(Raccoon RallierRaccoon Rallier | Art by Borja Pindado)

Rally The Troops!

Chuck out those dual lands because The Monolith, the series in which I try to convince you that monocolored decks deserve your respect, is back! This week, it's time to do just that.

On our previous episode we looked through the sorry stats for single colored decks on EDHREC with horror, and tried to reason with their absence.

This week? We're being more proactive with a list of reasons why I believe monocolored decks to not only be fun and underappreciated, but also why it might be your next deck building challenge.

And what better way to do that than with an internet friendly numbered list? Here's why your next Commander deck should be monocolored.

1. Less Is More

I've always been an evangelist for the concept of restrictions breeding creativity. Outside of my Magic addiction I create a lot of art and design a lot of games.

I can say without a doubt that almost all of my best ideas came to me when I was working under a self-imposed restrictionself-imposed restriction.

As we discussed in the last edition of The Monolith, modern commanders often hand out extra colors like free candy. Mono-red? Why not make it Boros() instead?

But when you introduce another part of the color pie into a commander's identity, a lot of the interesting questions the deck posed to you will be lost.

One of the classic problems with a mono-red deck is trying to remove an opponent's enchantment that's ruining your game. How do you get around that in the color that's worst at dealing with enchantments?

Well when you add in a color that has the best blanket removal in all of Magic you don't really have to think about it anymore.

You miss out on the creative puzzle solving of the task. And one of the best things monocolored decks provide is a true deck building challenge from the get-go.

When your options are actually restricted and you don't have an obvious answer to all the classic steps of the deck building process (How do I ramp? How do I board wipe? How do I win the game?), the puzzle of picking your 99 cards is far more interesting.

Creative Solutions

Here's a little example for you, and maybe a challenge for you to figure out in your own time. This is Go-Shintai of Lost WisdomGo-Shintai of Lost Wisdom, a legendary shrine commander from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty.

Now Shrines decks are pretty fringe as it is. There's only actually 17 Commander legal cards with the subtype. Mr. Lost Wisdom here wants us to assemble as many Shrines as possible to try and mill out your opponents on your end step.

But this isn't the five color Go-Shintai of Life's OriginGo-Shintai of Life's Origin that gives you unfiltered access to all of those cards AND the ability to create Shrine creature tokens. This is its weird, mono-blue cousin that less than 100 people have bothered to build according to EDHREC.

How many blue Shrine cards are there out of the aforementioned 17? Urm, three. And one of them we're already playing as a commander.

Okay, that's fine. How about ShapeshiftersShapeshifters then? They have all creature types and could count for our other Shrines on the board. The niche Typal dream lives on!

Well, actually no. Shrine isn't a creature type. It's an enchantment type.

We could maybe try cloning? Sure! Just have fun dealing with the fact that not only your commander, but also your two other Shrines are legendary. Because all Shrines are. Woof!

So how do you solve a problem like Lost Wisdom? 65 people have tried before you.

2. Back to Basics

There's not just a benefit of challenge that comes from mono deck building, but also of simplicity. Let's be honest, there are a lot of cards in Magic: The Gathering. Sometimes it feels like too many.

When you open yourself up to more colors, you also open yourself up to more options. But that's a double-edged sword in Magic's massive card pool, especially for new players.

The risk of analysis paralysis is real, and if you're a glutton for leaving half built decks around gathering dust then you may enjoy the freedom of a mono-mindset.

If it's got a gold border or doesn't match your commander's identity, it might as well not exist. Strip down your short-list and get that deck playable.

3. The Simplest Mana Base You'll Ever Build

It's not just a glut of card options you'll be cutting down on but also your time fixing mana. I don't know about you, but assembling a pile of lands to power my EDH decks is always an annoying final hurdle when it comes to finishing off my latest 99.

Sometimes I'll have all but finished building my decks, but there's a third of it sat as empty sleeves as I try and figure out a cheap and effective way to handle the multiple color costs I'll be using in the game.

Not to mention the rising cost in keeping multiple constructed decks with similar mana costs. Grabbing a single Scalding TarnScalding Tarn won't break the bank but if a whole heap of your decks require decent access to red and blue mana that cost might stack up. Not so in a mono deck. Game night is tonight? Chuck me 36 mountains and I'm good to go.

That's not to say you can't dip into the pile of non-basics to power up your mana base though. On the contrary, your lack of required mana fixing means that you can have even more utility lands at your disposal than the average deck.

As long as you draw a basic or two, you'll get the color you need to cast every spell in your deck. That means drawing a Rogue's PassageRogue's Passage or Karn's BastionKarn's Bastion won't have you grumbling as you desperately root for a triome. The odds of you holding a spell you can't cast in hand are near zero.

There's plenty of lands that'll reward you for sticking to a single color in your deck as well, including those that synergize with the quantity of basics you've got on board or those that check your commander's color identity:

4. Punish the Gluttons

A glut of nonbasic lands that easily and reliably deliver any color you might need for very little downside in Magic's land pool has led to an incredibly small amount of actual basic lands making up the mana base of the average player's deck.

Even at precon level, there's enough dual or higher colored lands available for not very much money that you won't see a basic mountain very often. But, what if they were all mountains?

Now I of course would never advocate for land destruction or hate in a casual game of Commander. It certainly won't win you any friends.

But I know that those who would immediately turn their nose up at mono decks due to their perceived lack of competitive power in comparison to your opponents are always looking for ways to get the upper hand over their pod.

Mono decks unlock the powerful but controversial strategy of punishing your opponents for playing too many non-basic lands.

One of the most common responses to my original question of 'Where did all the monocolored decks go?', was that whilst building in mono makes for a fun restriction it doesn't rewards players enough to voluntarily miss out on more cards.

If you're willing to bear a little hate at your table though, there can be a pretty significant advantage to avoiding lands with rules text.

Mono Mechanics

You don't have to dip into the Stax dark side to seek a competitive advantage for your mono decks though. Whilst I do think Wizards would do the game a favor by printing more of their ilk, there are cards and mechanics in Magic's repertoire that specifically ask you to stick to a color to reap the most benefit from them.

Devotion is a great example both in mechanical workings and flavor as it specifically rewards you for flooding your board with the same color of pip in your mana costs.

There's also DeterminedDetermined that acts like a kicker cost in which the kicker is pumping enough of the right colored mana into your generic casting cost.

Or take a look at cards like Throne of EldraineThrone of Eldraine or Heraldic BannerHeraldic Banner that give specific bonuses to a single color of spell or permanent.

If you want to meet in the middle a little, you can also just use your monocolored status to turn symmetrical effects into ones that only hurt your opponents:

5. Stand Out From the Crowd

A final reason that matters most importantly to me is my innate hipster status. It's a tough life to lead but the more popular something gets, the less interested I tend to be in partaking in it.

I've always liked to play off-meta and strike my own path. The higher up a commander is in the rankings of most played, the more my brain shies away from wanting to play with it.

In my humble opinion, Commander as a format is one of the most personalized ways to play a card game that exists today. Almost every single card in Magic's history at your disposal and you picked this deck to play. This legendary creature to helm it. This strategy to take to the table.

Maybe it's the flavor of the card that drew you in, or the archetype it fits into. Perhaps this card has a special place in your heart from hours and hours of RCQs or warm memories of kitchen table Magic with friends. Maybe you just thought the art was cool or the combos it can produce are super busted.

But if there's one response I would always raise a skeptical eyebrow to when I ask why you built your Commander deck it'd be, "Well everyone else is playing it".

Go Against the Grain

As players en masse decide that mono decks are old-fashioned in a world where you can have a dual land never once come in untapped, I ask you to join me in proving them wrong.

Grab an unloved legendary that, "would have been playable if they added blue" and show the world there's life in these mono veins yet. If not for power then to build something truly unique.

Thanks for reading this week's edition of The Monolith! Let me know what reasons you think players should bear in mind when deciding if they should grab a mono deck. Maybe even list your favorite mono strategies! Don't forget to join us next week for more mono leaning madness.

Michael 'Wheels' Whelan

Wheels is a lover of all things cardboard from Brighton & Hove in the UK. As well as playing card games of all flavours multiple times a week he's also deeply invested in board games, wargames, and RPGs. In fact, he even designs his own tabletop games from self published TTRPGs like, The House Doesn't Always Win to published wargames like, FREAKZ! Mutant Murder Machines. Wheels is a big advocate for wacky deckbuilding and is an evangelist for more commander players building mono-coloured decks. He talks about all this and more on his YouTube and TikTok channel, Just For Fun!