Singleton Shmingleton - Raise Dead

Deckbuilding Contest Finalists - April 2025

<h6 style="text-align: right;"><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Duke Ulder Ravengard" href="#" target="_blank">Duke Ulder Ravengard</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | art by <a href="https://www.ericdeschamps.com/">Eric Deschamps</a></h6>
<p>Welcome back to <em>Bottom of the Barrel</em>, where we pick a theme from EDHREC and look at the “bottom of the barrel.” This means that we look at the least played color-combinations and pick a commander in those colors to brew a spicy new deck around!</p>
<p>Today's theme is a contentious one: infect.</p>
<p>Now, I know what you're thinking, "Nick, why infect? That's the worst!!" Believe me, I've been on the wrong side of an infect deck too, so I echo your sentiment. However, the combination of this theme with this commander was too good to pass up. Speaking of which...</p>
<p>Today's commander is a legendary creature from<em> Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate</em>: <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Duke Ulder Ravengard" href="#" target="_blank">Duke Ulder Ravengard</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Duke Ulder Ravengard"></div></div>
<p>According to EDHREC, the most popular infect color combination, with 14,000 decks, is "Witch-Maw" (white, black, blue, and green). The printing of <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Atraxa, Praetors&#039; Voice" href="#" target="_blank">Atraxa, Praetors&#039; Voice</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> was largely the reason for this, as her passive proliferate ability is quite good with poison counters.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Atraxa, Praetors&#039; Voice"></div></div>
<p>The least played color combination for infect is colorless, but after several days of brewing, this one stumped me. Colorless is already tricky to play, and focusing solely on infect made it even harder, so I looked for the second least played combination.</p>
<p>The second least played combination, with a modest 73 decks, is Boros (red and white). Boros is known for both Equipment and generally aggressive combat strategies, and these strategies align well with what infect is trying to accomplish.</p>
<p>Usually, infect suffers from one major drawback: it's hard to kill three players with infect. This is where myriad comes in. Duke Ulder can grant a creature myriad and haste, and giving myriad to infect or toxic creatures is an easy way to spread out poison counters to everyone.</p>
<h2>Category #1: Infect, and its younger brother, Toxic</h2>
<p>In Boros, there are only a handful of creatures with infect that we can include: <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Core Prowler" href="#" target="_blank">Core Prowler</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> provides us with extra value when it dies, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ichorclaw Myr" href="#" target="_blank">Ichorclaw Myr</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> gets bigger when it becomes blocked, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Tine Shrike" href="#" target="_blank">Tine Shrike</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is a flying poisonous threat, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Corpse Cur" href="#" target="_blank">Corpse Cur</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> can recur any of our infect creatures that die, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Razor Swine" href="#" target="_blank">Razor Swine</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> grants us first strike on top of infect, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Phyrexian Juggernaut" href="#" target="_blank">Phyrexian Juggernaut</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>'s "downside" of always attacking allows us to constantly pressure our opponents.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Core Prowler"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ichorclaw Myr"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Tine Shrike"></div></div>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Corpse Cur"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Razor Swine"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Phyrexian Juggernaut"></div></div>
<p>On top of our infect creatures, we have a few toxic creatures to help push toward our goal: <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Skrelv&#039;s Hive" href="#" target="_blank">Skrelv&#039;s Hive</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is a white <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bitterblossom" href="#" target="_blank">Bitterblossom</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, but for Phyrexian Mites, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="White Sun&#039;s Twilight" href="#" target="_blank">White Sun&#039;s Twilight</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is a board wipe that can leave us with a terrifying board, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Myr Convert" href="#" target="_blank">Myr Convert</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> can act as a mana dork <em>or</em> a toxic threat, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Annex Sentry" href="#" target="_blank">Annex Sentry</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is a good piece of removal in a pinch, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Skrelv, Defector Mite" href="#" target="_blank">Skrelv, Defector Mite</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is a great way to protect our creatures while giving them toxic 1.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Skrelv&#039;s Hive"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="White Sun&#039;s Twilight"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Myr Convert"></div></div>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Annex Sentry"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Skrelv, Defector Mite"></div></div>
<h2>Category #2: Copies, copies, copies!</h2>
<p>Since our options for infect and toxic creatures are so limited, I needed to find ways to make the most out of every creature we have. With this in mind, including creatures that can create copies of other creatures (even if they're temporary) is a must! <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Jaxis, the Troublemaker" href="#" target="_blank">Jaxis, the Troublemaker</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink" href="#" target="_blank">Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Rionya, Fire Dancer" href="#" target="_blank">Rionya, Fire Dancer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> all are perfect ways to copy our infect creatures for maximum value.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Jaxis, the Troublemaker"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Rionya, Fire Dancer"></div></div>
<p>Aside from Duke Ulder's ability, we have a few other ways to grant myriad to our creatures: <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Blade of Selves" href="#" target="_blank">Blade of Selves</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> grants myriad to whichever creature is equipped, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Legion Loyalty" href="#" target="_blank">Legion Loyalty</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> grants myriad to <em>all</em> of our creatures.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Blade of Selves"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Legion Loyalty"></div></div>
<p>Also, for all of those pesky <em>temporary</em> copies that we make, I included <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sundial of the Infinite" href="#" target="_blank">Sundial of the Infinite</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. We can't let good tokens go to waste!</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sundial of the Infinite"></div></div>
<h2>Category #3: Proliferate</h2>
<p>It's not always guaranteed that we can get in for damage, but if we can get in early enough, that's all we need! If everyone has at least one poison counter, we have plenty of proliferate effects to ensure that our gameplan isn't stalled by a few blockers or an untimely fog.</p>
<p>Some of the best are: <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Glistening Sphere" href="#" target="_blank">Glistening Sphere</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> to act as a mana rock that proliferates upon entering, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Staff of Compleation" href="#" target="_blank">Staff of Compleation</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> to act as a Swiss army knife for our deck, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sword of Truth and Justice" href="#" target="_blank">Sword of Truth and Justice</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> to make our infect creatures bigger while granting proliferation on combat damage, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Recon Craft Theta" href="#" target="_blank">Recon Craft Theta</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Filigree Vector" href="#" target="_blank">Filigree Vector</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> to act as repeatable ways to proliferate every turn.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Glistening Sphere"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Staff of Compleation"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sword of Truth and Justice"></div></div>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Recon Craft Theta"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Filigree Vector"></div></div>
<p>If you're wondering, yes, we <em>are</em> including the proliferate all-stars in <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Contagion Clasp" href="#" target="_blank">Contagion Clasp</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Contagion Engine" href="#" target="_blank">Contagion Engine</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Contagion Clasp"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Contagion Engine"></div></div>
<h2>Category #4: Pushing Damage</h2>
<p>To win with poison, let's be honest, this deck needs to attack <em>a lot</em> in the early game. Here's what I included to help with that: <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner" href="#" target="_blank">Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> can make our small creatures unblockable, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Neyali, Suns&#039; Vanguard" href="#" target="_blank">Neyali, Suns&#039; Vanguard</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> can give our attacking tokens double strike (this can be Mites <em>or</em> our myriad copies!), <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Full Throttle" href="#" target="_blank">Full Throttle</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> can give us extra combat steps, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dolmen Gate" href="#" target="_blank">Dolmen Gate</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> can guarantee the safety of our attackers, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Akroma&#039;s Will" href="#" target="_blank">Akroma&#039;s Will</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> can give protection and act as a finisher, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Virtue of Loyalty" href="#" target="_blank">Virtue of Loyalty</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> can grow our army, as well as untap them, every turn!</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Neyali, Suns&#039; Vanguard"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Full Throttle"></div></div>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Dolmen Gate"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Akroma&#039;s Will"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Virtue of Loyalty"></div></div>
<h2>Category #5: "Secret Spice" 1 and 2</h2>
<p>Our first secret spice for today comes more in the form of a strategy rather than a specific card. Since we are relying heavily on the poison plan, we included a lot of proliferate effects.</p>
<p>What else is good with proliferate? +1/+1 counters. There are so many cards in this deck that grant +1/+1 counters to our creatures that we should have no problem presenting a threatening board even without any poison makers.</p>
<p>For example, if <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Virtue of Loyalty" href="#" target="_blank">Virtue of Loyalty</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is on the board alongside <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Aetheric Amplifier" href="#" target="_blank">Aetheric Amplifier</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> or <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Contagion Engine" href="#" target="_blank">Contagion Engine</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>? All of our creatures get HUGE. (Specifically, 1 counter turns into 3 then into 6)</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Virtue of Loyalty"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Aetheric Amplifier"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Contagion Engine"></div></div>
<p>Even if you just wanted to focus on the +1/+1 counters side of this deck, you could take out all of the infect creatures and replace them with anything you want and the deck can still operate at a high level.</p>
<p>Our second secret spice is a card that I think deserves the spotlight more often: <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Agrus Kos, Eternal Soldier" href="#" target="_blank">Agrus Kos, Eternal Soldier</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Agrus Kos, Eternal Soldier"></div></div>
<p>Our commander grants myriad and haste to something, and Agrus can copy that ability and apply it <em>every creature we control.</em> The same can be said about any additional copying effects (Jaxis, Orthion, etc.). If our entire battlefield has myriad and haste, the game is over.</p>
<h2>Closing Thoughts</h2>
<p data-slot-rendered-content="true">This brings us to the end of our ninth edition of <em>Bottom of the Barrel</em>! I hope you enjoyed exploring a lesser-played color combination in the world of infect! I know you might have tuned out for this one, as poison isn't for anyone, but give it a shot!</p>
<p data-slot-rendered-content="true">If you have any thoughts or ideas about this decklist, let me know in the comments below!</p>
<p>Check out my decklist below!</p>
<div class="edhrecp__deck mtgh"><span class="edhrecp__deck-s" name="Bottom of the Barrel - Duke Ulder Ravengard" site="edhrec" archidekt_link="" cards="[Commander]
*1 Duke Ulder Ravengard
[/Commander]
[Creatures]
*1 Agrus Kos, Eternal Soldier
*1 Annex Sentry
*1 Core Prowler
*1 Corpse Cur
*1 Crawling Chorus
*1 Feldon of the Third Path
*1 Filigree Vector
*1 Grateful Apparition
*1 Ichorclaw Myr
*1 Jawbone Duelist
*1 Jaxis, the Troublemaker
*1 Lost Leonin
*1 Mangara, the Diplomat
*1 Metastatic Evangel
*1 Myr Convert
*1 Necropede
*1 Neyali, Suns&#039; Vanguard
*1 Norn&#039;s Choirmaster
*1 Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink
*1 Phyrexian Juggernaut
*1 Plague Myr
*1 Professional Face-Breaker
*1 Razor Swine
*1 Rionya, Fire Dancer
*1 Skrelv, Defector Mite
*1 Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner
*1 Tine Shrike
[/Creatures]
[Enchantments]
*1 Land Tax
*1 Legion Loyalty
*1 Norn&#039;s Decree
*1 Skrelv&#039;s Hive
*1 Virtue of Loyalty // Ardenvale Fealty
[/Enchantments]
[Artifacts]
*1 Aetheric Amplifier
*1 Arcane Signet
*1 Astral Cornucopia
*1 Blade of Selves
*1 Boros Signet
*1 Contagion Clasp
*1 Contagion Engine
*1 Cursed Mirror
*1 Dolmen Gate
*1 Everflowing Chalice
*1 Glistening Sphere
*1 Grafted Exoskeleton
*1 Hedron Archive
*1 Hourglass of the Lost
*1 Mind Stone
*1 Recon Craft Theta
*1 Sol Ring
*1 Staff of Compleation
*1 Sundial of the Infinite
*1 Sword of Truth and Justice
*1 Talisman of Conviction
*1 Throne of Geth
[/Artifacts]
[Sorceries]
*1 Farewell
*1 Full Throttle
*1 White Sun&#039;s Twilight
[/Sorceries]
[Instants]
*1 Akroma&#039;s Will
*1 Path to Exile
*1 Razorgrass Ambush // Razorgrass Field
*1 Swords to Plowshares
*1 Untimely Malfunction
*1 Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge
[/Instants]
[Lands]
*1 Battlefield Forge
*1 Castle Embereth
*1 Command Tower
*1 Elegant Parlor
*1 Escape Tunnel
*1 Fabled Passage
*1 Forgotten Cave
*1 Inkmoth Nexus
*1 Karn&#039;s Bastion
*1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
*1 Mirrex
*10 Mountain
*1 Path of Ancestry
*9 Plains
*1 Rustvale Bridge
*1 Secluded Steppe
*1 Spectator Seating
*1 Temple of Triumph
*1 War Room
[/Lands]"></span></div>


Bottom of the Barrel - Duke Ulder Ravengard

<h6 style="text-align: right;"><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage" href="#" target="_blank">Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | art by <a href="https://www.matthew-stewart.com/">Matt Stewart </a></h6>
<h1>Enduring Stupidity</h1>
<p>The week before last on <em>The Monolith </em>we talked about <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/building-hybrid-commanders-as-if-they-were-monocolored">building hybrid mana commanders as though they were just one color</a> which lead to some pretty fun out of pie actions as we made a mono green Aristocrats deck with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis" href="#" target="_blank">Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<p>I've always loved building Commander decks that try to perform the typical archetypes of one color, without that color present. And a non-black Aristocrats deck provides a lot of fun challenge as so many of the best payoffs for sacrificing your own creatures of course exist in black.</p>
<p>Now this week I had designs to do something very different, we were going to take a look at one of the new monocolored legends from <em>Tarkir: Dragonstorm. </em>And that's when I saw <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage" href="#" target="_blank">Anafenza</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage"></div></div>
<p>"Wow" I said, "That seems like a great legend to lead a mono white Aristocrats deck!". But surely that's already pretty played out, and we just made one in mono-green anyway.</p>
<p>As white is the go to color pairing for black when building an Aristocrats deck, I could only assume it would be one of the more popular choices for sacking your own creatures off outside of black.</p>
<p>But no, there's even less mono-white Aristocrats decks registered here on EDHREC.com than there are mono green ones! Turns out I was playing it safe.</p>
<p>So let's break that color pie once again and build around what looks to be a very fun new commander from the brand new set.</p>
<h2>The Spirit of the Deck</h2>
<p>First of all, let's take a look at <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage" href="#" target="_blank">Anafenza</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> herself. I'll even embed the card a second time for easy reading, because I'm nice like that. Tell you what, we'll use the alternate art.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage|TDM|327"></div></div>
<p>Our new commander is a three mana, white, Spirit Soldier with Flash and First Strike. She's a 2/2. Or at least she is when she enters the battlefield, because the most important thing about Anafenza is her third line of rules text.</p>
<p>It reads, "Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, Anafenza endures 2". Endure X is a brand new triggered keyword which allows you to either place X counters on the creature who triggered it, or to create an X/X Spirit creature token.</p>
<p>Anafenza is going to act as our main payoff for sacking our own creatures. She can reward us in one of two ways, by flooding the board with 2/2 tokens or buffing herself up to try and swing in for lethal commander damage.</p>
<h2>The Secret to Mono White Aristocrats</h2>
<p>One of the trickiest things about building an Aristocrats deck is selecting your sacrifice outlets. It's also a good reason that a lot of Aristocrat decks need black in the color identity to function.</p>
<p>Black does have the best pay offs for letting one of your own creatures die, sure. But they also have a glut of good sac outlets they can field as well. Often they'll be filled with creatures that not only allow you to sacrifice your stuff, but also give you a payoff in return. All stapled onto the same card.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Phyrexian Altar"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ashnod&#039;s Altar"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Altar of Dementia"></div></div>
<p>Now any color has access to the big three above, all powerful options that pretty much any self sacrifice deck that can afford them will probably run. And we're likely to put them into our list as well!</p>
<p>But the special secret sauce that white brings to the table that I think seems under discussed when building these decks, is that mono white creatures can often sacrifice themselves.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Selfless Savior"></div></div>
<p>Introducing <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Selfless Savior" href="#" target="_blank">Selfless Savior</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, the reason for shed tears of players everywhere and the archetype for the sort of creatures we'll be running in this deck.</p>
<p>At instant speed, without any extra costs, cards like this can sacrifice themselves to protect your important board pieces.</p>
<p>They're not just for protection, either! There's also plenty of variants that can be used offensively, like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bounty Agent" href="#" target="_blank">Bounty Agent</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> which can take out an enemy commander or <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Remorseful Cleric" href="#" target="_blank">Remorseful Cleric</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> that can hate on graveyard strategies.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Bounty Agent"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Felidar Cub"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Remorseful Cleric"></div></div>
<p>By running a big batch of these creatures in our deck we can ensure that there's always a way for us to sacrifice for value whenever we need. And pretty much always at instant speed with no additional costs.</p>
<p>With a payoff sitting in our command zone, we can start buffing her up or pumping out tokens immediately on turn three.</p>
<h2>To Endure or to Endure, That is the Question</h2>
<p>What's interesting about Anafenza as a commander is that her ability is modal, meaning we have three options to take when building her. We can make a load of tokens. We can make Anafenza very big. Or we can have a little of column A and a little of column B.</p>
<p>If you're building this deck yourself, you'll need to decide on what your wincon is. It could be a pretty standard go wide deck, turning your saviors into Spirits and overrunning your opponents.</p>
<p>Or it could play a little bit more like a Voltron deck. One giant commander swinging into your opponents surrounded by bodyguards.</p>
<p>There's definitely a deck in here that can do both, and one of the nice things about our commander's modal ability is that it should be pretty easy to switch lanes immediately depending on the cards that come out of the deck or the ways in which our opponents are defending against us.</p>
<p>But let's look at each of these builds individually, starting off with the more simple strategy of going wide.</p>
<h2>Spirited Slugging</h2>
<p>In all likelihood you know how to go wide by now. Especially in mono white. We've got a lot of creatures that are going to destroy themselves for our cause and return from the grave to fight for us as Spirit tokens.</p>
<p>But swapping a 1/1 for a 2/2 isn't exactly game breaking. We'll likely want to provide some support for our commander's ability through token doubling using cards like Annointed Procession and Mondrak.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Anointed Procession"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Mondrak, Glory Dominus"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation"></div></div>
<p>There's plenty of cards that will reward you for making tokens in white. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bennie Bracks, Zoologist" href="#" target="_blank">Bennie Bracks, Zoologist</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is a pretty popular commander for token focused decks, and because of your cards' ability to sacrifice themselves at instant speed you could very easily be drawing a card on every players' end step with a big enough board.</p>
<p>You could also play classics like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Mentor of the Meek" href="#" target="_blank">Mentor of the Meek</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> or the more recent <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Enduring Innocence" href="#" target="_blank">Enduring Innocence</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> which has the benefit of also providing a risk free sacrifice fodder. A truly sacrificial lamb.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Bennie Bracks, Zoologist"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Mentor of the Meek"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Enduring Innocence"></div></div>
<p>If we are going wide then we're going to need some board wide buffs to push us over the finish line before enduring a game ending board wipe. <em>Wilds of Eldraine </em>provided us with one of the best mono-white token deck finishers ever printed not too long ago in <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Moonshaker Cavalry" href="#" target="_blank">Moonshaker Cavalry</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. You'll give all your creatures flying and buff them equal to your board size with some of the prettiest art in the set.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Moonshaker Cavalry"></div></div>
<h3>A Sneaky Infinite Combo</h3>
<p>Another option for buffing up your board for the final swing is to play the old classic, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Cathars&#039; Crusade" href="#" target="_blank">Cathars&#039; Crusade</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. It's far more annoying than cards like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Banner of Kinship" href="#" target="_blank">Banner of Kinship</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> as you have to manually track loads of differently sized piles of +1/+1 counters which can be a real headache in token spamming decks.</p>
<p>However, with the ability to immediately put a +1/+1 counter on any of our creatures that enter the battlefield will unlock a spicy little combo with one of the easiest keywords to break in the game's history, Persist.</p>
<p>There's only two creatures I could find in mono-white that Persist. If you're not familiar with the keyword, it basically reanimates a creature that dies. They come back with a -1/-1 counter on them, and it only triggers if they don't already have one of those counters. In theory this means it should only trigger once.</p>
<p>But when a creature has both a -1/-1 counter and a +1/+1 counter on them, they cancel each other out. Which means our creature can Persist all over again.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Kithkin Spellduster"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Cathars&#039; Crusade"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ashnod&#039;s Altar"></div></div>
<p>With one of our two Persist creatures out, Cathars' Crusade, and a free sacrifice outlet like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ashnod&#039;s Altar" href="#" target="_blank">Ashnod&#039;s Altar</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, this creature can be infinitely sacrificed. Every time we do so we'll get another trigger from our commander and if we choose to make a Spirit our board will grow bigger and bigger from all the counters Cathar's Crusade gives us.</p>
<p>We can even do this on our opponent's end step so that on our turn we can swing out with an infinitely wide, infinitely large board. Nasty!</p>
<h3>Protect Your Protectors</h3>
<p>If we're going wide then we definitely need to factor in some protection for our board. We're already running creatures that want to sacrifice themselves, and there's a few in white that will not only protect one target, but can make your entire board indestructible. Make sure to include these if this is your chosen strategy!</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Boromir, Warden of the Tower"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Selfless Spirit"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Lena, Selfless Champion"></div></div>
<p>Outside of that, most cards in your deck will be able to provide single target protection for your key board pieces. Especially your commander, which we'll talk about next.</p>
<h2>Spirited Slaying</h2>
<p>Now making tokens is all well and good. You'll probably want to make at least a few of them regardless of how you build this deck. That way you've got chump blockers and can easily trigger white card draw. But there's an alternative way of building Anafenza that I think is far cooler, and much funnier.</p>
<p>And that's as a Voltron deck. As we know, we can make Anafenza pretty large, pretty easily in this deck. She starts off as a 2/2 but every time one of our creatures dies, she gets two +1/+1 counters.</p>
<p>So in theory, if ten of our creatures die before Anafenza does, she can deal lethal commander damage. The only problem is, she doesn't have any evasion attached to her other than first strike.</p>
<p>Which does make it harder to block and kill her, but won't guarantee we can make it through another player's blockers to deal our lethal damage. Except, that's not true is it? Quite a few of our creatures, when sacrificed, give a target creature protection. Which can make her... unblockable.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Cliffside Rescuer"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Benevolent Bodyguard"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Alseid of Life&#039;s Bounty"></div></div>
<p>Imagine someone is swinging at you with a potentially lethal commander. They just cracked a Cliffside Rescuer and now they have protection from everything you control.</p>
<p>On top of that, if you'd like to respond to the trigger, they have about five different other protectors on board that can also foil your kill spells or provide further protection. What exactly do you do about that?</p>
<p>Well, that's our plan! By assembling enough of these Selfless Savior style effects we can not only make a commander that's near impossible to deal with, but also one that gets bigger every time we activate one of our countermeasures.</p>
<h3>Rinse and Repeat</h3>
<p>The main problem with this tactic is that it can end up being a bit of a one trick pony. If you swing into an opponent with your unblockable commander and sack all your bodyguards to get them up to 22 power, killing your target... now what?</p>
<p>You've run out of protection and your opponents can just murder your commander, setting us back to step one of the plan.</p>
<p>For that reason we need some to make sure we can cycle our protectors to ensure that we don't leave ourselves high and dry. Not to mention that it would be great to use that Rescuer more than once to ensure we can't be blocked when we next attack.</p>
<p>We should also look for extra value from our sacrifices in true Aristocrats style so that we can set up another turn with a similar board state.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Luminous Broodmoth"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Martyr&#039;s Bond"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Field of Souls"></div></div>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Luminous Broodmoth" href="#" target="_blank">Luminous Broodmoth</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is one of my favorite mono white cards, and I've attached a lot of fond memories to it. It also serves as a perfect card to recycle our bodyguards, giving us an extra activation with them.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Martyr&#039;s Bond" href="#" target="_blank">Martyr&#039;s Bond</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> will force our opponents to sacrifice their own creatures when we do the same, making it easier for us to swing in without using up our protection. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Field of Souls" href="#" target="_blank">Field of Souls</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> on the other hand will ensure we have something to block with after we've effectively just board wiped ourselves.</p>
<h2>Can Our Opponents Endure?</h2>
<p>It's certainly a deck that requires a lot of moving parts to play well. Which is probably why I love the idea so much. It's playing white out of its color pie, whilst also playing an archetype in a way it's not normally approached.</p>
<p>What do you reckon, could it actually win games? Will our wall of dogs be enough to protect us and see us to victory? Or will the only thing we'll actually endure be an early death and a night of spectating?</p>
<p>Let me know what you think in the comments and tell me if I'm missing any vital pieces that you think could get this strategy over the line. And most importantly, get out there and build some monocolored decks for your next commander night. Until then though, have fun enduring and I'll see you next week.</p>


Mono-White Aristocrats with Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Downsize" href="#" target="_blank">Downsize</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | <a href="https://www.ryanpancoast.com/">Ryan Pancoast</a>)</h6>
<div></p>
<p>Welcome to spring! My name is Ben, and you may know me from <em>Conditions Allow</em>, my article series on EDHREC and <a href="https://commandersherald.com/tag/conditions-allow/">Commander's Herald</a>. It is my great pleasure to bring the Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest to EDHREC.</p>
<p>This will be a monthly contest with a different theme each month.</p>
<p>Your goal is to build a Commander legal deck that fulfills the prompt in a creative or unique fashion. At the end of each month, three finalists will be selected for you to vote on.</p>
<p>Whoever gets the most votes will be crowned the winner, although all three finalists receive a prize.</p>
<p>This month, we're getting into the spring cleaning spirit by cutting a color from our decks.</p>
<p></div>
<div></p>
<h3>What’s The Contest All About?</h3>
<p>Working within the parameters of the prompt provided below, construct a decklist with your own creative spin. Three chosen finalists will be awarded <a href="https://www.cardsphere.com/">store credit to use on Cardsphere</a>.</p>
<p><strong>For April's deckbuilding contest, construct a Commander-legal deck that uses fewer colors than are in the commander's color identity. You may include lands to cast your commander, but spells and abilities must not require the color you're omitting. </strong></p>
<p><strong>For example, if you choose to build an Izzet deck with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Eshki Dragonclaw" href="#" target="_blank">Eshki Dragonclaw</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> as your commander, you cannot include any cards that require green mana to cast or use, but you can include green lands to cast Eshki. As always, decks will be judged on creativity and originality.</strong></p>
<p></div>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Yasova Dragonclaw"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Obosh, the Preypiercer"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Rigo, Streetwise Mentor"></div></div>
<p>This contest prompt is inspired by the growing list of commanders that don't require all of their colors to be cast. Commanders like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Alesha, Who Smiles at Death" href="#" target="_blank">Alesha, Who Smiles at Death</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Keruga, the Macrosage" href="#" target="_blank">Keruga, the Macrosage</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Jinnie Fay, Jetmir&#039;s Second" href="#" target="_blank">Jinnie Fay, Jetmir&#039;s Second</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> can all helm decks that leave out one color in their identity.</p>
<p>Two color decks often have cheaper mana bases, or you might prefer how a deck with fewer colors plays. Some of these commanders also naturally push you to prioritize one color over the others.</p>
<p>An Alesha deck with no other red cards can more easily optimize it's mana base to pay for her activated ability. On the other hand, you can build Simic <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Yasova Dragonclaw" href="#" target="_blank">Yasova Dragonclaw</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> to play the rare theft deck without red.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Nethroi, Apex of Death"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Prossh, Skyraider of Kher"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Raffine, Scheming Seer"></div></div>
<p>Of course, you can choose any commander for this challenge, not just ones that abridge their own mana costs. This is a great opportunity to push strategies outside of their normal colors while having support from a strong commander.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Nethroi, Apex of Death" href="#" target="_blank">Nethroi, Apex of Death</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> can lead a Selesnya reanimator deck, or a Golgari aggro deck that cheats its smaller attackers into play en masse. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Raffine, Scheming Seer" href="#" target="_blank">Raffine, Scheming Seer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> could make for an interesting Orzhov or even mono black tempo deck.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Inalla, Archmage Ritualist"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Oloro, Ageless Ascetic"></div></div>
<p>Perhaps the easiest route to take is to choose a commander that doesn't need to be cast at all. You can easily build a deck of any color with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="The Ur-Dragon" href="#" target="_blank">The Ur-Dragon</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Oloro, Ageless Ascetic" href="#" target="_blank">Oloro, Ageless Ascetic</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> has been helming mono white lifegain decks for almost as long as Commander's been around.</p>
<p>These commanders tend to be more specific to a creature type or theme, however, so building a creative deck that stands out will be more difficult.</p>
<h3>How To Participate</h3>
<ul>
<li>Brew an EDH/Commander legal deck on <a href="https://archidekt.com/">Archidekt</a> that satisfies the prompt.</li>
<li>Any unreleased cards spoiled during the contest’s duration are allowed.</li>
<li>Silver-bordered and acorn cards, while cool, are not allowed.</li>
<li>Digital-only cards (such as those designed for the Alchemy format on Arena) are not allowed.</li>
<li>Strictly one deck submitted per user.</li>
</ul>
<p>Reply to the <a href="https://archidekt.com/forum/thread/11254934">Archidekt newspost</a>, or submission post on the <a href="https://discord.gg/sctEc9Ru36">Archidekt Discord</a> with a link to your deck before <strong>9:00 pm EST</strong> (UTC -5, currently) on <strong>Wednesday, April 9, 2025</strong> (do not submit the same deck in multiple places).</p>
<p>Only one submission per user! From the eligible submissions, we'll select three finalists with lists that we believe best embody the spirit of the prompt. Deck descriptions are not required but certainly may provide valuable context!</p>
<div></p>
<p>On <strong>Wednesday, April 16, 2025</strong>, we’ll announce three finalists via the Archidekt Discord and a brief article on EDHREC highlighting each deck.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cardsphere.com/sets">Each finalist will be awarded credit to use on Cardsphere</a>. The value of the credit is in US dollars and depends on the finalist's placement in deck upvotes at the end of the week-long polling period:</p>
<ul>
<li>1st Place Prize - $250</li>
<li>2nd Place Prize - $150</li>
<li>3rd Place Prize - $100</li>
</ul>
<p></div>
<p>Finalists will be contacted via email or Discord (depending on where they submitted) regarding their winnings within roughly 24 hours following the conclusion of voting on <strong>Wednesday, April 23, 2025</strong>.</p>
<p>Please note, <a href="https://www.cardsphere.com/login">you must have a Cardsphere account</a> in order to receive your winnings. It's quick and free-- <a href="https://www.cardsphere.com/">register here</a> if you don't have an account already!</p>
<p><a href="https://archidekt.com/contestRules">Official contest rules</a>.</p>
<p>If you have any questions, feel free to ask here, or join the Archidekt <a href="https://discord.gg/sctEc9Ru36">public Discord server</a>. We look forward to seeing what you all come up with!</p>


Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest - April 2025

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Twinflame Tyrant" href="#" target="_blank">Twinflame Tyrant</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | art by <a href="https://xabigaztelua.com/">Xabi Gaztelua</a>)</h6>
<h1>Seeing Red</h1>
<p>Mono-red always has been and always will be my favorite color of deck in EDH. Red was already my favorite color in <em>Magic, </em>but there's just something about going up against everyone's high powered, multicolored decks.</p>
<p>All filled with crazy powerful cards in a suite of colors. And there you are with your pile of cheap cards and a dream, somehow still becoming the threat with copious amounts of direct damage and a wincon baked into your commander.</p>
<p>If the crimson curse lives within you. The need for burn, haste, and impulsivity, then this list is for you. A heap of powerful cards that find a home in any Commander deck with a mono-red legend at the helm. Regardless of your play style, these staples will help you to lean in to mono-red's inherent strengths, and patch over some of its weaknesses.</p>
<p>This is <em>The Monolith</em>, the series in which I convince you to build and play more monocolored decks in EDH, and here are 7 cards that will find a home in any mono-red Commander deck.</p>
<h2>1. Jeska's Will</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Jeska&#039;s Will"></div></div>
<p>There's a reason it's recently been dubbed a Game Changer. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Jeska&#039;s Will" href="#" target="_blank">Jeska&#039;s Will</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> has the ability to create some absolutely explosive turns. For just three mana, you'll be able to pick one of two options.</p>
<p>Either fill your pool with red mana equal to the number of cards in one of your opponents' hands. A surprisingly big chunk of mana usually, especially if you're playing it on curve where most of your opponents will still have full hands from just starting the game.</p>
<p>Alternatively, you can use Jeska's Will to exile the top three cards of your library, keeping them available to play until the end of your turn. Now either of these are relatively good returns for your three mana. You'd obviously prefer to have the cards for longer for the rate, but draw is draw even if its impulsive. Especially in mono-red.</p>
<p>The true power of this card lies in the conditional text at the top though. If your commander is on the field, you can choose both. You get a potentially massive ritual for the cost, or at the very least you'll have cast the card effectively for free. Then you'll put three more cards into your arsenal for the turn.</p>
<p>Jeska's Will has loads of applications, from casting expensive cards early, to helping you storm off. In general, it's just never bad to make a tonne of mana and see three extra cards off the top of your library.</p>
<p>And because you get still one of the effects, even if your commander is out of action, it'll never eat up room in your hand doing nothing. Even if it does suck to only get one of the options.</p>
<h2>2. Ruby Medallion</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ruby Medallion"></div></div>
<p>Ramping in red isn't easy. You can certainly flood the board or your pool with one use mana. There's plenty of rituals or cards that dump out treasure tokens at your disposal that'll ensure you can have single explosive turns with a huge chunk of mana at your disposal.</p>
<p>But largely that mana is gone when it's used. In comparison to green's ability to find multiple lands per turn and consistently increase their available mana from turn to turn, red's version of ramping is usually quite lacking.</p>
<p>The medallions are available in every color in magic's pie, but they're even more essential as ramp for the decks that find themselves in this position. No easy access to increasing mana, and a tendency to spin out when they've tapped their last land. And that's red to a T.</p>
<p>The medallions reduce the cost of all spells you cast of their corresponding color. In this case red for ruby. And that's indefinitely. And for just two mana. Whilst they won't help you with the colorless spells in your deck or any cards that are all red pips (as it only reduces generic mana costs), permanently reducing the cost of almost all your spells for the rest of the game is a phenomenal help to a color that can struggle to get more permanent mana available.</p>
<h2>3. Arena of Glory</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Arena of Glory"></div></div>
<p>Red has the ability to claw wins out of nowhere. To massively expedite games and go from the weakest player at the table to the new arch enemy in a matter of moments.</p>
<p>Conversely though, red struggles when games go long. The more time your opponents have to assemble their board states, put up walls, and heal any damage your early plays have done, the more your wins can slip through your fingers.</p>
<p>With that in mind, red needs the ability to play fast. There's a reason that haste is a keyword that's so intrinsically linked with red in the color pie. When you get something on the board, you need it to work right away. And with so many red commanders that rely on their flashy activated and combat abilities to do cool things, you want to get your creatures tapping and attacking as soon as possible.</p>
<p>Enter this lovely nonbasic land from <em>Modern Horizons 3</em>. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arena of Glory" href="#" target="_blank">Arena of Glory</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> allows you to exert itself (exerted permanents don't untap the turn after) and pay <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-r" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span> to then add <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-r" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span><span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-r" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span> to your mana pool. If you spend that mana on a creature spell, that creature will gain haste until end of turn.</p>
<p>That's <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Etali, Primal Storm" href="#" target="_blank">Etali, Primal Storm</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> immediately pilfering the top card of each deck. Or <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Feldon of the Third Path" href="#" target="_blank">Feldon of the Third Path</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> immediately making a token. Heck, maybe even a token copy of Etali!</p>
<h2>4. Untimely Malfunction</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Untimely Malfunction"></div></div>
<p>One of the best defensive abilities red has access to is the ability to <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bolt Bend" href="#" target="_blank">Bolt Bend</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> targeted cards. You can't usually counter a spell in red and it's hard to give your own permanents hexproof or indestructible at instant speed.</p>
<p>That means any kill spells, counter spells, or any other kind of disruption sent your way can be pretty devastating. That is, unless it was a targeted effect.</p>
<p>By misdirecting counterspells or turning kill spells back onto the casters' own creatures, red has a unique ability to not stop a shot but pull an innocent bystander into the line of fire instead. There's a few of these effects to pick from in red but <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Untimely Malfunction" href="#" target="_blank">Untimely Malfunction</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is my go to pick since the release of <em>Duskmourn</em>.</p>
<p>Malfunction still hits targeted spells and abilities for a nice and cheap rate of just two mana, but also comes with some extra options for when you need it.</p>
<p>You can use it like an <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Abrade" href="#" target="_blank">Abrade</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> but with protection attached rather than creature damage. Allowing you to destroy a nasty artifact at instant speed on your opponent's board, or any nonland you like if you have a <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Liquimetal Torque" href="#" target="_blank">Liquimetal Torque</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> on board.</p>
<p>On top of that you can either use it as evasion by stopping your opponent's nasty blockers from taking part in combat, allowing you to squeeze through with lethal damage, or just attack without having to worry about the blocker's best creature. It's a lovely little toolbox and will be useful in almost all situations in a game of EDH.</p>
<p>And with a format with this many different possible game states, having something that can answer a load of different problems all in one card is a surefire hit in any deck.</p>
<h2>5. Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle"></div></div>
<p>One of the best things about playing a monocolored deck is the ease with which you can assemble a mana base for your deck. Having utility lands is great, and you largely won't be punished for running colorless ones in your mono decks, but if you're lazy you can also just dump a pile of basic mountains in sleeves and call it a day there. Even more than that, there's some devilish options in red that reward you for sticking to the peaks with your mana base.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle" href="#" target="_blank">Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> does one of the best things a staple card can do: reward you for simply playing the game. Valakut itself is just a tapped nonbasic mountain.</p>
<p>A great thing to shove out on turn one when not much is happening. But once it's on the board, your sixth mountain onward will gain a brand new ability. That's right, your lands are now <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lightning Bolt" href="#" target="_blank">Lightning Bolts</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<p>Simply playing a mountain, if you have five or more other mountains on the field, will cause Valakut to deal 3 damage to any player or creature of your choice. Now every land drop you make becomes targeted removal for smaller creatures or puts added pressure on your biggest rival at the table.</p>
<p>Combine this card with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Koth, Fire of Resistance" href="#" target="_blank">Koth, Fire of Resistance</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> to not only reliably make your land drops every turn, but to also turn your 3 damage on land drop effects into a massive SEVEN damage when paired with Koth's ultimate. God I love red.</p>
<h2>6. Blasphemous Act</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Blasphemous Act"></div></div>
<p>One of the many things that red struggles with in a game of Commander is wiping a dangerous board. Board wipes are the most important thing an EDH deck can have, ensuring that one player doesn't run away with the game and giving you a chance to reset play when you fall behind. And whilst red has some of the worst options of any color in this regard, you should absolutely still pack them in your deck.</p>
<p>As the best sweeper in red, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Blasphemous Act" href="#" target="_blank">Blasphemous Act</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is a must include in almost all mono-red EDH decks. In what was a perfect synergy of cool card design and flavorful effects, this nine mana sorcery will deal a whopping 13 damage to every creature on the battlefield.</p>
<p>Whilst damage isn't the best way to remove creatures, especially ones sporting a toughness of 14 or higher, 13 should take out pretty much everything in sight.</p>
<p>Its contemporary, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Chain Reaction" href="#" target="_blank">Chain Reaction</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> does technically have the ability to do even more damage, but its conditional makes it liable to sitting as a dud card in your hand.</p>
<h3>Wiping a Board For One Mana is Just Very Good</h3>
<p>Blasphemous Act's biggest strength is that its generic cost is reduced by one for every creature on the battlefield. Of course you'd never cast this with zero creatures in play so it'll never actually cost you the full nine mana. In most cases it'll only actually cost you <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-r" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>.</p>
<p>And in certain cases where there's only a few creatures on the board that desperately need to go, I'd rather pay a little extra for a guaranteed 13 damage than just three or four with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Chain Reaction" href="#" target="_blank">Chain Reaction</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<p>Not to mention that in the cases where you are only spending a single mana to wipe an entire board, you'll be able to rebuild incredibly fast directly after and maybe even swing in with a few hasty creatures.</p>
<h2>7. Blood Moon</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Blood Moon"></div></div>
<p>Now this recommendation comes with a grain of salt. In fact, it's much more than a grain. Players don't like it when you mess with their lands. And whilst this isn't exactly an <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Armageddon" href="#" target="_blank">Armageddon</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, a lot of modern Commander decks run a huge amount of nonbasics.</p>
<p>Having them all become basic mountains, especially when that player isn't playing red, can be devastating. But it's precisely that reason that makes this card so effective when you're playing mono-red.</p>
<p>It's not a popular tactic but punishing players for their lack of basic lands can give you a significant advantage at the table. If you're not running too many utility lands, this card will effectively do absolutely nothing to your mana base whilst crippling every other players'.</p>
<p>The funniest part of all this being that red is the worst color to kill enchantments with. So even players who have red spells will struggle to use them to reverse the effect.</p>
<p>Mono-red is the most fun way to play <em>Magic: The Gathering</em>. This card simply forces your opponents to do the same!</p>
<h2>What Makes You See Red?</h2>
<p>So there's some absolute bangers for you to slot into every mono-red deck you build henceforth. But there's a whole heap of cards that could easily squeeze their way into this list.</p>
<p>What cards do you run in every mono-red deck you build? Which creatures, sorceries, and enchantments have already hit your list before you even started deck building?</p>
<p>Let me know in the comments below and I'll see you on the next edition of <em>The Monolith</em>. Why not check out my previous list in which I recommend <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/the-monolith-7-cards-you-should-be-running-in-any-monocolored-deck">cards that go in ANY mono deck</a>, regardless of color? But until then, happy deckbuilding, and stay mono!</p>


Top 7 Cards That Should Go In All Mono-Red Decks

Aetherdrift: Start Me Up! Part 3

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Urza&#039;s Fun House" href="#" target="_blank">Urza&#039;s Fun House</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | by <a href="https://www.artstation.com/burmak">Dmitry Burmak</a>)</h6>
<h1>Here For a Good Time, Not a Sensical One</h1>
<p>Greetings all you builders of strange and interesting decks, I come bearing gifts on this week's edition of <em>The Monolith</em> - the series in which I convince you to build more monocolored decks.</p>
<p>This week, I'm providing a new challenge for those of us who like to do things a little differently. For the deck builders that crave confusion from their opponents and savor the moments of baffled players staring at your board state with questions of, "what does this deck even do?".</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/the-monolith-where-did-all-the-monocolored-edh-decks-go">first article</a> I ever posted here on EDHREC, I lamented the modern design principle of hiding hybrid mana symbols in monocolored commanders to turn their identity from one to two or more colors.</p>
<p>Some commanders though are born with their hybrid mana symbols baked into their casting cost. This makes them a lot easier to cast from the command zone with less color fixing required to meet their costs.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Jinnie Fay, Jetmir&#039;s Second"></div></div>
<h2>You're Doing WHAT in Mono-Green?</h2>
<p>I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. No props to you honestly, the clue's in the title of the article. The question I'm here to answer is, what's stopping us from playing these commanders as though they were monocolored?</p>
<p>Why, nothing! Will it make the decks any better? No, almost certainly not. But we're not here to make the decks as powerful as physically possible. We're here to do something interesting and unexpected.</p>
<p>And nothing could be quite as unexpected as the decks that come about when you build this way. There's not a huge amount of commanders that fit the bill for this treatment.</p>
<p>The ones that do however, usually provide a strangely unique benefit to mono deck builders. As the card in your command zone is technically sitting outside of its usual color pie, all of a sudden mono decks get better access to some peculiar archetypes.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Strange Inversion"></div></div>
<p>In this week's edition of <em>The Monolith</em> we're going to build a hybrid mana commander whilst only using one of its colors. And to make it extra strange, I'm specifically choosing to use the color that least fits the archetype of the deck we'll be building. An archetype and deck combo that only has around <a href="https://edhrec.com/tags/aristocrats/mono-green">115 decks</a> registered on EDHREC.</p>
<p>A special shout out to one of my favorite Commander tech channels on YouTube for bringing this idea to my attention, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@edhdeckbuilding">EDH Deckbuilding</a>. Demo has one of the most impressive abilities to just pull random old cards out of the aether that I've ever seen and uses that power for extreme good. i.e. building a million Commander decks in the most unique way possible.</p>
<h2>Mono-Green Aristocrats</h2>
<p>Their enemy positions on the color pie might convince you otherwise, but did you know that black and green aren't all that dissimilar from one another?</p>
<p>Both care about the graveyard, both are equally capable of returning cards from said graveyard and also making copious amounts of mana.</p>
<p>When you combine both colors into Golgari(<span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-bg" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>) there's a heck of a lot of self-mill, reanimating, life gain themes.</p>
<p>Notice however, that those themes are pretty heavy on the black part of the color pie. You can do pretty much any of those in mono-black, but in mono-green there isn't quite as much support.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis"></div></div>
<p>So let's take a look at the legend that struck fear into the hearts of Modern players everywhere, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis" href="#" target="_blank">Hogaak</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<p>Now the 'Gaak is a strange card, it basically can ONLY be cast by either convoking or delving (either tapping a creature you control or exile a card from your graveyard will pay for one of its seven mana). Most importantly however, it can also be cast from your graveyard.</p>
<p>Any commander that can basically reanimate itself can serve as a perfect figurehead for an Aristocrats deck. A deck that wants to continuously sacrifice their own creatures to trigger common black 'whenever a creature dies' effects like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Blood Artist" href="#" target="_blank">Blood Artist</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> or <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Morbid Opportunist" href="#" target="_blank">Morbid Opportunist</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. But it turns out, green has access to a fair few good versions of these effects as well.</p>
<h2>For the Greater Good</h2>
<p>That's right, green mages love to sacrifice their own creatures just as much as the next guy. They just like to put a nice spin on it like calling it, "for the greater good" or chalking the death up to evolution or natural selection. But the effect is the same, I kill something I control and get something in return:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Greater Good"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Death&#039;s Presence"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="The Skullspore Nexus"></div></div>
<p>And those are not unattractive outcomes for your self sacrifice! Especially when you're sacrificing the big boy himself. How does drawing eight cards and discarding three, then putting eight +1/+1 counters on another creature you control sound?</p>
<p>Seems like a pretty good trade off to me. Alternatively, just use The Skullspore Nexus to double Gaak's power then create a 16/16 fungus token and shove 16 more +1/+1 counters on it from your Death's Presence. Good lord, that's a big mushroom.</p>
<p>Remember as well that most of the best sacrifice outlets in the game are colorless artifacts anyways:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ashnod&#039;s Altar"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Phyrexian Altar"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Altar of Dementia"></div></div>
<p>If you find a way to cast creature spells at instant speed by putting out a card like Vivienne or Yeva then you can even reanimate Hogaak with your Death's Presence effect on stack and target him with his own +1/+1 counters.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Vivien, Champion of the Wilds"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Yeva, Nature&#039;s Herald"></div></div>
<h2>Casting Hogaak</h2>
<p>Speaking of casting your commander with Flash. You'll likely want to be able to cast Hogaak on other people's turns. Because you can't easily use regular reanimation effects that are normally reserved for black decks, the 'Gaak will serve as your only repeatable sacrifice target.</p>
<p>For that reason, we want to be able to cast him over and over again and with his mana cost only available to cast via delving and convoke, there's only so many times we'll be able to do that in a single turn.</p>
<p>But don't worry, we're playing Commander! There's a whole three other players whose turn cycles we can interrupt and perform annoying sequences on. With our flash enabling effects on board we can recast our commander on every other players turn and repeat our engine of sacrifice effects.</p>
<p>This way we can maximize the efficiency of our board and also remain reactive to other players turn by doing things like flashing in Hogaak as a surprise blocker.</p>
<h3>Mill or Tap?</h3>
<p>Now this is all a great plan but we don't exactly have access to unlimited mana. Being able to delve for Gaak's mana cost is nice but we will run out of cards in our graveyard eventually. That's why we want to use the powers of convoke to reliably cast Hogaak on every turn.</p>
<p>And whilst green isn't the go to color for sacrifice outlets, it's incredibly good at convoking with easy access to token generation and, most importantly for this build, the ability to untap its creatures on every player's turn.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Seedborn Muse"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Awakening"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Patron of the Orochi"></div></div>
<p>By having seven creatures on board, predominantly ones with aristocrat style effects on them, we can effectively cast Hogaak every single turn for free and then sac him again for a huge amount of value. Getting a free effect on every one of your turns is pretty great.</p>
<p>Getting it four times per turn cycle is incredible. And because we'll be convoking each time we cast Hogaak, we won't actually be spending any mana, allowing us to hold up our lands for protections spells and interaction.</p>
<p>One hurdle we will need to jump however is getting around Gaak's high cost on early turns of the game. For that reason you'll likely want to have some token generators in the deck or at least a little self mill to eat up some of the early cost.</p>
<p>Waiting until you've cast seven different creature spells and hoping they don't die until the seventh hits the board is asking for a bad time.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Awaken the Woods"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Esika&#039;s Chariot"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Horn of Gondor"></div></div>
<p>Having some creatures in your deck that also come with a token themselves is a good way to get bodies on board too. The same is true for any repeatable activated or triggered abilities that generate those tokens.</p>
<p>These cards will help us to generate bodies for convoking but also provide us with alternative sacrifice fodder for our triggered death effects, which is especially useful when we start running into anti-'Gaak graveyard hate.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Arasta of the Endless Web"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Avenger of Zendikar"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Brightcap Badger"></div></div>
<h2>Free Real Estate</h2>
<p>One of the truly funniest things we could do in a build like this is employ yet another banned Modern card to get up to some very specific shenanigans. It's probably one of the coolest sacrifice outlets in the game and it can do some absolutely heinous things. You know it, you love it. It's the <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Birthing Pod" href="#" target="_blank">Birthing Pod</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Birthing Pod"></div></div>
<p>With Gaak's big cost of seven mana which we'll largely be spending absolutely nothing to cast, we can tutor some insanely gross creatures directly onto the battlefield by putting Gaak into the pod. The only catch is they have to cost exactly eight mana to meet the pod's effects.</p>
<p>Do you know how many horrendous things in <em>Magic: The Gathering</em> cost exactly eight mana? Did you know that <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Craterhoof Behemoth" href="#" target="_blank">Craterhoof Behemoth</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> costs exactly eight mana?</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Craterhoof Behemoth"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Breaker of Creation"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant"></div></div>
<p>Using this effect we can even tutor out our <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Patron of the Orochi" href="#" target="_blank">Patron of the Orochi</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> to untap our green creatures on every subsequent turn cycle as mentioned above, ensuring our plan hits the ground the running once we untap on our next turn.</p>
<p>And there's plenty more horrid eight mana creatures you can pop in this deck if you have the budget or inclination:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Platinum Emperion"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Cityscape Leveler"></div></div>
<h2>Go Forth and Reanimate in Green</h2>
<p>In truth there's a lot of funny ways you can build this deck, and I think it provides a very fun deck building challenge for those of us who love a restriction. I'm sure there's plenty other hybrid commanders that could do the same.</p>
<p>Let me know in the comments if you're tempted to build this monstrosity. And let me know what cards you would add or alternate commanders you want to build out of color identity.</p>
<p>For now though, thanks for reading and I'll see you on the next edition of <em>The Monolith</em>. The home of the weird and wonderful in just one color. Keep sleeving those basic lands and I'll see you next week!</p>


Building Hybrid Commanders as if They Were Monocolored

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Merchant of the Vale|ELD|293" href="#" target="_blank">Merchant of the Vale</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | Art by <a href="https://johnseverinbrassell.com/">John Severin Brassell</a>)</h6>
<h1>Roll Up! Monocolored Marvels For Sale!</h1>
<p>Greetings travelers! Welcome to my humble store of wares. A hall of baubles and trinkets to slot into your EDH decks. Go ahead, take your pick!</p>
<p>But there's a catch. These cards only reach their true potential when played in decks of just one color.</p>
<p>As this is <em>The Monolith</em>, the home for deck builders who reject gold borders and build their 99s with just a single colored commander at the helm. A monocolored paradise!</p>
<p>We've spoken on this column before about a collection of cards in <em>Magic: The Gathering</em> that <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/5-reasons-why-your-next-commander-deck-should-be-monocolored">reward you for keeping your color identity</a> strongly pigmented.</p>
<p>With that in mind, let's take a look at some of these gorgeous pieces I have in store for you today that'll kick your mono decks up a level and reward you for sticking to just one type of pip.</p>
<p>Later down the line we'll certainly visit some stores that cater to a certain color. But for now, these 7 cards will easily slot into any monocolored deck, regardless of the identity you select.</p>
<h2>1. War Room</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="War Room"></div></div>
<p>We're kicking things off with a utility land, and if I'm not mistaken, this is probably one of the only cards in existence that directly rewards you for having less colors in your commander's color identity.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="War Room" href="#" target="_blank">War Room</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is a colorless land that enters untapped, and in a mono-colored deck where you're not worried about finding your pips?</p>
<p>Anything else is just free value. And this card will certainly give you some free value with its secondary ability that might a well read, "pay <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-3" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span> and 1 life: draw a card".</p>
<p>There's quite a few situations, especially in the late game, where any player would happily swap three of their mana for another option off the top of their deck.</p>
<p>Sometimes you just need one more card and having War Room either sat in your land base and helping you out when you need, or stopping that land you drew at the start of your turn from ruining your day, will always be welcome.</p>
<p>In our mono decks where colorless lands don't hurt us very much and the land literally literally hurts us less for our devotion to one color? It's a must include.</p>
<h2>2. Throne of Eldraine</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Throne of Eldraine"></div></div>
<p>No, not the set! Although the set itself does have plenty of cards that reward mono building. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Throne of Eldraine" href="#" target="_blank">Throne of Eldraine</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is both a mana rock and card draw option that specifically asks you to stick with just one color.</p>
<p>The mana it makes can only cast monocolored spells and the card draw ability can only be activated with mana of the type you chose when it entered.</p>
<p>For gold bordered commanders, this card is probably more hassle than it's worth. But for us mono lovers? What a card it is.</p>
<p>First of all, the card might as well only cost one mana. It can immediately tap for four more mana of the color you're playing and the restriction will only stop you from playing something if it's colorless. That's a huge return on a mana rock.</p>
<p>Second of all, you thought three mana for one card was a good rate on your land? How about two cards instead for the same cost? Every single turn you don't tap it for mana!</p>
<h2>3. Heraldic Banner</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Heraldic Banner"></div></div>
<p>Sticking with mana rocks for a while, this rock with an upside costs the standard amount of <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-3" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span> but actually gives you less bang for your buck as it can only tap for a mana of the color you choose when it enters unlike most three drop rocks that will generate any color.</p>
<p>Normally in mono decks you don't really need to pay extra for your rocks as you won't need their help mana fixing and can usually opt for the ones that only generate colorless for a cheaper rate.</p>
<p>Heraldic Banner, though, comes with an upside that becomes all the more powerful when combined with a mono deck.</p>
<p>When it enters and you select your color of choice to tap it for, you also allow it to pump up every creature you control with that color identity.</p>
<p>Unless you're playing a lot of colorless creatures in your deck, that's basically every single creature on your battlefield getting +1/+0 for the cost of just playing a mana rock. A no brainer!</p>
<h2>4. Nyx Lotus &amp; Nykthos Shrine</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Nyx Lotus"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx"></div></div>
<p>Alright, I'm lumping these two together as they're not only thematically linked, but also effectively do the same thing.</p>
<p>We've just had two from the plane of Eldraine that proves it's a great home for any decks that only play one color. But don't forget the equally devoted plane of Theros!</p>
<p>Both <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx" href="#" target="_blank">Nykthos</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Nyx Lotus" href="#" target="_blank">Nyx Lotus</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> tap for an amount of mana equal to your Devotion to one color.</p>
<p>Devotion is a <em>Theros</em>-centric mechanic that gives you rewards for each right colored mana pip on permanents you control. I.e. <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-r" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span><span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-r" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span><span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-r" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span> provides three devotion to red.</p>
<p>In a mono deck that means the bigger your board state gets, the more mana these suckers will pump out. Nykthos comes with a cost but it's also attached to a land you can play for free and immediately activate, unlike the Lotus that comes in tapped. Combine either of these with repeatable effects that untap lands or artifacts though, and you could very easily go infinite!</p>
<h2>5. Extraplanar Lens</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Extraplanar Lens"></div></div>
<p>Grabbing a big chunk of mana for an already established board state is nice, but it doesn't do much when your board is empty and you're behind on the game.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Extraplanar Lens" href="#" target="_blank">Extraplanar Lens</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> provides a bonus instead to a part of your board that usually goes relatively untouched: your lands.</p>
<p>For just <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-3" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span> and the cost of exiling a card from your hand, this gaudy monocle will double the output of every basic land in your deck.</p>
<p>Just exile Extraplanar Lens from your hand as it enters, and now all swamps on the battlefield tap for <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span><span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>.</p>
<p>Now yes, I did say ALL swamps. That includes your opponents'. But if there's one thing we can punish our opponents with non-mono decks for, it's running way too many nonbasics to feed their multicolored habits.</p>
<p>You'll certainly be laughing as your mana base doubles and anyone else playing black with other colors sees their swamp free board missing out.</p>
<h2>6. Caged Sun</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Caged Sun"></div></div>
<p>Now whilst this artifact is double the price of our previous entry, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Caged Sun" href="#" target="_blank">Caged Sun</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> manages to provide the same effect, without benefiting your opponents, and so so so much more.</p>
<p>Not only is the effect of doubling your mana no longer symmetrical, you also don't have to exile a card from hand to activate its effects.</p>
<p>In fact, Caged Sun doesn't even care where your chosen color of mana comes from, it simply adds an additional mana to any land that produces that color. That means all your nonbasic monocolored lands will suddenly join the party as well.</p>
<p>And on top of all that? It provides a +1/+1 anthem to every creature you control that matches the color. What an all star mono card.</p>
<h2>7. Commander's Plate</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Commander&#039;s Plate"></div></div>
<p>Finally, we have a card that's likely on the watchlist for quite a lot of Commander players, regardless of what they're building.</p>
<p>It's another card that, whilst it has a generically good ability, gets stronger and stronger with fewer colors in your commander's mana cost.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Commander&#039;s Plate" href="#" target="_blank">Commander&#039;s Plate</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> that provides a really cheap way to give your leader a bonus whilst also providing them protection from any color not represented in their color identity.</p>
<p>I probably don't have to spell out why this is good in a mono deck for you. A one drop artifact that gives protection from every color you aren't playing, and +3/+3? Yeah that's not bad, is it?</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Swiftfoot Boots"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Lightning Greaves"></div></div>
<p>Protection can be a far better effect than the hexproof or shroud provided by staples like the two above, as it also provides your equipped creature (doesn't even have to be your commander!) the ability to ignore all damage from sources of those colors, and be unblockable by creatures of that color as well.</p>
<p>This will be a slam dunk in any monocolored deck that wants its commander to stick to the board, and if you end up in a game where none of your opponents are playing decks that match your one color, they're going to have a very hard time getting rid of them.</p>
<h2>What Cards Do You Run in All Your Monocolored Decks?</h2>
<p>Whilst I don't think there's enough cards in circulation that directly reward you for sticking to one color, and there should certainly be some more printed by Wizards of the Coast<em>, </em>I'm also sure that there's some out there I've missed.</p>
<p>Let me know in the comments below what cards you always run in your monocolored decks to give them some extra oomph.</p>
<p>I'll be back with more editions of <em>The Monolith</em> and we'll also be dipping into cards that shine in each of the monocolors as well, so let me know what colors you'd like to see represented first.</p>
<p>Most importantly though, get yourself a brand new monocolored commander deck, and tune in next week for more!</p>


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