How to build Dal R'El, Augment Orphan

Dal R'El pays a mana for every land that arrives and a card for every land you are willing to lose, so this build plays lands that come down in pairs and the cards that bring the sacrificed ones back.

A fetch land is three mana on the turn you play it

Dal counts lands arriving, not lands you control. A basic Forest played with him out is two mana, one from the trigger and one from tapping it. A land that enters tapped, such as Orion or Raging Ravine, is one, because the trigger happens anyway. A fetch land is three. It triggers him as it enters, the land it finds triggers him again, and that land comes in untapped and taps for the third.

That ordering is the case for the mana base. Fourteen of the thirty nine lands put a second land onto the battlefield: seven fetch lands that can each find a Mountain or a Forest, Prismatic Vista, Fabled Passage, Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse, and three that do more than that. Myriad Landscape and Blighted Woodland trade themselves for two basics, three arrivals out of one card. The two basics from Myriad Landscape cost to fetch and pay that straight back through Dal the moment they land.

Thawing Glaciers is the one that keeps going. It finds a basic for , bounces itself to your hand in that turn's cleanup step, and is your land drop again next turn. Played one turn and cracked the next, it is an arrival every turn and a new basic every other turn, out of a single card. Gruul Turf works from the other direction. It enters tapped and returns a land to your hand, and the land to return is one you have already tapped for mana this turn, because it triggers Dal again when you play it.

Five ramp spells cost nothing once he is out

The same arithmetic runs through every card that puts a land onto the battlefield, and it changes which ramp spells are worth a slot. Nature's Lore and Three Visits cost two mana and fetch a Forest that enters untapped. With Dal out, that Forest is a mana from the trigger and a mana from tapping it, so each spell repays exactly what it cost and leaves a land behind. Skyshroud Claim does it with two Forests for four mana.

Harrow and Crop Rotation come out ahead, because the land they make you sacrifice is a cost you pay while casting them, and you can tap that land for mana before you give it up. Harrow is then two mana from your other lands for two untapped basics, which is four back. Crop Rotation is paid for entirely by the land it sacrifices, and what it finds can be any land in the library, so it is a free mana from Dal at instant speed and Valakut or Field of the Dead on the battlefield on the turn you want one.

The spells that fetch tapped lands give back one mana per land instead of two. Rampant Growth, Farseek, Cultivate, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Springbloom Druid and Entish Restoration all sit in that group, and each is cheaper here than its printed cost says. That is why the list runs sixteen ramp cards and can afford to. Most ramp asks for a card and a turn of mana in exchange for a land. Most of this ramp asks for the card alone.

Here is turn four with Dal cast the turn before and both two-mana Forest spells in hand. The land drop is two mana, the other three lands are three more, and Nature's Lore and Three Visits each give back what they cost. You end the main phase with six lands and five mana still to spend, which is exactly Titania, Protector of Argoth.

His mana uses the stack, so get the land down before you cast

The landfall ability is an ordinary triggered ability rather than a mana ability, and two rules follow from that. It uses the stack, so the mana exists only once the trigger has resolved, and you cannot crack a fetch land halfway through casting a spell to help pay for it. Crack it first, let both triggers resolve, then cast. The mana also empties from your pool at the end of the step or phase it was made in, so a fetch land cracked during your upkeep has made a mana that is gone before your draw step.

That moves where the fetch lands get cracked. The usual habit is to hold one until the end of an opponent's turn and keep your options open. With Dal out, cracking it there wastes the trigger unless something is waiting for the mana, and the thing waiting is his own second ability. Drawing is an activated ability you can use at instant speed, so the trigger, the land it found and one more untapped land make a card between them in that end step. Every other time, crack the fetch land in your main phase, before anything is cast.

A spare land is two mana away from a card

Read the draw ability with the same care. The land is sacrificed as part of the cost, and you may tap it for mana before you pay, so the land you give up can supply one of the three mana itself. The real price is and a land you are finished with. A land played that turn covers the rest, one mana from the trigger and one from tapping it, which means a new land and the old one it replaces pay for the card between them, and the count of lands on your side stays where it was.

That answers the standing complaint about decks built on lands, which is that by turn eight a land off the top is a dead draw. Here no land is a dead draw. It is a land drop now or a card later, and that is what lets the list play thirty nine lands and sixteen ramp cards on top of them. Every land you cannot use is a spell waiting for .

It is also why only two cards in the list, Harmonize and Garruk's Uprising, are there to draw. The commander is the draw engine. Tireless Tracker makes a Clue for every land as well, Valakut Exploration exiles a card to play for every land, and Courser of Kruphix, Oracle of Mul Daya and Captain Pike, Fullness of Time all let you play lands straight off your library, which turns every land waiting on top into a card you never had to draw.

Life from the Loam adds a fourth route. Dredge replaces any draw, and Dal's ability says draw a card, so with Loam in your graveyard an activation can mill three instead and put Loam back in your hand. For two more mana it returns three of the lands you sacrificed, and each of those is another activation.

Every land he eats is still in the deck

Sacrificed lands go to the graveyard, not out of the game, and nine cards in this list get them back. Crucible of Worlds, Ramunap Excavator and Ancient Greenwarden let you play lands from the graveyard as your land drop, so the fetch land you cracked last turn is this turn's land drop and two more arrivals. Wrenn and Six returns one to your hand every turn, Life from the Loam returns three, and Titania returns one as she enters.

Splendid Reclamation, Lumra, Bellow of the Woods and World Shaper return all of them at once, tapped, and every land coming back is a separate trigger. Eight lands in the graveyard is eight mana from Dal on the turn Reclamation resolves, twice what the spell cost, and eight more lands on the table afterwards. With Avenger of Zendikar out the same spell puts eight counters on every Plant, and with Omnath, Locus of Rage it makes eight 5/5s. Ancient Greenwarden doubles all of those numbers, Dal's included, because it makes every ability that a land arriving triggers go off one more time.

Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar is the creature that does not care which side of that line a land is on. He gets +1/+1 for each land you control and for each land card in your graveyard, so a land Dal sacrifices moves from one count to the other and Multani stays the same size.

Titania makes a 5/3 out of every land you give up

Titania, Protector of Argoth makes a 5/3 Elemental whenever a land of yours goes to the graveyard from the battlefield, and this list makes that happen constantly. Every fetch land is a 5/3 as well as two arrivals. Every activation of Dal's draw is a card and a 5/3. Harrow, Crop Rotation, Entish Restoration, Springbloom Druid and Elvish Reclaimer each sacrifice a land on the way to finding another, and Scapeshift sacrifices as many as you choose, so with Titania out it makes that many Elementals as well as that many arrivals.

Two of the cheapest cards in the deck are here for her. Zuran Orb sacrifices a land for nothing and gains 2 life, so with Crucible of Worlds or Ramunap Excavator out, the land you played from the graveyard can go straight back for an Elemental and return next turn. Sylvan Safekeeper sacrifices a land to give one creature shroud, which is also how the list protects Dal for no mana. The 3/3 that runs everything gets shroud in response to the removal spell, and the land that paid for it is a 5/3 if Titania is out.

Her tokens are Elementals, and that is the rest of the reason Omnath is in the list. Whenever an Elemental of yours dies, Omnath deals 3 damage to any target, so a 5/3 that gets blocked or swept away still ends up as damage. Garruk's Uprising draws a card whenever a creature with power 4 or greater enters under your control, which covers every 5/3, every 5/5 and Titania herself.

Valakut wants Mountains, and two cards make every land one

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle deals 3 damage whenever a Mountain enters under your control while you have at least five others. Nine of the lands are Mountains as printed, the six basics plus Stomping Ground, Cinder Glade and Sheltered Thicket, which is enough for it to fire late in a long game and not much more.

Prismatic Omen and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove give every land you control every basic land type, and once either is out every arrival is a Mountain arriving. That is the same thing Dal counts, so whatever pays him pays Valakut too. A fetch land becomes 6 damage and three mana. Splendid Reclamation with eight lands in the graveyard becomes 24 damage and eight mana. Scapeshift on seven lands, with Valakut among the seven it finds, puts all of them onto the battlefield together, and that is 21 damage to split however you like with seven mana left over to spend.

Field of the Dead runs on the same count. Once you control seven or more lands with different names, every arrival is a 2/2 Zombie, and twenty eight of the thirty nine lands here each carry a different name.

Ghost Quarter is the land destruction, and Strip Mine waits for bracket 4

Crucible of Worlds has a famous partner that the core list leaves out. Strip Mine played from the graveyard destroys a land on every one of your turns until the game ends, and that is a lock rather than an engine. Strip Mine is not a Game Changer and it destroys one land at a time, so neither card shows up when a bracket is counted, and a table that sat down to a bracket 3 game would find out the hard way, with one of them losing a land on every turn you take.

Ghost Quarter is the version that belongs at bracket 3. It destroys a land and lets the owner search out a basic in return, so playing it again every turn taxes an opponent's best land without shrinking their mana, and it feeds Titania like any other sacrifice. Boseiju, Who Endures does a similar job from your hand, against an artifact, an enchantment or a nonbasic land.

The core list

The full hundred, commander included. Every figure is the cheapest price this card is on sale for in paper, and hovering a name shows the printing behind that figure.

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Double green on turn three is the only real strain

The lands come out at 30 green sources and 31 red. That is comfortable for one pip of either colour on turn two, and short for two green by turn three, which this list manages in 82% of games, short of the 90% you would want, and getting there would take 36 green sources. Eleven cards ask for two green, and only Captain Pike, Fullness of Time and Courser of Kruphix cost three. The rest cost four or more, and by then Dal is usually on the battlefield adding a red or a green for every land that arrives, so the double pip stops depending on which lands you drew. Only Comet Storm and Omnath want two red, and neither is a card you are trying to cast early.

Bracket 2 trades the fetch lands for slower ones and keeps every refund

Two rungs come off the core list, and neither touches the part of the deck that makes Dal worth building. The ramp spells that repay themselves, the sacrifice outlets, Titania and the cards that bring lands back from the graveyard are on every rung.

The budget rung is fourteen swaps and it takes the deck from at least $621 to at least $214. Most of the saving is land. Four of the seven fetch lands come out along with Prismatic Vista, Thawing Glaciers, Boseiju and Field of the Dead, and most of what replaces them still fetches. Escape Tunnel, Shire Terrace, Terminal Moraine and Warped Landscape all trade themselves for a tapped basic, and Mountain Valley for an untapped Mountain or Forest card, one turn after Mountain Valley itself comes down. With Dal out each of them is still two arrivals. What they give up is mana on the turn you use them, to a basic that cannot tap yet and, for three of them, a fee for cracking it. Ash Barrens, Karplusan Forest and Rugged Highlands fill out the count.

The spells it changes are the expensive ones. Scapeshift becomes Explosive Vegetation, Crop Rotation becomes Roiling Regrowth, Crucible of Worlds becomes Conduit of Worlds, and Lumra becomes The Mending of Dominaria, which returns every land in the graveyard on its third chapter instead of the turn it is cast. Burgeoning and Exploration become Sakura-Tribe Scout and Wayward Swordtooth. Dropping Field of the Dead and Crop Rotation removes the only two Game Changers, and with them every reason this list would sit above bracket 1. It plays the same game more slowly. The engine is untouched, and what it gives up is the turn the big Reclamation arrives on.

Bracket 4 buys speed, a second untap step and the Strip Mine lock

The bracket 4 rung is seven swaps, it takes the total to at least $889, and most of that money goes on time. Ancient Tomb is two mana from a single land, so every turn's spending runs a mana ahead of the land count. Amulet of Vigor untaps every permanent that enters tapped, and seven lands on this rung do, as does every basic a slow fetch land finds, so Valakut, Field of the Dead, Thawing Glaciers and Gruul Turf all tap on the turn they arrive. Gruul Turf gains the most. With Amulet out it taps for two the moment it lands and still returns a land for you to play again, which on turn two is enough to cast Dal a turn early.

Natural Order and Worldly Tutor go and get Titania or Ancient Greenwarden on the turn either one matters most. Seedborn Muse untaps your permanents during every other player's untap step, and with Dal that makes his draw something you can do on every turn of the cycle, because the lands that pay for it are untapped again each time. Sylvan Library is the card selection the core list does without, and every fetch land shuffles away the two cards you chose to put back.

Strip Mine is the seventh add, and it changes who will want to sit down against you. With Crucible of Worlds or Ramunap Excavator out it takes a land from somebody every turn, which is the lock the core list leaves out, and this is the rung where a table has agreed to that kind of game. Say so before the first turn anyway. To make room the rung gives up Orion, Explore, Rampant Growth, Farseek, Nature's Claim, Swiftfoot Boots and Garruk's Uprising, and with six Game Changers aboard the floor is 4.

FAQ

Is Dal R'El, Augment Orphan legal in Commander yet?

Not until Star Trek is released on 13 November 2026. Before then a deck checker treats him as unreleased rather than banned, and the five other new Star Trek cards in this list wait for the same date. Every other card in the ninety nine is already legal.

Does a fetch land trigger Dal R'El twice?

Yes. The fetch land triggers him as it enters and the land it finds triggers him again, so it adds two mana, and if the land it found enters untapped it taps for a third. That makes the fetch lands the best lands in this deck and not just its fixing.

Can you use Dal R'El's mana to pay for a spell you are already casting?

No. His landfall ability is a triggered ability that uses the stack, not a mana ability, so the mana only arrives when the trigger resolves. Put the land onto the battlefield first, let the trigger resolve, then cast. The mana also leaves your pool at the end of the step or phase it was made in.

Can you tap a land for mana and then sacrifice it to Dal R'El?

Yes. You can activate mana abilities while paying a cost, before the sacrifice happens, so the land you sacrifice can make one of the three mana itself. In practice the draw costs two mana and a land you have already used this turn.

Does Life from the Loam work with Dal R'El's draw ability?

Yes. Dredge replaces a draw, and his second ability says draw a card, so with Life from the Loam in your graveyard you can mill three instead and put Loam back in your hand. Cast it for two mana and three of the lands you sacrificed return to your hand.

Is Dal R'El a good commander for a lands deck?

For a lands deck that sacrifices its lands, yes. He costs three, and both of his abilities pay off a land moving: a mana whenever one enters under your control, and a card whenever you sacrifice one and pay three. What he cannot do is anything on his own, so the deck has to keep lands arriving, which is why this build runs fourteen lands that bring a second land with them and sixteen ramp cards.

How much does this Dal R'El deck cost?

At least $621 for the core list, at least $214 for the budget rung and at least $889 for the bracket 4 rung, pricing each card at the cheapest paper copy on sale. All three are minimums until Star Trek is released, because the commander and the other new Star Trek cards in each list have no price yet.

What bracket is the Dal R'El core list?

Its floor is 3. Field of the Dead and Crop Rotation are both Game Changers, two of the three a bracket 3 deck may run. The budget rung carries neither and the bracket 4 rung carries six. A Star Trek card could still join that list at a later revision, which would raise these numbers without a single card in the deck changing.