(Resplendent Angel | Art by Volkan Baga)

Don't worry, there's plenty for everyone.

Hello, everyone! Coming hot on the heels of last week's list on most played core set cards, which covered monocolored cards, today I'm bringing you a second part with more core goodness. This article will cover gold cards, artifacts, and lands. Before we dive in, I wanted to repeat my disclaimer from last time that I'm only looking at cards from M10 onward. While Alpha is certainly considered a core set, I wanted to highlight newer and lesser-known cards from Magic's history of core sets. Most players know how powerful and ubiquitous Sol Ring and Swords to Plowshares are!

Honorable Mention - Allied Check Lands

I can't write about core set Commander cards without mentioning some of the most useful and accessible rare lands in the format! Glacial Fortress and co. have been printed multiple times in both regular booster and supplemental sets, so they're always ready to improve your manabase without compromising your budget. They'll never be quite as good as fetchlands like Scalding Tarn or shocklands like Sacred Foundry, but they complement these duals pretty well and will usually enter untapped.

Gold cards

 

3. Poison-Tip Archer - 55,691 decks

Interestingly, two of the most played core set gold cards are from the Golgari () color pair, so you can read more about them here.

Poison-Tip Archer, while more expensive and color-restrictive than its distant cousins Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat, is still a handy sacrifice payoff while also providing you with kindred value by virtue of its Elf creature type. That means it shines in deathly black and green decks led by Lathril, Blade of the Elves, Abomination of Llanowar, and Savra, Queen of the Golgari.

 

2. Corpse Knight - 62,523 decks

This is a cheap, versatile creature that slots into many different kinds of decks, including Zombie, Knight, and token-themed builds. Its flexibility is evidenced by the commanders EDHREC users tend to run Corpse Knight in, which include Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir, Varina, Lich Queen, Teysa Karlov, and Caesar, Legion's Emperor.

As I mentioned in my list on Orzhov () cards, the 2/2 also has combo potential alongside Ghave, Guru of Spores:

 

1. Moldervine Reclamation - 94,104 decks

This enchantment packs a lot of punch at five mana and is another flexible card. "Stuff dying" is Golgari's mechanical philosophy in a nutshell so many black and green decks are going to try and execute game plans where Reclamation excels. Whether your theme is tokens, Squirrel, Saproling, or Elf kindred, Sacrifice, or some combination of all of these, you're going to draw a lot of cards when this is in play.

 

Artifacts

 

3. Strionic Resonator - 161,247 decks

This giant tuning fork immediately screams "combo" and one look at Commander Spellbook confirms it. Resonator goes off with the potent triggered abilities of several commanders, with Brago, King Eternal and Mishra, Eminent One being the most popular ones. An elegant combo involves using Gonti's Aether Heart in Mishra to net infinite turns:

Even when you're not getting into loops, there are still a bunch of busted things you can do, like copying Kaalia of the Vast, Narset, Enlightened Master, or Zur the Enchanter's attack triggers. You can run it in Tom Bombadil and get a ton of extra value out of Sagas like The Kami War. For some inspiration on how to use Resonator, check out Ben Macready's recent article on Captain Ripley Vance.

 

2. Sword of the Animist - 225,521 decks

Nissa's blade is perhaps best-positioned to play a role in different flavors of white decks, as white tends to care the most about Equipment and/or attacking. in Giada, Font of Hope, for example, the +1/+1 buff is nice, but you're getting a lot of value out of the ramp effect that helps you power out expensive Angels like Emeria Shepherd. That deck really wants any ramp effect in can get, as seen by the prevalence of Pearl Medallion in those builds, according to EDHREC data.

Isshin, Two Heavens as One can take squeeze even more out of the ramp ability by doubling it, while also making the most out of the buff to help creatures brawl more effectively in combat. Galea, Kindler of Hope will also appreciate running more Equipment cards while also getting help fixing three-color mana. Speaking of which, we just published a beginner's guide to building Equipment decks in EDH. Sword of the Animist is one of the better weapons available to this theme, so check the link out to see how you can make the most of it!

1. Swiftfoot Boots - 1,344,246 decks

Cultivate, which I covered in Part 1, is the second-most played mono-color card in Commander, behind Swords to Plowshares. It's also the second-most played core set card, coming in about 300,000 decks behind Swiftfoot Boots! These boots, like their predecessors Lightning Greaves, are so popular because they are tailor-made for protecting what is usually your most valuable asset in the format — your commander! Or indeed, they keep your combo enabler/payoff creatures safe from removal. The haste it grants is extremely relevant as well. I mentioned Isshin above, but he is just one of the multitude of creatures that care about attacking in the format.

The boots do so much, and for such a small investment! They are truly an important piece of EDH haute coutoure for both the fashion and budget-conscious connoisseur.

Utility Lands

 

3. Lotus Field - 64,148 decks

When it's not terrorizing Pioneer in a sleek, redundant combo deck, this nonbasic land... is similarly up to shenanigans in EDH! You can extract value (and sometimes extra mana) from it in several ways. One method is to make the most of the lands that go into the graveyard as sacrifices to Field's enters clause. Lord Windgrace, a popular "lands-matter" commander, will let you scoop up the lands you sacrificed and put them right back into play. With Muldrotha, the Gravetide, you can sacrifice lands with "enters" effects like Mosswort Bridge's Hideaway keyword and reuse them later. The Necrobloom does something similar, though putting lands in your hand instead lets you take advantage of Cycling.

Another way of breaking Lotus Field is to eliminate the drawback, so you net mana, or to make it into an advantage. Obeka, Brute Chronologist is effective here, giving you a huge mana boost by ending the turn with the sacrifice trigger on the stack. Korvold, Fae-Cursed King and Titania, Protector of Argoth both love it when lands head to the graveyard.

There's so much you can do, and we're only talking about commanders!

2. Field of the Dead - 164,402 decks

This is one of my favorite cards of all time and one I've played in many different formats from Vintage Cube to Standard. Like Lotus Field, it slots right into Lands-matter decks, which you can learn more about by clicking that link. Commanders like The Necrobloom, Windgrace, Omnath, Locus of Creation (my actual favorite card of all time), Thalia and The Gitrog Monster, and more are very happy spearhead decks with a ton of different nonbasic lands — including multiple fetchlands that help you trigger Omnath and Thalia/Gitrog more.

I'm also so happy to see EDH players appreciate Field in Yarok, the Desecrated decks, because that is a pair of cards I've had a lot of fun with at different points since M20 came out. Of course, Field of the Dead produces Zombies, so I would say that this is a little bit of a sleeper hit in decks like Varina, Lich Queen, The Scarab God, and Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver, where amassing a ton of tokens brings you more value.

1. Buried Ruin - 252,338 decks

This unassuming, uncommon utility land is actually quite the role player in an Artifacts-matter or Equipment deck, when having several pieces of recursion can pay dividends in the face of removal that threatens to ruin your combo and your day. I wouldn't exactly say that it's versatile — I mean, it does do just the one thing — but the thing that it does is just so useful in so many flavors of artifact deck that you should probably run it or consider running it. It can come in especially clutch when your game plan revolves around artifacts that boast unique effects: Mystic Forge, Bolas's Citadel, and Time Sieve come to mind.

Redundancy is just so important in EDH, and Buried Ruin grants it to you in the form of recursion.

We can take 'em. You go first!

And that's all for core sets from M10 right up until Foundations! I'll be doing a separate most played list for the latest core set, and I look forward to seeing which new cards might supplant some of the cards on this list. Until then, folks, life's too short to not play Agent of Treachery and make a million copies of it somehow!

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