Just a Basics B*tch
If there's 2 things in MtG I'm a sucker for they're cubes & well curated basic land bases. There's so many to choose from & a massive hunk are super neat in their own special way.
My most prized card is an Arabian Nights Mountain signed by Douglas Shular (the artist), Dave Howell (Production Manager at WotC during Arabian Nights), & Vic Wertz (Project Coordinator at WotC during Arabian Nights).
The past few days I've been browsing thru basic Land cycles bc I'm building my 5th cube & trying to figure out what basic lands to pick for it.
I have a policy when I'm building decks n cubes that all basics have to be from the same cycle. So far:
The Un Cube: OG Unglued Full-Arts (single handedly my most expensive land base. Took about 4yrs to complete)
Humans Cube: Dominaria United Stained Glass
(Tazri, Beacon of Unity) Party Tribal Commander: Theros Beyond Death Nyx
Textless Commander: Full-Text
CardKingdom Starter Cube clone: Chinese OG Portal
100 Ornithopters: Brother's War Mechs (still technically "building" this deck bc I want 100 Kaladesh Inventions Ornithopters & I only have 67 ATM. If you have some you'd be down to trade - holla atchya girl. The worse the condition, the better)
Classic Slivers Cube: Phyrexian Oil Slick Lands
The only build that doesn't have a predefined cycle of lands, is my Premodern that has Quinton Hoover's Forest from 6th Ed (as far as I'm aware it's the only basic Hoover illustrated) & Eric Peterson's Plains from Odyssey bc those were my favorite art for those particular lands when I started playing.
At some point I'm going to build a Mystery Booster: Redux Edition cube where I cut back the 1800 cards from the Tournament Edition card pool into a draftable 360 w/ lands from the Duel Decks. However, that project is so far in the future the idea of working on it is silly.
Also I've been gathering the land-base for a cube that's the Astrology Lands. No idea what I'll do with them, but I'm a sucker for building a cube, so I'll figure it out. I'd love to have a cube w/ the Guru lands, but holy hell Batman that'd be expensive. For context, the Guru Lands in G quality cost on CardKingdom:
- Forest: 559.99 (×40=22,399.60)
- Island: 1,329.99 (×40=53,199.60)
- Swamp: 524.99 (×40=20,999.60)
- Mountain: 524.99 (×40=20,999.60)
- Plains: 524.99 (×40=20,999.60)
Total land base cost for a cube: $138,598.00
For context, the most expensive competitive Vintage deck build in the 2026 season so far is Workshop which on average costs $28,521 to build in paper (according to MTGDecks(dot)Net). I would have to trade 5 Workshop decks for 1 Guru cube land base.
If I won the lottery I wouldn't tell anyone, but there would be signs.
Any ways -
what are some of y'all's favorite basic land cycles?
What land arts are y'all's favorites?
What's some nifty trivia about basics?
Tell me.
Talk lands to me :)