Raffine's Tower | Illustration by Dominik Mayer
Mana fixing is among the most important elements of any Magic deck. It doesn’t matter how cool your spells are or what niche synergies inspired you if your spells are uncastable because your shoddy mana base relies on hopes and prayers.
Most color combinations have dedicated mana fixers, and Esper () is no exception. While this shard doesn’t have many lands to its name, several of them are quite powerful and worth running in your next brew.
What Are Esper Lands in MTG?
Arcane Sanctum | Illustration by Anthony Francisco
Esper () lands fix for exactly white, blue, and black. This list includes lands that tap for all three colors or that support fixing the basics of each color, and only cards that fix for all three colors; no dual or 5-color lands here. The best Esper lands fix your mana with as few restrictions and costs as possible, with an eye towards synergy.
#8. Wizards’ School
Wizards' School has one of the most inspired designs in Magic. It takes such an eye for detail, such a deep-founded fear of mana fixing, such a hatred for the Esper colors to design this miserable excuse for a land. Often, you can spin up a scenario where a card might be useful, but the only possible use for Wizards' School is to test your new paper shredder.
#7. Dromar’s Cavern
Dromar's Cavern is part of a partial cycle of lairs that were a precursor to Ravnica’s bounce lands, except they’re worse. The bounce lands from Ravnica tap for 2 mana to make up for the land you return to your hand, so you don’t lose mana; Dromar's Cavern does not, so you permanently go down a mana source. It can’t even loop itself since you have to return a non-lair land to your hand. There’s very little reason to run this, but it’s still better than tacking an extra 2 mana onto your black spell.
#6. Esper Panorama
Esper Panorama moves us from the chaff to the playable. It isn’t as good as green-adjacent Panoramas because Esper doesn’t interact with lands in the same way, but it still provides excellent fixing for cheap, and it’s really nice to a colorless mana-producing land still provide fixing. If only cracking the Panorama didn’t cost mana….
#5. Obscura Storefront
Obscura Storefront provides excellent budget fixing with its Evolving Wilds riff. The lifegain isn’t irrelevant; basically all lifegain payoffs like to be in Esper colors, and black cards get excited when you sacrifice permanents. It’s very, very close to Esper Panorama in terms of power; the Panorama can tap for mana if you need to the turn you play it, but this one doesn’t cost mana to crack. If you’re playing at a level that warrants one, you can run the other.
#4. Ancient Spring
Ancient Spring is mostly useful in combo decks. Entering tapped makes it a very slow card, but the Spring is a ritual stapled to a land. This isn’t a good mana fixer since you only get white/black mana once, but that might be enough when it lets you cast Cabal Ritual off a single land that even adds to threshold.
#3. Arcane Sanctum
Arcane Sanctum does everything you want from a tri-color fixer: It taps for all three colors. This works better than the Storefront or the Panorama because you don’t need to choose a single color; you have access to all of them. It’s also seen enough reprints over the years to be budget fixing despite the high power level.
#2. Contaminated Landscape
Contaminated Landscape perfects Esper Panorama by allowing you to sacrifice it without paying mana. It can be Evolving Wilds or Wastes the turn you play it, depending on your needs, and it adapts to the other role. It even has a cycling ability if you draw it turn 10!
#1. Raffine’s Tower
Arcane Sanctum exists at uncommon, so a rare land that enters tapped and has all three colors must elevate it in some way. It turns out adding basic land types was just enough.
Raffine's Tower is a perfect fixer because you can find it with fetch lands and landcyclers. The triple basic typings enable cards like Mystic Sanctuary and Leyline Binding, and it boasts a cycling ability if you don’t need the land. Being fetchable is certainly its best feature, however; having these in any Cube or format with fetch lands makes splashing a trifling matter.
Wrap Up
Esper Panorama | Illustration by Franz Vohwinkel
Magic wouldn’t be the game it is without the lands system, non-games and all. If you find your Esper decks tripping over themselves without the colors to cast their spells, consider slipping in some of these mana fixers—just stay away from Wizards' School, please.
What’s your favorite Esper land? Have you found a way to break Obscura Storefront without Aftermath Analyst? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!
Stay safe, and thanks for reading!
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2 Comments
You complain about Dromar’s Cavern putting you down a land, but of all the lands, except Wizard’s School, it’s the only land that can provide you with access to all three colors the moment you play it. Sometimes tempo is more important than actual mana count.
That last statement is true, though rarely in the case of lands. It’s hard to talk about these lairs as a tempo-positive play when they can’t even be played on turn 1, and rarely due anything you couldn’t have done otherwise on turn 2. By turn three, you’re usually good on colors, which just makes the Cavern a liability.
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