For One Mana: Any Color
This article is going to be a little weird compared to previous entries in this series. It can’t follow the regular creature, enchantment, instant, sorcery formatting because enchantments, instants and sorceries for 1 generic mana simply don’t exist (yet?). Instead, I’ve divided them up in regular artifact, creature and equipment categories.
There are only 264 cards for a singular mana of any color that are legal in EDH. For reference, white has 489 options, blue 363, black 390, red 415 and green 422. The amount of cards that are actually useful are quite thinly spread compared to those colors. Keep in mind most any color one-drops serve the purpose of being a flexible pick in Limited over being amazing for Commander.
A lot of the cards that I mention will have ‘strictly better’ counterparts, but if you’ve read any of the other articles in this series – I’ll link to all of them at the bottom – you know that the purpose of this series is to make you diversify the cards you play rather than loading your deck up with auto includes. Let’s take a look at these almost never used in our format cards and see what uses they can have.
Noncreature Artifacts
Ghoulcaller’s Bell and Pyxis of Pandemonium
Both of these interfere with the top of everyone’s library, and in the format where we regularly see cards like Doomsday, Enlightened Tutor, Imperial Seal, Scheming Symmetry, Vampiric Tutor and Worldly Tutor, maybe this is exactly the effect you need but didn’t know existed.
You’ll rarely activate Pyxis of Pandemonium’s second ability. It’s expensive and risky, since you don’t know what your opponents have in exile. The first ability can be of use with commanders like Umbris, Fear Manifest where every turn rotation Umbris gets another +3/+3.
You can also use both of these cards to unbrick yourself if you’re stuck on a land with Bolas’s Citadel, Mystic Forge, Precognition Field and other similar effects.
Feldon’s Cane and Thran Foundry
While they’re less repeatable than Elixir of Immortality and they have less options than Perpetual Timepiece, they’re cheaper to activate than both. If you’re playing a self-mill strategy and you’ve been in situations where you’re close to milling yourself out completely, or you’re in a repeat pod and you know your opponents play plenty of graveyard hate cards, being able to shuffle your graveyard back at instant speed with Feldon’s Cane can make the difference between you standing a chance or being dead in the water.
Thran Foundry has the option to target any player, which means you can activate it in response to someone casting Animate Dead, Reanimate or Living Death to deny them their resources. If you feel running just Lantern of the Lost and Soul-Guide Lantern isn’t enough for your playgroup, then enjoy your new third and fourth options.
Glaring Spotlight
I feel this card has fallen out of favor due to the popular and heavily played Shadowspear, which is 30 dollars at the time of writing compared to Glaring Spotlight which is less than 2 dollars. If you’re on a budget and are looking for a similar effect, this is the card for you.
Dragonlord Ojutai; Padeem, Consul of Innovation; Zur, Eternal Schemer and the recently released Skrelv, Defector Mite are no strangers to our format and I’m sure depending on the pods you play in you’ve seen Archetype of Endurance, Asceticism, Dawnglade Regent or Privileged Position before. If you’re looking for a similar effect on a land, remember that Detection Tower exists.
Glasses of Urza
‘Knowledge is power’ and other similar statements are sentences I’ve used many times before in this series. Worried that your opponent is keeping back removal or a counterspell and do you want to commit your game-ending plan, combo or attack? ‘Let me see your hand first’. Hand knowledge is often limited to blue or black, and Glasses of Urza makes for a nice option in colors that lack the resources to do so.
Lantern of Insight
Lantern of Insight provides you with top deck knowledge, with the option to shuffle away something you truly don’t want to see go into someone's hand. Just like the aforementioned Ghoulcaller’s Bell and Pyxis of Pandemonium, it can combat top deck tutors or in an emergency make sure you don’t draw yet another land. It works great with Rashmi, Eternities Crafter; Etali, Primal Storm or Xanathar, Guild Kingpin at the helm, or if your deck is leaning on effects like Thief of Sanity and Siphon Insight.
Mishra’s Research Desk
I think this doesn’t see a lot of play because we got a lot of impulse draw in red the last few years and most - if not all - of those will be ‘strictly better’ than Mishra’s Research Desk. I like this card because it’s replayable and it costs no colored mana to initially cast, whereas most other impulse draw require you to have at least one red mana open. None of the other impulse draw cards cost just a single mana either. Diversify your turn one play by having access to and extra card until the end of your second turn – you’re even able to cast and activate this in the same turn if you happen to find that turn one Sol Ring.
Creatures
Hex Parasite
I love Hex Parasite because it’s a neat repeatable way to deal with pesky sagas and planeswalkers. I expect this card to see more play if the new battle cards end up being played in EDH a lot. You get to prevent someone’s Simic Ascendancy win in a color that usually struggles meaningfully removing enchantments. It can strip away the counters on your own Mystic Remora before your turn and put them back at 0, change the amount of charge counters on an already resolved Chalice of the Void or make an Everflowing Chalice tap for zero mana instead.
It’s weird just highlighting one creature, but Hope of Ghirapur, Haywire Mite, Gingerbrute and Universal Automaton see plenty of play and outside of those, most 1 drop ‘any color’ creatures just aren’t all that great.
Editor’s note: Leave it to Exxaxl to sneak a creature with black color identity into this article.
Equipment
Adventuring Gear
I already mentioned this card in the green article in the series. I feel more often than not, if you’re on the landfall plan, you will have trample creatures in your deck with cards like Phylath, World Sculptor or Rampaging Baloths. Even if you’re not on a land-focused strategy, if you’re in green and regularly cast Kodama’s Reach or Cultivate and you’re on a ‘turn sideways’ gameplan, why wouldn’t you make your creatures that little bit stronger until the end of the turn. With the help of this equipment, Wave of Vitriol or Scapeshift can now turn into a combat finisher!
Infiltration Lens
Drawing cards is important and I feel that this is incredibly underplayed. When you’re already playing a voltron gameplan, people are going to block your commander when and if they can – they don’t want to die to 21 commander damage after all. While I’ve seen Mask of Memory, Mask of Riddles and Robe of the Archmagi numerous times, I’ve only seen someone play Infiltration Lens once or twice.
It feels a bit weird, because most similar equipment cards want you to connect to your opponent and not get blocked . Are they really not going to block your 11 power commander because they want to deny you two extra cards? It feels right at home in a Neyith of the Dire Hunt or Maarika, Brutal Gladiator deck, and I’m sure you’ll find a slot for it in your 99 when you’re building the recently previewed Holga, Relentless Rager.
Shield of the Avatar
This one is a little more niche because you want to be both on a go wide plan and have another creature you want to swing with as your game strategy, but that doesn’t leave you optionless! Adeline, Resplendent Cathar wouldn’t mind not taking damage seeing as how she only has 4 toughness. Krenko, Mob Boss becomes harder to remove and is now potentially safeguarded to your own damage based wipes. I’m sure the new Ghalta and Mavren card coming out with March of the Machine doesn’t want to get chump blocked by a small blocker with deathtouch either.
Team Pennant
This card made me lose my first Strixhaven Limited event. Curse you, Fractal tokens! We have plenty of options in regards to trample and/or vigilance on equipment, but most of those won’t equip for just a single mana. Team Pennant can easily find its way in a Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer or Deekah, Fractal Theorist deck. You can make Osgir, the Reconstructor’s creature tokens more annoying to deal with. Osgir can also make tokens of Team Pennant so you now have more of them on the battlefield! And for all you people who enjoy the Urza, Chief Artificer: isn’t it annoying how your Construct has no trample ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)?
Some of these cards felt less useful than the previous cards I highlighted in their respective colors, but it’s understandable any color one-drops don’t get to be too powerful, or everyone would run them. I’m looking at you, Sensei’s Divining Top, Skullclamp and Sol Ring.
I don’t have a set date for the final article in this series yet, which will be all about white, so I’m obviously working together with Chief in that one. We’ve got March of the Machine around the corner, which brings 5 new precons with it, so there’s likely two Out of the Box articles on the way too. When we find a gap in the current release schedule, it’ll be nice to close out the For One Mana series!
Did I mention a card you’ve never heard about? Your pet card you absolutely love but see nobody else play? Let us know on our Discord or let the world know by reaching out to us on Twitter. Feel free to tag me if you want a personal reply or start a discussion - I’m not very active on social media so give me time.
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