Last updated on March 30, 2025

Thalia and The Gitrog Monster | Illustration by Howard Lyon
Every Magic deck requires lands, barring some very specific builds, but some decks make lands a much bigger part of their strategy. These decks utilize cards that specifically interact with lands entering or leaving the battlefield and usually include ways to get additional lands. If youโre looking to build a Commander deck around lands, youโll want to pick a commander that fits the theme well.
Lands commanders come in a variety of different styles and color identities, although most include green since it has the best land support in the game. Some lands commanders are good at getting you extra lands, while others reward you for playing lands. Still others have more unique interactions with lands, like turning them into creatures or even wanting you to sacrifice your own lands.
There are a lot of lands commanders to choose from, and this isnโt an exhaustive list of every option. That said, I did take a look at some of the most commonly used lands commanders that I thought were the best for either trying out the theme or making a powerful deck. If one of your favorite lands commanders isnโt on the list, let me know in the comments! Iโm always excited to learn about builds I might not have considered yet.
What Are Lands Commanders in MTG?

Tatyova, Benthic Druid | Illustration by Mathias Kollros
A lands commander is any legal commander that has a focus on land cards. Theyโre mostly legendary creatures, though there are some planeswalkers that can be your commander, and one in particular that fits this list very well.
#30. Thrasios, Triton Hero + Vial Smasher the Fierce
Thrasios, Triton Hero and Vial Smasher the Fierce are a popular duo when it comes to partner commanders. Thrasios allows you to ramp, making it easier to cast big spells and deal damage with Vial Smasher. Thrasiosโs ability may seem expensive, but itโs the perfect mana sink for a land themed deck, and the extra ramp you build in will make it easy to afford the expensive spells that Vial Smasher likes.
#29. Muldrotha, the Gravetide
Muldrotha, the Gravetide, one of the best Sultai commanders, is more often played as a sacrifice or graveyard-matters commander, but it still works pretty well for a lands deck. Being able to replay lands from your graveyard makes it easier for you to get consistent landfall triggers, especially if youโre running fetch lands. One of the strongest Sultai cards in the game, Muldrotha overall makes your deck more consistent since your opponents have to exile permanents if they donโt want you using them again.
#28. Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer
Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer has two good payoffs for playing lands. Making your commander stronger makes it more effective in combat and harder to remove with damage. This card also allows you to spend your mana on getting additional lands, knowing youโll be getting badger creatures for free along with them.
#27. Titania, Protector of Argoth
Titania, Protector of Argoth makes pretty strong creature tokens, youโll just need consistent ways to play lands from your graveyard. Green has a good number of options for this and ways to sacrifice your own lands for helpful effects. This commander also gives you some insurance against mass land destruction which is always a plus.
#26. Slogurk, the Overslime
Slogurk, the Overslime gives you the freedom to sacrifice lands to spells or abilities while giving you a way to potentially get them back. Since the lands can enter your graveyard from anywhere, you can also mill yourself and get lands back from your graveyard with Slogurkโs ability.
#25. Azusa, Lost but Seeking
Azusa, Lost but Seeking makes it easy to get more lands on the battlefield than your opponents, and pretty quickly. This is especially helpful in lands decks which usually run a larger percentage of lands than normal decks, so itโs more likely youโll get to utilize this commander to the best of its ability. This human commander has seen plenty of reprints, including a Hatsune Miku Secret Lair crossover.
#24. Bristly Bill, Spine Sower
Thereโs a huge intersection in EDH between green cards, +1/+1 counters, and landfall. Bristly Bill, Spine Sower is perfectly poised in this scenario, and it only costs 2 mana, allowing you to start your engines early. Having cards like fetch lands and Cultivates means that youโll spread a lot of counters, and in the late game you can start doubling those counters. Cards like Mossborn Hydra and Scythecat Cub are right at home with Bristly Bill around.
#23. Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor
Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor is another lands commander that allows you to focus most of your effort on playing more lands. Youโll get at least one big attacker each turn from Obuunโs first ability or two if youโre safe to swing with your commander. This allows you to ramp early game and still deal some damage, then once you have a lot of lands you can play big splashy spells to help finish off your weakened opponents. Other landfall abilities that generate tokens, like Felidar Retreatโs, can also help you build a bigger board state while ramping.
#22. Tatyova, Steward of Tides
Tatyova, Steward of Tides is a unique lands commander because it focuses on a specific type of lands: land creatures. There are some lands that can naturally turn into creatures like Restless Vinestalk, and spells like Sylvan Awakening can do the same. These combined with Tatyovaโs ability give you a lot of ways to turn your lands into flying creatures, meaning you can ramp while also having plenty of creatures.
#21. Titania, Natureโs Force
Titania, Nature's Force may only focus on forests, but in a mono-green deck thatโs most of your lands. This card gives you very strong creatures just for playing your lands, and it makes it easier to get land drops from your graveyard. This also means you can use cards like Elvish Reclaimer to sacrifice a land, and then play that land again from the graveyard, giving you more chances to trigger Titaniaโs ability.
#20. Loot, Exuberant Explorer
Foundationsโs Loot, Exuberant Explorer enables you to play extra lands, and itโs a payoff at the same time. Youโre quickly incentivized to reach six lands and spin the wheels with Lootโs activated ability, which gets better the more lands you have in play.
#19. Omnath, Locus of Rage
Omnath, Locus of Rage may be expensive, but once it hits the battlefield it does a lot of work for you. Not only can it create very strongs token pretty easily, it can also deal a significant amount of damage. Using fling effects or Goblin Bombardment gives you ways to sacrifice your own elementals and deal damage with Omnath. Cards like Terror of the Peaks, one of the best dragons in Magic, can also do a lot of damage when youโre consistently making 5/5s.
#18. Borborygmos and Fblthp
Borborygmos and Fblthp can do a good job of removing creatures, something that Temur can sometimes struggle with. This commander can work well with cards like Turntimber Sower that care about lands being put in the graveyard. Youโll probably want to run a larger number of lands in this deck than normal, so you have a better chance of dealing damage.
#17. Yarok, the Desecrated
Lands decks are usually going to run a decent number of landfall abilities to cash in on all the extra lands youโre playing. Yarok, the Desecrated doubles up all these landfall abilities and any other ETBs that you have in your deck. Lands like Field of the Dead and Bojuka Bog also have their own ETB effects that you can double up with this excellent horror commander.
#16. Archelos, Lagoon Mystic
Archelos, Lagoon Mystic works well as a land commander because it enhances the natural advantages of playing more lands than your opponents. Your ramp spells like Farseek allow you to put lands onto the battlefield untapped, and any tap lands youโre running can come in untapped. You can also slow down your opponentsโ game if you have a way to safely tap Archelos each turn.
#15. Omo, Queen of Vesuva
Omo, Queen of Vesuva is a very interesting Simic commander, giving your lands a kind-of Vesuva ability. More importantly, lands with everything counters count as every land type, and there are plenty of interesting land types in MTG like the Urza lands or the locus lands like Cloudpost. You can also consider that lands you control are gates or snow lands. The only problem is that these lands only have this ability while your commander is alive, so be ready to blink it or protect it from removal.
#14. Tatyova, Benthic Druid
Tatyova, Benthic Druidโs ability might not be super exciting, but it allows you to have a very consistent game. Youโll constantly be drawing more cards, especially in a lands deck, ensuring you have something to do each turn. In a game like Magic where entire games can be ruined by bad draws or being mana screwed/flooded, Tatyova can win you games just by cutting down on your bad luck.
#13. The Gitrog Monster
Lands commanders like The Gitrog Monster that allow you to play extra lands are always helpful for triggering landfall abilities or any other land-based abilities. Consistently sacrificing lands can also help trigger abilities and will keep you drawing cards with this frog horror. Including ways to get lands back from the graveyard makes this deck more consistent and keeps you from ever actually going down on mana.
#12. Zimone and Dina
Zimone and Dina makes it pretty easy to play extra lands, as long as you have ways to generate creatures to sacrifice on a regular basis. Ophiomancer is a good addition for this commander, as is Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler or similar ways to untap your commander and activate its ability multiple times. This can help you ramp and keep a full hand, and occasionally drain some life from your opponents.
#11. Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait
Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait has similar positive attributes to The Gitrog Monster, just with less of the graveyard interactions. That said I like this commander slightly better as thereโs no risk of losing too many lands or relying on ways to get them back from the graveyard. Youโll still be drawing a lot of cards and playing extra lands.
#10. Titania, Voice of Gaea
Titania, Voice of Gaea on its own isnโt the most exciting commander, but once youโre able to meld it with Argoth, Sanctum of Nature, it becomes a lot more powerful. Titania is easier to meld than other creatures with the mechanic because green has a lot of ways to find specific lands. Crop Rotation is perfect for this deck because it throws a land in the graveyard and finds you Argoth when youโre ready to meld. Titania, Gaea Incarnate is a great attacker and blocker, and it can trigger a lot of abilities by returning all your lands to the field. With an abundance of lands, you can easily make them into creatures and not worry too much about losing a couple.
#9. Hazezon, Shaper of Sand
Hazezon, Shaper of Sand is a unique lands commander, focusing on desert lands. There are a decent number of deserts you can put in this deck, and since you can play them from the graveyard you can also sacrifice the ones you have and play them again to make more tokens. Naya () commanders have good support for tokens and creating wide board states, which makes Hazezon a great color for what this deck wants to do.
#8. Nine-Fingers Keene
Nine-Fingers Keene is a lands commander that focuses on a specific type of lands: gates. It makes it easy to find gates and is also a form of ramp. Keeneโs ward ability is a big price for opponents to pay just to target it, and if you run counterspells you can easily get opponents to waste some of their life. Menace makes it easier to attack with this commander, but youโll still probably want other ways to keep it safe so you can trigger its ability.
#7. Soul of Windgrace
Soul of Windgrace gives you quite a few ways to make use of your lands by discarding them. This means they wonโt feel like dead draws once you already have your mana base set up. You can also immediately get the lands you discard back by attacking with your commander, so it would be helpful to have a card like Mithril Coat to keep it safe.
#6. Glarb, Calamity's Augur
Glarb, Calamity's Augur is a Sultai commander () that allows you to play lands from the top of your library. That usually means youโre not missing your land drop, a key aspect in ramp decks. Whatโs more, you can also play spells that cost 4 or more from the top of your library, which means youโll want to have lands in play to get the most out of this commander. Having the surveil 2 ability is super strong because you can choose the order of the cards on the top of your library and maximize value. You can even choose to dump cheap cards you canโt cast, or the very expensive ones you lack the mana to cast.
#5. Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir
Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir makes what Iโd consider the best kind of land creatures. Theyโre flying, so itโs easier for them to get around blockers, and they go back to being lands at the end of your turn, so you donโt have to worry about them being easily removed. Simic has an easy time keeping your hand full, so your land creatures will probably be pretty big.
#4. The Necrobloom
The Necrobloom offers you the Field of the Dead ability straight from the command zone. As long as youโre dropping lands, youโre also making tokens, and that serves myriad purposes, like sacrifice outlets or zombie typal strategies. Youโll also incidentally self-mill a lot because your lands have dredge 2, so you can get key land cards like Wasteland and Dark Depths back. Plus, if you would draw a bunch of cards, you can dredge a bunch of lands instead.
#3. Omnath, Locus of Creation
Omnath, Locus of Creation gives you a lot of value when youโre able to play multiple lands on a turn. This elemental commanderโs lifegain can build you a cushion and give you some extra time, the extra mana can make it a lot easier to cast more spells each turn, and dealing damage can be really helpful for removing planeswalkers or at least fending off their ultimate abilities.
#2. Lord Windgrace
Lord Windgrace is a powerful planeswalker commander and one of the strongest Jund commanders, perfect for a lands build. You can draw lots of extra cards by discarding your lands and then get them directly onto the battlefield the following turn. While Windgraceโs ultimate ability can be good, its first two abilities are probably going to do the most work for you and keep your game consistent.
#1. Thalia and The Gitrog Monster
Thalia and The Gitrog Monster takes the best abilities from the commanders it combines while ditching the inherent downside of the original The Gitrog Monster. First strike and deathtouch discourages your opponents from blocking, meaning you can easily benefit from this frog commanderโs attack trigger.
Best Lands Commander Payoffs
One of the best ways to benefit from having a lot of lands in your deck is to use landfall abilities. Avenger of Zendikar and Scute Swarm are popular choices, and since most lands commanders are in green, youโll be able to run them in a lot of lands decks.
Scapeshift can be a great way to get a lot of landfall triggers in a single turn and can trigger other abilities focused on lands leaving the battlefield. The right deck might also want lands in the graveyard, making this a good way to get them there while not losing your mana base.
Cards like Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar that care about how many lands you control are also great options for lands decks.
Many lands commanders want to play lands from their graveyard at a certain point, not considering the ones that already let you do it. For this purpose, cards like Ramunap Excavator, Crucible of Worlds, and Ancient Greenwarden are very good.
A card like Case of the Locked Hothouse checks all the boxes, allowing you to play more than one land, and later in the game play lands and cast creatures/enchantments from the top of your library.
Commanding Conclusion

Soul of Windgrace | Illustration by Liiga Smilshkalne
Lands commanders are a good way to get more value out of a card type every deck is already playing anyway. If youโre sick of being mana screwed, lands decks can also be a nice way to ensure youโre getting a good mana base each game. Lands commanders can also give you a new way of looking at lands, seeing them as resources beyond the mana they produce. This is always a fun way to shake up how you think about the cards youโre playing and keeps the game from feeling stale.
Whatโs your favorite lands commander? How many lands do you like to run in land-focused decks? Were there any commanders you think I missed that should be included here? Let me know in the comments or on Draftsimโs Twitter/X.
Thank you for reading, and Iโll see you next time!
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