All 4 Abzan Lands in Magic Ranked

Sandsteppe Citadel | Illustration by Sam Burley

The more colors you add to your Magic deck, the more you need the ability to produce your colors at will. Nothing stinks more than having the number of mana you need to kick off your end game only to realize you lack your colors.

Every tri-color deck needs to look at tri-lands, though certain wedges and shards get less help than others. Given that green has so many ramp spells and mana dorks, plus white’s catch-up abilities like Archaeomancer's Map and black’s access to Treasure tokens, Abzan doesn’t need as much fixing as other color combinations. Which is probably why we can count the Abzan tri-lands on one hand….

What Are Abzan Lands in MTG?

Murmuring Bosk | Illustration by John Avon

For our purposes, Abzan lands can generate all of the three Abzan colors (white , black , and green ) or have all three of those pips in their rules text. Abzan lands also include those that fetch basic or nonbasic plains, swamp, and forest lands, but only those three land types.

We won’t consider dual lands, generic fetch lands like Evolving Wilds, or lands that let you choose the colors that they tap for, like Thriving Heath or Valgavoth's Lair.

#4. Murmuring Bosk

The more I look at Murmuring Bosk, the more I wonder if we collectively underrate it as a community. Sure, its rules text suggests that you want to play treefolk so that you can treat it as a show land. And it becomes a pain land whenever you need white or black mana. I get all that. But you can fetch it with a Farseek, and many Abzan decks have lifegain going on anyway. If you told me you had this in your deck because you didn’t want to shell out for a triome, I wouldn’t bat an eye. It gets extra points in my book just for being something interesting and different.

#3. Sandsteppe Citadel

Sandsteppe Citadel is your standard, budget, tapped tri-land. It’s hard to tutor for it, but it does what you need it to. The tapped restriction hurts a lot less if you have it in your opening hand, when everybody at the table is building up their board presence. It’s just a solid piece of fixing; it’s reprinted in Commander precons all the time, and it helps out in budget 5-color mana bases.

#2. Deceptive Landscape

Deceptive Landscape is never a dead card. You can play it as your land drop, but you don’t have to sacrifice it right away if you don’t need to. It only grabs basics, so you can’t cash it in for a dual land or something. But the cycling ability can be just what you need if you suffer from mana flood.

Deceptive Landscape even has synergies with abilities that let you play lands from your graveyard: You could cycle it to draw a card, then play it from your bin, sacrifice it to grab the basic you need, and so on. Abzan doesn’t have as much topdeck manipulation as blue-based color combinations, but you can also use the fetching ability to reset your deck if you think you’ve shuffled poorly. That’s a tidy amount of utility for a common.

#1. Indatha Triome

Surprise, surprise. An Ikoria triome is the best land for a tri-color wedge. You can fetch your Indatha Triome with anything that grabs a land of the relevant types, and you can cycle it to draw a card if you don’t need the land, which gets better when you have abilities that let you play lands from your graveyard. The question is when Wizards is finally going to cave and reprint these in a Commander deck, Masters set, or other product.

Wrap Up

Sandsteppe Citadel | Illustration by Titus Lunter

Abzan may not have the deepest pool of lands that support its colors, but the ones it has do the job just fine. I’d love to see some other takes on tri-lands with utility, though.

Do you like the variety that Murmuring Bosk brings to the Magic table? Would you rank Sandsteppe Citadel higher than Deceptive Landscape? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord.

If you liked this breakdown, feel free to read up and compare the Abzan lands with the ones that the other wedges and the shards have to offer: Jeskai, Temur, Sultai, Mardu, Naya, Jund, Esper, Grixis, and Bant.

Until next time, take care, and avoid mana screw!