Breeding Pool
Land — Forest Island
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As this land enters, you may pay 2 life. If you don't, it enters tapped.
- CMC
- 0
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- GU
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Dissension
- Price
- $19.94
- EDHREC rank
- #63
Breeding Pool enters untapped for two life — a negligible cost that buys you a dual land that never slows you down. In Simic and four-color shells, it's a mandatory include; a deck running Thrasios, Triton Hero // Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful that skips it is leaving consistency on the table.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Thrasios, Triton Hero // Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful
Thrasios, Triton Hero // Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful is one of the most-played cEDH commanders alive, and it needs green and blue mana available as early as turn one — Breeding Pool is the cleanest way to guarantee that without a comes-into-play-tapped penalty.
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools // Thrasios, Triton Hero
The Thrasios half of Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools // Thrasios, Triton Hero demands the same fast, untapped blue-green mana that every Thrasios shell demands, and Breeding Pool delivers it unconditionally.
Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy's activated ability costs five mana across green and blue, so a turn-one Breeding Pool into a mana dork is the fastest way to start threatening that activation by turn three.
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Tasigur, the Golden Fang wants to hit the table as fast as possible via delve, then pivot into a permission-heavy control game — Breeding Pool supports both phases without asking you to take a tempo loss on the land drop.
Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student operates in a Simic tempo shell where every land that enters untapped contributes to holding up interaction, and Breeding Pool is the most reliable way to keep that mana open on curve.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Breeding Pool is a staple in every deck with a Simic color identity — the two-life cost is trivial in a 40-life format, and the zero-downside fixing it provides is exactly what fast mana builds and midrange value engines both want. In Legacy and Vintage, it slots into Bant, sultai, and tempo shells wherever untapped blue-green fixing matters, though the fetch-into-dual pattern makes it more of a supporting piece than a headliner. Modern runs it in Simic-based midrange and combo strategies where the life payment remains low-stakes and the shock subtype makes it fetchable. Pioneer sees it in ramp and creature-combo lists that need consistent two-color access without tapped lands stalling out early turns. Pauper can't use it, and in Oathbreaker the logic mirrors Commander — if your oathbreaker touches green and blue, Breeding Pool belongs in the 60.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Botanical Sanctum and Hinterland Harbor are the closest functional replacements — both enter untapped under the right conditions for under $2, though they lose the Island and Forest subtypes that make Breeding Pool fetchable with cards like Misty Rainforest or Wooded Foothills. If fetch synergy isn't a factor in your build, either of those covers the untapped blue-green requirement at a fraction of the price; if fetchlands are part of your mana base, Breeding Pool is effectively irreplaceable in that role.
Price Context
Current price
$19.94 mid tier
At $19.94, Breeding Pool sits in the mid tier — expensive enough to sting as a single purchase, but spread across the life of a deck it's one of the better-retained values in the format given its universal demand across Simic builds. Multiple printings have kept the price from climbing higher, and additional reprints are plausible, so there's no urgency premium to buying now versus waiting.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Thrasios, Triton Hero // Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful
- Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools // Thrasios, Triton Hero
- Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
- Tasigur, the Golden Fang
- Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.