A Blazing Sun That Never Sets: Sun Titan in EDH
Magic 2011 was released on July 16, 2010. While several cards from this set have seen heavy play in a variety of formats since then, there’s little doubt that Primeval Titan Sun Titan is the most popular card that debuted in this set when it comes to Commander. I actually checked EDHREC and it wins by a pretty big margin. So what exactly makes Sun Titan so popular? In this article, we’re going to find out!
If Sun Titan has one million fans, I’m one of them.
If Sun Titan has one fan, it’s me.
If Sun Titan has no fans, that means I’m dead.
Win or lose.
Zero triggers or ten triggers.
Good targets or bad targets.
I will always love and support Sun Titan!
¡Viva Sun Titan!
In case you were wondering, Sun Titan is in 186,447 decks on EDHREC and is ranked as the eighth most popular white card at the time of writing. The only cards that are more popular over the past two years are Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Smothering Tithe, Generous Gift, Esper Sentinel, Teferi’s Protection, and Enlightened Tutor. That said, Sun Titan only appears in 15% of decks over the past two years that included white.
A Blazing Sun That Never Sets
I remember the first time that I saw Sun Titan. I was 25 years old and I had been playing Magic for years, but I was very excited when I saw this card across the table. There was also a Primeval Titan in the same small draft event. Mercifully, both cards weren’t drafted by the same player. While it seemed obvious that Primeval Titan was a stronger card, there wasn’t really a question of which card I thought was cooler.
When I first started playing Commander, one of the biggest draws of the format was that you could find homes for a lot of cards that had fallen out of favor in other formats. I started looking up Commander deck lists online and reading about precon decks. Imagine my excitement when I saw that Sun Titan had not only been reprinted in Commander decks, but it was also one of the most popular white cards in the format.
There are so many impactful permanent cards at low mana value that you can recur from the graveyard. This means that Sun Titan will almost always have something to do. It’s also good at attacking and blocking due to its imposing stats. Vigilance is definitely one of the most underrated keywords in casual Commander, as even keeping one big blocker untapped can be a major deterrent. All of this adds up to one cool card.
A Printing Press That Never Rests
When talking about the popularity of Sun Titan, it’s important to note that it has been reprinted several times. While it has been a Mythic Rare in each appearance, many of these have been guaranteed slots in preconstructed products. This has kept Sun Titan affordable, meaning that it’s likely that anyone who wants to play Sun Titan can do so without breaking the bank. That’s great news for budget players!
What you might have noticed is that nearly every version of Sun Titan has the same artwork by Todd Lockwood. The only exceptions are the Magic 2011 Prerelease Promo, the version from Duel Decks: Heroes vs. Monsters, and the borderless version from the Secret Lair 30th Anniversary Countdown Kit. Not having easily accessible artwork variants for a card that has been reprinted so many times seems quite strange.
Speaking of Secret Lairs, we also missed out on Sun Titan getting a Kaldheim treatment in the two-part Secret Lair Showcase: Kaldheim. I count myself among the many people who would have liked to see a version of the card with this art style and awesome showcase frame. While I recognize that it didn’t match the colors of the other cards in these products, I have just one question: who’s playing Frost Titan these days?
I like the default art for Sun Titan, but I want more choices! Please reprint Sun Titan with more art options outside of scant appearances in products with low print runs!
Mana Value 3 or Less
There are plenty of great lands that tend to wind up in the graveyard. Want to get extra value out of your Flooded Strand or Wasteland? White isn’t the best at ramp, but this is one avenue that you can use to level the playing field. Who wouldn’t want to get another use out of a powerful card like Urza’s Saga? You can use it to find more artifacts that can also be recurred by Sun Titan if they wind up getting destroyed.
Did your Esper Sentinel get countered or destroyed? Not to worry. Sun Titan can fix that. While he’s at it, he can also bring back other great creatures from the graveyard. There are even some incredibly powerful creatures that can sacrifice themselves to activate abilities. Being able to reuse Dauthi Voidwalker as a graveyard hate card after you cast spells is great. Getting another Ranger-Captain of Eos sounds pretty good too.
Mana Crypt is powerful enough to warrant a removal spell, but that won’t matter too much if you can just bring it back. Powerful equipment such as Shadowspear or Sword of Hearth and Home also make great targets because they’re the type of cards that people will take seriously as threats. The latter even brings you some additional synergy with Sun Titan by letting you get even more triggers if you blink it.
Do you want to keep drawing cards with Mystic Remora without paying the cumulative upkeep cost? We can do that. You can also put Kenrith’s Transformation on your opponent’s commander even if it has hexproof or shroud if you recur it with Sun Titan. Other enchantments such as Aura of Silence have powerful activated abilities and static abilities that make it worth bringing them back after you use them.
These aren’t all of the great cards that you can bring back with Sun Titan, but I hope that this illustrates that the card has aged exceedingly well and will likely continue to gain great recursion targets in the future. I definitely find that Sun Titan consistently has things to do every time that I cast it during a Commander game, even in decks where I haven’t specifically looked at baking in synergy for the card.
Often Imitated
I’ve occasionally heard that Sun Titan is too slow for casual Commander. This hasn’t been my experience and I don’t really want to play casual Commander anymore if this ever becomes true. If you ask me, Sun Titan is here to stay and Commander players can only expect even more cards in the same vein in the future. In fact, there have already been several imitators over the years.
Take a look at Sevinne’s Reclamation. There’s no question that this card was inspired by Sun Titan. While you can use it multiple times, it’s a bit less easy to abuse than Sun Titan without a specific type of setup. You’ll often see this type of thing in cEDH. That said, Sevinne’s Reclamation is a perfectly good card even when played fairly. As a certified Sun Titan enjoyer, this is one of my favorite white cards in recent years.
Let’s also look at some creatures in a similar vein. Ironsoul Enforcer can bring back any artifact whenever it or your commander attacks alone. Serra Paragon will let you play a land or cast a small permanent spell from your graveyard during each of your turns while only costing four mana to cast. Guardian Scalelord is the closest to Sun Titan, but it can’t bring back lands and lacks recursion on ETB.
I enjoy all of these cards and I’ve really been loving white’s recent cards for reanimating all sorts of permanents. That said, none of these cards really surpasses Sun Titan in my eyes outside of the situational Sevinne’s Reclamation in a cEDH setting. I’m looking forward to seeing even more cards like this in the future. Maybe we can even see a legendary Sun Titan variant in the future. I’d build that deck for sure.
“Sun Titan gets it done.” — User review by Cryptic, PlayEDH Admin
Must All Suns Set?
Don’t forget that you can cast Animate Dead on your Sun Titan after it gets hit by Terminate while scoring a big flavor win. This can be a huge value play or even part of a combo.
Thanks for sticking with me while I talk about one of my very favorite Commander staples. If you weren’t already a Sun Titan fan, I hope that you’ll consider becoming one after reading this. I never get tired of casting this card to bring back my favorite permanents after they get destroyed or countered. What are your favorite things to do with Sun Titan? Have you cast a Frost Titan in EDH recently? Let us know on Twitter!
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