All 37 Deserts in Magic Ranked

Last updated on August 28, 2026

Painted Bluffs | Illustration by Mark Poole

Magic has a lot of different subtypes across all card types and sets. But this doesn’t mean that all subtypes are created equal.

Deserts come to mind when I think of mediocre lands. Not the best description, am I right? Deserts are rarely playable outside of Limited decks, but there are still a few I’d consider budget-playable in formats like Commander where land utility is great and fixing is king.

What Are Deserts in MTG?

Ramunap Ruins | Illustration by Florian de Gesincourt

Desert is a land subtype in Magic. Many of them tap for colorless mana and may have some other ability. They often come with a drawback, like needing to be sacrificed, costing to activate, or entering tapped.

These drawbacks and the concept of a dry and barren desert meshing with the mana-rich lands in Magic result in a relatively desolate, plain card. (And not the Plains or vanilla creature sort of way).

Obviously that all gets thrown out if you play a desert-centric commander like Yuma, Proud Protector or Hazezon, Shaper of Sand, but it’s better to analyze these cards on their own and not in the context of an individual card that makes them much, much better.

#24. Dunes of the Dead

Dunes of the Dead isn’t very good. Tapping for colorless isn’t the biggest drawback, especially in a mono-colorless eldrazi Commander deck, but the graveyard ability doesn’t make up for the general blandness.

A 2/2 zombie is practically nothing, even if you can trigger this multiple times.

#23. Painted Bluffs

Be sure you care about deserts before playing Painted Bluffs or similar lands; putting in a mana to color mana is often a disappointment, especially in comparison to the likes of Mana Confluence. That said,I wouldn’t be upset to include this in an ultra-budget Commander deck.

These kinds of cards have a place!

#22. Conduit Pylons

Surveil gives Conduit Pylons a very small upside to playing this underpowered card. Does it help your Limited deck function? Sure, but it's also the first land you'll upgrade when you can.

#21. Grasping Dunes

Grasping Dunes is another colorless tapper with an activated ability. This time around, you can pay and tap to sacrifice the land and get a -1/-1 counter on a creature at sorcery speed.

Paying mana and going down a land for such a minor ability just doesn’t cut it.

#20. Desert

Desert is, well, the namesake card! It taps for one colorless mana and can deal one damage to an attacking creature at the end of the combat phase.

It’s better than the previous cards, but such easy-to-predict and maneuver-around combat tricks aren’t tricks at all.

#19. Endless Sands

Endless Sands has a few things going for it. On top of tapping for a colorless you can pay 6 mana and tap it twice to blink a creature. You know, the same thing Cloudshift does for . What a card!

#18. Hostile Desert

Hostile Desert allows you to exile a land to animate it until end of turn. I like creaturelands. They’re a great resource for a lot of different decks, but having to exile a land from the graveyard is too anti-synergistic with many land strategies.

In most land decks, having lands in the graveyard is often an upside, or eve integral to the strategy. I can’t think of many decks that would have enough lands in the graveyard to fuel this and want to exile them for such a small effect; better to find ways to replay or recur them.

#17. Ipnu Rivulet

I love blue utility lands, believe me, but I don’t love Ipnu Rivulet. I’m happy to see that we can get blue mana untapped with this card. That’s a big step from the previous cards on the list. But the activated ability is so irrelevant that it's basically just a mono-colored pain land. I guess it's a blue land that also taps for colorless in case you want to play cards like Thought-Knot Seer.

#16. Cradle of the Accursed    

Cradle of the Accursed’s claim to fame is that it can be sacrificed to generate a token at sorcery speed…wow. Yeah, this isn’t great. It's just that everything below it was way worse.

#15. Sandstorm Verge

The falter effect on Sandstorm Verge feels expensive since you're using the land itself to ignore a blocker. You might call it a far worse version of Rogue's Passage, so play it if you need to, but it might be better as a basic land.

#14. Bucolic Ranch

I'll rank this ranch below spicy bacon ranch until more mount creatures are printed. Yes, Bucolic Ranch does well in the Selesnya mounts decks and can help you splash a cool off-colored mount, but there just aren't enough mounts after one set for that to matter.

#13. Ifnir Deadlands

Ifnir Deadlands gets a little more interesting. It gives black mana untapped which is a big selling point, and its activated ability can actually kill something problematic in the early game.

You might be desperate to increase how much removal your EDH deck has, but this isn't an efficient form of removal. It’s better than the previous deserts I’ve mentioned, and that’s what counts.

#12. Survivors’ Encampment

Survivors' Encampment is a desert that can actually tap for any color of mana! The only drawback is that you’re tapping down a creature to do so. But that’s decent budget fixing if you’re doing this at somebody’s end step or have plenty of bodies, and there are even random creatures like Kilo, Apogee Mind or Annie Flash, the Veteran that reward you for tapping them.

#11. Hashep Oasis

Hashep Oasis, like the other uncommon deserts before it, can tap for colored mana untapped and comes with an activated ability if you feel like sacrificing it. This time around you get +3/+3 to a creature for just 3 mana.

Not the worst exchange ever, but the sorcery-speed limitation feels unnecessary.

#10. Mirage Mesa

I place Mirage Mesa among the Evolving Wilds of the world, sometimes you don't need the land searching ability, and sometimes you care that it's a desert. This is a fine card and certainly gets better with three or more colors.

#9. Shefet Dunes

Shefet Dunes gives all your creatures +1/+1 at sorcery speed which is pretty good! This can slot into white decks that go wide with tokens or smaller hate bear creatures. The sorcery-speed limitation is much less impactful here since mass pump effects are often sorceries anyway.

#8. Sunscorched Desert

Sunscorched Desert deals one damage to a player when it enters the battlefield and taps for a colorless. It's not much damage, but it's still better than a vanilla tapped land and you might snipe a pesky planeswalker.

#7. 10 Dual Desert Cycle

These lands commit crimes, and it is so nice to have a full 10-card cycle to hit all the color pairs in Outlaws of Thunder Junction. If Grixis cards () care the most about committing crimes, Eroded Canyon, Jagged Barrens, and Soured Springs are the way to go, but I can also see these being reprinted quite often like the dual lands that gain you one life.

#6. Cycling Deserts

Next up is the full cycle of cycling lands. These cards give colored mana for no drawback other than entering tapped, which isn’t too big of a deal. Cycling is one of the most powerful abilities in card games!

#5. Ramunap Ruins    

Ramunap Ruins is where this list gets exciting. It’s playable in some Constructed MTGA formats as burn. I personally play a copy in my Purphoros, God of the Forge deck, and I’ve never been disappointed.

Like many niche cards in Magic, just put them in the right deck and you’ll do fine.

#4. Cactus Preserve

A versatile land that can be animated into a decent threat or blocker is great. Cactus Preserve can give you reach out of nowhere. Some commanders optimize the cost reduction better than others, but turning your land into a 3/3 that eats a flier is nothing to scoff at.

#3. Arid Archway

Arid Archway is a landmark that people come to see from hundreds of miles away. Intended to complement deserts, the Archway is a neat colorless way to reset lands with enters the battlefield abilities or ensure you have landfall triggers. Plus, I always appreciate being able to untap a land for extra mana.

#2. Lazotep Quarry

Lazotep Quarry is a powerful sacrifice outlet that enters untapped and can chew through creatures or deserts. The cost is on par for eternalize which is a great ability from a land.

#1. Scavenger Grounds

Scavenger Grounds is, simply put, a cut above the rest of the deserts. It taps for colorless, nothing to see there, but the graveyard hate is great that exiles all graveyards at instant speed for two mana.

You’re aware that the graveyard is just another resource at your disposal if you’ve played about two or more games of Magic. Being able to shut that down when you’re not engaged in that strategy is an incredible tool to have.

Best Desert Payoffs and Enablers

I can think of two major payoffs for playing deserts. taking into account what deserts typically do and their official subtype.

The first, and most powerful, is playing them in a Hazezon, Shaper of Sand Commander deck. This eliminates the drawback of sacrificing the deserts that would otherwise hold them back, and you get extra benefits along the way. Yuma, Proud Protector is a great way to draw cards and create Plant-based-beefy tokens while you use deserts.

A few premium cards allow you to play lands from the graveyard, and they do well with deserts.

Otherwise, general landfall decks with commanders like Omnath, Locus of Creation or Soul of Windgrace would be a decent home for these cards. You’re not going full-desert (never go full-desert), but they’ll end up being much stronger alongside these cards than otherwise.

Colossal Rattlewurm needs only one desert to benefit, while Ramunap Hydra wants two deserts in two zones, and Cataclysmic Prospecting wants as many deserts as you can handle.

Wrap Up

Scavenger Grounds | Illustration by Steven Belledin

That wraps up today’s rundown on deserts! They’re cooler than caves, but not my favorite subtype in the game, and I think they sit in a very niche spot in Magic and Commander that will (hopefully!) only get stronger with time. With the right synergy and expansions, it’s only a matter of time before they grow in popularity.

What do you think of deserts and my ranking breakdown in general? Did I slip up and judge any of them incorrectly? Let me know all your desert experience and critiques in the comments, or come chat about it in the official Draftsim Discord.

Until next time, hydrate!