The 26 Best Blue Green (Simic) Lands in Magic

Last updated on April 3, 2024

Dreamroot Cascade | Illustration by Sam Burley

Dual and specialty lands are the bread and butter of competitive Magic. In no color pair is this truer than in Simic (). Green ramps for lands with spells like Three Visits, both colors draw tons of cards, and dual color spells like Growth Spiral do a bit of both.

In EDH, great Simic commanders like Tatyova, Benthic Druid throw a bit of gasoline on that fire all the way up to cEDH levels. So you’ll see these lands a bit more than the dual lands in other colors, which means you want to know which ones are the best. And you also have a higher “should I replace this with a basic” test than most other colors because of how often you run spells that fetch basic lands or basic land types.

Today it’s time to rank the best blue green dual lands in Magic!

#26. Skyshroud Forest

Let’s say you’re on a really tight budget. Are the lands that come into play tapped and give you both colors like Skyshroud Forest worth it?

Here’s the quick answer: tap lands are for Draft. There are exceptional lands that are, well, exceptions and make it worth it, but in each case you need a really good reason to not just replace a land like this with a basic land to help power out an early creature or mana rock.

Lands like these are key to get you enough lands of each of your colors in Draft formats. But in Constructed 60-card formats and EDH, things go too quickly for these kinds of lands.

This land in particular is the worst because it just keeps hurting you, which doesn’t have any sneaky upside in these colors.

#25. Woodland Stream

Woodland Stream is utterly vanilla. Nothing pays you off for the tempo loss of this tap land.

#24. Thornwood Falls

How about adding a bit of lifegain with Thornwood Falls? This is strictly better than Woodland Stream, but while lands of this cycle in other colors might be useful for lifegain strategies, I can’t think of a reasonable Simic lifegain commander or strategy for EDH.

But of all the common tap lands in Simic this seems the most likely to show up in Pauper builds like Simic Delver. Given how Delver of Secrets decks want to go, that’s something.

#23. Simic Guildgate

The gates deck with payoffs life Gatebreaker Ram and Maze's End still shows up in formats like Pioneer and Explorer, so a card like Simic Guildgate is valuable for its gate type line. Power creep has put that deck a bit behind on power level, but it’s fun to play and can take players by surprise.

The excellent new gate cards in Battle for Baldur’s Gate means that this deck will likely resurge in Historic if the gates are included in the Alchemy Horizons: Baldur’s Gate drop.

#22. Tanglepool Bridge

Artifact tap lands are good. Enabling affinity and speeding delirium are all useful. But Simic is kind of the wrong colors. Affinity decks in Pauper, Pioneer, and Modern tends to have little use for green, which leaves Tanglepool Bridge behind.

#21. Temple of Mystery

Scry 1 is more useful than gaining one life, especially in Simic colors. So Temple of Mystery finds its way into Emergent Ultimatum and other slower decks that look to go over the top with the exact right cards.

It’s not a terrible topdeck on turn 10 in Commander, but dropping tap lands early isn’t the greatest way to get to turn 10.

#20. Quandrix Campus

If you absolutely positively need to run a Simic tap land at common, especially in Commander, Quandrix Campus is the one I’d choose. The scry ability of these Strixhaven lands isn’t nearly as good as multi-format workhorse Castle Vantress, but this is a potentially quite useful mana sink on stalled games.

#19. Vineglimmer Snarl

Check lands, which look for a land in hand, are probably better than we all think. But the design seems almost perfectly calibrated to stoke disappointment.

Vineglimmer Snarl comes into play untapped just enough to make it feel terrible when it does what it usually does, especially after about turn 4, which is to come into play tapped. It usually just feels bad. Especially in Commander.

Still, there’s a chance, so…

#18. Littjara Mirrorlake

A blue tap land that you can spend Simic mana on for a late game piece of utility, Littjara Mirrorlake gets better the more ETB triggers you have to abuse. Eternal Witness? The new hotness Titan of Industry?

I’m still not sure this is worth it and it’s hardly ever in 60-card formats, but in certain Commander builds? Okay, maybe. Sure.

#17. Simic Growth Chamber

Bounce lands are a complicated beast. They put you off curve for a turn but then they’re neutral. If that turn is turn 2, that’s a problem.

Simic Growth Chamber shines in two cases. First, green has a lot of cards that untap lands. That’s quite good if a land taps for two. Second, this land allows you to drop a Zendikar Rising double-faced like Sea Gate, Reborn early for the mana and then pick it up to cast the spell side. That’s also good with the channel lands from Neon Dynasty like Boseiju, Who Endures.

#16. Rimewood Falls

Snow decks really need snow lands. There are decks in Modern that add a snow package with Ice-Fang Coatl to a Stoneblade shell that uses Stoneforge Mystic and a few nice swords like Batterskull to tutor up.

Since this cycle are the only snow duals, they’re often worth it in those decks. And the fact that Rimewood Falls has both basic land types makes it fetchable and tutorable in a way that none of these other tap lands can, which is a key value in decks that are more than two colors.

#15. Lumbering Falls

The top tap land in the list, manlands like Lumbering Falls always have their uses. In Simic where you’re often playing instants or cards with flash on opponents’ turns, this gives a story about how and why you’re holding up mana (to make a quick blocker), which is the kind of thing that always makes those decks work better.

This is a pretty bad mana sink for those strategies overall because you don’t really care about the creature if no one attacks. Still, this is a decent restart if you’re desperate after a board wipe.

#14. Restless Vinestalk

The trampling plant might not surprise everyone but the power-to-mana ratio is pretty good with Restless Vinestalk. Be sure you can play a longer game and keep in mind, there may be attacks in which you want to target your opponent's beefy blocker. Simic celebrates creativity, and you'll celebrate if you can put down +1/+1 counters before animating Vinestalk.

#13. Novijen, Heart of Progress

Tapping for colorless isn’t awesome, but Novijen, Heart of Progress’s ability is pretty nice for Simic counters decks in EDH.

#12. Alchemist’s Refuge

Alchemist's Refuge has an even better activated ability. Just having this on the table in a Simic deck makes it a lot harder for your opponents to figure out how to play around you. That helps you win, sure, but isn’t your goal at the table to warp everything around your ramp, draw, flash game if you’re playing Simic?

So this card counts as you having fun, whether it actually helps or not. At least that’s my headspace playing Simic decks.

#11. Barkchannel Pathway / Tidechannel Pathway

The Pathway cycle are all great. Coming down for color untapped is super good, and you can see Barkchannel Pathway across 60-card formats as well as Commander.

You’ll eventually wish it tapped for two colors because sometimes your topdecks tell you that your choice of sides for this card two turns ago should have been different. You could always flip this land with Simic Growth Chamber if you need to.

#10. Botanical Sanctum

This cycle of cards is tough. How many of them do you want in 60-card formats? At least two of them will be late game tap lands, which is why these tend to be one or 2-ofs.

And the likelihood is that it’ll be a late game tapper in Commander given the odds of Botanical Sanctum being in the opening hand of 99 cards. But this is a fantastic card in your opening hand. The value of this card goes up in an EDH deck where you’ll be doing some aggressive mulliganing to set up early combos.

#9. Flooded Grove

You may not want Flooded Grove to be your first land, but you’re not really keeping a hand with only one land anyway. The smoothing value of this land is pretty great, especially if you have a Simic deck with a lot of pip-heavy cards like Frilled Mystic.

It does mean you have to do some more math than you would otherwise to make sure you tap things right. But just take a minute and remember that you probably have a few Quandrix cards in your deck, which means you have to at least pretend to like math sometimes.

#8. Hinterland Harbor

Hinterland Harbor is part of the reason to not run bad tap lands. A basic would allow this to come into play untapped on turn 2. It’s also one reason why the dual lands with basic types are so useful.

#7. Yavimaya Coast

The pain lands have always been useful because the life loss is generally worth it to be able to cast your spells. Yavimaya Coast is just fine. Simic can rarely use the life loss the way black decks can, so it’s collateral damage. And it can add up over time.

If you’ve played Magic long enough then you’ve run into situations where tapping a pain land for an answer to one threat means you’ll lose to another. I certainly have.

#6. Dreamroot Cascade

This cycle of lands sees play across Standard, and these come into play untapped if you build your mana with enough basics in most cases. This basically always comes into play untapped in Commander as long as you’re not running the tap lands on the bottom of this list.

You should only be keeping hands with enough mana for turn 1 and 2 anyway. Hinterland Harbor will usually be just fine.

#5. Waterlogged Grove

A pain land that can draw you a card when needed? Sure. That card draw can be really vital in the late game. Waterlogged Grove would be higher on the list if it had land types.

#4. Breeding Pool

The shock lands are terrific. Paying the two life one time is better than the rate on pain lands. You can choose to drop them tapped if it fits the plan, which it sometimes does.

But Breeding Pool can be fetched by fetch lands and certain ramp cards that ask for the land type. That makes securing a mana base for multicolor decks much easier.

#3. Rejuvenating Springs

Basically a Commander-only product unless you’re down to a head-to-head battle at the end of an EDH match, Rejuvenating Springs acts like a pure dual land all the time in a multiplayer format.

#2. Misty Rainforest

The Simic fetch land is all about speed, sure, but it also serves versatility. Misty Rainforest can grab dual lands with the right types. Not only Breeding Pool, but also partially off-color lands like Hallowed Fountain, or even a tri-land like Ziatora's Proving Ground.

#1. Tropical Island

The OG dual lands will always be the gold standard. Comes into play untapped. Taps for both colors. Tropical Island is both land types, so it can be fetched. There’s a reason these are expensive.

Wrap Up

Simic Guildgate | Illustration by Svetlin Velinov

The toughest part about building a Commander deck with two or more colors is figuring out the mana base if you don’t want to spend the funds to get some of the very expensive lands. Hopefully this list will help you prioritize the lands you can afford for your green blue decks.

The most important takeaway is that it’s almost always better to run a basic land instead than a come into play tapped dual, unless the tap land upside fits your deck’s exact plan. You probably have other utility lands that come into play tapped that you need more, and you can only afford so much tempo loss.

What do you think about these rankings? Any notable lands you think I’ve left out? Should some have been ranked higher, or lower? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or over in the Draftsim Discord.

Good mana means a good game. Get brewing!