stax piece and make it hard for your opponents to play the game.

#16. Fountainport

Value-generating colorless lands are often balanced by overcosted and underpowered abilities. Under that context, Fountainport looks and plays like a 2-mana artifact disguised as your land drop. It cashes out any irrelevant tokens for card draw, and it can even produce those tokens itself. In Standard, it’s played alongside Caretaker's Talent and effects like Carrot Cake that trigger Caretaker and provide Fountainport sacrifice fodder, resulting in a grindy controlling game plan.

#15. Ugin’s Labyrinth

This powerful land is designed for Eldrazi decks in Modern, where you can pair it with Eldrazi Temple and have a whopping eight lands that can tap for 2 mana on turn 1. Ugin's Labyrinth does have a rather strict deck building cost though, as you’ll need enough expensive cards to be able to imprint consistently. Even if you can’t imprint, it’s still a land, so the low-rolls don’t feel that bad.

#14. Eldrazi Temple

The “not banned” engine for Eldrazi decks, Eldrazi Temple generates 2 mana to cast Eldrazi. This usually means a faster Thought-Knot Seer or Reality Smasher, and it isn’t a legendary land so you can have multiple Temples in play at the same time.

But there’s no real reason to play it outside of Eldrazi decks.

#13. Mutavault 

Mutavault is perhaps the best creature land in Magic: A land that has no particular downside and can become a 2/2 for 1 mana is very, very good. It’s even a changeling like Faceless Haven. Mutavault goes in aggressive decks, typal decks, and even control decks as an extra win condition.

#12. Field of the Dead

There’s almost a pattern with the lands in this tier being too powerful and ending up banned in some formats. Field of the Dead asks that you play different lands which is easy with enough non-basics across many formats, even in Standard.

Field of the Dead then produces an army of 2/2s with every subsequent land drop once you hit the threshold, which is very hard to interact with and beat. That’s why having power in the lands is complicated since there aren't that many tools to interact with them.

#11. The Tron Lands

The famous Tron lands make for a combo deck played mostly in Modern and Pauper. Assembling Tron produces 7 mana from only three lands, and it can be done as early as turn 3. Think of all the powerful spells to be played ahead of curve, from Ugin, the Spirit Dragon to Karn Liberated.

#10. Mishra’s Workshop

Mishra's Workshop is one of the pillars of the Vintage format, since it’s only legal there. Decks get amazing tempo from this land since generating 3 mana is awesome.

The key is to fill the deck with expensive artifacts (ideally ones that cost 3-6 mana). Vintage players ask themselves if it's playable in “Shops” decks anytime an expensive and powerful artifact is printed.

#9. Dark Depths

The goal of playing Dark Depths is to produce Marit Lage, a 20/20 indestructible token, and win from there. There are so many combos to take out all of the counters in one fell swoop, from Vampire Hexmage to Thespian's Stage.

This land is banned in Modern and a staple of decks with combos in Legacy and beyond. Legacy even has a deck simply called “Lands” (which plays some of the cards on this list) that aims to win with this combo piece.

#8. Command Tower

Tapping to add 1 mana in your commander’s colors without any downside easily makes Command Tower one of the best lands in EDH, and one that almost all decks gladly play a copy of. Its value only grows the more colors your commander has.

#7. Ancient Tomb

Ancient Tomb is so high on the list because it ramps. But it’s not perfect, because you lose 2 life (negligible in EDH, which makes Ancient Tomb one of the best lands in Commander) and it’s only colorless mana, but still. Playing a key planeswalker ahead of time, ramping out a prison effect like Trinisphere, or serving as copies 5-8 of Eldrazi Temple are all huge.

#6. Bazaar of Baghdad

Bazaar of Baghdad is one of those weird lands. It doesn’t produce mana, which is a relic of Magic’s past. It’s card disadvantage, because you draw two and discard three. So, what’s this good for?

The answer is dredge. Dredge decks need as many key cards in the graveyard as possible. Discarding cards like Golgari Grave-Troll, Prized Amalgam, and Vengevine is actually card advantage in these decks.

#5. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

The devotion land from Theros is hardly used to do fair things. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx can generate 5-6 mana in an activation in a dedicated devotion deck, which is then used to pay for X spells and the like. A powerhouse in any format where a mono-colored devotion deck is legal.

#4. Urza’s Saga

A land that took Eternal formats like Modern and Legacy by storm, Urza's Saga doesn’t do anything strictly unfair. It’s a land that provides creatures, card advantage and the like. And it was the only enchantment land in the game for a while. So what’s the big deal about Urza's Saga?

First, it’s a land with no downside since it doesn’t enter tapped. The second ability can generate a big creature and be used twice, and it’s even better in artifact decks. The third ability can be used to generate card advantage with cards like Mishra's Bauble and Expedition Map. And it raises the consistency of combo decks that need certain pieces since it tutors for an artifact.

#3. Wasteland

Fixed Strip Mine and legal in Legacy, Wasteland is one of the best ways to deal with troublesome nonbasic lands. It's usually played in tempo decks that want to keep the lead like Delver decks and in decks with land recursion using planeswalkers like Wrenn and Six or artifacts like Crucible of Worlds.

#2. Strip Mine

Strip Mine is one of the best ways to destroy a land with no downside, and it's strictly better than Wasteland. Just play the Mine and tap it to destroy an opponent’s land. Although it’s usually aimed at nonbasic lands, Strip Mine is one of the few ways to destroy a basic land.

#1. Library of Alexandria

If you have seven cards in hand, just tap Library of Alexandria to draw an extra card. This is one of those cards that’s a strategy itself.

Draw-go decks in Magic have always been powerful, and Library makes control decks broken, hence it being restricted in Vintage and banned elsewhere, even in Commander.

Wrap Up

Strip Mine | Illustration by John Avon

Well, that’s all for today. There have been tons of powerful colorless lands printed over Magic’s history, and these lands didn’t even need to tap for mana in the game’s early years. They're usually the cornerstones of various decks since they either fix mana for four or five colors, interact with the opponent’s lands, and have special abilities like drawing a card.

Did I miss a key land that you play in your format of choice? Let me know in the comments below or on the official Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time!