Last updated on April 26, 2024
Graven Cairns | Illustration by Adam Paquette
Blah blah blah fetch lands, blah blah blah shock lands. We all know they're great. Okay, but what about filter lands? Filter lands are honestly a little underrated. I mean, while these lands might be less popular in some cases, they’re phenomenal the times when you can use them and really help a deck get off the ground or stay in the air.
Not following? That’s all right, today we’ve got nothing but time to talk about the glory of filter lands!
What are Filter Lands?
Sunken Ruins | Illustration by Warren Mahy
Filter lands are a unique type of land that turn one mana into a combination of two colored mana. For the most part, at least. A more general definition is that they turn a certain amount of mana (meaning not always just one) into more mana. Some of them only change the mana’s color.
All About MTG Filter Lands
Functionality is how they got their common name “filter lands,” since they take mana and filter it into a different color or combination of colors.
Let’s say you have a Mystic Gate and a Sunpetal Grove on the field. You tap the Grove for a white and then use the Gate’s ability to tap it and produce two colored mana in any combination of blue or white, meaning you could double up on one color or create one of each.
An important distinction for filter lands is that they are unable to produce colored mana on their own. Many players are happy to make that trade since filter lands come into play untapped.
That said, you’re likely wondering what your options are for including these types of lands in your decks.
The History of Filter Lands
Mystic Gate | Illustration by Adam Paquette
In 1995's Homelands expansion, there's a cycle of lands in which each land could produce three different colors of mana. They take one generic mana to produce one colored mana. Or they take two mana () to create one of two other colors. It is a hefty price, but it gave the filter land concept its origin.
The style of filter lands we would eventually get used to began in Odyssey with its cycle of lands that would take a single mana () and create a specific combination of two colored mana.
The next cycle of filter lands — and the most iconic — came from Eventide and Shadowmoor. These lands tap for unlike their Odyssey predecessors which were only used for filtering. They even came sporting a more flexible set of options for the output, allowing you to make two mana of either color or one of each.
Reprints
You can find most of the filter land reprints in Commander precons Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander decks, Murders at Karlov Manor Commander Decks, and Dominaria United Commander Decks. Masters sets such as Iconic Masters or Double Masters, and in special cases like Zendikar Expeditions. That doesn’t go for all of them, though, and miscellaneous common filter lands like Conduit Pylons in Outlaws of Thunder Junction, or Unknown Shores are printed into the Standard rotation during Ixalan and Theros: Beyond Death.
List of Filter Lands
Here are the filter lands from Fallout to Homelands.
- Viridescent Bog
- Sunscorched Divide
- Overflowing Basin
- Ferrous Lake
- Desolate Mire
- Twilight Mire
- Rugged Prairie
- Flooded Grove
- Fetid Heath
- Cascade Bluffs
- Wooded Bastion
- Sunken Ruins
- Mystic Gate
- Fire-Lit Thicket
- Graven Cairns
- Sungrass Prairie
- Skycloud Expanse
- Shadowblood Ridge
- Mossfire Valley
- Darkwater Catacombs
- Aysen Abbey
- Wizards' School
- Castle Sengir
- Koskun Keep
- An-Havva Township
Miscellaneous Filter Lands
These lands don’t fall into any cycle. Some of them are also only technically filter lands with a more general definition just like the Homelands cards mentioned above.
Why Are Filter Lands Good?
Filter lands are good because they help fix your colors and can tap the same turn you play them. Three-color decks love them for the flexibility of having one dominant color and easily getting the other colors needed.
Avoid Too Many Colors
Unknown Shores | Illustration by Rob Alexander
As weird as it may sound, try to avoid filters in decks with tons of colors. They’re at home in decks running two colors. They’re good as long as you have any land but another filter land on the field.
Go beyond three colors and I’d say you’re cruising for a bruising. You start to thin out what you can produce while increasing what you need. Plus, run too many filters and you lead into disaster if you can’t even power them.
You could argue that the Odyssey filters are better for 5-color decks, but they don’t even produce the colorless mana that the Shadowmoor and Eventide filters do, which is risky.
Demanding Mana (i.e., Control)
You’re going to want to slot filter lands into decks that run cards that demand colored pips in their mana costs. Think Cryptic Command that requires three blue . Sometimes that third blue mana can be hard to come across, and paying a white into your Mystic Gate or a black into Sunken Ruins to produce double blue can save your rear.
You’ll run into these situations more in control decks than anywhere else, so keep an eye out for opportunities like this.
To be completely honest, you shouldn’t expect to see filter lands too often. Fetches and shocks are objectively better, and so are check and fast lands. These types of dual lands are faster at fixing mana pools because they don’t need anything else to do it. And in the case of fetches, well, they fetch out these other powerful lands and thin out your deck while they’re at it.
Eternal Formats and Filters
Rugged Praire | Illustration by Christine Choi
All of that said, the more formal filter lands I’ve been talking about are solid in eternal formats where they’re available as long as your deck can support them. Most competitive Constructed formats skip filter lands in favor of other dual lands and fixing. Now, as for the Limited environment, we like to see something a little different.
Limited
This is where you’ll be picking up cards like Conduit Pylons; they’re nice to have in some situations. I wouldn’t recommend taking more than one or two as their method of filtering requires you to tap two lands for one mana, but it’s nice when you’re stuck for a particular source and really need it for a splash. They also produce a colorless mana on their own, meaning they still pull their weight.
Commander
Wizards wants your Commander deck to work, so to help you play your cards, filter lands do a great job. Many decks maintain an identity in a guild pair or trio of color combinations, solidifying filter lands as a one-of that fits in nicely.
Where to Get Filter Lands
If you’re looking to get your hands on filter lands, fret not. They are generally less pricey than fetches or dual lands. In fact, you can find many popular ones for anywhere from $3 to $10 on average.
The less notable filters that get printed every few sets like Conduit Pylons, Cave of Temptation and Unknown Shores are usually only a few cents.
If you’re looking for a good place to hunt for deals on filter lands, I always suggest checking out an online vendor like TCGPlayer or CardKingdom. You can filter by condition on either site and hunt down the price that works for you best. Amazon and eBay are also options. A buy & sell group on the Facebook Marketplace might also carry the filter land you've been searching for.
I also always recommend seeing if your LGS has a copy of what you’re looking for in stock. It can be harder to find specific single copies of a card at physical locations, but your LGS has a much better chance to understand your request for “filter lands” and puts in the work to provide Magic products and events so you can enjoy the game and they deserve some attention.
Reprints
Reprints are definitely possible, especially for the ally and enemy cycles from Shadowmoor and Eventide. They tend to get a decent amount of reprints already, with filter lands popping up in Commander products connected to Outlaws Thunder Junction, Murders at Karlov Manor, and Dominaria United. You won't see reprints every time, but you can expect to see them every few years.
Alternatives to Filter Lands
Fetid Heath | Illustration by Christine Choi
I can’t really say that there are alternatives to filters. They’re very unique in their design and application, and most of the time your alternatives are just the types of filter lands that are more geared towards the Limited environment like Shimmering Grotto.
They can help convert your mana, but you’ll be at a net loss on the battlefield and that’s a little ugly. At that rate, the subpar filter land could have just been the basic land you needed or even another dual of some sort.
Do Filter Lands Have Basic Land Types?
No, filter lands do not have a land type that can be searched out, and they do not count towards a card like Blanchwood Armor.
Are Signet Lands The Same As Filter Lands?
Not quite, you can call all signet lands filter lands, but not all filter lands are signet lands.
Desolate Mire is a Fallout card with black and white color identity, and the same text box as Orzhov Signet, except it's a land.
What If I Use A Mana Doubler With Filter Lands?
Filter lands pair beautifully with mana doublers. If you activate Flooded Grove while you control Nyxbloom Ancient you get six mana, if you had activated Crystal Quarry, your one land just produced 15 mana. It still works well with the true mana doubler in Mana Reflection, but not as explosively as with Mirari's Wake which causes additional mana.
Wrap Up
Cascade Bluffs | Illustration by Brandon Kitkouski
So, what do you think? Do you have a use for these lands that I’m not aware of that you’d like to share? Maybe you have some questions about other situations that would call for them to be used. Whatever it may be, feel free to drop it in the comments for some discussion!
If you’re not quite sold on our content is yet, or if you’re just hungry for more, check out our blog for more stuff about lands. Oh, and every other facet of Magic as well.
In the meantime, I hope you have wonderful day, and remember, filter out the bad stuff and keep the good!
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1 Comment
I like the Filter-Lands and i don’t understand why some of them get reprinted all the time and others aren’t reprinted at all. Even in commander decks where you could reprint several of these lands, often only the already cheap ones are reprinted and the more rare ones are left out, what makes no sense to me. I really hate it when cycles have such diffrent amounts of supply, and thus very difrent price tags on them.
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