The Temple cycle is one of the more elegant dual land designs Magic has produced, trading a small amount of tempo for genuine card selection - a tradeoff that's kept these lands relevant in Commander decks for well over a decade since their original printing. They're commonly known among players simply as the scry lands.
Spread across the three sets of the Theros block, the full cycle covers all ten two-color pairs, giving every two-color deck in the game access to a thematically matching Temple.
This guide covers the complete ten-card cycle, exactly how the scry mechanic interacts with entering tapped, and when these lands are worth playing over other fixing options.
Whether you're building a new two-color deck or just trying to remember which Temple does what, here's the full breakdown.
The full Temple cycle consists of Temple of Abandon, Temple of Deceit, Temple of Enlightenment, Temple of Epiphany, Temple of Malady, Temple of Malice, Temple of Mystery, Temple of Plenty, Temple of Silence, and Temple of Triumph, covering every one of the ten two-color pairs in Magic. Five Temples were printed in Theros itself, three more followed in Born of the Gods, and the final two completed the cycle in Journey into Nyx.
Spreading the cycle across all three sets in the block meant no single Theros-block set contained a complete two-color fixing suite on its own, which was a deliberate design choice tying the mechanic to the block's broader release structure.
Every Temple enters the battlefield tapped and triggers scry 1 as it enters, letting you look at the top card of your library and decide whether to keep it there or put it on the bottom. This gives you a small amount of deck manipulation in exchange for losing a turn's worth of immediate mana availability from that land.
Scry 1 isn't a large effect on its own, but across a full game it adds up to meaningfully smoothing out your draws, especially early when flooding or missing a land drop matters most.
Because every Temple enters tapped, playing one on a turn where you need immediate mana access can cost you real tempo, which is the core tradeoff built into the entire cycle. This is most noticeable in faster formats where a single wasted turn of mana availability can matter a lot.
In slower formats, or on turns where you weren't planning to use that mana immediately anyway, the tapped-land downside barely registers compared to the scry benefit you're getting in return.
Temples are a strong fit in control, midrange, and combo decks that care more about card selection and consistency than about raw speed, since those strategies can afford the tempo cost in exchange for smoother draws. Commander decks in particular lean on Temples heavily given the format's slower overall pace.
Aggressive decks that need every turn's mana working at full speed generally avoid Temples in favor of untapped fixing options, even at the cost of losing the scry benefit - the tempo loss simply costs more in a deck built around speed.
Commander's typically slower pace and higher land count make Temples a particularly natural fit, since the format rarely punishes a single tapped land drop the way a faster constructed format might. Many Commander decks run every Temple matching their color identity as a default inclusion.
The thematic flavor tie to specific color-pair gods and mythology from the Theros block is also part of why these lands remain popular in Commander decks built around a Theros-adjacent or Greek mythology theme.
While the original Temple cycle from Theros block remains the most recognizable set of scry lands, later sets have occasionally reused the enters-tapped-plus-scry template on new cards, which gives players additional options beyond just the original ten. Checking whether a newer printing offers a strictly better or simply different version of the same effect is worth doing before assuming the original Temple is always the correct include.
Even with newer options available, the original Temple cycle remains widely accessible and commonly available, which keeps it a practical default pick for most two-color decks.
As your rotation of Temple and scry-land options grows, EVORETRO's Plastic Deck Box keeps your full mana base organized and ready to swap between decks.
Ten, one for each two-color pair.
Theros, Born of the Gods, and Journey into Nyx.
Yes, every Temple enters tapped and triggers scry 1.
Yes, Commander's slower pace makes the tapped-land downside much less costly.
Protect your Temples and the rest of your mana base with EVORETRO's Perfect Fit Sleeves.
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