Open the Gates

Lay of the Land fetches a basic to hand for a single green mana, and this does the same thing with one extra word in the search clause: it will also grab a Gate. That clause is what justifies the card's existence, because the basic-land line alone is a fixer most decks have no reason to prefer over their own untapped sources. What makes the Gate rider worth anything is the peculiar way Gate manabases are built: lands that enter tapped and want assembling in a specific sequence to keep colors flowing. Tutoring the missing piece to hand smooths the awkward openings those piles otherwise punish. Note the ceiling, though. It costs a card, puts nothing onto the battlefield, and does not accelerate your mana the way an effect that fetches a land directly into play would; you are paying a card and a mana to trade a card in your library for one in your hand. So the whole appeal hinges on whether committing to the Gate subtype pays for itself at all. With a real density of Gates, this keeps the pile consistent; with too few, the Gate rider goes dead and you are left holding a plain basic tutor. That is a narrow charter by design: a fixer written to reward buying into a subtype, not one meant for broad play.