More Basic Lands?

[Cyberium]

Given that most spells/effects fetch basic lands, do people ever use more basics in their decks just so they could filter them out more efficiently?

To clarify:

Given our currently mana base, it's entirely possible to use only one basic land per color for your deck. However, using cards like Land Tax/Myriad Landscape/Navigation Orb etc a player can continuously filter out lands in a deck to increase the chance of drawing spells later, something more difficult to do if a deck has significantly more nonbasics.

What do people think?

[DirkGently]

Those effects are minimal and not worth compromising your manabase for. Land tax is the most powerful by far, the others aren't even close. But ofc if you're running myriad landscape etc you should ensure you have enough basics to support them.

There's probably value to having at least a couple basics in case you get Path to Exiled or Field of Ruined? Otherwise I don't think there's much reason to have any really, if you aren't searching them yourself. Depending on colors ofc, a monocolor deck is probably going to have a fair number of basics no matter what.

[Treamayne]

I average about 15 basics per deck (regardless of CI) and refuse to go below 10. But then, I'm not playing cEDH (and have no desire to do so) so I prefer an affordable balanced manabase aver "max efficiency."

[Mookie]

I do not think it is worth it to run a basic over a nonbasic for deckthinning. Removing one extra card out of 99 is just not worth the cost. That said, I will run extra basics if I'm concerned about running out of fetchables. My green decks tend to be heavy on Cultivate effects, and it feels bad if they end up being dead draws in the lategame (also: Boundless Realms).

That said, we've gotten more nonbasics with basic land types over time - if you're running Nature's Lore / Farseek / Tithe, then it may be possible to lean into a nonbasic (but still fetchable) manabase with stuff like triomes and Canopy Vista, to say nothing of shocks and duals. Alternatively, just run more ramp like Cartographer's Survey and Open the Way that can get nonbasics.

...my own decks are usually in the 10-15 basic range, depending on how much ramp I'm running. That said, I am a budget player, which means I can't just rely on a fetch / shock / dual / etc. manabase for all my fixing needs.

[Toshi]

Number of basics/lands will always be an interesting topic!

So i checked and these are the numbers/averages among my decks:
30 Basics - 5C (1 deck - coincidently subthemed with basics only and lands that fetch them)
24 Basics - Mono colored & colorless (including a High Tide & Bubbling Muck deck)
20 Basics - Ally colored 2C
22 Basics - Enemy colored 2C
23 Basics - Budget decks

No surprises here overall, since i don't run nonbasics just for the sake of them - especially if they can't generate mana of color. Hitting pips and entering untapped are the most important things when it comes to lands overall.

With Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle (17 Basics) and Lazav, Dimir Mastermind (15) only 2 of my 3 strongest decks dip well below 20 Basics, while 4 mono decks of mine run between 26 and 28.
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden is a weird outlier with just 18 Basics, since that deck runs 3 DFC cards with a land side in a spell slot, to maximize its creature count at 58 hitable weenies.

Aside from specifics there are dozens of proactive synergies that utilize basics to great effect and cards i don't enjoy running into with too few basics, most prominently Back to Basics, Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon and Thalia, Heretic Cathar.

[Avacyn Believer]

i don't run nonbasics just for the sake of them - especially if they can't generate mana of color. Hitting pips and entering untapped are the most important things when it comes to lands overall.

This sums up my attitude towards non-basic lands as well. I do run a lot of basics mostly because of the number of decks I have, and unwillingness to keep buying non-basics when basic lands will do just fine. I've had bad experience in the past when I tried to put too many non-basics into decks, and it just felt so slow when half the lands came in tapped for the sake of producing 2 or 3 colours.

In decks with green I tend to run more of them because I do like the green ramp spells and most of them fetch basics. Like in my Mayael the Anima deck 2/3 of lands are basics, and the non-basic are either fetches or lands with basic types that I can fetch.

The only deck where this became a concern for me is my Avacyn deck (link in signature), where I've removed some basic fetch cards because I just don't have enough basics in the deck to make them worth while. I've kind of surprised myself with that since it never was a concern for me before, to think if Land Tax is even useful

I think overall this topic is mostly relevant to high end competitive decks where you are concerned about making the right colours at the right time. In more casual decks I find that just having a good ratio of basics and enough ramp or draw cards will get me the colours I need.

[BaronCappuccino]

I've tended towards monocolor decks the majority of my Magic career. In that light, I've never needed strong justification to stick mostly to basics. The best argument towards basics and the ramp that finds them, is that they're sacrosanct and untouchable in the overall Commander culture. Any time you can shield yourself with the social contract instead of wasting a spell slot on it is a win.

[TheGildedGoose]

If I'm playing a fetchland/Crucible of Worlds deck I tend towards a lot of basics just because those decks tend to run out of targets after 5-6 turns of Exploration if you don't plan for it. Otherwise I try to jam roughly 50% basics in two-color decks and 33% basics in three-color decks. Never again, Back to Basics. Never again.

[DirkGently]

i don't run nonbasics just for the sake of them - especially if they can't generate mana of color. Hitting pips and entering untapped are the most important things when it comes to lands overall.

Even if you're playing a tight curve and thus uninterested in utility from your lands, there are many cycles of untapped duals:

-pain lands
-shock lands
-fetch lands
-filter lands
-ody filter lands
-horizon lands
-BBD duals
-abu duals
-pathways
-plus lands like city of brass, forbidden orchard, and mana confluence that aren't part of a cycle
-plus lands that will often enter untapped like checklands, fastlands, and slowlands.

I'm not sure what running a nonbasic "for the sake of them" means, but even a 2c deck can fill up half its land slots with nonbasics purely for fixing, even if it's committed to never having a land etbt. By the time you get to 3c you have to deliberately carve out slots for basics if they have some utility for you, otherwise it's very easy to have a manabase of all nonbasic fixers.

In more casual decks I find that just having a good ratio of basics and enough ramp or draw cards will get me the colours I need.

In my "real" decks, it's been a long time since I played a basic heavy manabase outside of monocolor, but playing set commander decks, where the only nonbasics I can run are typically a small handful (currently 3 gainlands in my 3c Zimone and Dina), I have no idea how people tolerate basic-heavy manabases in 3c. The number of hands that I need to either throw back or pray to topdeck the right basic is completely intolerable.

I've tended towards monocolor decks the majority of my Magic career. In that light, I've never needed strong justification to stick mostly to basics. The best argument towards basics and the ramp that finds them, is that they're sacrosanct and untouchable in the overall Commander culture. Any time you can shield yourself with the social contract instead of wasting a spell slot on it is a win.

Do you really find that a shockland is less protected than a basic? In my experience anyone who's willing to run Ruination is also happy to run Armageddon. Once MLD comes out of Pandora's box, there's not much difference. And the only lands that are likely to draw targeted hate are more along the lines of Gaea's Cradle than Yavimaya Coast - but I think the bigger part of that is simply that aiming a Strip Mine at some random fixing land is just a bad play, whereas aiming it at a cradle is actually worth losing a card and a land a decent percentage of the time.

33% basics in three-color decks. Never again, Back to Basics. Never again.

Pretty sure only untapping 1/3 of your lands is still going to make it incredibly difficult to win. Run enchantment removal, run a couple basics as fetch targets, easy as. Sure it won't protect you 100% but neither will 1/3 basics.

[TheGildedGoose]

Pretty sure only untapping 1/3 of your lands is still going to make it incredibly difficult to win. Run enchantment removal, run a couple basics as fetch targets, easy as. Sure it won't protect you 100% but neither will 1/3 basics.

how you paying for that enchantment removal

EDIT: To be less facetious, the idea is to have overlapping protection to reduce variance.

It's not a rational, mathematical decision; I'm sure I lose more games to mana screw than lost games to B2B (exactly 2 in my EDH career), but the specter looms large.

[DirkGently]

how you paying for that enchantment removal

1) the basics as fetch targets I mentioned
2) the lands you play after B2B, or had untapped before it resolved
3) mana rocks if you've got any

It's not a rational, mathematical decision; I'm sure I lose more games to mana screw than lost games to B2B (exactly 2 in my EDH career), but the specter looms large.

We must seek to overcome the weaknesses of our mushy meat brains.

[TheGildedGoose]

how you paying for that enchantment removal

1) the basics as fetch targets I mentioned
2) the lands you play after B2B, or had untapped before it resolved
3) mana rocks if you've got any

See my edit, but I think you're being optimistic here. Do you have to find the removal via tutoring or card draw? Do you also need disruption for their win conditions while you wait? I'm not saying those aren't valid solutions to B2B, but the marginality of the numbers here tells me they're all about equal measures. Having multiple outs at little to no deckbuilding costs is an easy choice for me.

Plus, how else am I going to flex my basics chosen to aesthetically match the Commander and deck theme?

EDIT: Hot take: print more temporary nonbasic hate like Blood Moon and Back to Basics, particularly in white and particularly on a 3mv creature.

[JovialJovian]

My current Graaz, Unstoppable Juggernaut colorless deck is running 10 Wastes specifically to have searchable lands, even though I could fill the mana base with untapped lands that have some secondary effect. Winds of Abandon or Settle the Wreckage are boogeymen in my playgroup, and I'll also often run into someone playing an Avatar of Growth and don't want to miss out.

[DirkGently]

See my edit, but I think you're being optimistic here. Do you have to find the removal via tutoring or card draw? Do you also need disruption for their win conditions while you wait? I'm not saying those aren't valid solutions to B2B, but the marginality of the numbers here tells me they're all about equal measures. Having multiple outs at little to no deckbuilding costs is an easy choice for me.

The bigger issue is that I'm not sure if I've ever seen B2B at a casual commander table. Maybe once? I've seen blood moon a few times. But I think the vast majority of the casual commander audience understands that these are not effects that should be played in traditional EDH. Plus they're honestly not worth building around unless you're mono-color.

Enchantment removal is a good solution because it's also a solution to many other problems, especially since it's probably not solely enchantment removal. The goal is to solve as many problems as possible as efficiently as possible in your deck construction. Making your fixing worse in every single game, just to combat a couple cards that hardly see play is not an efficient way to handle those issues imo. Run broad answers that happen to solve those problems along with many others, and accept that sometimes things won't line up because you can't always answer everything. You have to weigh the risks impartially.

EDIT: Hot take: print more temporary nonbasic hate like Blood Moon and Back to Basics, particularly in white and particularly on a 3mv creature.

Hotter take, delete all nonbasic hate because it leads to %$#% gameplay, then remove all fixing lands that are better than a guildgate.

[BaronCappuccino]

Do you really find that a shockland is less protected than a basic? In my experience anyone who's willing to run Ruination is also happy to run Armageddon. Once MLD comes out of Pandora's box, there's not much difference. And the only lands that are likely to draw targeted hate are more along the lines of Gaea's Cradle than Yavimaya Coast - but I think the bigger part of that is simply that aiming a Strip Mine at some random fixing land is just a bad play, whereas aiming it at a cradle is actually worth losing a card and a land a decent percentage of the time.

Good question. I'll freely admit that I have way more experience reading message boards than I do playing. While reading material about the Onion article parody of the casual Commander player is pretty bountiful, I actually haven't come across one very often in the wilds. In that context, it's very common to see a distinction drawn between attacking all lands and attacking only nonbasics. The latter has something of a Robin Hood character to it - taking down the elitist enfranchised player who only wins because they were playing since 1994. I don't see any sort of land destruction very often, but when I did, it wasn't Strip Mine or the like, it was Child of Alara MLD tribal. Brutal experience, probably a pubstomping in retrospect given the crap my inexperienced self was calling a Commander deck back then. Just one of probably dozens of staxy, controlly, tough-love experiences that ended up giving me my shrink the ban list, anything's fine Commander mindset.

[Toshi]

there are many cycles of untapped duals:

-fetch lands
-abu duals

I'm not sure what running a nonbasic "for the sake of them" means

Considering the price point of a full suite of fetches and those bars of gold, i am more than happy to run most if not all cycles you mentioned.

And when it comes to the sake of just running them, your meta/LGS that must look a lot different than mine, cause we have plenty of players pointing out "bro, i play Field of the Dead, Reliquary Tower, ... in all of my decks, bro."

[TheGildedGoose]

Hotter take, delete all nonbasic hate because it leads to %$#% gameplay, then remove all fixing lands that are better than a guildgate.

Agree to disagree. I would rather have a tuned manabase that can be interacted with than a %$#% manabase that I can't do anything about. I guess I'm one of the handful of people that actually like Magic's resource system since I think it once led to interesting design considerations. That went out the window with fetches of course, but manabase interaction is a part of the game and I wish it saw more development space, even in casual games.

I prefer play and counterplay than outright restrictions. B2B and BM are better than Armageddon in that regard since there are reasonable counterplay to them.

[pokken]

I run a lot of extra basics and extra typed lands (I weirdly almost never run Bond lands, and run very few non-typed duals), because my decks tend to rip all the typed lands out of my library efficiently:P

It really, really sucks to go for a Explosive Vegetation and find you have no more basic lands left because you're only running 5. Similarly when you replay the same Windswept Heath 5 times and it's out of targets, that is crappy.

So I'm a lot more hype on Scattered Groves and Cinder Glade than most people, but I also play more basics.

[Avacyn Believer]

I'm not sure what running a nonbasic "for the sake of them" means,

For me this means including every possible "dual" non-basic, mainly in reference to the ones that etb tapped, but even those that have conditions for etb untapped. I do like to have couple, but it is rare for me to play less than 20 basics. My land count ranges from 32 to 37 in my two-colours deck, and the non basics are split into colour fixing and utility. Personally I've noticed better performance this way but that could be result of not investing into a lot of lands that have untapped etb conditions.

In my "real" decks, it's been a long time since I played a basic heavy manabase outside of monocolor, but playing set commander decks, where the only nonbasics I can run are typically a small handful (currently 3 gainlands in my 3c Zimone and Dina), I have no idea how people tolerate basic-heavy manabases in 3c. The number of hands that I need to either throw back or pray to topdeck the right basic is completely intolerable.

I am curious if that comes down to the deck composition? I am currently running four 3-colour decks, and as it happens I've been playing them the most lately because I am away from home with only few decks with me. I haven't noticed any issues with opening hands or not having the right colours that would make me think I need to re-consider the mana base. For science I've complied the numbers:

Licia, Sanguine Tribune - 37 lands, 11 basics, non-basic emphasis on bounce lands and life gain lands, I'd say my strangest mana base because I run cycle lands too in this. The deck is primarily black-white, with mostly mono colour cards, and only one 3-colour card outside of commander.

Wernog, Rider's Chaplain & Hargilde, Kindly Runechanter - 37 lands, 19 basics. Also a lot of mono colour cards, just over double of multiple colour cards. No 3-colour cards.

Mayael the Anima - 36 lands, 23 basics. Very green heavy deck, also only one other 3-colour card. Admittedly this deck doesn't care too much about colours
because the aim is to free cast creatures.

Kasla, the Broken Halo - 37 lands, 22 basics - this is my newest, still mostly pre-con. Don't know yet how it will shape out when re-build, but since Convoke is a theme in the deck, colour fixing is less of an issue as cretures can provide colours.

Not sure which one you'd consider basic heavy manabase. I've actually surprised myself here, thought I had more multiple colour cards in those decks. I can imagine that in decks where most cards require 2 or 3 colours you'd want a very consistent colour fixing.

Also to consider everything, I can't say that in my years I've played in groups where land destruction happened often, like mass-land destruction. It has never been a factor for me how my non-basic lands could be affected negatively. Even my control-heavy play group doesn't really mess with lands.

[PrimevalCommander]

Decks with 3 colors typically get between 10-12 basic lands and lots of fixing lands. Anything with green will focus heavy on Forest searching with dual-typed lands and all the forest searchers for fixing. White gets several Plains searchers. My two main 3 color decks both use 10 basics each and I haven't run out of basics very often. Once I did a lot of ramping with Harrow and might have had 8 out of 10 in play at that time. One used to have only 6 basics, but I did have to bump that up because I did need more than 6 to keep my ramp alive through the late game and not become dead cards.

Mono-color float between 20-25 basics and heavy utility lands since colors are not an issue.
I don't have any 2 color decks, but I would guess around 14-18 basics with a blend of fixing and utility lands.
I'm brewing one or two 5 color decks that look to probably stick around 10 basics with heavy on the fixing lands like Shocks, Fetches, and Triomes. Anything less than 10 limits my ramp options unless I realize that I only have a slim few that search basics only.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

This thread tears me apart. On one hand, I strongly believe 15 basics per edh deck is a hard and fast minimum for sane deckbuilding, but on the other hand, I've tasted the forbidden fruit of a rock solid nonbasic manabase and I can't deny the allure. All the awesome utility lands in Dirk's Phelddagrif? Delicious, made even better with a loam plan. I was running 6 basics. My current Raffine deck? 3 basics. No joke, and it makes me sweat all the time. But man oh man oh mangoberry, curving out with perfect fixing nearly every game is sweet (even if I am playing some extremely dubious things like Thran quarry and Gemstone Mine to do it).

I think my Sythis deck is the best representative of balance between my philosophy and my desire to hit colors on time. All the on color nonbasics of consequence and 17 basics. Works like a charm.

Ultimately I think it comes down to how fast you need your colors in a multicolor deck. Things at higher MVs with more pips matter less to a control deck that wants to grind out a win on t12 when they have loads of mana, but casting something like Dauthi voidwalker t2 consistently in a hardcore Saskia the Unyielding aggro deck is a hurdle that requires a lot more nonbasics to support. I also think that most 2 color decks could essentially run off basics and be generally fine unless their deck is terribly skewed to one color and only splashing the other.

[DirkGently]

Good question. I'll freely admit that I have way more experience reading message boards than I do playing. While reading material about the Onion article parody of the casual Commander player is pretty bountiful, I actually haven't come across one very often in the wilds. In that context, it's very common to see a distinction drawn between attacking all lands and attacking only nonbasics. The latter has something of a Robin Hood character to it - taking down the elitist enfranchised player who only wins because they were playing since 1994. I don't see any sort of land destruction very often, but when I did, it wasn't Strip Mine or the like, it was Child of Alara MLD tribal. Brutal experience, probably a pubstomping in retrospect given the crap my inexperienced self was calling a Commander deck back then. Just one of probably dozens of staxy, controlly, tough-love experiences that ended up giving me my shrink the ban list, anything's fine Commander mindset.

You'd need to get more specific than MLD tribal. The only MLD card that doesn't blow up basics afaik is Ruination (I guess also From the Ashes but nobody has ever or will ever play that card). Beyond that, we're blowing up basics, aren't we?

There's no point to play around ruination specifically unless for some reason it's a big part of your local meta. Goose's 33% basics is still going to get BTFOd. You'd need to do absolutely stupid things to your manabase to shrug off a ruination in 3+C. And hol' up, this is a child of alara deck we're talking about? A 5c deck that's hating on NONBASICS? Holy hell that sounds completely unplayable.

Having played CoA with MLD back in my less scrupulous days, the objectively correct MLD spell for 5c is Global Ruin. But basic lands won't save you from that one.

Considering the price point of a full suite of fetches and those bars of gold, i am more than happy to run most if not all cycles you mentioned.

And when it comes to the sake of just running them, your meta/LGS that must look a lot different than mine, cause we have plenty of players pointing out "bro, i play Field of the Dead, Reliquary Tower, ... in all of my decks, bro."

Enemy fetches are only in the teens at the moment.

I would never advise taking the advice of commander players on deck construction. Most of them barely know how to play the game. That said, idk that I've heard of them say anything quite that stupid. Every card should be carefully considered and not just thrown into every deck. Except sol ring.

Agree to disagree. I would rather have a tuned manabase that can be interacted with than a %$#% manabase that I can't do anything about. I guess I'm one of the handful of people that actually like Magic's resource system since I think it once led to interesting design considerations. That went out the window with fetches of course, but manabase interaction is a part of the game and I wish it saw more development space, even in casual games.

I prefer play and counterplay than outright restrictions. B2B and BM are better than Armageddon in that regard since there are reasonable counterplay to them.

I agree that B2B and BM are much better designs that MLD. That said, I'd be more in favor of subtler interaction than those. Something like Stoneshaker Shaman, except for nonbasics. But ofc that wouldn't get played because the harsher answers already exist.

I am curious if that comes down to the deck composition? I am currently running four 3-colour decks, and as it happens I've been playing them the most lately because I am away from home with only few decks with me. I haven't noticed any issues with opening hands or not having the right colours that would make me think I need to re-consider the mana base. For science I've complied the numbers:

Licia, Sanguine Tribune - 37 lands, 11 basics, non-basic emphasis on bounce lands and life gain lands, I'd say my strangest mana base because I run cycle lands too in this. The deck is primarily black-white, with mostly mono colour cards, and only one 3-colour card outside of commander.

Wernog, Rider's Chaplain & Hargilde, Kindly Runechanter - 37 lands, 19 basics. Also a lot of mono colour cards, just over double of multiple colour cards. No 3-colour cards.

Mayael the Anima - 36 lands, 23 basics. Very green heavy deck, also only one other 3-colour card. Admittedly this deck doesn't care too much about colours
because the aim is to free cast creatures.

Kasla, the Broken Halo - 37 lands, 22 basics - this is my newest, still mostly pre-con. Don't know yet how it will shape out when re-build, but since Convoke is a theme in the deck, colour fixing is less of an issue as cretures can provide colours.

Not sure which one you'd consider basic heavy manabase. I've actually surprised myself here, thought I had more multiple colour cards in those decks. I can imagine that in decks where most cards require 2 or 3 colours you'd want a very consistent colour fixing.

Also to consider everything, I can't say that in my years I've played in groups where land destruction happened often, like mass-land destruction. It has never been a factor for me how my non-basic lands could be affected negatively. Even my control-heavy play group doesn't really mess with lands.

There's a huge difference between running 20 basics and running 35 basics in a 3c deck. 20 basics is still definitely subpar but it's tolerable, basically precon-tier fixing. You get color screwed occasionally and you can't go too heavy on manacosts (moreso multiple pips of the same color, than multiple colors, unless you have a skewed manabase towards a particular color). But 35 is just horrendous. I hate it. Worst part of set commander by far.

This thread tears me apart. On one hand, I strongly believe 15 basics per edh deck is a hard and fast minimum for sane deckbuilding, but on the other hand, I've tasted the forbidden fruit of a rock solid nonbasic manabase and I can't deny the allure. All the awesome utility lands in Dirk's Phelddagrif? Delicious, made even better with a loam plan. I was running 6 basics. My current Raffine deck? 3 basics. No joke, and it makes me sweat all the time. But man oh man oh mangoberry, curving out with perfect fixing nearly every game is sweet (even if I am playing some extremely dubious things like Thran quarry and Gemstone Mine to do it).

I think my Sythis deck is the best representative of balance between my philosophy and my desire to hit colors on time. All the on color nonbasics of consequence and 17 basics. Works like a charm.

Ultimately I think it comes down to how fast you need your colors in a multicolor deck. Things at higher MVs with more pips matter less to a control deck that wants to grind out a win on t12 when they have loads of mana, but casting something like Dauthi voidwalker t2 consistently in a hardcore Saskia the Unyielding aggro deck is a hurdle that requires a lot more nonbasics to support. I also think that most 2 color decks could essentially run off basics and be generally fine unless their deck is terribly skewed to one color and only splashing the other.

Sythis is only 2c so that's not really a fair comparison.

I'm not really sure why the heavy nonbasic manabase is "forbidden fruit". Unless you have meta reasons to worry about nonbasic hate it's a pretty minor issue. And fetches are strong against pretty much any nonbasic hate anyway (unless someone T1's a blood moon off a manacrypt, playing before you in turn order, so you can't crack your fetch lol...but that was a cEDH game).

[Avacyn Believer]

But 35 is just horrendous. I hate it. Worst part of set commander by far.

35 basics seems unreasonable in almost any deck, I don't run that many even in my mono colour decks I can't imagine any 2 or 3 colour deck would work with that many.

Might be just me, but I wouldn't call it forbidden fruit. I don't think I disagree with anything said in this topic so far. Personally I just feel limited by monetary reasons. I have around 20 decks and buying that many good non-basic colour fixing lands just isn't reasonable to me, not when basics do the job. In an ideal world I likely would run fewer basics in my decks. In my most "competitive" deck I have had no negative experience with running majority of non-basics to optimize the colour fixing to be as fast and as consistent as possible.

[Hermes_]

Considering the price point of a full suite of fetches and those bars of gold, i am more than happy to run most if not all cycles you mentioned.

And when it comes to the sake of just running them, your meta/LGS that must look a lot different than mine, cause we have plenty of players pointing out "bro, i play Field of the Dead, Reliquary Tower, ... in all of my decks, bro."

Enemy fetches are only in the teens at the moment.

I would never advise taking the advice of commander players on deck construction. Most of them barely know how to play the game. That said, idk that I've heard of them say anything quite that stupid. Every card should be carefully considered and not just thrown into every deck. Except sol ring.

using the price that appears when you hover over the card name on here

Marsh Flats 12.17 times 4 is 48.68 USD for a full playset
Scalding Tarn is 20.09 times 4 is 80.36 for a playset
Verdant Catacombs 14.60 4x is 58.40
Arid Mesa 14.24 4x is 56.96
Misty Rainforest 18.00 4x is 72.00

so for a full play set of those fetches is a total of 316.40 USD,

[DirkGently]

using the price that appears when you hover over the card name on here

Marsh Flats 12.17 times 4 is 48.68 USD for a full playset
Scalding Tarn is 20.09 times 4 is 80.36 for a playset
Verdant Catacombs 14.60 4x is 58.40
Arid Mesa 14.24 4x is 56.96
Misty Rainforest 18.00 4x is 72.00

so for a full play set of those fetches is a total of 316.40 USD,

...why are we talking about playsets on a commander subforum?

I can understand people being on a budget. But I will say that they probably aren't going to get any lower than they currently are, and they're probably going to be the best fixing lands to ever be printed, no matter how long the game runs. So idk, seems like a good investment to me.