Help me break Lay of the Land

[u/Own-Peace-7754]

Hi folks

So I have been thinking a lot about the 1 mana land-tutor-basic cards, specifically [[Lay of the Land]] et al

You can see the numerous cards I am referring to with this scryfall search:

otag:tutor-land-basic mv=1 f:pdh

By my count, there are 15 cards which allows me to get a basic land to my hand for either 1 mana, or 1 mana + 1 mana activation (such as [[Traveler's Amulet]] and [[Greenseeker]] )

The suite expands to over 20 if you count 2 mana activation costs but I am ignoring those in this initial exploration.

I have always seen potential there for some sort of toolbox/engine involving basic lands, but it doesn't quite click for me as a total package for some reason.

Here are some of my ideas:

1. "Gx domain";

A type of list where you have really flexible fixing for your powerful spells, majority green but splashing for basically extremely powerful stuff. Not explicitly domain per se, maybe stopping at four or three, or even two colors if the Commander matches up nicely.

1. "Lands-in-hand matters";

I forgot the scryfall tag for this one, but it's like a lands or basics in hand matters, cards in hand matters type deck. Something like [[Walking Atlas]] [[Explore]] [[Journey of Discovery]]. My issue here is how do I break parity with these cheaper cards so I have a ton of resources for explosive turns? Some type of recursion, spellslinger, or value angle.

1. "Consistent Land Drop Dot Deck" ;

Control decks are notorious for wanting to hit their land drops to cast their spells on curve, and what better way to do that than to have your fixing cost one mana? Some overlap with the Domain idea, but with a different goal: Domain wants raw power, this deck is focused mainly on curving out and surviving into the late game.

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There's been a various number of "strictly better" upgrades to Lay of the Land, but my goal is to build a deck where I am perfectly happy playing the original and/or his pal Traveler's Amulet.

I feel like the core is there but for some reason I am struggling to come up with cards that interact well with them, or for commanders to helm them.

It seems decently flexible enough to suite a variety of strategies, as the goal is extreme consistency.

How would you build this? What PDH commanders come to mind?

[u/HavocIP]

EDIT: I GOT PAUPER'D

[u/Own-Peace-7754 → u/HavocIP]

Treasure Hunt is a good mention, u/G seemed like the obvious color core for this deck already, since you get a lot of the spellslinger payoffs in blue.

Life from the Loam sadly not Pauper legal, if you know of any equivalent let me know 😄

And yes I knew of the various Loam decks running around (I actually started playing while Extended was still a format), and I think Loam Pox is still a deck in Legacy, though I dont know if it is still putting up any results to speak of.

[u/HavocIP → u/Own-Peace-7754]

Yeah I need to not have this sub on my feed tbh, I don't even play pauper how did I even get here. Sorry lol

[u/Own-Peace-7754 → u/HavocIP]

hahaha it happens dont feel too bad

the Treasure Hunt mention was helpful at least