All 36 Play Additional Land Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on February 27, 2026

Kiora, the Crashing Wave | Illustration by Scott M. Fischer

MTG has some simple, basic rules. You start at 20 life, play one land a turn, and draw one card a turn, and you can have some life, land, and card advantages based on what you’re playing. Green decks usually want to have an advantage on mana, whether by generating more mana than the usual, or having effects that allow us to play more lands.

Today, I’m taking you through each card in the game that allows you to play more lands than the usual one per turn. And as you’ll see, doing so is quite strong in competitive decks, so we have a lot of Constructed aces up our sleeves, especially in the higher ranks.

Enough chat. Let’s dive in! 

What Are Play Additional Land Cards in MTG?

Dryad of the Ilysian Grove | Illustration by Scott Murphy

Additional land cards allow you to play more than the usual one land each turn. One of the main rules of MTG is that you can only play one land each turn, so these cards break this one fundamental rule of the game. These are typically green cards since green is the MTG color most associated with the power of nature, mana abundance, and lands.

The emphasis here is on the ability to play additional lands, because many ramp cards like Cultivate or Rampant Growth allow you to put lands into play, but those don’t count as your land for the turn. Explore and Growth Spiral have functionally similar effects, but only Explore would be eligible for this list.

#36. Beanstalk Wurm

Starting things off with a common that lets you play an additional land on its adventure side. Beanstalk Wurm offers good value for Draft chaff, though not enough to make it into Constructed formats.

#35. Scale the Heights

Another card that’s more designed for Limited. Scale the Heights gives us a juiced-up Explore, but 2-mana ramp is far superior to 3-mana ramp.

#34. Rites of Flourishing

Here we have a Howling Mine plus an Exploration effect on a single card. Rites of Flourishing is a group hug card that helps all players equally, but it creates a problem in other strategies because you spend your mana on a card that helps everybody. You can make up for this weakness by playing more ramp payoffs and more lands, but that’s it.

#33. Journey of Discovery

Journey of Discovery lets you get two basics, play two additional lands, or both if you paid 6 mana. Neither of the modes of this entwine modal spell is very exciting, so I’d say the card works best when you need to play more lands badly with cards like Crucible of Worlds or when you’re somehow flooded with lands.

#32. Enter the Unknown

Enter the Unknown has a cute synergy with the explore mechanic. Either you put a +1/+1 counter on a creature, or you’ll get an extra land that you can play right away. It’s also a 1-mana spell, at least, and sometimes you can accelerate your game plan just fine.

#31. Storm Cauldron

Five mana? And it helps everyone? Storm Cauldron is a bad card. But funnily enough, this can hit your opponents hard because they’ll be the first ones to have their lands return to their hands. This card can make the game crawl to a halt if no one’s playing their spells. It works well if you can effectively make more land drops or if you have landfall synergies.

#30. Urban Evolution

Here’s a Limited card that actually made it to Constructed. Urban Evolution improves on the ability to draw three cards for 5 mana by letting you play more than one land, combining card advantage with actual ramp.

#29. Prismatic Undercurrents

Prismatic Undercurrents is a variant on Explosive Vegetation and I'm for it. It's outclassed for mono-green decks, but gives you the last leaps and bounds to get to your biggest spells.

#28. Case of the Locked Hothouse

This case enchantment is a whole step better than the other additional land cards so far. Case of the Locked Hothouse is an Oracle of Mul Daya in steps. First you get to play one more land, then when you get to seven lands, the top of your library is unlocked. Getting to also play enchantments mean that the card fits more deck shells.

#27. Escape to the Wilds

WotC gave a little more oomph to Urban Evolution and designed Escape to the Wilds. Here, the biggest advantage is that you have access to five cards. It was made to work very well with adventure cards, so you can play the adventure side of the exiled cards and play the regular side on a later turn.

#26. Nahiri’s Lithoforming

Nahiri's Lithoforming is the only mono-red card here, and it allows you to get rid of excess lands you might have, enable landfall or Scapeshift combos, and more. It’s a powerful explosive landfall enabler, but don’t bother with this card if you’re not doing that.

#25. Ghirapur Orrery

Ghirapur Orrery is a hard symmetrical effect to take advantage of. The best homes are in decks that dump their hands and play to the board to draw three cards more often than your opponents. It also has its advantages as an artifact every deck can play.

#24. Zell Dincht

Zell Dincht is quite affordable for an adjacent color that cares about landfall. Power and combat aside, Zell is a mighty enabler for a lands matter deck, and though I can't picture slotting it into anything other than a landfall commander deck, it stands as a decent card as is.

#23. Hearthhull, the Worldseed

Hearthhull, the Worldseed still allows you to progress on station level one. That mana can be paid with the same land you sacrifice making the ability very easy to swallow. Drawing cards and getting a great artifact creature out of this is really cool.

#22. Exploration Broodship

One is a really big reason Exploration Broodship lands here on this list. It might do nothing until you station it, but if you can spare a dork, 3+ charge counters is easy to achieve. Once you get to the 8+ level, losing one tapped land means very little, and the card advantage is huge, especially since there's no exile clause to stop you from re-casting a permanent turn after turn. Again, really good for one and a tapped creatures.

#21. Oracle of Mul Daya

Now we’ve arrived at a classic. Oracle of Mul Daya is only a 2/2 for 4 mana, but combining the ability to play two lands and playing from the top of your library makes all the difference. This card can ramp and gives you so much card advantage that it’s a must-kill when it hits the board.

#20. Druid Class

Druid Class is a small monster you can assemble in turns. It’s nice that this green enchantment costs only 2 mana, and you start reaping the rewards immediately with the lifegain. Level two of this class unlocks the mode we’re most interested in, and late in the game you get a decent-sized creature as a bonus.

#19. Azusa, Lost but Seeking

Azusa, Lost but Seeking allows you to play not one extra land, but two. It’s still an interesting causal green commander after all these years, and it enables landfall like a boss, even with its fragile body. Pair Azusa with Tireless Tracker to get extra cards when you play lands, which lets you draw more lands to play, allowing for a very interesting combo.

#18. Azusa’s Many Journeys / Likeness of the Seeker

Azusa's Many Journeys is a saga that saw plenty of Standard play. The combination of playing more land, gaining some life to fight fast aggro starts, and getting a 3/3 in the end is very solid for a “Draft uncommon” card.

#17. Wayward Swordtooth

Wayward Swordtooth started its MTG career as an awkward 3-drop that later became a Standard staple in ramp decks. Turns out, when you’re playing more lands a turn and have some tokens, you’ll ascend and get the city’s blessing pretty quickly, and end up with an undercosted 5/5 dinosaur. Plus, it's a great place to aim fight spells early on.

#16. Loot, Exuberant Explorer

Foundations’ Loot, Exuberant Explorer is nice as both an enabler and payoff for playing extra lands. When you have enough mana, you can start cheating creatures into play. It blocks very well as a 1/4, allowing you to develop your ramp plan.

#15. Song of Creation

Song of Creation is a huge source of card advantage and a way to churn through your library to find what you need. It works very well with other cards from this list, as you’ll be drawing a bunch of lands. Might as well play them!

#14. Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait

Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait is like a Tatyova, Benthic Druid that trades the “gain 1 life” text for “play extra lands.” As such, Aesi is a popular Simic commander (), and with this serpent at the helm, you get to play more land and more ramp and be nicely rewarded for it.

#13. Mina and Denn, Wildborn

Mina and Denn, Wildborn is very powerful in a landfall deck. Even if you don’t have lands in your hand to play, you can return one of them to your hand and play it again.

#12. Hugs, Grisly Guardian

Hugs, Grisly Guardian is a massive 5/5 trample creature for just 4 mana that allows you to play extra lands. The real synergy comes with its enters ability tied to the X cost. Let’s say you exiled four cards: two lands and two spells. You may play the extra lands you’ve exiled on this turn and the next while also having some spells you can cast. Talk about efficiency!

#11. Kiora, the Crashing Wave

Kiora, the Crashing Wave has an Explore effect on the -1, and you can activate that ability twice and call it a day. But the most profitable course of action is to alternate between this planeswalker’s +1 and -1 abilities, protecting yourself while getting extra resources.

#10. Sword of Forge and Frontier

Sword of Forge and Frontier has its main role as a powerful equipment with extra lands as a side effect, and you can play this in non-green decks as well. This sword’s abilities synergize well together, as exiling two lands goes well with playing extra lands.

#9. Kellan, Inquisitive Prodigy

Kellan, Inquisitive Prodigy works very well as a good-statted creature that acts as a pseudo Trygon Predator. Here we’re interested in its adventure side, which is very similar to Explore and can be an interesting ramp effect early in the game, while not dead late.

#8. Flubs, the Fool

Flubs, the Fool is powerful but pretty hard to play with. You have to sequence your cards pretty well and have one card in hand to profit the most. It works very well with discard-based mechanics like madness, cards like Hazoret the Fervent, or graveyard synergies. With Flubs, the Fool around, it's ideal to try and maintain having just one card in your hand at any given time.

#7. Explore

Explore is simple, and it works. A 2-mana cantrip, you’re not losing on anything, and you can play it when you already have the extra land you want to play or if you’re digging for lands. It’s not a dead draw in the late game, either.

#6. Exploration

For only 1 mana, Exploration offers you the same benefit that cards like Rites of Flourishing offer to every other player. It’s backbreaking when you go Exploration plus a land, and the next turn you drop two lands. If you’re playing landfall decks, make sure to include this ramp enchantment.

#5. The Gitrog Monster

The Gitrog Monster is the classic lands commander. Each turn, you have to sacrifice a land and you draw a card when they hit the bin. The fact that you can play two lands a turn means you’ll hardly run out of them, and that works with self-mill effects and combos involving dredge, especially on Dakmor Salvage.

#4. Icetill Explorer

Considering that Ramunap Excavator is a well-known and solid snake to help you replay lands from your graveyard, Icetill Explorer costs just more to add on toughness, a self-mill trigger and additional lands. Power creep on still powerful cards is enough to make Magic players go crazy. Nearly every lands matter deck wants to explore its options with this cool scout.

#3. Thalia and The Gitrog Monster

Thalia and The Gitrog Monster is, in many ways, an improved The Gitrog Monster, combining the effects of that card with Thalia, Heretic Cathar on an awesome first strike and deathtouch body. You can’t combo that well, but it’s a cheaper creature and it lets you play three colors, which is huge for EDH.

#2. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove

Dryad of the Ilysian Grove is an absolute green Commander staple, offering you 5-color fixing and additional lands. It’s also a good-sized body and an enchantment for additional synergies.

#1. Summer Bloom

Summer Bloom is the additional lands card with the most explosive potential. It’s proven to be a damn good combination with bounce lands and cards like Amulet of Vigor, allowing you to start a sequence where you bounce a land, generate 2 mana, return another land to your hand, play it, tap to generate mana, play another land, generate 1 more mana, and so on. It gets silly if you have two bounce lands, too.

The only problem with this card is that if you don’t have lands in your hand, the card doesn’t do anything. It sees the most play in Legacy and Commander, and it's currently banned in Modern.

Best Play Additional Land Payoffs

Many of the cards from this list are also payoffs for playing more lands. Here’s a few goodies you might want to bring along.

The obvious payoff is landfall. With more lands coming into play, cards like Tireless Tracker, Avenger of Zendikar, Toph, Earthbending Master, and the like become more powerful. 

Expensive, big-mana cards, ramp payoffs, or cards that care about having many lands in play are very interesting here. Be on the lookout for cards like Zimone and Dina and Omnath, Locus of the Roil. Bumi, Unleashed wants all your lands to get a second tap, and earthbending them is highly recommended. 

X spells benefit a lot from extra lands. Sticking with green gives you cards like Genesis Hydra or Genesis Wave, but branching into other colors like red or blue can give you strong finishers too.

What Counts as Playing a Land?

Playing a land is a player action that doesn't use the stack and can't be responded to. It almost always involves putting a land from your hand directly onto the battlefield, though you can sometimes play lands from other zones if an effect allows it. You can only play one land a turn by default.

Putting a land into play as part of the resolution of some spell or ability is different. Rules-wise, putting a land into play is part of an effect or ability, and it doesn’t count towards the “play one land a turn limit.” I can put a land into play using Rampant Growth and play a land from my hand, and these are two separate actions. Playing a land from my hand would trigger Horn of Greed, whereas Rampant Growth would not.

Can You Play Multiple Lands in a Turn?

The rules of MTG say that you can only play one land during your own turn. You can only play multiple lands in a turn if an effect modifies that rule, like the ability on Oracle of Mul Daya. The rule also applies to MDFC lands, provided that you play the land side and not the spell side.

How Many Artifact Lands Can You Play Per Turn?

You can only play one land a turn, whether they’re artifact lands, basic lands, or enchantment lands. Artifact lands count exactly the same as other lands for the purposes of playing them during a given turn. 

Do “Play Additional Land” Abilities Stack?

Yes, they do. If I have Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Oracle of Mul Daya in play, I’d be able to play three additional lands a turn, two additional from Azusa and one more from the Oracle. 

What Happens If I Blink an Additional Land Card?

According to rule 305.2, nothing happens, because the number of lands you can play on a given turn is set. If I have, let’s say, Exploration in play, and I’ve already played my two lands in a turn, blinking Exploration won’t raise the 2-land limit per turn to three. It used to work this way, so blinking these kinds of cards was more exploitable, but it doesn’t like that anymore.

If you want to know how many lands you can still play during a turn, add up the total amount of lands you're allowed to play based on the effects that modify this, and that's the maximum number of land drops you can make.

Wrap Up

Exploration | Illustration by Mark Poole

And that takes us through all the cards that allow us to play extra lands, as well as a few reasons for doing so. It’s really bad when we have a high mana value card in hand with all the lands we need to cast it, but have to slog through a single land drop per turn. With these tools around and a few mana rocks, maybe you can solve that problem.

What are your favorite ramp-style cards? Do you play any of these cards frequently? Let me know in the comments section below, or over in the Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading folks, and keep making those land drops.