City of Brass
Land
Whenever this land becomes tapped, it deals 1 damage to you.
: Add one mana of any color.
- CMC
- 0
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- World Championship Decks 2001
- Price
- $13.10
- EDHREC rank
- #98
City of Brass taps for any color with no additional cost beyond one life — the only price is that you pay that life whether you activate it or an opponent's effect taps it. In high-color-density pairings like Dargo, the Shipwrecker // Tymna the Weaver, where every pip on the curve demands a specific color, that one-life tax is irrelevant compared to the alternative of getting color-screwed.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Dargo, the Shipwrecker // Tymna the Weaver
Dargo, the Shipwrecker // Tymna the Weaver runs a fast, life-paying engine anyway — Tymna already drains life for cards — so the one-life tap from City of Brass is noise. The deck needs four colors of mana on turn one and two, and City delivers without hesitation.
Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh // Silas Renn, Seeker Adept
Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh // Silas Renn, Seeker Adept is a four-color artifact combo deck that wants every pip available from land one, and City of Brass shows up in over 85% of those builds because it never enters tapped and never asks for basics.
Thrasios, Triton Hero // Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful
Thrasios, Triton Hero // Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful is a four-color value engine that needs blue and green early and pivots into white and black for interaction — City of Brass covers all of it in one land slot.
Leonardo, the Balance // Michelangelo, the Heart
Leonardo, the Balance // Michelangelo, the Heart packs a four-color curve that demands flexible fixing from the first turn, and City of Brass slots in at an inclusion rate above 84% precisely because no other budget land does the same job untapped.
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools // Thrasios, Triton Hero
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools // Thrasios, Triton Hero is a four-color shell where blue-green for Thrasios and black for Tevesh all compete for early land slots — City of Brass resolves that tension with a single card.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
City of Brass is a staple in Commander, where four- and five-color decks are common and the life total starts at 40 — the one-life-per-tap cost is trivial across the course of a game. In Legacy, it fills the same role it always has: a reliable fifth dual for multicolor combo and control decks that need unconditional fixing. Vintage sees it less often now that the format's mana base is so dense with power, but it remains legal and occasionally useful. Pioneer and Standard don't get it, and Pauper has never had access — the card's power level priced it out of those formats by rarity long before the rules did.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Exotic Orchard and Forbidden Orchard both enter untapped and produce any color in most metas, though Forbidden Orchard gives your opponents a 1/1 token — a real cost in competitive pods. If you're cutting City of Brass purely on price, Mana Confluence is the functional reprint at a similar price point; below that, Exotic Orchard is the closest free-roll substitute for under a dollar, with the caveat that it reads blank in some early-game boardstates.
Price Context
Current price
$13.10 mid tier
At $13.10, City of Brass sits in the mid tier — expensive enough to feel in a budget build, cheap enough that it's the obvious inclusion once you're optimizing a four- or five-color list. It has been reprinted several times and the price reflects steady demand rather than scarcity, so it's a stable buy rather than a fluctuating spike.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Dargo, the Shipwrecker // Tymna the Weaver
- Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh // Silas Renn, Seeker Adept
- Thrasios, Triton Hero // Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful
- Leonardo, the Balance // Michelangelo, the Heart
- Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools // Thrasios, Triton Hero
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.