By Jeremy Rose
Welcome 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. Our first entry in the series will be non-legendary creatures, but stay tuned for more lists in this series as we go through each card type! 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!
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!
WHITE: Aven Mindcensor
The original idiot bird! This card might shock some people, especially since it dies to it, but don’t let the bird fool you. Mindcensor absolutely hoses a lot of searches, particularly early ones. Being able to slow opponents’ fetch lands or early ramp spells (Rampant Growth, Cultivate, etc.) is a huge deal for a white deck. White is a color that is normally playing from behind in Commander, unless paired with green, so being able to keep the playing field level is going to be a big help. Of course, playing this in response to your opponent’s Tooth and Nail is pretty spicy too. Having flash is also significant in the event that you are keeping up a sweet one mana white removal spell of your choice at the same time. Once the idiot bird is out on the field, it can be a decent attacker with evasion and can hold equipment well. White is the big equipment color so it’s not unlikely to see this 2/1 flyer with flash get suited up with a sword or a Jitte and start doing some real damage. There are some other cards in white that may be more impressive, but we felt like Aven Mindcensor provides something that can be supremely valuable in a color that needs those things.
BLUE: Snapcaster Mage
Contrary to our choice of white creature, this one probably isn’t surprising anyone. There are not many things more broken in Magic than doing things more than once that were meant to only be done once. Our friend Snappy allows us to cast our best instant or sorcery from our graveyard and at instant speed, if we want to, because he’s also got flash. Blue is known for being a very controlling color and this 2/1 homie lets us hold up mana to cast our counterspells out of our bin and surprise our opponents with them a second time. If you’re playing more of the value game, nothing feels better than getting to cast another Fact or Fiction or some other busted draw spell again. Combo decks get the opportunity to flashback their important tutors and storm cards to go for the win. Flashback is an extremely versatile and powerful mechanic, and there is no creature that does it better than Snapcaster Mage.
BLACK: Rune-Scarred Demon
Certainly the biggest and beefiest baddy on our list, Rune-Scarred Demon is a Demonic Tutor attached to a 6/6 flying body. That’s some pretty powerful text to have on a card, so it makes sense that it costs seven mana to cast it. I have good news for you, though: we’re playing black, which means we will rarely be paying full price for this flying monstrosity. We will be using cards like Entomb and Buried Alive to throw this guy into the yard early and pulling him right back out as quick as we can with things like Reanimate, Animate Dead, Footsteps of the Goryo, etc. Not only will we not pay seven mana for it, but we will also be sacrificing it and bringing it back onto the battlefield repeatedly to get multiple demonic tutors whenever we need them. Rune-Scarred Demon is one of the ultimate value cards in EDH and black decks are perfect for abusing it.
RED: Dockside Extortionist
Everyone’s favorite pirate, other than Captain Jack Sparrow himself, the Extortionist can swing games into the red player’s favor and also just set up a red deck for explosive turns early on. Two mana is way too cheap for an effect like this, and that makes it the perfect card for red decks that tend to rely on playing cards that are too inexpensive for what they do. One of red’s biggest weaknesses in Commander is not being able to keep up with some of the ramp that other decks can get going, but Dockside Extortionist takes advantage of just about all non-green ramp at the table. Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Arcane Signet, and other easy to include mana rocks make Dockside’s effect pretty bonkers. Depending on the deck, you may even be able to recur this shady goblin and get a repeatable ETB trigger for even more treasure tokens. Decks like Feldon of the Third Path and Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded will generate insane amounts of value turn after turn with this card and absolutely drown their opponents with mana advantage.
GREEN: Seedborn Muse
Is it just me, or does it often feel like this shouldn’t be a Magic card? We almost excluded this from our list just because there’s not really a whole lot of competition, at least in our group. Green is the best color for creatures and this card still manages to stand head and shoulders above everything else. Being able to untap ALL permanents you control multiple times per turn cycle is already breaking so of the foundational rules of Magic. We just hope the Seedborn player at the table isn’t also playing blue, or we’re really in for it. This card is pretty self-explanatory as to why it’s so good. Mana sinks, instants, flash creatures, activated abilities with mana costs, the list of what this card enables goes on and on. If you manage to make a DIY Prophet of Kruphix with this card and Vedalken Orrery, it’s going to be tough to lose that game. If you’re still not playing this in your green decks, we need to have a sit down.
HONORABLE MENTION: Opposition Agent
Commander Legends brought us a lot of fun, dumb, swingy cards and legendary creatures to play around with and enjoy some good old fashioned EDH, but it also gave us some real groan-inducing cards like Jeweled Lotus, Hullbreacher, and Opposition Agent. As of the writing of this list, we have played against this card exactly twice. We didn’t want to include in the proper list due to lack of experience with it, but it’s not hard to see that this card is going to absolutely demolish our playgroup. This card gets an honorable mention for what we believe it’s going to do and the fact that we will be keeping our eyes on it for the foreseeable future.
This concludes Foxy Proxys’ list of best non-legendary creatures in Commander! What creatures do you and your playgroup think fit on this list? What creatures 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.
Comments