By Jeremy Rose
Welcome back to Foxy Gaming’s Best of EDH series! We will be going through the top card, by card type, in each color and colorless when appropriate. We’ll be sticking with mono colored cards for this first series. This is our third entry in the series and it’ll be discussing instants. To see our previous entry, which discussed sorceries, click here!
DISCLAIMER: This list is based on Foxy Gaming’s playgroup and the cards we see, run in our decks, and get donked by week in and week out. Our playgroup tends to play in the six to eight range on the power level scale, so keep that in mind as we go through our list. If you and your playgroup see different cards or value some differently than we do, we’d love to hear about it so please leave a comment letting us know what you think!
For our instants list, we excluded the cards Cyclonic Rift and Vampiric Tutor. We decided they were two very obvious choices and we wanted to keep the conversation a little more fun and interesting.
WHITE: Swords to Plowshares
Quite possibly the best removal spell ever printed, Swords really shines in EDH. The high life totals and high player count make the life gain your opponent receives from Swords irrelevant in almost every situation. One mana to exile your opponent’s best creature is just about as efficient as it gets in Magic. Rarely used for this purpose, you can also exile one of your own creatures to gain some life if you need to. Every white deck in EDH should be running a Swords to Plowshares, it’s really just that simple.
BLUE: Cryptic Command
While I may be a little biased because Cryptic Command is one of my all-time favorite cards, I also think it deserves a spot on this list. The mana cost can be rough for a deck with too many colors, but if this is reasonably castable in your deck, it’s sure to be one of the very best cards in it. The versatility it grants you with four different modes at instant speed is through the roof and, at its worst, it still puts in the work. At its best, you can use the tap option as a functional Cyclonic Rift for three less mana that also draws you a card or counters a spell. The bounce mode is great too, but being able to spare yourself from a lethal attack from your opponent is going to be more valuable in EDH than in other formats. This card is a serious all-star in blue decks, lending itself to creating huge blowouts for its caster.
BLACK: Entomb
One of the advantages to playing black in Magic is the ability to abuse the graveyard, so our choice for the best black instant is the card that is the most efficient at setting up solid graveyard plays. Entomb is only one mana to tutor something into your graveyard and, since black decks use their graveyards as extensions of their hands, this can be better than a demonic tutor at times. Tutoring a combo piece, a card with flashback, or even just a big fatty into your yard for later reanimation or use is extremely powerful and there’s a reason every other card printed in this vein costs more than one mana. Entomb is the best of its kind of effect and easily makes this list for black.
RED: Valakut Awakening
It was surprising that we found ourselves putting such a new card on this list, but Valakut Awakening is too powerful and too exciting not to talk about it. An instant speed, selective wheel is pretty awesome by itself, but the fact that it is also a land (Valakut Stoneforge) on the other side means that this card is almost never bad. Early game, need a land drop? Done. Mid game, need a value play to spend your mana on? Done. Later game, need to dig for an answer? Done. And, at its very worst, it’s a late game draw when you don’t need it so you just play it as a land. Every time I’ve drawn this card, I’ve been happy to see it. The versatility of this card is something I’m very much looking forward to playing with for a long time.
GREEN: Worldly Tutor
Worldly Tutor just does it all. Creatures have been getting better and better in Magic, with some of them even having abilities that are reminiscent of instants and sorceries from sets past. That just means Worldly Tutor can essentially grab you any number of effects, including those of powerful cards that have been stapled to creatures. Beyond that, with the addition of the adventure mechanic in Throne of Eldraine, some creatures literally have other spells attached to them. That means your Worldly Tutor can now go get you a Shock or a Murder when you tutor for Bonecrusher Giant or Murderous Rider. Additionally, with the card draw in green getting stronger and stronger, tutoring the card to the top of your library is even less consequential because you may even be able to draw it the turn you cast the tutor. It doesn’t get more toolboxy than Worldly Tutor and the one mana efficiency is nothing to scoff at either.
HONORABLE MENTION: Teferi’s Protection
It may have lost out to Swords to Plowshares for our white pick, but Teferi’s Protection is a heck of a card. A card that makes it so you don’t lose the game this turn is already good, but Protection goes even further. Avoiding board wipes while having your opponents lose their board is exceptionally powerful. Avoiding a big kill spell and being able to untap the following turn to try and crack back just gives you an opportunity to take the game. While this card does make it harder for you to lose the game, it is certainly at its best when you can time it such that it actively causes you to win the game. I am a big fan of this card especially when I get to blowout the table and essentially take over the game after casting it.
This concludes Foxy Proxys’ list of best instants in Commander! What instants do you and your playgroup think fit on this list? What instants do you think we highly overrated? Let us know in the comment section below and be sure to stay tuned for our next entry in the series!
Jeremy Rose is a relatively new Magic player, having only started in Battle for Zendikar. When he's not being a filthy, filthy blue player, he enjoys jamming fun games with his friends. He's also a lifelong martial artist and a professionally employed teacher. He sometimes paints minis adequately.
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