Colorless Lands have been around since the early days of Magic: The Gathering, the first ones being printed in Arabian Nights with some big hits like Library of Alexandria, City of Brass, and Bazaar of Baghdad. Out of all of these, only Desert, Elephant Graveyard, and Library of Alexandria actually create colorless mana. Some tap for a color, like City of Brass. Others don't tap for mana at all, like Bazaar of Baghdad and Diamond Valley.

Nowadays, you can find Colorless Lands in every single set. Each one usually provides unique utility.

Today, we're going to explain how Colorless Lands work along with highlighting the absolute best Colorless Lands in MTG across all formats. The majority of the Lands we'll talk about shine best in Commander, but we're not limiting our list to Commander.

What makes a colorless Land a colorless Land?

With the exception of Dryad Arbor, all Lands are colorless - double-faced cards aside. This begs the question "What Lands are we talking about"? When we refer to a Colorless Land in today's list, we're looking for lands that usually tap for Colorless mana and also have some other utility, usually through another ability.

Some Colorless Lands have colored abilities, like Hanweir Battlements and Kor Haven. We're not purely talking about the Commander format, and we're not worried about the color identities of lands. So, I included those lands with colored abilities when ranking, but none of them beat out the purely Colorless Lands. If you do want to play them in Commander, the colored abilities must be within your Commander's color identity if you want to play them.

It's important to note that Lands that tap for colorless but also tap for colors are typically not considered Colorless Lands. The Pain Land cycle, for example, would not be considered colorless Lands because their ability to tap for colors is why you play them, not because of extra colorless utility.

Top Five Colorless Lands

We're going to talk about two major types of colorless Lands today: utility and ramp. These next lands are going to be the top Lands across all of the colorless Lands. They see the most play in their respective formats and usually cross over into others if they're legal. We'll have a Top 5 for utility and a Top 5 for ramp, so let's get right into it.

The Top Five Utility Colorless Lands

Utility lands provide you extra value through abilities. Think cards like Urza's Cave, Abstergo Entertainment, and Sanctum of Ugin. They don't provide extra mana, they just have useful utility.

Honorable Mention - Utility - Library of Alexandria

To kick things off, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention Library of Alexandria. The only reason this card didn't slam down the #1 slot is because it's not legal anywhere except Vintage (not even Commander).

Library of Alexandria taps for a colorless mana on its own or you can tap it to draw a card if you have seven cards in hand. Draw a card? And all I need is a full grip? So the rich get richer, understood. You don't even have to look at the price of this card to understand just how powerful it is.

5. Utility - Vesuva

Vesuva is the original copy land. It's the reason that some of the most notorious colorless ramp strategies existed, and can slot into virtually any deck, provided either you're playing lands you want to copy or you're expecting your opponents to do the same. It spawned cards like Echoing Deeps and Thespian's Stage, which both also see play in multiple formats as well.

4. Utility - Strip Mine

Strip Mine, the original land-destruction land, is so useful that it's banned in Legacy and restricted to one in Vintage. In Vintage, basically anything goes, so the cards that are restricted to one are particularly powerful.

The ability to activate Strip Mine the moment you play it to target a land for destruction is beyond powerful. It had to get nerfed into Wasteland for it to be legal in Legacy and even that is still played quite often.

3. Utility - Cavern of Souls

Cavern of Souls is a utility Land that helps us ensure that the creature we cast with it can't be countered, while still able to be tapped for colorless otherwise. It also makes any color for the creature type we choose, so it can slot into virtually any deck that plays creatures.

This card sees play primarily in Commander where Kindred strategies shine, like in the mid-level brackets, but also has high cEDH usage, where having your Creatures/Commander uncounterable is quite powerful.

2. Utility - Talon Gates of Madara

Arguably the strongest land to come out of Modern Horizons 3: Commander, Talon Gates of Madara has so many words on it for just a land. First, you can use it to answer one of your opponent's creatures by just playing it. It taps for colorless and filters into colors, similar to many others. You can even put it into play at instant speed by activating its last ability for four generic mana.

In Vintage, it's seeing play in Raker Shops decks, utilizing its ability to answer your opponent's creatures at instant speed for just colorless mana. In Commander (mostly cEDH), it works with Oboro Breezecaller and Gaea's Cradle for an infinite mana combo that also phases out all of your opponent's creatures.

1. Utility - Urza's Saga

Our gold medal winner in the Utility category comes from Modern Horizons 2 and even shares the name of a Magic set: Urza's Saga. Urza's Saga, being a Saga, means that this card doesn't even stick around, so how come it's so good?

The key is that final Chapter Ability. Urza's Saga searches your library for an Artifact card with mana cost or and puts it into play. This has spawned so many toolbox strategies in any format where you want to play low cost Artifacts. Urza's Saga effectively gives you four more copies of those toolbox cards in your deck.

In Modern, Affinity effectively uses Urza's Saga to search up a whole toolbox from utility cards like Pithing Needle, Shadowspear, and Aether Spellbomb or even a mana rock like Mox Opal. In Commander, tutors are king. Having Urza's Saga find your Sol Ring or your Mana Vault can skyrocket you ahead of your opponents.

The Top Five Ramp Colorless Lands

Ramp lands provide you extra mana on one land. No matter their level of utility, their main function is casting your spells faster. Great examples here are Urza's Workshop, Temple of the False God, and Eye of Ugin.

Honorable Mention - Ramp - Eldrazi Temple

Our Honorable Mention in the Ramp category goes to Eldrazi Temple. Like Eye of Ugin, this card provides two colorless mana to use for Eldrazi spells and abilities. Getting to cast cards like Thought-Knot Seer, Glaring Fleshraker, and Kozilek's Command one turn earlier is so advantageous in formats like Modern. It's not as good as our first ramp option though.

5. Ramp - Ugin's Labyrinth

Usually accompanying Eldrazi Temple in the decks it's played in, Ugin's Labyrinth has a minor drawback of needing to Imprint a colorless card with mana value seven or greater from your hand. If you do, then it taps for two colorless, otherwise just one. The kicker though, is that you can use this mana on anything, not just Eldrazi.

Imprinting the card is only a minor drawback, considering that you've already gotten your use out of cards like Devourer of Destiny from your hand, and you play enough copies of your others like Ugin, Eye of the Storms that it's not so bad to lose one.

You don't lose it permanently though, you can activate the last ability on Ugin's Labyrinth to put it back in your hand. Essentially, you can use it to get lots of mana early on and then draw a useful card later on.

4. Ramp - Tron: Urza's Tower, Urza's Power Plant, Urza's Mine

Next up is the only entry with multiple cards. Usually, we try not to include multiples, but you can't play Urza's Tower without Urza's Power Plant and Urza's Mine. Urza-Tron is notorious for amassing seven colorless mana by as early as turn three, since Tower taps for three and Mine/Power Plant tap for two.

These three cards are consistently found in colorless decklists all over Modern, and are relatively cheap in price, so Commander players (like myself!) slot them in decks often. They're one of the more consistent ramp lands in Colorless, but not as good as our #3 slot.

3. Ramp - Cloudpost

Cloudpost walked so that Urza-Tron could run. In the early days of Modern, Cloudpost was the premier colorless land ramp engine, due to how well it synergizes with Vesuva and Glimmerpost. It was so powerful that it got banned and then Urza-Tron took its place as the new system. It still shines in Commander though (just check out my personal list if you don't believe me).

Since then, we've gotten more printings of clones and another Locus, making Cloudpost stronger and stronger. In Commander, you can play Cloudpost, Glimmerpost, and Trenchpost, along with Vesuva, Thespian's Stage, Echoing Deeps, and Planar Nexus for an ungodly amount of mana.

2. Ramp - Ancient Tomb

There are five colorless lands on the Commander Game Changers list, and our #2 and #1 slots are two of those five. Sorry, Field of the Dead, Glacial Chasm, and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, you just didn't make the cut here, today.

Ancient Tomb is exactly what I think when I imagine a colorless land with a drawback. Ancient Tomb's power comes from the fact that you can get two mana on turn one no matter what your opening hand is. You just need to take two damage. In Legacy, Ancient Tomb is consistently played alongside City of Traitors for some of the quickest four mana over two turns you can get.

In Commander (notably cEDH), Ancient Tomb propels you so fast for just the cost of a measly two life, especially when you start with 40. It rightfully earned its spot here in our list.

1. Ramp - Mishra's Workshop

The other Game Changer on this list is Mishra's Workshop. Often compared to pieces of the Power Nine, Mishra's Workshop gives you such a mana advantage that it's no wonder that Vintage has multiple lists named after it. Getting to start the game with three mana from just one land pushes you quite far ahead of your opponent.

Fun fact, this card is legal in Commander. The three colorless mana that Workshop generates is restricted to artifact spells, so it was deemed just strong enough to be a Game Changer, not a fully banned card. Now to get around that pesky Reserved List and give us a reprint.

Final Thoughts

Anyone who knows me knows that I love colorless Lands. I've personally played a colorless Commander deck since I first read Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. They're powerful, they're fast, and they have so much utility packed in one card. Play more of them! Colors are overrated.