Turbulent Fen | Illustration by Sergey Glushakov
No card type is more fundamental to Magic than lands, so new land cycles are worth watching. After all, the better your mana gets, the better your deck performs.
Secrets of Strixhaven debuted a new cycle of lands dedicated to Commander players: turbulent lands, which take advantage of the multiplayer format and even boast basic land types. Let’s break down if they’re good and where you can find them!
What Are Turbulent Lands in MTG?
Turbulent Steppe | Illustration by Sergey Glushakov
The turbulent lands are a new cycle of Commander-focused lands from Secrets of Strixhaven, which printed the enemy-colored turbulent lands. Turbulent lands are dual lands with both basic land types (so the Golgari () one, Turbulent Fen, is both a swamp and a forest) and they enter play tapped unless your opponents control eight or more lands among them.
The eight-land threshold is extremely hard to meet in a 1v1 while it’s a breeze in a multiplayer pod—your opponents should have a collective eight lands by turn 3 or so. These lands are perfect for Commander, like the Battlebond lands or Command Tower, but the big deal with these is that the land types make them fetchable, plus cards like landcyclers and Nature's Lore can grab them.
Turbulent Land History
The turbulent lands debuted in Secrets of Strixhaven, with enemy-colored lands printed in the five Commander precons associated with the main set. They have yet to see a reprint, and the allied-colored lands haven’t been printed yet.
Where to Find Turbulent Lands
If you want to open turbulent lands from sealed product, you can find them in the Secrets of Strixhaven Commander precons and Secrets of Strixhaven Collector Boosters.
If you want to buy singles, check out your local game store or turn to TCGplayer, which sells practically any single you could think of.
Turbulent Land Gallery
Is the Turbulent Land Cycle Good?
The turbulent land cycle is extremely good for Commander players and pretty meh elsewhere. Commander players can hit that threshold easily, and another set of fetchable lands is always welcome to improve mana bases. Other formats don’t care about a mostly tapped land; why run one of these when your few tapped lands can be triomes or surveils lands instead?
The big question on everybody’s mind is how these stack up to the Battlebond lands that enter untapped if you have three or more opponents, and the answer is clear: These are worse. While the Battlebond lands enter tapped later in the game, you should have already developed plenty by then. Those lands are always untapped in the first few turns of the game, and so much of Commander is about using those early turns to develop a mana or card advantage engine that I’d much rather have my untapped lands then.
To be clear, I’m not calling the turbulent lands unplayable; you should run both if you can! I just prefer to develop early than late.
Will We Get the Other Half of the Turbulent Lands?
We’ll almost certainly see the other half of the turbulent lands; it’s a fantastic land cycle tuned for the game’s most popular format. As for when we might see them, I’m guessing the allied turbulent lands will come out with Reality Fracture this November. The SOS story heavily implies that Reality Fracture will, at least in part, take place in a setting called Hexhaven that’s basically a mirrored version of Strixhaven. It’d be the perfect chance to reprint the full cycle. None of that is promised, but I’d put money on that outcome.
Wrap Up
Turbulent Springs | Illustration by Sergey Glushakov
The turbulent lands are sure to become Commander staples—fetchable, mostly untapped lands are worth playing. I also appreciate that these lands are designed for Commander; that’ll hopefully keeps the price down since Modern and Legacy players won’t buy them.
What do you think of the turbulent lands? Do you want Wizards to print the rest of the cycle or do you wish they had done something different? Let me know in the comments below! For more Draftsim, check out our YouTube channel, The Daily Upkeep!
Stay safe, and thanks for reading!
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