I'm going to rank on the assumption of minimal synergy, but I'll point out circumstances where these lands could be better than I've ranked them.
KEY:
(F) = friendly only cycle (shards for trilands)
(E) = enemy only cycle (wedges for trilands)
#1 - Fetchlands
Expensive, but unequivocally the best. If you need proof, just look at competitive formats, where these consistently dominate. With dual-typed lands, these function as rainbow lands with a very modest life investment, but they're so much more - they also provide a shuffle, graveyard fuel, recursion potential, landfalls, sac triggers, and more. Unlike every other land on this list, they're also resistant to nonbasic hate, since they can hit basics if you suspect hate is incoming. Any optimized deck should be running as many of these as possible - even many mono-colored lists can get benefits from them.
Synergies: dual-typed lands, land recursion, topdeck control, delve, landfall
#2 - ABU Duals
The classic duals. These are obviously very strong duals, having essentially no downside and tapping for 2 colors, but imo their biggest strength is how they perform with fetches. While these are certainly very good, I wouldn't necessarily always run all ten in a 5c deck, since they aren't always good topdecks in a deck where they only cover 40% of your colors. But for anything 4 colors or less, I'd almost always run as many as possible.
Synergies: fetches, basic type bonuses
#3 - Shocklands
Strictly worse than the ABU duals in virtually all cases, but in a 40-life format it's a fairly minimal downside. As with duals, their biggest benefit is their synergy with fetches. Without fetches or other type synergies, these would be just barely better than painlands really, but those synergies make them indispensable, especially if you're running fetches but don't have ABU duals. I'd probably always run all of these in 3 colors or less, and probably at least some in every multicolor deck, but how many I'd run in 4-5 color would depend on my color balance and how many fixing land slots I had. If you have fetches without ABU duals, though, you're probably running these at ABU dual frequencies, though.
Synergies: fetches, basic type bonuses, not having ABU duals
#4 - BBD duals (F)
These are basically just ABU duals without the land typing. If you plan to play 1v1 these will drop off significantly, but in multiplayer they're very nearly no-downside duals. They'll enter untapped almost always, and if they game is down to 1v1 it's a good bet you've got a lot of lands and one entering tapped isn't a big deal. That said, they don't have any particular synergies. They're just good dual lands. I'd always run them in 3 or fewer colors, but would probably only run the ones supporting my main colors is 4+ color decks.
Synergies: having enough people to play properly
#5 - Checklands
Much like the BBD duals, these will enter untapped reliably in most decks, but otherwise offer few benefits aside from good fixing. Unlike the BBD duals, these drop off significantly if you're playing more than 3 colors, though, since they're much less likely to enter untapped. This is especially true if you don't have fetches, since most duals aren't land-typed. They also can't enter untapped as your first land, which can be a significant downside in very fast decks that need to hit plays on the early turns reliably. For average decks that either don't mind these as a tapland on T1, or waiting until later to play it untapped, though, the times these will bite you in 2-3 color decks is very rare.
Synergies: fetches/dual-typed lands, not too many colors
#6 - Bicycle Lands (F)
Always entering tapped is a significant downside, but luckily these do a lot to make up for it. For one thing, they're dual typed, which makes them an additional option to hit with fetches, although if you've already got the shock and the ABU dual then you probably don't really need it, since by the time you've already fetched both you're probably doing fine on both of those colors, and would be better off hitting basics for hate protection. If you don't have ABU duals, though, these go up significantly, and it's nice to be able to hit them when you have a fetch to crack but know you don't need the mana this turn. The cycling ability can range from very useful to pretty meaningless, depending on how well your deck handles excess mana. If your commander is The Scorpion God, for example, you'd probably be better off with an untapped land since you'll always have a place to put excess mana. Whereas if you're often running out of gas, having a land that can try to find something else might help you from guttering out. And it's also neat with Life from the Loam and other recursion.
Synergies: fetches, land type bonuses, not having ABU duals, recursion, limited mana utility
#7 - Filter lands
Filter lands are really interesting, because they've got some really high and really low rolls. On one hand, they can do a fantastic job of enabling you to cast cards with really high costs of a certain color (i.e. necropotence or invoke prejudice), but on the other hand if you can't get one of the two colors, they're colorless. As a result, they're usually an auto-include in 2 color decks, can be great or just okay in 3 color decks depending on the mana costs and color split, and are often risky in 4+ color decks. That said, if you've got a couple main colors which the deck includes cards with high color requirements for, then these can potentially fit into any deck. I'd usually look at my mana costs and how many sources I have for the respective colors before including them, and I'm also very likely to include only a couple of them, in the colors I use most and have the heaviest requirements for.
Synergies: high color requirements (of one color), "primary" colors, mana doublers
#8 - ODY filter lands (F)
The less popular brother to the shadowmoor filter lands, odyssey's filters are still quite solid. While in theory they can be even riskier than shadowmoor filters, because they can't even produce colorless on their own, in reality they're pretty robust since they can use any mana to activate, and thus are less dependent on being in "primary" colors. If you like using colorless utility lands, these can help turn that hard-to-use mana into something more helpful, and can ensure you still cast your commander on-curve even if it doesn't have any colorless in its cost. I'd avoid using too many of these, since they can be a disaster in multiples, and like signets, they require forethought to avoid getting stuck with an unusable land (In general, I'd try to use them ASAP in your turn to avoid this scenario). And also they don't play very nicely with the aforementioned necropotences of the world. As a result, you're well advised to match your lands to your deck.
Synergies: high color requirements (of multiple colors), colorless utility lands, commanders with no colorless cost
#9 - Painlands
These used to be the premium duals, back when I first started playing. That said, they're still surprisingly good. They always enter untapped, and they always tap for two colors at a fairly minimal cost. So long as you only need to use them occasionally for their colored mana - a splash color, hitting the last pip on your necropotence - there's really nothing wrong with them. Where they start to become a problem is if you're using one through the whole game for colored mana the damage can start to become significant. In a 2-color deck I'd almost always run one, since it can usually be used for colorless but provides colored mana when most needed. In a 5 color deck, though, I'd probably avoid these.
Synergies: damaging yourself triggers, colorless (eldrazi) costs
#10 - Karoo lands
I'm sure I'm going to catch flak for putting these so high in the list, and it's true that their position is pretty dependent on the speed of your meta. That said, these have significant upside in exchange for the pain of entering tapped. Effectively, they let you draw an entire card - albeit one that's guaranteed to be a land. Imagine if there was a new dual land cycle that always entered tapped, but searched for a basic to hand on etb. That's functionally what these are. In 1v1 they're much more risky, since they're actually worth hitting with strip mine and co, but in multiplayer that's generally a bad move, making these pretty safe, though they do get hit harder than normal by nonbasic hate (though if you play them under a blood moon and then the blood moon goes away, you get free ramp). Much like the ODY filters, these get more risky the more you have, since they can't be your first land drop, so caution is advised. And in addition, since these will "replace" themselves in your hand, be cautious about running them out early since you might lose the card advantage they provide to hand size (although ofc playing one is still better than playing no land). Unless you want to discard something, in which case that's just an added bonus.
Synergies: landfall, land untaps, slow metas, exploration, certain grave synergies
#11 - Fastlands (F)
These are in a weird spot, because most of them are significantly more expensive than their corresponding painland, but generally worse. As a result, they don't get much play in commander. That said, they're still pretty decent. The early turns are the most crucial for having untapped lands, generally-speaking. That said, a lot of commander games can go very long, and the window when these enter untapped versus tapped can get pretty small. I'd probably run them in a 2-color deck, but I'm unlikely to run them in decks with more colors simply because they're boxed out by the competition.
Synergies: fast decks
#12 - Trilands
The second guaranteed-to-enter-tapped land on the list. These are a great example of a land that's excellent for beginners but will get cut as the list gets stronger. Tapping for 3 colors is a lot of the color pie, but fixing in commander is good enough that can get pretty impeccable fixing without sacrificing tempo. That said, there's nothing wrong with these, and any budget 3 color deck should be running the corresponding triland.
Synergies: budget builds, having exactly 3 colors
#13 - Temples
Temples are a decent dual - they have a small upside, but enter tapped. They're fine. Generally-speaking, a good deck should get more value out of the tempo of an untapped land than it would a scry 1, which is why they rank this low, but they're still totally fine, and imo are often worth running in 2 color decks with limited options. A hidden downside is that the scry is usually most valuable late-game, when scrying a land to the bottom is as good as a draw, whereas early drawing anything is generally fine (unless you really need to hit another land) - so playing a temple T1 if you have nothing better to do might be sacrificing long-term value.
Synergies: playing grenzo, dungeon warden
#14 - horizon lands (E) (+ )
Personally I'm a bit down on these lands, simply because almost any successful commander deck that isn't planning to combo win quickly will probably want to have some way to turn mana into cards in order to keep itself going into the late-game. Whether that's a control deck pumping a million mana into Blue Sun's Zenith, on aggro deck turning attacks into draw with Ohran Frostfang. So I don't really like sacrificing mana to draw, when that mana might be helping to fuel my draw engine later in the game. I also don't like constantly taking damage from my lands. That said, these enter untapped and tap for 2 colors, and do have a bonus even if most well-made decks shouldn't want to use it very often. Whether these are worth running probably depends more on how much you expect the damage to matter, although there can be some synergies with recursion and such.
Synergies: land recursion, delve, fast decks
#15 - ETBT fetches (F)
Yes, we've gotten 14 spots down the list and the only difference is that we've traded paying a life for entering tapped. That's partly because entering tapped is a pretty big deal...but it's also because, if we're being honest, there are a LOT of really good lands in commander. These probably won't make the cut for most decks, simply because fetches are so much better, but if you're really going all-in on fetch synergies, these aren't bad by any stretch. Plus they're dirt cheap.
Synergies: dual-typed lands, land recursion, delve, topdeck control, landfall
#16 - Man-duals
This is the only cycle that sort of needs to be rated individually, since each one is different, though they're at least somewhat comparable in power. Personally I rarely activate my man-duals, but they can be worth the spot if they have synergy with your deck, or especially if you have equipment that could be shouldered by a land if your commander is getting hated out. My order for ranking these would be:
- UB (gets damage triggers the best, inevitability)
- BR (randomly fireball kills people, trades ok)
- BG (rattlesnake blocker, potential ping synergy)
- RW (double damage trigger potential)
- WU (evasion, blocks flyers)
- UB (lifegain synergy)
- GU (works well vs control pieces, when you counter wasteland with it you feel like a god)
- RG (in magical dreamland you'll get eight counters on it! in reality it's a 4/4 once)
- GW (it's cheap to activate and blocks ok)
- UR (there's some bad combos with it, otherwise it's pretty much crap)
Are these lands secretly the reason I made this list? Maybe. I do not like these lands one bit, but they get a lot of attention because they're one of only 4 cycles of duals with basic typing. I think this placement is very fair, though. There's two points to consider. The first is how well they play when drawn, in comparison to the above, un-typed duals. The second question is how useful they are off fetches.
As compared to other lands, these fall woefully short. Where checklands lost some points for needing another land with either of their types to enter untapped, these need two lands (making them reverse fastlands at best), AND they have to be basic, not dual-typed. Now, granted, they don't need to share a type with the tango land, but the more colors you have, the less room you have for basics and the less likely you'll have 2 out early. Now, of course, if you are running a lot of basics this becomes less of a problem, but even if every other land in your deck is a basic, these are still quite mediocre since it's the early turns that are often the most important, when you need to hit your curve to play ramp and set up for the midgame.
The main counterargument to this is that they're fetchable, which is true of course, but it hardly saves them imo. Especially while these are only in friendly colors, there are three better options with the same colors available. Once you've already fetched out all of those, do you really need another dual land? I'd much prefer to get a basic and protect myself from nonbasic hate. Even if you don't have an ABU dual, I'd still consider a third dual-typed land to be unnecessary. Two is almost always plenty.
The dual types can potentially have other advantages - i.e. emeria, the sky ruin - that might justify including these over other duals, and sometimes they're ok in a 2-color deck with really crazy color requirements, but otherwise I'd almost never play these.
synergies: basic type bonuses, low standards
#18 - Reveal Lands (F)
I really don't like these. In theory they're ok, but in practice it's so much easier to have a typed land on the battlefield than in hand, since you can fetch them onto the battlefield. That said, in a 2-color deck they're ok I guess, if you're running a lot of basics, although there are enough better options you probably shouldn't need to run them.
synergies: high basic count, 2 color decks, budget
#19 - Storage lands (F)
This cycle is funny because it's one of my least favorites but it's actually probably underrated. Commander games are often decided by big, powerful plays, and being able to build up your power until the opportune time is a powerful tool for a land to provide. But I just hate keeping track of counters on my lands, so I haven't run these in ages. They do definitely trend casual, since they require dumping 2 mana into them to charge. Great for a meta that involves durdling until someone drops a bomb on turn 20, less good in a meta where things are actually happening.
synergies: slow metas, big spells/turns, proliferate
#20 - Panoramas (F)
The next worst version of fetches. These break from the previous options by only hitting basics, which of course makes them garbage. They do enter untapped and tap for colorless, though, so that's kind of nice. They're conceivable if you need to recursion synergy lands, or if you're on a really tight budget.
synergies: land recursion, topdeck control, delve, landfall, budget
#21 - Tribal duals (F/E/???)
If I'm being fair, these are probably quite high if you're playing a tribal deck with them, but otherwise they're pretty unlikely to enter untapped generally, and thus quite weak. The cycle doesn't follow the normal friendly/enemy scheme.
synergies: tribal
#22 - Refuge-likes
We've almost hit straight-up etbt duals, but not quite. Here we get 1 measly life as our benefit. But hey, in the right deck, that might actually be reasonable justification to run them.
synergies: lifegain, budget
#23 - Refuges (F)
See above.
#24 - Snow duals (F)
There are some snow synergies that might actually make this justifiable - although most good snow decks will be monocolor so they can safely run a ton of snow basics without compromising their fixing.
synergies: snow
#25 - Guildgates
There aren't many gate synergies that make any sense in commander - basically just maze's end. Other than that, these are just weak budget lands.
synergies: gates, budget
#26 - Invasion duals
I'll confess I have a soft spot in my heart for these, since they were the go-to budget fixing lands when I started playing. They're crap, of course, as is everything beyond this point. But hey, it's always fun to see just how bad magic cards can be.
synergies: for the budget player with exquisite taste
#27 - Tainted lands (?)
I really don't like the tainted lands, as evidenced by their spot down here. For one thing, they're budget fixers when most budget fixing won't have land types. For a second thing, they kick you when you're down. When you most need black mana, their black mana ability is turned off. As such, they just exacerbate color screw. Unless you need the extra black mana, you could just run a basic of the other color, and have that color guaranteed. These only begin to make sense if you're really heavy black. Otherwise they're just a total disaster.
synergies: heavy black decks with a splash, budget
#28 - ETBT painlands (E)
If you didn't love painlands, how about painlands that also ETBT? Yes, tempest was a hard time to play multicolor, wizards was still figuring out a fair rate after somewhat overdoing it with the ABU duals. These are both obscure and terrible. But they're also one of the only enemy-only cycles of lands!
synergies: terrible cards tribal
#29 - Tempest Stucklands (F)
I'm pretty sure I just invented the term "stucklands", but it groks really well to me so I'm sticking with it. Unfortunately it will never be used by anyone else because this cycle of lands is truly atrocious. At least it enters untapped, but the cost to pay for a colored mana is very painful, every single time. Luckily after tempest wizards realized how bad these lands were and they were never seen again...
synergies: wanting to lose
#30 - Kamigawa Stucklands (F)
Just kidding! Were these horrible lands the reason Kamigawa was unpopular? We may never know (but yes, duh). Even more tragic here, because they wasted really cool art and flavor on them, and they don't even have that sweet "horrible old funny jank" smell on them like the tempest lands do.
synergies: can we stop? please?
#31 - Lairs (F)
Back when I was an idiot I remember loving these lands. My justification was "ok, bouncing a land is real bad, but if you only play them as your last land, then it's no downside at all! I solved the game!" How wrong I was. For one thing, if you topdeck another land, you've just shot yourself in the foot. For a second, fixing that requires you to play it as your last land is real bad. While other lands might set you back in mana temporarily, these can set you back in mana PERMANENTLY. They are very bad.
synergies: kill me kill me kill me...ok, landfall though I guess...kill me
#32 - Homelands trilands (F)
You know it's going to be good when we're talking homelands. You know the extremely janky, barely-limited-playable unknown shores? What if we took that card...and made it so that only one color could be produced at the (extremely efficient) cost of only 2 mana, and the others cost the princely sum of 3 mana to produce just one mana of their color? Still too good? Ok, it only produces 2 other colors. And we know these are going to be super playable, so let's give them awesome flavour as some of the most iconic buildings from early magic, with the knowledge that this won't be a huge waste. Nailed it!
synergies: .......................
#33 - Ice Age Depletion lands
Magic is a game for dreamers. Twenty five years ago, magic scientists dared to dream of a land cycle even worse than the Stucklands (this was several years before stucklands were released, so it was a somewhat confusing dream). A land cycle so bad, that virtually everyone would forget it existed when they were comparing cycles of dual lands. But today I honor the memory of those dreamers, for unto this world they dared to ask the question "ok, the stucklands are pretty horrible, but what if....what if we got rid of their ability to produce colorless without exerting themselves? And what if we gave them horribly confusing wording that takes a three-week correspondence course to understand? And just for fun...let's make it so that, if you're ever playing against Atraxa, your land will just get stuck forever and you'll never get it back?"
And thus, the ice age depletion land cycle was born. And it was the worst thing ever.
synergies: im ded.