According to you, the Magic community!

Basic lands are, if you’ll excuse my language, the base of Magic: the Gathering. They’re one of the only throughlines through the 30+ years of Magic’s history and ever-changing meta, found in nearly every deck in the game. 

In the two primary ways the game is played, basic lands couldn’t be more important: in Commander, you’re playing a casual format with a deck built around a single creature. Theming your deck around your commander rarely ends at mechanics; you need the perfect Swamp to suit your Tinybones deck. In constructed, as we like to cover during Pro Tours and other major events, basics are often one of the only ways you can express yourself at the world’s highest level of play when the most tuned meta deck lists only allow a few slots for personalization. 

And clearly, Wizards of the Coast recognizes the importance of basic lands. In 2024, they printed 143 basic lands with new art: more than any year on record save 2022. More new basics were printed last year than in the game’s first five years combined. And with this deluge of choice comes the need for some curation. So as we did in 2023, the Cardboard by the Numbers team conducted a survey of Magic players to assess the winners of the year. But before that, let’s set the table by catching up to the current basic land meta.

The State of Basic Lands in 2024

The State of our Basics is Strong. With 143 different new pieces to choose from, there is truly something for everyone. While the year saw less experimentation than the two prior, there are plenty of contenders for “all time best” amongst the bunch. To provide an overview of some of the biggest trends, please see this infographic:

As mentioned before, this has been one of the biggest years in Magic’s history when it comes to basic lands with new art. Because this year saw fewer Secret Lairs with basic lands than in years past, this is primarily a function of the release cadence. Premiere expansions included at least 15 new basics each besides Foundations, which still included ten new arts. Universes Beyond releases included two cycles each, Secret Lair added 14 cards to the total, and half a dozen basics were given out as promo cards. While it was mostly the frantic pace of new releases that caused this treasure trove of basics, Bloomburrow contributed meaningfully thanks to having double the number as any other premiere set. 

As with the last few years, the Most Expensive New Basics are mostly Secret Lair related, but the top slot has a more unique situation. The extremely limited release of the Year of the Dragon Mountain in English has made the card the most expensive new basic in decades, only surpassed by the non-Mountains of Terese Nielson’s  Judge Rewards cycle from 2014. Based on the pricing of similar releases, like the Asia-exclusive 30th anniversary Llanowar Elves, I predicted this would be the case, and indeed think that this price is still below what consumer demand is. However, I don’t think most Magic players are aware that this land exists, limiting its price in the short term. 

Last year saw the highest rate of full-art basic lands, which have gone from the exception to the rule with new basics. While I’m grateful that every major expansion still has some standard frame basic lands (they’re much more practical as play pieces and the format has a place in many players’ hearts, including mine), full-art is certainly preferred amongst most players, and it’s a positive move to see that being acknowledged by WotC. 

The most-represented planes of the year are no real surprise: the real Earth was the most common locale for Magic in 2024 from a combination of Secret Lair drops, and the two Universes Beyond releases: Assassin’s Creed and Fallout. Bloomburrow had more basics than a normal expansion due to having a suite of four seasons for what’s normally a single full-art slot in addition to the standard pair of non-full-art lands. Now that we’re in a multiversal era of Magic, the Omenpath Saga, we anticipate to get more expansions representing more than a single plane, like the upcoming Aetherdrift. It was from the mutli-planar Foundations set that Thunder Junction claimed its sixteenth representation on a basic land and jumped into third place on the list. 

2024’s Most Beloved Basic Lands

In December, 125 Magic players took our survey to share their thoughts on the best basic lands of 2024. For each land type, respondents were able to choose their top five, and then were asked to share their #1 pick from the year. The results are as follows:

The most obvious trend with looking at the most popular lands of the year is how standard frame lands are wholly excluded. While representing more than 40% of new lands printed, not a single land made it onto the list with the mana symbol taking up half of the card. It’s a dramatic, if unsurprising statement on the absolute popularity of art that takes up the entire card.

Several cycles show up frequently in these lists, most notably the Foundations “Character” cycles that highlight a specific planeswalker or legendary creature in the landscape. Additionally, Duskmourn’s “Manors”, Modern Horizon 3’s “Eldrazi Invasion”, and Outlaws of Thunder Junction’s “Western Landscapes” fare consistently well themselves. Indeed, when we asked respondents to rate each cycle of basics on a scale of 1 to 10, these were amongst the most popular on average as well:

The numbers here represent the net approval of each card style, taking the rate of positive feedback (8 or above) and subtracting the negative ones (5 and below). By doing this, you can see that about half of the cycles have a negative evaluation. This is about the ratio I would hope to see, honestly. It indicates that Wizards of the Coast is experimenting with new things, making basics for increasingly niche sub-groups of players so that everyone can find something that’s extremely unique and true to them. 

However, I think the biggest factor for this negative ratio is simply that three cycles are Universes Beyond. The Assassin’s Creed Landscapes were many players’ favorite lands of the years – and that was the case with me as well! Roughly 20% had one of the 10 Assassin’s Creed basic lands as their favorite, making them pound-for-pound the most successful basic land cycle of 2024. And yet! Fan evaluation from an approval rating standpoint is just slightly negative. I don’t think this would be the case if we asked a representative sample of Magic players (this survey was shared mostly on social media and various Discords; the subreddit does not allow for surveys and there’s not any other centralized place to reach a sizeable volume of Magic players online), but I do think the results are indicative of how the online community reacts to Universes Beyond in a larger way. But that conversation is for another day. 

Equally divisive were the Secret Lair: Raining Cats and Dogs trio of basic lands featuring domesticated animals on Plains, Mountains, and in Forests. This partial cycle represents 40% of the basic lands who received the most #1 votes, accounting for a combined of ~17% of all responses. While slightly more popular on average than anything from Universes Beyond, these lands had the most haters of the year besides the Brain Dead collection, fielding more ratings of 1 out of 10 than all premiere expansions combined. 

One last note of the year’s basic lands: this was the year of Wastes! 2024 saw the release of the first Snow-Covered Wastes, tied 2022 for the most new Wastes art released, and also provided us with the first white-bordered Wastes. The sixth basic land has never been so beloved!

What do you think of the list? What were your favorite basics released in the last year? 

Thanks so much for reading. We have basic land coverage on the regular as well as new Magic: the Gathering infographics and analysis every week, so if you’ve enjoyed this article, sign up for our newsletter and be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and BlueSky!!

Miles Atherton is the editor-in-chief of “Cardboard by the Numbers” and has been playing Magic since 2006. He currently runs a consulting firm focused on anime and manga, White Box Entertainment, and writes for Anime News Network, Anime Trending, and Comics Beat. Previously, Atherton wrote for Anime Buscience and Crunchyroll News, serving as Executive Editor of the latter from 2016 to 2021.