(Chaos Wand | Art By Kari Christensen)

Sink Your Teeth into This One!

Hello, and welcome back to the final part of this mini-series all about mana sinks. In this series, we’ve looked at white, blue, black and red, so we’re finally onto green. Green can do just about everything in Commander it seems, but does it have effective mana sinks as well? That’s not all though, we’re going to be wrapping up this series with a look at some choice artifacts that can go in other decks. As per usual with this series, we’re going to be looking at some sleeper hits that you might not be running. If you haven't checked out part one and part two of this series, I’d highly recommend a quick read to bring yourself up to speed before we dive back in.

Right? You’re back? Let’s go!

Locus of Mana

First, we’re going to look at green. Green has been described as the color that can just about do it all in Commander. While recent years have been focusing on bringing white up to par with other colors, green is still what many would consider the most versatile color you can run in the Commander format.

You probably won’t be surprised that green has plenty of uses for your spare mana each turn. Let’s begin with one that requires a little more setup and is a little less generically good. Vivien's Arkbow is a two-mana legendary artifact that allows you to pay any amount of generic mana into it.

Admittedly, the Bow comes with a slight caveat in that you have a card to discard as part of its activation cost. The benefits here are pretty great however. Discarding a card you don’t need and spending a bit of mana allows the Bow to dig through the top X cards of your deck (where X is the amount of generic mana you paid) and then place a creature with converted mana value X from among them onto the battlefield.

It’s worth knowing that you can possibly fail to find with a card like this. After all, you may not pull a creature of the correct mana value off the top of your deck. But don’t underestimate its ability to be able to pitch a card to the graveyard. Sometimes all we need is a Brawn in the graveyard to make a real impact on our creatures and give them all trample for an early game stomping.

Unforgotten Realms

I’ve covered lots of these cards in this article series so far, and that’s not just because I’ve had Baldur’s Gate on the brain. The enchantment class cycle from the Dungeons and Dragons tie-in sets have provided banger after banger for Commander, and these cards are no exception when it comes to using our mana wisely. While these cards can only gain levels at sorcery speed, you’ll find their power is always worth the price.

Druid Class starts off somewhat innocuously with the ability to gain a life whenever a land enters the battlefield under our control (Don’t forget beginners, cards like Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse and Myriad Landscape are even better with some incidental life gain tacked on). Where this card really shines is with its Level 2 ability. The ability to play an additional land on each of our turns is a tried and tested value. Just ask Azusa, Lost but Seeking, one of the most popular mono-green commanders of all time. This ability is so strong that players will run multiple of these effects in the right deck including Wayward Swordtooth and well, Druid Class! Druid Class does the same job, albeit for five mana over two turns but if that mana is going to go to waste then including these class cards is absolutely the way to go.

If you find that Druid Class sticks around long enough for you to activate its third ability, upon reaching level 3 you're able to turn one of these lands into a creature with power and toughness equal to the number of lands you control. Hopefully, this will be a lot. With life gain, the ability to put more lands into play, and a potentially large creature by the end of it. Why not brush up on your animal handling and run Druid Class?

Time to face the (Arti) Facts

Whew, that’s all the colors out of the way. Now let’s take a last look at some artifacts we can use to patch up holes in our decks. Now, some colors will be able to accomplish some of these abilities a little easier within their color identity. But if you see something neat, feel free to jam it into a color you feel could use a little help.

Now it wouldn’t be right to talk about artifact mana sinks without talking about Trading Post. This card does it all, and for that reason it sees play in around 2% of the decks here on EDHREC. You need life? Trading Post has got your back, with the added benefit of pitching a card to the graveyard if you’re running this in a mono-black deck. You know, the color most likely to be paying life for abilities. You need a creature? Pay a little life and get yourself a Goat as an instant speed blocker. An inconspicuous 0/1 creature token isn’t something to sniff at, when there are abilities like Bargain from Wilds of Eldraine just around the corner (Looking at you, Beseech the Mirror). Equipment decks will easily find a home for the third ability.

It won’t be long before the rest of the table is eyeing up your The Reaver Cleaver with envious eyes, and they won’t be afraid to take it By Force. Get that Goat in the graveyard and get your priceless artifact back! Finally, if you’re making a bunch of artifact tokens, there’s nothing more humble than drawing a card. In colors where Servo tokens are common, like white and red, you’ll be happy to turn one of those into a little bit of card advantage.

A love letter to Trading Post gets a footnote here for a card that doesn’t see as much play in Commander, but absolutely should is Retrofitter Foundry. This card isn’t quite as ubiquitous in Commander despite having its day in other 60-card formats. Retrofitter Foundry serves as an infinite mana sink with its ability to make Servo tokens, Thopter tokens, and Construct tokens all while untapping itself for generic mana. Pair this with a Crashing Drawbridge to give these tokens haste, and you're close enough to knockout the table. It’s a little easier to do this combo in mono-blue using Dramatic Reversal and Isochron Scepter, but it can absolutely be pulled off in other colors too!

Introduce a Little Anarchy

Let’s end on something a little less deterministic and throw caution to the wind with Chaos Wand. As Commander players, we love a bit of chaos in our decks. Chaos Wand lets us introduce that little chaos into everyone else's deck at the table too. An activation cost of four generic mana means you won’t be doing this a bunch, but you're getting a guaranteed hit from your opponent’s deck when you use this card. Chaos Wand lets us dig into our opponents decks and patch up the holes we can’t quite fill in our color of choice. Desperately need a counterspell? Target the blue player and hope you hit one of theirs? What about a way to deal with a problematic permanent? Target the Abzan player, they’ll have an answer for everything? Want to leverage the fact that there are so few colorless instant and sorcery cards? Target the Kozilek, the Great Distortion player and hit their Rise of the Eldrazi. Take an extra turn after this one, and while you’re doing it, comment on this article to tell me about the look on your opponent’s face.

That’s a wrap! I hope you enjoyed this miniseries where we took a look at some underutilized mana sinks in Commander. It's truly important to be able to use as much of your mana as you can during each game. Even if it just ends up making you a 0/1 Goat, that’s one more blocker than your opponents are making each turn! We’ll be back to our usual format following this, but if you enjoyed it let us know. If you think there’s an aspect of Commander that could do with a little conversation, we’re happy to hear it. Let us know in the comments, or you can find me on Twitter for a chat anytime.

That’s all for now, may your mana be spent wisely and your Chaos Wands always be fruitful!

Read more:

• Preview Review - Mana Sinks (Part One)
• Preview Review - Mana Sinks (Part Two)
• Too-Specific Top 10 - Three-Color Mana Sinks

Joshua Clough

Joshua is a Medical Researcher from the UK. He's played Magic since Dragons of Tarkir and loves all things Commander, the more colours the better! When not playing Commander, he can be found insisting Jund is still a viable deck in Modern and painting tiny plastic miniatures on Twitter @PrinceofBielTan