The 32 Best Nonbasic Land Hate Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on August 18, 2025

Blood Moon | Illustration by Esuthio

No matter which MTG format you play, some nonbasic lands will give you trouble. In Standard, you’re constantly threatened by cards like Cavern of Souls, the Restless creature lands, and Edge of Eternities' Adagia, Windswept Bastion or Evendo, Waking Haven. Older formats have the Urza Tron lands, Eldrazi Temple, Mutavault, Dark Depths, and the list goes on.

So, how to you fight these menaces? Turns out there are many ways, from land “spot removal” to outright nonbasic sweepers. Today we look at how to hate on them, be it with destruction or simply turning them into harmless pieces of cardboard – or Mountains. Let’s go!

What Is Nonbasic Land Hate in MTG?

Ruination | Illustration by Joseph Meehan

I define nonbasic land hate as specific cards that hit nonbasic lands hard (and only nonbasics), or cards that give you an advantage if an opponent has many nonbasics in play. Hate in MTG is everything you do to neutralize certain strategies or a certain card type. These are suitable options whether you care about sniping a specific land like Urza's Tower or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, or if you just want to punish that player with 19 nonbasic lands in play.

Since I focus specifically on nonbasic land hate, you won’t see mass land destruction here, like Armageddon and Strip Mine. There’s also no focus on format, so some cards can be better in Modern or Standard, while some cards might be more suitable for EDH.

#32. Wilderness Elemental

In EDH, Wilderness Elemental can very well be a 10/3 trampler coming down on turns 3-4, and it’ll only get bigger as the game goes on. This can be a surprising source of damage from nowhere in Gruul () decks that can grant haste.

#31. Tsabo's Web

Tsabo's Web is weird nonbasic hate that works for a certain type of card. At least it cantrips on ETB and it’s a cheap artifact, so some decks like blink may want to play this. It’s a very annoying card to have in play because it’s going to affect only a subset of lands, so it requires some tracking.

#30. Alpine Moon

Alpine Moon is a Pithing Needle for a specific land, so to speak. It works better in 1v1 formats when you need to hate a specific land, like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Urza's Tower.

#29. Myriad Construct

Myriad Construct is an interesting card. It’s a 4/4 that dies into four artifacts most of the time, but it becomes a real menace if it’s kicked. Seven mana for a 15/15 or 20/20 that your opponents won’t want to kill is strong, and this card can go wide with a sacrifice outlet, too.

#28. Damping Sphere

Damping Sphere is a mix of storm hate and Tron/Eldrazi/Cloudpost hate, making it a flexible sideboard card. It’s not removing color or destroying the land, but it’s slowing some of the unfair decks.

#27. Helldozer

Helldozer isn’t the most efficient creature in terms of rate and size, but if you can activate twice each turn to nuke two nonbasics, maybe your opponents will be pressed to do something about it very quickly.

#26. Tectonic Edge

Tectonic Edge was considered a fixed Wasteland for some time in formats like Modern, until better hate options appeared. It’s a good option to destroy problematic nonbasic lands though, especially in singleton formats.

#25. Destructive Flow

Destructive Flow is an annoying effect to have on the table, no doubt about it. My only consideration is that if you don’t want to get screwed, you’ll have to fix your three sources of mana via mana rocks. Or maybe you don’t mind if you have a way to replay lands from the graveyard, or you have something like The Gitrog Monster in play.

#24. Choking Sands

Choking Sands is a Stone Rain for nonbasics that also deals 2 damage. It has the non-swamp restriction though, but that’s mostly irrelevant if Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth isn’t around. Many of the nonbasics you want to get don’t even have the swamp type.

#23. Molten Rain

Molten Rain is a little better than Choking Sands as it doesn’t have a restriction, and red decks are more interested in this effect than black ones.

#22. Magmatic Hellkite

Magmatic Hellkite has a cool use for a stun counter which makes it much better than a Ghost Quarter effect. The large flier is good but with a low ceiling.

#21. Fulminator Mage

Fulminator Mage was a Modern staple until it became too weak and slow for the format. Still, it’s a way to keep nonbasic lands in check, especially if you have creature recursion.

#20. Crumble to Dust

Crumble to Dust is a way to get rid of a nonbasic land and all its copies. If you really don’t want your opponent to have Urza's Tower, or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, or Phyrexian Tower, here’s a way to get them gone for good. Forget about this in EDH though, as there’s too much useless text.

#19. From the Ashes

From the Ashes replaces nonbasic lands with basic lands. As weak as it might sound, most decks don’t operate well on basics alone, especially in EDH where the 3+ color players don’t expect this effect.

#18. Anathemancer

Anathemancer‘s ETB hits a player only once, but you can unearth it later to do it again. It has two relevant creature types while being a body you don’t mind sacrificing and unearthing later.

#17. Mercadia's Downfall

Mercadia's Downfall is a finisher in a go-wide deck, especially when playing against 3+ color decks. It’s also interesting to mess with your opponents’ combat steps if they're attacking each other in EDH.

#16. Sunspine Lynx

Sunspine Lynx has an ETB that is not unique, but very welcome. The first two sentences in the text box that stop lifegain and prohibit damage prevention are big time hate for certain decks, so leave it to this cat to help shut down any hope that they'll move the goal posts on your race to damage them to zero.

#15. Price of Progress

Price of Progress sees play in burn decks as an interesting piece of direct damage. If your opponent has two nonbasics, paying 2 to deal 4 is already a good rate, and it only gets better from there.

#14. Archon of Emeria

Archon of Emeria combines a High Noon effect with an ability that slows down nonbasic lands. Your lands aren’t affected, so that’s already a good way to hate only your opponents. This card will slow the game down, and that’s just what control/stax decks want from a 3-drop.

#13. Thalia, Heretic Cathar

Thalia, Heretic Cathar gets a little nod over Archon of Emeria for being a human, and for hating on creatures, too. Otherwise, these are very similar cards, and they’re both playable in stax/prison decks.

#12. Obsidian Charmaw

Obsidian Charmaw’s fail case is a 4/4 flier for 5 mana, so it’s an okay rate for a card. It can realistically cost , especially in EDH, and when it ETBs you get to nuke an opponent’s nonbasic. One of the card’s best uses is against decks like Tron or Eldrazi since they depend on critical nonbasics that produce colorless mana to operate.

#11. Field of Ruin + Demolition Field

These cards see a lot of play in formats like Pioneer and Standard as a way to snipe a problematic nonbasic land like a creature land or a Mirrex. The only differences between the cards are that Demolition Field is a may while Field of Ruin is a must, and Ruin affects all players in a multiplayer game. Sometimes you don’t want to search your library because you’ve scried some cards to the top or bottom, or you know it’s not going to find any basic. 

#10. Burning Earth

Burning Earth is slow but annoying, and it's going to deal a lot of damage to everyone in the long run. It’s better in the hands of the aggressive players that plays the card when your opponents don’t have that much life to spend. It’s also a way to stop combos that involve tapping and untapping lands to produce infinite mana or something like Jeskai Ascendancy.

#9. Primal Order

Primal Order is a little more punishing than Burning Earth since it doesn’t care if the player uses the land or not; it’s simply going to hurt them.

#8. Magus of the Moon

Magus of the Moon is a Blood Moon on a creature, and that effect is strong nonbasic hate, especially for non-red players. It’s easily sniped as a 2/2 for 3 mana though, so this magus tends to be a little better in formats like EDH. On the Magus’s plus side, if your opponent’s removal doesn’t use red mana and they don’t have the color they need, the card will stay in play for some time.

#7. Harbinger of the Seas

Harbinger of the Seas is the newest trend in nonbasic hate, combining the will of the merfolk to turn enemy lands into islands, and the islandwalk effects granted by cards like Lord of Atlantis. It’s fragile as a 2/2 for 3 mana, but it’s a typal solution that can be buffed, and it combines pressure with disruption in an interesting way.

#6. Winter Moon

Seemingly the child of Blood Moon and Winter Orb, Winter Moon strikes the middle-ground of these effects, allowing players to untap only one nonbasic at a time. That said, this effect slows players, especially when this card ETBs after your opponents are tapped out.

#5. Blood Moon

Blood Moon is a multiformat staple, allowing you to play your mountains and your nonbasics in your red-based decks while denying mana for those pesky blue control players, Esper (), Selesnya (), you get the idea. It's harder to interact with an enchantment than a 2/2 creature like Magus of the Moon.

#4. Back to Basics

Back to Basics doesn't remove nonbasic lands from the game, but people can’t untap them. It’s a way to slow down opposing decks, and you can prepare for that by playing untap effects.

#3. Shivan Harvest

Shivan Harvest is a little restrictive in terms of the decks that are interested in playing it. But once you get the train rolling, cashing in tokens for nonbasics annoys people like few other cards.

#2. Wasteland

Wasteland is the cleanest way to trade your land for an opponent’s nonbasic. It can’t be countered, and you don’t have to spend any mana. It's one of the cleanest combos with Crucible of Worlds too, allowing you to nuke their best nonbasic land every turn.

#1. Ruination

Ruination is the ultimate nonbasic hate. You’ll only allow basic lands to live, and it’s recommended for the player with the least nonbasics, or to punish that greedy 5-color deck with all the triomes and shock lands.

Best Nonbasic Land Hate Payoffs

There are a few payoffs for nonbasic land hate beyond denying your opponents their lands and their spells. The hate you play has to favor your deck style the most. For example, if you’re playing a consistent mono-color deck with very few nonbasics, you’re in a prime position to take advantage of nonbasic land hate. You’ll usually see this trend in mono-red burn decks or white weenie/hate bears decks.

Decks like stax and prison thrive on not allowing your opponents to play their cards, either by taxing them, countering them, or color-hosing them. Aggressive decks benefit from all the extra damage your opponents are taking while not taking this damage themselves.

Cards like Klothys, God of Destiny and Deathrite Shaman benefit from lands going into the graveyard. You can take advantage of forced land sacrifices with Mayhem Devil or Tergrid, God of Fright. Lavinia, Azorius Renegade strikes fear on another level, so if you can get ahead on lands, opponents will be able to play fewer cards, plus there's a good chance one of their alternate casting options gets countered.

Cards that deal a huge amount of damage to your opponents based on the number of nonbasics they have are a big deal for commanders who care about the damage dealt in a given turn. Rakdos, Lord of Riots and Abaddon the Despoiler are good examples of this in action. Similarly, legendary creatures that care about the ping effects enjoy cards like Burning Earth (Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin or Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph, for example).

Decks like merfolk usually have ways to grant islandwalk to their creatures, so if you’re turning nonbasics into islands, you’re also granting your creatures evasion.

Wrap Up

Winter Moon | Illustration by Drew Baker

And that’s it, folks, my take on nonbasic hate. Nonbasic lands are cards that every deck has nowadays, whether to fix mana and play many colors or to have extra effects like making a token or drawing cards. Or to outright cheat on mana. Many cards that hate on nonbasic lands are good sideboard pieces, but some of them can be played in the main deck depending on the metagame or how well you can break parity on their effects.

What nonbasic land hate is your favorite? Are you for or against this kind of card? Let me know in the comments below, or let’s discuss it in the Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you around.