MTG Fetch Lands — Complete Guide
Fetch lands are among the most powerful mana fixers in Magic. They sacrifice themselves and pay 1 life to search your library for a land with a specific basic land type. Because shock lands and original duals have basic land types, a single fetch land can find any shock or original dual that shares one of its two types. Fetches also thin your deck, fill your graveyard for delve, and shuffle away bad topdecks after Brainstorm effects.
All 10 Fetch Lands
| Card | Colors |
|---|---|
| Flooded Strand | White/Blue (Azorius) |
| Marsh Flats | White/Black (Orzhov) |
| Arid Mesa | White/Red (Boros) |
| Windswept Heath | White/Green (Selesnya) |
| Polluted Delta | Blue/Black (Dimir) |
| Scalding Tarn | Blue/Red (Izzet) |
| Misty Rainforest | Blue/Green (Simic) |
| Bloodstained Mire | Black/Red (Rakdos) |
| Verdant Catacombs | Black/Green (Golgari) |
| Wooded Foothills | Red/Green (Gruul) |
Key Details
- Tier: Premium (1/3)
- Entry: Always enters untapped.
- Fetchable: No
- Life cost: 1 per use
- Cards in cycle: 10
Format Legality
| Standard | Pioneer | Modern | Legacy | Commander |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not Legal | Not Legal | Legal | Legal | Legal |
Strategy
In Modern, start every mana base with the correct fetch lands for your colors. A blue-red deck runs Scalding Tarn and Misty Rainforest (which finds Steam Vents). In Commander, fetches are excellent but not mandatory on a budget. The Onslaught fetches (Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, etc.) are usually cheaper than the Zendikar fetches and work the same way for their color pairs.
Related Cycles
- Allied (no text change; note for the cycle-count agent) Tap, pay 1 life, sac: search for a land with one of two basic land types. Onslaught allied pairs.
- Slow Fetches — ETB tapped. Tap, sac: search for a land with one of two basic types.
- Panoramas — Tap for colorless. {1}, tap, sac: search for a basic land of one of three types, put it onto the battlefield tapped.
- Original Dual Lands — No drawback. Two basic land types. Reserved List.
- Triomes — ETB tapped. Has 3 basic land types (fetchable). Cycling {3}.
- All land cycles — every cycle on one page, grouped by type.
Build Your Mana Base
Use our Mana Base Calculator to find the right mix of Fetch Lands and other duals for your deck. Paste a Moxfield or Archidekt link and get Monte Carlo-simulated land counts. See every cycle in our index of all 53 land cycles, or read the MTG Dual Lands Guide for which ones to buy first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are fetch lands legal in Pioneer?
No. The five Khans of Tarkir fetch lands (Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, Bloodstained Mire, Wooded Foothills, Windswept Heath) are banned in Pioneer. The five Zendikar fetches were never printed in a Pioneer-legal set.
Which fetch lands should I buy first?
Buy the Onslaught cycle first (Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, Bloodstained Mire, Wooded Foothills, Windswept Heath). They are usually cheaper than the Zendikar cycle and work the same way for their color pairs. The Zendikar fetches (Scalding Tarn, Misty Rainforest, etc.) are usually more expensive.
Do fetch lands thin your deck?
Yes, but the effect is marginal. Removing one land from a 53-card library increases your chance of drawing a non-land by less than 2%. The real value of fetch lands is color fixing, graveyard filling, and shuffle effects.