The cards that let you play lands from your graveyard are nearly all green, and the one exception is the classic: Crucible of Worlds, a colourless three-mana artifact that fits any deck. Ramunap Excavator puts the same ability on a three-mana creature, Conduit of Worlds also recasts permanents from your graveyard, and Ancient Greenwarden doubles your landfall triggers on top. To get every land back at once instead, Splendid Reclamation returns them all to the battlefield for four mana.
Below are 24 of them in two families: cards that let you play a land from your graveyard as your land for the turn, and cards that put lands from your graveyard straight onto the battlefield without using your land drop. Colour identity is noted wherever it differs from the cost, since in Commander that decides whether a card fits your deck.
Playing lands from your graveyard: artifacts and enchantments
| Card | Cost | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crucible of Worlds | {3} | Artifact | You may play lands from your graveyard. Colourless, so it fits any deck. |
| Conduit of Worlds | {2}{G}{G} | Artifact | You may play lands from your graveyard. It also taps, at sorcery speed, to let you cast a nonland permanent card from your graveyard, as your only spell that turn. |
| Perennial Behemoth | {5} | Artifact Creature, Beast | You may play lands from your graveyard. Unearth {G}{G} brings it back for one hasty turn and makes its colour identity green. |
| Glacierwood Siege | {1}{G}{U} | Enchantment | Choose Sultai as it enters and you may play lands from your graveyard; Temur instead mills a player for four on each instant or sorcery you cast. |
| Walk-In Closet // Forgotten Cellar | {2}{G} | Enchantment, Room | The Walk-In Closet door lets you play lands from your graveyard; unlocking Forgotten Cellar ({3}{G}{G}) gives you a turn of casting spells from your graveyard. |
Crucible of Worlds is the one to start with: every fetch land you crack can be played again next turn. Conduit of Worlds adds a second engine, at the price of a one-spell turn whenever you tap it.
Playing lands from your graveyard: the creatures
| Card | Cost | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ramunap Excavator | {2}{G} | Creature, Snake Cleric | You may play lands from your graveyard. That's the whole card. |
| Icetill Explorer | {2}{G}{G} | Creature, Insect Scout | You may play an extra land each turn and play lands from your graveyard. Landfall: mill a card. |
| Ancient Greenwarden | {4}{G}{G} | Creature, Elemental | Reach. You may play lands from your graveyard, and abilities of your permanents that trigger on a land entering trigger twice. |
Ramunap Excavator is Crucible on a body: easier to find with creature tutors, easier for opponents to kill. Icetill Explorer gives you two land drops a turn and keeps stocking the graveyard it plays from. Ancient Greenwarden costs six and takes over the game when it sticks.
Playing lands from your graveyard: commanders
| Card | Cost | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mole Man, Moloid Master | {2}{G} | Legendary Creature, Human Villain | You may play lands from your graveyard. Landfall: create a 1/1 green Moloid token that may mill a card when it attacks. |
| Zask, Skittering Swarmlord | {3}{G}{G} | Legendary Creature, Insect | You may play lands and cast Insect spells from your graveyard. The {B/G} in its activated ability makes its identity black and green. |
| Szarel, Genesis Shepherd | {2}{B}{R}{G} | Legendary Creature, Insect Druid | Flying. You may play lands from your graveyard. Sacrificing another nontoken permanent on your turn puts +1/+1 counters equal to Szarel's power on another creature. |
| Hazezon, Shaper of Sand | {R}{G}{W} | Legendary Creature, Human Warrior | Desertwalk. You may play Desert lands from your graveyard, and each Desert you control entering makes two 1/1 Sand Warrior tokens. |
| Titania, Nature's Force | {4}{G}{G} | Legendary Creature, Elemental | You may play Forests from your graveyard. Each Forest you control entering makes a 5/3 green Elemental token, and you may mill three whenever an Elemental you control dies. |
Mole Man leads the plan for three mana: every land you control that enters makes a body, and each one can mill a card when it attacks. Zask is the black-green Insect version, and Szarel the Jund one. Hazezon replays only Deserts and Titania, Nature's Force only Forests, though any land with the Forest type counts.
Straight onto the battlefield: every land at once
| Card | Cost | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Splendid Reclamation | {3}{G} | Sorcery | Returns all land cards from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. |
| Will of the Sultai | {4}{G} | Sorcery | Mode one: target player mills three, then all land cards in your graveyard return tapped. Mode two: a creature gets a +1/+1 counter per land you control and trample until end of turn. Both if you control a commander. |
| World Shaper | {3}{G} | Creature, Merfolk Shaman | You may mill three when it attacks. When it dies, all land cards in your graveyard return to the battlefield tapped. |
| Aftermath Analyst | {1}{G} | Creature, Elf Detective | When it enters, mill three. {3}{G}, sacrifice it: all land cards in your graveyard return to the battlefield tapped. |
| Lumra, Bellow of the Woods | {4}{G}{G} | Legendary Creature, Elemental Bear | Vigilance and reach; power and toughness equal your lands. When it enters, mill four, then return all land cards from your graveyard tapped. |
| Summon: Titan | {3}{G}{G} | Enchantment Creature, Saga Giant | Saga creature with reach and trample. I: mill five. II: all land cards in your graveyard return tapped. III: another target creature you control gets +X/+X and trample until end of turn, X being your lands. |
| The Mending of Dominaria | {3}{G}{G} | Enchantment, Saga | I, II: mill two, then you may return a creature card to your hand. III: all land cards in your graveyard return to the battlefield, then your graveyard is shuffled into your library. |
| Titania, Gaea Incarnate | No mana cost | Legendary Creature, Elemental Avatar | Vigilance, reach, trample, haste; power and toughness equal your lands. When it enters, all land cards in your graveyard return tapped. Green identity. |
Will of the Sultai usually beats Splendid Reclamation: aim the mill at yourself so any lands it hits come back too, and with your commander out you also get the counters, which count every land you just returned. The Mending of Dominaria is the only mass return that doesn't bring the lands back tapped, so that mana is yours the same turn. Titania, Gaea Incarnate has no mana cost because you never cast it: Titania, Voice of Gaea melds with Argoth, Sanctum of Nature to make it.
Straight onto the battlefield: the lands you choose
| Card | Cost | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Undergrowth Recon | {1}{G}{G} | Enchantment | At the beginning of your upkeep, return a land card from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. |
| Scaretiller | {4} | Artifact Creature, Scarecrow | Whenever it becomes tapped, put a land card from your hand or your graveyard onto the battlefield tapped. Colourless, so it fits any deck. |
| Vengeful Regrowth | {4}{G}{G} | Sorcery | Returns up to three land cards from your graveyard tapped, plus that many 4/2 green Plant Warrior tokens with reach. Flashback {6}{G}{G}. |
Undergrowth Recon is the best of these in a land-heavy deck: a free land every upkeep, though a fetch land it returns comes back tapped and usually waits a turn to be cracked. Scaretiller is the colourless option, a land back on every attack. Vengeful Regrowth gives you three lands and three 4/2 reach blockers, then does it again with flashback.
Playing a land versus putting it onto the battlefield
- Playing a land uses your land drop. It's a special action, and it counts toward your one land per turn whichever zone the land comes from (Comprehensive Rules 116.2a and 305.2). Crucible of Worlds gives your land drop a second place to come from, not an extra land.
- Putting a land onto the battlefield doesn't. A land an effect puts onto the battlefield wasn't played, so it isn't your land for the turn (Comprehensive Rules 305.4): Splendid Reclamation for eight lands, then a land from your hand, is a perfectly legal turn.
- Timing differs too. You can't play a land on another player's turn (Comprehensive Rules 305.3), but return effects aren't bound by that: World Shaper dying on an opponent's turn brings your lands back right away.
- Both count for landfall. Landfall cares that a land entered, not how (Comprehensive Rules 603.6a), and eight lands returning at once trigger each landfall ability eight times (rule 603.2c), unless it's worded "one or more lands."
Play or put: which does your deck want?
- Lands decks want both: a play engine (Crucible of Worlds, Ramunap Excavator, Conduit of Worlds) for steady turns and a mass return (Splendid Reclamation, Will of the Sultai, World Shaper) for the turn after you lose your lands. Lumra and Mole Man lead exactly this deck.
- Landfall decks get a trigger per land from every mass return; Ancient Greenwarden doubles them, and Titania, Nature's Force makes a 5/3 for each Forest that comes back.
- Fetch lands are the best thing to play from your graveyard: with Crucible, Ramunap or Conduit out, each one you crack is next turn's land drop, and each lap is two landfall triggers. Icetill Explorer's extra land drop lets you go around twice a turn.
- Sacrifice decks get paid too: Szarel grows a creature whenever you crack a fetch land on your turn, and World Shaper returns every land when it dies.
Green decks start with Ramunap Excavator and Splendid Reclamation. Elsewhere, Crucible of Worlds and Scaretiller fit any commander, but Perennial Behemoth doesn't: its unearth cost makes it green.
Ask Scry: cards that let you play lands from your graveyard
Results on . Scry ranks cards by what they do, not by their names.
- Conduit of Worlds {2}{G}{G}: You may play lands from your graveyard.
- Muldrotha, the Gravetide {3}{B}{G}{U}: During each of your turns, you may play a land and cast a permanent spell of each permanent type from your graveyard.
- Walk-In Closet // Forgotten Cellar {2}{G}: You may play lands from your graveyard.
- Ramunap Excavator {2}{G}: You may play lands from your graveyard.
- Wrenn and Realmbreaker {1}{G}{G}: Lands you control have "{T}: Add one mana of any color."
- Icetill Explorer {2}{G}{G}: You may play an additional land on each of your turns.
Then trim the list to your deck with the filter sidebar on the card catalog: your commander's colour identity, a mana value ceiling, or a card type. Getting Better Search Results covers the search and the filters; for the whole build, from brief to legality check, see how to build a Commander deck with an AI assistant.
Frequently asked questions
Does playing a land from my graveyard count as my land drop?
Yes. Playing a land counts toward the lands you can play that turn whichever zone it comes from (Comprehensive Rules 305.2a), so after a land from your hand you need an extra land drop, like Icetill Explorer's, to play one from your graveyard. Lands an effect puts onto the battlefield never count (rule 305.4).
Can I play a fetch land from my graveyard and crack it again?
Yes, and it's the best thing these cards do. Play the fetch land from your graveyard as your land for the turn, crack it, and it's back in your graveyard for next turn. The land it finds is put onto the battlefield, not played (Comprehensive Rules 305.4), so it uses no land drop, and landfall triggers for both.
Do these work with lands an opponent destroyed?
Yes, as long as the lands are yours: a destroyed land goes to its owner's graveyard (Comprehensive Rules 404.1), where Splendid Reclamation, World Shaper and Crucible of Worlds can reach it. A land you took from an opponent goes to theirs instead (rule 400.3).
What happens if the land was exiled instead?
Then it's out of reach: these cards only work with land cards in your graveyard. Watch your own cards too: the turn you unlock Walk-In Closet's Forgotten Cellar door, anything headed to your graveyard is exiled instead, fetch lands included.
Build the deck around them
Put your land engines into a Commander deck in the Mana Grove deck builder and let the legality checks watch colour identity for you. Create a free account to start; every plan includes the full deck builder, and plans and pricing shows what the paid plans add.
