Land Fixer
Land fixers are nonbasic land that often enter the battlefield tapped. They are usually considered better than normal basic land. Some land fixers do something when they come into play, but most simply fix your land.
Multi-color land[]
Savage Lands comes into play tapped, but then on the next turn you can add one black mana, one red mana, or one green mana. Normal land can only add one type of colored mana to your mana pool, but Savage Lands can add one of any three mana. It can't add all them, just one, but you have your choice. Land fixer like Savage Lands is very useful in three, four, or five colored decks. For example, suppose you have a red, green, white, and blue deck. You have two forests, one island, and three mountains. You need one more forest to cast Terra Stomper. If you draw an island, that won't help because islands add blue mana, and you need more green mana to cast Terra Stomper. Now, if you draw Jungle Shrine, you can now cast Terra Stomper, but only on your next turn, because Jungle Shrine comes into play tapped.
Do not mistake lands like Piranha Marsh for land fixers. It looks similar to fixers like Graypelt Refuge, but it acts like a normal swamp once the next turn comes, and does not fix your land.
Land Seachers[]
Arid Mesa
Lands like Savage Lands that add different types of mana to your mana pool aren't the only kinds of land fixers. There are land searchers, like Arid Mesa and Bant Panorama. Most, of them time, you tap the land, sacrifice it, and pay any other affiliated cost, i.e:
- Arid Mesa: Pay 1 life
- Bant Panorama: Tap one of any land.
Most land searchers search for a land that you mostly put on the battlefield tapped, but Arid Mesa can put it on the battefield untapped. This can give a huge advantage if a certain card in your hand can or needs to be played during that turn to decide the game. Because of this fact, land searchers can be very valuable.
There are other land searchers that can compare to Arid Mesa, however, like Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds. You don't have to pay 1 life, and you can search for any basic land, while with Arid Mesa you can only search for one of two. Therefore, these cards can go in any deck.