The Best White Land You Aren't Running | Commander Quickie
Alright friends, here's the scoop: today I have a spicy bit of tech for all those white decks out there. This card is a criminally underrated land in White decks, despite being a fantastic inclusion in a ton of them. Yes, friends, today I'll be convincing you why Lotus Field is the best White land that you aren't running:
Lotus Field is a land with hexproof and enters the battlefield tapped. When it enters the battlefield, you have to sacrifice two lands, but it taps for three mana of any one color. Now at this point a lot of you are wondering why the heck am I hyping up this land as an all-star in White decks: Lotus Field doesn't see that much play in Commander, and the decks that do run it are almost exclusively Green decks with zero White in them, like Titania, Protector of Argoth, Korvold, Fae-Cursed King, and Lord Windgrace, all of which clearly have a unified theme of sacrificing lands for value. So what's the deal here? Do I have some secret knowledge about White that I'm about to reveal to you all, or have I been Strip Mine'd so many times in Commander that my sanity has finally snapped and I'm ready to declare any un-Strip Mine'able land as a format staple? I hope it's the former and not the latter, but I'll let you be the judge of that after I state my case.
So the reason why Lotus Field is so good in White is because of its synergy with White's best generic staples: cards that can improve any White deck regardless of what archetype the deck is focusing on. Now White doesn't have a ton of generic staples -- which is kinda a problem in general, but that's a topic for another time -- but the staples it does have are really good and they share a common theme: having less lands than your opponents. This restriction can be found on powerful White cards throughout the game's history, with the most iconic example being Land Tax, which in my opinion is one of the strongest cards not just in White but in the entire format.
Land Tax a one mana enchantment that says at the beginning of your upkeep, if an opponent controls more lands than you, you may search your library for up to three basic lands cards, reveal them, put them into your hand, then shuffle your library. A one mana enchantment that can easily put three cards from your deck into your hand every single turn is ridiculously good card advantage. The only catch is that you need to control less lands than any opponent, which is easy to do.
This land deficit restriction shows up in other old-school White all-stars as well like Knight of the White Orchid, super efficient ramp that can find even nonbasic Plains that enters untapped, also it's an ETB trigger so it's great with bounce and blink effects. Or Weathered Wayfarer, a one mana repeatable tutor for any land in you want. These are cards I'd consider auto-includes in any White deck.
These types of cards are important because Wizards of the Coast has been slowly pumping out more of these types of cards to help out White in Commander. Some of them have been poop, like Cartographer's Hawk and Verge Rangers, but their most recent attempt with Keeper of the Accord is really solid, letting White decks quickly catch up to the rest of the table's average land count.
But despite how great some of these cards are, there's a bit of a problem with them: each time you land ramp you're increasing the likelihood that your land deficit cards stop working. If you ramp with Keeper of the Accord and catch up on lands, suddenly your Land Tax stops working. Your Weathered Wayfarer stops working. The land deficit cards are basically cannibalizing each other. Other excellent land ramp options in White, like Dowsing Dagger and Sword of the Animist, also reduce the effectiveness of your land deficit cards.
So if you are running these powerful land deficit cards, which I highly recommend most White decks should do, then it's beneficial to find efficient ways to lower our land count so that our land deficit cards are more consistently effective. You get where this is going: we're circling back to Lotus Field. This land requires you to sacrifice two lands, putting you down to lands in overall count, without setting you back on mana since it taps for three, and it's hexproof so you don't have to fear getting blown out by a Strip Mine. It does come with some downsides -- it enters tapped so it's a tempo loss and it's not a Plains so you lose some synergy potential there -- but the upside of beefing up the consistency of your land deficit cards is absolutely worth it.
There are other neat bonuses to running Lotus Field in your White deck. On top of supporting land deficit cards, it pairs very well with other powerful White cards I love: you can immediately get back the two lands you sacrificed with Brought Back, effectively a super double Rampant Growth in White. Or if you sacrifice Flagstones of Trokair to the Field to ramp a Plains, netting you mana in the process. And of course it's solid value with White staple Sun Titan, putting two lands in the graveyard that you can later put on to the battlefield with the Titan.
The same logic is why powerful utility lands that sacrifice to activate like Strip Mine, Inventors' Fair, and Scavenger Grounds are particularly good in White decks: they're good lands in general, but they also have the added benefit of helping the consistency of your land deficit cards as well.
So there you have it: why I think Lotus Field is the best White land that you aren't running. Have I convinced you, or do you think I'm way off the mark here? Let me know in the comments section below! Thanks for reading!
