Last updated on September 23, 2026
The Grey Havens | Illustration by Alayna Danner
Mana is one of the most important resources in Magic, and a good land base is the foundation of a good deck. So itโs always nice when your lands do something besides making mana. Scry lands are one way to squeeze extra value out of your mana base, improving your draws without spending a dedicated card to do it.
The best-known scry lands are the 10 Theros Temples, but quite a few other lands scry through ETB triggers, activated abilities, and even attack triggers. And they tend to be pretty cheap, so theyโre especially useful when youโre building on a budget.
Let's see all about what they are, and which ones are the best!
What Are Scry Lands in MTG?
Temple of Mystery | Illustration by Piotr Dura
A scry land is any land with an ability that causes you to scry. That's usually lands that scry when they enter (as the Theros cycles do), but there are also lands with activated scry abilities, and a handful of cards that scry under more unusual conditions.
In Magic, โScry Nโ means looking at the top N cards of your library, then putting any number of them on the bottom of your library, and then putting the rest back on top in any order. Scry is an evergreen keyword (that's to say, likely to show up in every MTG set).
The classic example of a scry land is Temple of Mystery. It enters tapped, produces either green or blue mana, and lets you scry 1 when it enters. You lose some tempo by playing a tapped land, but scry lets you decide whether the next card of your library is something you actually want to draw.
Not every land on this list works that way. Castle Vantress has a repeatable activated ability that scries 2, while Restless Spire becomes a creature that scries whenever it attacks.
Technically speaking, Soldevi Excavations was the first land with the abilityโฆ though โscryโ wasn't a keyword yet, so the original Alliances printing describes what the ability does without saying โscryโ. New Benalia from Future Sight was the first land with the โscryโ keyword on it.
Scry Land Cycles
Most scry lands fall into two major cycles: the Theros Temples and Strixhavenโs Campus lands.
Theros Temples
The original cycle that gave us the term โscry landsโ consists of 10 two-color lands:
- Temple of Abandon
- Temple of Deceit
- Temple of Enlightenment
- Temple of Epiphany
- Temple of Malady
- Temple of Malice
- Temple of Mystery
- Temple of Plenty
- Temple of Silence
- Temple of Triumph
All ten Temples enter tapped, tap for one of two colors, and scry 1 when they enter. The cycle was spread across the three sets of Theros block: five Temples in the original Theros, three in Born of the Gods, and the final two in Journey into Nyx. Wizards has reprinted them extensively.
Theyโve aged considerably as Magicโs mana bases have improved, particularly because they lack basic land types (more on this in a bit!), and always enter tapped. Still, theyโre solid budget lands in slow formats like casual Commander.
Strixhaven Campuses
Strixhaven: School of Mages has another five-card cycle, but their scry ability works differently from the Theros Temples.
Each Campus enters tapped, taps for one of its collegeโs two enemy colors, and has โ, : Scry 1.โ Lorehold Campus, for example, makes red or white mana and can be tapped alongside 4 mana to scry.
An activated ability can potentially be used repeatedly, which is of course a plus. But in this case, 4 mana is expensive, and you can't use the land to produce mana in the same turn (since the activation requires you to tap it). The upside is that it gives reactive decks a mana sink if they hold up interaction but donโt have a good chance to cast a spell.
Other Scry Lands
The rest of Magicโs scry lands donโt fit neatly into a single cycle, and there's a bit of everything:
- Castle Vantress
- Crystal Grotto
- Forsaken Crossroads
- Isolated Watchtower
- New Benalia
- Path of Ancestry
- Restless Spire
- Rivendell
- Soldevi Excavations
- Study Hall
- Surtland Frostpyre
- The Grey Havens
- Under-Construction Skyscraper
- Zhalfirin Void
As noted, thereโs much more variety here. New Benalia, Zhalfirin Void, Crystal Grotto, and The Grey Havens all scry when they enter (as the Theros Temples do), but their mana abilities differ. Crystal Grotto is particularly flexible since it enters untapped, makes colorless mana naturally, and can produce mana of any color.
Other lands turn scry into a repeatable utility ability. Castle Vantress can scry 2 for 4 mana, while Rivendell does it for just 2 mana if you control a legendary creature. Study Hall instead rewards repeatedly casting your commander, and Isolated Watchtower can combine scrying with putting a basic land onto the battlefield if youโve fallen far enough behind on lands.
Restless Spire is probably the weirdest of the bunchโฆ and you could even argue it's a stretch to call it a scry land, since you first need to animate it into a creature and attack with it if you want to scry.
In the list above there are two cards you probably wonโt encounter in Commander decks. Forsaken Crossroads originated as a digital card and received an acorn-stamped paper printing in Mystery Booster 2, meaning that printing isnโt legal in Constructed formats. There's nothing mechanically about it that makes it unplayable in Commander, so you could still play it if your group is okay with it.
Under-Construction Skyscraper is a Mystery Booster playtest card, and not Constructed legal.
Best Scry Lands
#6. The Grey Havens
Unlike the Theros Temples, Lord of the Ringsโ The Grey Havens enters untapped, which is already a big buff. It requires some setup (namely legendary creatures in your graveyard) before it can produce colored mana, so it's not really a true mana-fixing land, but youโre getting the scry on entering and without having to wait for the land to untap before generating mana.
#5. Rumble Arena
Rumble Arena from Avatar: The Last Airbender trades The Grey Havensโ conditional colored mana for a universal filtering ability: You can tap it for colorless right away, or spend 1 mana and tap it to produce any color. It's functionally similar to Crystal Grotto, but is technically strictly better since it has vigilance, which only matters if you turn the land into a creature.
#4. Rivendell
Another famous landmark from Lord of the Rings, Rivendell enters untapped if you already control a legendary creature. In this case, the scry is an activated ability, but a repeatable scry 2 for 2 mana is an excellent late-game mana sink.
#3. Castle Vantress
Castle Vantress is more expensive to activate than Rivendell, costing to scry 2. The tradeoff is reliability: The Castle only cares about controlling an Island when it enters, and once itโs on the battlefield thereโs no condition attached to its scry ability.
#2. The Theros Temples
These are the lands that made โscry landโ into a thing, even if Magic printed two lands with a scry ability before this cycle.
They are widely played in Commander, and have a pretty simple design: Play the land, scry immediately, wait until they untap and get a dual mana land, no strings attached. Their biggest weakness is obvious: They always enter tapped. Still, fixing two colors while smoothing your next draw is always useful, and they are reliable enough for casual EDH.
#1. Path of Ancestry
Path of Ancestry is hands down the best scry land: It can generate mana of any color in your commanderโs color identity, which is particularly useful with 5-color commanders like The Ur-Dragon. And its scry ability is particularly useful in typal decks, where the scry trigger can happen over and over. It sees wide-spread Commander and Duel Commander play, and is a staple with some of the most popular commanders in the game, like Edgar Markov and The Ur-Dragon.
Scry Land Payoffs
Scrying is already useful on its own because it improves the quality of your upcoming draws, but you can get much more mileage out of scry lands when your deck actually cares about the top of your library.
Future Sight or Bolas's Citadel are straightforward examples. They let you play lands and cast spells from the top of your library, so getting an unwanted card off the top can unlock a card you do want to play.
The most obvious synergy is with cards that explicitly reward scrying, like Galadriel of Lothlรณrien or Reality Fractureโs Denzilore Fatehold: They both have triggered abilities that fire off whenever you scry.
None of those synergies make a mediocre land amazing, but they can turn an ability you were happy to have anyway into an actual engine.
Are Scry Lands Expensive?
Usually, no. In fact, their price is one of their main selling points: Most of them cost less than a dollar, and are a great way to build a budget mana base. The Temples have been reprinted a lot, the Strixhaven Campuses are commons, and even Path of Ancestry is easy to find without spending much. There are a couple of exceptions, though.
Soldevi Excavations is on the Reserved List, so unlike most cards in this article it canโt be reprinted into the ground whenever Wizards wants to. It's not really a strong card, but it costs around $7โ10.
And then there's Forsaken Crossroads from Mystery Booster 2. It's not legal in paper formats, but because of how rare it is it's pretty expensive, usually costing well over $20.
How Do Scry Lands Affect Deck Construction?
The biggest consideration with any land that enters tapped is tempo. Most of Magicโs scry lands enter tapped, which means youโre giving up access to that mana for a turn. One tapped land is often mostly harmless, but if you draw several of them at the wrong time, you will essentially be a turn behind the rest of the table.
That makes Temples and Campuses much more attractive in slower Commander decks than in decks trying to curve out aggressively. If you absolutely need mana on turns 1-3, you shouldnโt add tapped lands to your mana base.
On the other hand, scrying makes your deck more consistent because you have more control of what you draw. Keeping a hand with only one or two lands becomes more defensible when those lands can scry, thus giving you better odds of finding your third land. A slow deck that really wants to get to 5-6 mana ASAP and needs to makes sure it never misses a land drop, but is not too worried about skipping the first or second turn, will usually be happy with playing scry lands early.
Why Are Surveil Lands Better Than Scry Lands?
Surveil lands arenโt always better than scry lands, but the Murders at Karlov Manor surveil dual lands (like Undercity Sewers or Underground Mortuary) are in general much better lands than the Theros Temples. There are two different reasons for that: Surveil is generally better than scry, and the surveil lands have basic land types.
Scry and surveil are fairly similar: They both give you some control over what you draw next. The difference is that scry lets you put unwanted cards on the bottom of your library, which makes it unlikely you'll see them again (unless your deck has a lot of reshuffling) while surveil sends them to your graveyard. And there are lots of other Magic cards that use the graveyard as a resource. A spell you surveil might have flashback; you may be playing a reanimator deck; some mechanics like delve or collect evidence might simply care about your graveyard filling up.
The bigger difference is on the lands themselves: The surveil lands have basic land types. Meticulous Archive, for example, is a plains island, whereas Temple of Enlightenment is just a land.
Which in turn means that effects capable of searching for basic land types can find a surveil land. And the absolute best lands in MTG are the fetch lands, like Arid Mesa or Marsh Flats. Both of these can fetch Meticulous Archive from your deck since the Archive is a plains, but they can't fetch your Temple of Enlightenment.
There are still reasons to want actual scry over surveil. Elminster, Galadriel of Lothlรณrien, and other cards that specifically trigger โwhenever you scryโ donโt care that surveil is mechanically similar. And if for any reason you don't want cards entering your graveyard (perhaps because your opponent may be playing cards that can mess with it), you may prefer scrying them safely to the bottom of your deck.
Are There Any Fetchable Scry Lands?
No, not in the usual sense of โfetchableโ. Magic players normally use โfetchโ to mean a land with a basic land type that can be found by fetch lands or other effects that specifically search for a land with basic land types. As we saw above, the scry lands donโt have those types.
The fact that Temple of Mystery, for example, produces green and blue doesn't make it a forest or an island. Compare that with Meticulous Archive, whose type line actually says โLand โ Plains Islandโ. That type line is what counts in this case.
You can, of course, use a generic land tutor that can search for any land to find a scry land. For example, Crop Rotation can find any land in your deckโฆ but that's not what's usually understood by โfetchableโ.
The Final Scry
Castle Vantress | Illustration by John Avon
Scry lands cover a pretty wide range: Repeatable scry engines like Castle Vantress and Rivendell, untapped options like Crystal Grotto, and typal synergies like Path of Ancestry. They are certainly not among the absolute best lands in Magic, but free or repeatable card selection is a perfectly respectable bonus to get from a land slot.
And they are really cheap when it comes to actual prices, so they are always a great option for a budget mana base.
How many scry lands you actually want comes down mostly to how much tempo your deck can afford to sacrifice, and how much consistency you want. Be sure to check out our guides to the scry mechanic, the best scry cards, best utility lands, and Magicโs many land cycles for more ways to tune your mana base.
I hope you've enjoyed this deep dive into Magic's scry lands. Come join us over in the Draftsim Discord, and check out The Daily Upkeep newsletter to stay up to date on all the latest MTG news.
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