Evolving WildsEvolving Wilds | Art by Andreas Rocha

Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that Thawing GlaciersThawing Glaciers is the only land that will let you search for a basic and put it on the battlefield without putting itself in the graveyard?)

Vibrant CityscapeVibrant Cityscape is a third functional reprint of Evolving WildsEvolving Wilds, following several remakes of Evolving Wilds that are technically better.

Which got me wondering, do we have enough of these to do a top ten now? And which ones are the best, anyhow?

Top 10 Evolving Wilds

Criteria: Lands you can play in any color combination that can sacrifice themselves to search for a basic land of any type and put it onto the battlefield under your control. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

10. Warped LandscapeWarped Landscape

(14.7K Inclusions, 0.21% of 6.98M Decks)

In a world of lands that have to sacrifice themselves to put a land into play tapped so you can then wait a turn to add the mana you needed, Warped LandscapeWarped Landscape has a devil's bargain for you: If you need that mana now, it can supply a colorless immediately. If you need a colored pip, however, then you're gonna have to pay two mana to get a basic and have it enter tapped.

For me, I think this land works, but only in monocolored decks. Even then, they're probably monocolored decks that either care about cards in the graveyard or landfall.

9. Promising VeinPromising Vein

(43.8K Inclusions, 0.64% of 6.8M Decks)

Of course, if there were a better version, then I don't think that Warped LandscapeWarped Landscape would see any play at all. Surely not almost 15,000 decks worth, right? Right?

Jokes aside, Promising VeinPromising Vein is a strictly better Warped Landscape, and it's not even the only one. So either there's enough call for this effect that folks are willing to play three different copies of it, with one being wildly inferior, or what we're really looking at is folks making Commander decks out of their personal collections and sticking with what's good enough.

Which... strangely gives me a lot of hope for this game, in a time where that seems to be in short supply? There are 15,000 folks out there still just playing CardsIHave.dec with their friends - and that's awesome.

8. Shire TerraceShire Terrace

(60.1K Inclusions, 0.86% of 6.98M Decks)

If you're wondering if we just looked at this card, we didn't. This is a totally different card that has all of the exact same words on it except "- Cave". Which technically, looking at the 14 cards in Magic that care about Caves that all feel positively about said Caves, makes Promising VeinPromising Vein strictly better than Shire TerraceShire Terrace.

So get started on those deck lists; I don't make the rules, folks, I just enforce them.

7. Escape TunnelEscape Tunnel

(96.9K Inclusions, 1.50% of 6.46M Decks)

Well, here we are! We've arrived at the best Evolving WildsEvolving Wilds. Strange that it comes at number seven on our list, isn't it? Well, setting play numbers and discussions about inertia and precon inclusion aside, Escape TunnelEscape Tunnel is the best card that sacrifices itself to put a basic land onto the battlefield tapped. It just is, there really isn't a debate to be had here...

...unless you bring the words "self-control" into the picture. Because, you see, if Fear of Missing OutFear of Missing Out enters the picture, Escape TunnelEscape Tunnel can be worse than Evolving Wilds. If you fail to go get a basic and put it down onto the battlefield because you might need a creature to be unblockable, then is Escape Tunnel really the better card?

Well, yes, it is. I would just caution you when it comes to playing this card: Know if you are the kind of player who can make it strictly better.

6. Field of RuinField of Ruin

(134K Inclusions, 1.92% of 6.98M Decks)

Wait, this isn't an Evolving WildsEvolving Wilds variant. Is it?

Criteria: Lands you can play in any color combination that can sacrifice themselves to search for a basic land of any type and put it onto the battlefield under your control. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

Huh. I guess it is. Weird. And also a little mean - feels like it's kicking Warped LandscapeWarped Landscape while it's down. In any case, Field of RuinField of Ruin is the group-hug version of WastelandWasteland, allowing not just the opponent you hit with it to replace the land, but also replacing the land you're sacrificing.

Doing some quick math, that also means that you're handing out extra lands to the other two players. I'm sure they'll remember your service and not use those extra resources against you, right?

5. Prismatic VistaPrismatic Vista

(348K Inclusions, 4.98% of 6.98M Decks)

"Do we have enough [Evolving Wilds] to do a top ten now?"

The answer, my friends, was no. We didn't, and so I included these untapped variants in our list. Which is a bit unfair, because if you're in the market for an Evolving Wilds, it's unlikely that you're looking for a $40 land. If we were looking for that, we'd all just be playing Shocks and Fetches for a $250 mana base.

Which is precisely why Prismatic VistaPrismatic Vista's price is out of control, to be fair. If you're monocolor, there's only so many fetches you can play that can get your specific land type, so Prismatic Vista becomes your fifth fetch.

In other words, it's not our number seven card that's our best Evolving Wilds, it's instead our number five card! Break out those wallets!

4. Fabled PassageFabled Passage

(637K Inclusions, 9.12% of 6.98M Decks)

If $40 seems a little steep, however, then there's still a (mostly) untapped version of Evolving Wilds that you can play in Fabled PassageFabled Passage. In the early game, Passage will act exactly like Evolving WildsEvolving Wilds does, going to get a basic and putting it into play tapped.

If it's your fourth land drop, however, then it will do all of that, and then untap the basic you go and get. A nice little bonus, right?

3. Terramorphic ExpanseTerramorphic Expanse

(1.07M Inclusions, 15.3% of 6.98M Decks)

All right, after that minor deviation into the world of untapped lands, we're back with Terramorphic ExpanseTerramorphic Expanse, the most well-known of the mechanically identical Evolving Wilds cards. And really, there's not much to say about it other than that. In the same fashion as our new entry, Vibrant CityscapeVibrant Cityscape, if you want to play an Evolving Wilds, but you don't have one, or you don't like the art of the one you have, you can instead play this. There's literally no difference.

If you need multiples? Well congratulations, there's now three of them, plus the one you should actually be playing, Escape TunnelEscape Tunnel.

2. Myriad LandscapeMyriad Landscape

(1.19M Inclusions, 17.1% of 6.98M Decks)

My personal favorite, however, has to be Myriad LandscapeMyriad Landscape. For sure, this is stretching the definition of an "Evolving Wilds," given you have to pay mana, but it's worth doing so, given the results.

Rather than paying two to go get one land, like our Warped LandscapeWarped Landscape example, Myriad Landscape will go get you two. Now, there is a small caveat in that they have to be the same kind of land, but that's a small price to pay to have a CultivateCultivate-level effect on a land.

There's one thing I caution that's different than all of these other Evolving Wilds, however: Because Myriad Landscape specifically references that the two basics have to share a type, Landscape actually cannot go get WastesWastes in your colorless deck, as they do not technically have a land type. So if this is you putting Myriad Landscape in your colorless deck, go grab an extra copy of said Wastes to throw in instead, because Landscape doesn't do anything for you.

1. Evolving WildsEvolving Wilds

(1.46M Inclusions, 20.9% of 6.98M Decks)

I was halfway through a flowery description about Evolving Wilds being the OG here when I actually did the research and found that... it isn't. The original printing of Evolving Wilds came out in Rise of the Eldrazi, in 2010. It's clone, Terramorphic Expanse? It came out in Time Spiral, a full five years earlier.

So why did Evolving Wilds become the go-to? Well, the easy answer is precon bias. For those unaware, the long and short of it is that cards that are printed in Commander precons tend to see more play than cards that don't. There are a lot of lists based on precons, where the card in question never gets removed, even when folks are upgrading the deck. And there's also a lot of people building decks out of collections that include old precon cards, meaning they're more likely to be picked out of a box and put into a deck, as well.

Now, as to why Evolving Wilds got chosen time and again to be in precons, while Terramorphic Expanse didn't? I don't work for Hasbro, but I think I would have made the same choice.

Put Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse next to each other, and ask a 10-year-old to tell you what each card represents. No matter which art you put for each of these cards in front of them, I bet you they can explain what Evolving Wilds is trying to represent, and will struggle to tell you the same for Terramorphic.

For one thing, Evolving Wilds has real words on it, as opposed to the made-up-for-the-purpose Terramorphic. For another, "Wilds" only means one thing, as opposed to the multiple definitions of "Expanse."

In other words? KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) won out, and that's why Evolving Wilds is king. Now, will that change with Vibrant CityscapeVibrant Cityscape entering the picture? Well, let me tell you about another thing we see all the time around here with inclusion numbers, called "inertia"...

Honorable Mentions

We had some rather specific criteria today to cut out the Fetches that would have made up this entire list, over even Evolving Wilds itself. That led to the weeding out of a couple other cycles of lands that I actually consider to be great alternatives to Wilds and its ilk:

Streets of New Capenna brought us a series of 10 "bad" fetches that do nothing but enter the battlefield to immediately sacrifice themselves and go get a basic. I've actually struggled with this cycle mightily, because I love them, but I've also always abided by the unofficial idea that it's not okay to play off-color fetches.

The original Rules Committee was very clear that if they could have found a way to restrict you from playing fetches that named basic land types that weren't in your color identity, they would have done it. Spiritually, this makes sense, but mechanically, there's just no color differentiation between a Polluted DeltaPolluted Delta and a Misty RainforestMisty Rainforest, despite there being an actual color palette on the card representing the colors of lands it can go get.

For that reason, I find myself never quite playing these New Capenna fetches, simply because it's difficult to find a deck that's a low enough power level that it wants them, while also fulfilling the three-color "requirement" I've put on myself. Truly, it's quite a sickness I've made for myself that's spoiling all of my own fun.

There are no such quibbles when it comes to the color identity of the Modern Horizons 3 cycling fetches. With the color pips right there in the cycling cost, they know what decks they're allowed to be in, and them being three-color leads to a lot of restrictions in that regard, especially since they only add colorless if you don't use them to fetch.

Combine that with them being some of the most difficult cycling costs that exist, and it's no surprise that these haven't really caught on.

Finally, the Panoramas used to be dotted all over the EDH landscape. They were never the best options available, but they were always an option that was available, which used to be enough when everyone was just building 100-card piles out of their collections.

Unfortunately, they've become victims of the ever-increasing card options and card quality, with there being basically no reason to play them anymore, even in the "slow down and smell the taplands" environment of Bracket 1.

Nuts and Bolts

There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, NOT my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall search.

What Do You Think?

Come to think of it, though, is there really a reason to be playing Evolving Wilds anymore, either? Your wallet used to be a reasonable answer, but even that isn't really the case anymore when it comes to the options available to get you all your colors. So why do it?

And finally, what is your favorite Evolving Wilds? How is it different than the OG (of Terramorphic Expanse, of course)? Are you planning on playing Vibrant Cityscape in any decks, and if so, are you taking out Evolving Wilds for it?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the table that is slowly drifting along its continental plate, just like everywhere else.

Read More: