The Top 10 Creatures in cEDH

<p style="text-align: right;"><em><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Esper Sentinel" href="#" target="_blank">Esper Sentinel</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | Art by <a href="http://www.ericdeschamps.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Eric Deschamps</a></em></p>
<p>True card advantage in cEDH is a rarity. Unlike in 1v1 <em>Magic</em>, where players start off with even parity (each player facing down an equivalent number of opposing cards), cEDH players start the game with an immediate disadvantage. Each card in your hand has to be weighed against the sum total of your opponents, meaning that the game opens with 21 opposing cards pitted against your seven.</p>
<p>That being said, having access to more cards is always a good thing, even if you can't completely outweigh the table.</p>
<p>In this guide, we'll break down the main ways players accelerate their access to cards in cEDH. From single-turn impulse draw to engines that'll get you through the long game, this guide has got it all.</p>


<p>Despite true card advantage being far from the norm in cEDH, chasing ever-greater access to cards as the game goes on is still a crucial part of the gameplay for two key reasons: effect density and tempo.</p>
<p>Starting off with effect density, it should come as no surprise that drawing a lot of cards is a good way to increase your odds of seeing any particular effect. Whether it's lands or a combo piece, more cards means more chances of seeing what you need.</p>
<p>This is the same core tenet of card draw wherever you play <em>Magic</em> - limited or constructed, Standard or Commander. What makes this matter all-the-more in cEDH is the inherent play variability that comes with a singleton deck. The odds of seeing any one card are terrible in cEDH, but marginal increases in those odds through accelerated card draw can really add up over time.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ancestral Recall"></div></div>
<p>Moving to tempo, we shift from resource access to resource cost. We've got three opponents to play against in each game of cEDH, and answering their threats is going to take cards. Counterspells, removal, etc., all that interaction eats up card slots.</p>
<p>This presents us with a few options: End the game before we need to answer threats, use cards that that can answer multiple threats at once, and/or draw more cards than our usual one-per-turn, affording us the opportunity to spend the necessary cards to play against multiple players without falling too far behind.</p>
<p>Depending on the deck, we'll lean further into one of these three prongs than we will the others, but that's not to say we should wholeheartedly give up on the rest.</p>


<p>The first type of card advantage that we'll cover is also the most temporary, usually lasting just until the next turn - if not the end step - and that's impulse draw.</p>
<p>Impulse draw works by exiling the top card of your library, then placing some sort of timer on when that card can be played. The most common source of this card advantage, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Jeska&#039;s Will" href="#" target="_blank">Jeska&#039;s Will</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, puts three cards into exile and lets you cast them until the end of the turn.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="March of Reckless Joy" href="#" target="_blank">March of Reckless Joy</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, meanwhile, provides access to the exiled cards until the end of your next turn, but in exchange that card has a cost that scales pretty quickly with the number of cards it'll give you access to.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Jeska&#039;s Will"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="March of Reckless Joy"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Light Up the Stage"></div></div>
<p>So, why run cards that provide only temporary card advantage? cEDH is a format where games can readily end in a pretty short number of turns, so having access to a card for only a single turn is usually enough time to get some sort of use out of it - even if the timing may not be as opportune as typical, unrestricted card draw would provide.</p>
<p>You can see this same logic in the frequent use of bounce spells in cEDH, even in decks that have access to proper removal like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Swords to Plowshares" href="#" target="_blank">Swords to Plowshares</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. Doing something for a single turn - be it removing a creature or gaining access to an extra card - is usually just long enough to make things count.</p>


<p>Sometimes you just need to keep the momentum going: the opportunity to take a moderate, but not prohibitively costly, amount of mana, sink it into one card, and draw a fresh seven. These "wheel" effects are risky, as the reset applies to your opponents as well and you never know if they'll draw better cards than you - but the payoff can be ridiculous.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Wheel of Fortune"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Timetwister"></div></div>
<p>Alternatively, sometimes you need to cast a wheel as a good-ol'-fashioned reset. Fall behind in the game and need a way to catch back up? Wheels have got you covered.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, wheels present a split opportunity. If you're already super ahead and storming off, then casting a wheel is a great way to keep things moving. If things aren't going your way, then casting a wheel is a great way to re-roll the dice and check for a new hand.</p>
<p>There's a whole lot of randomness when it comes to wheels, but the control over when you cast them presents an opportunity for extracting a great amount of value.</p>


<p>Keeping things going in the world of sudden explosions of cards, we come to the true win conditions of the card-draw world: burst-draw.</p>
<p>The cards in this category represent the opportunity to convert a single card into true card advantage, and with it a reliable chance to win the game.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ad Nauseam" href="#" target="_blank">Ad Nauseam</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Necropotence" href="#" target="_blank">Necropotence</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Peer into the Abyss" href="#" target="_blank">Peer into the Abyss</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> are in a land all their own here. Resolve one of these, and drawing 20+ cards (at a minimum) in a single instant is usually what happens next.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ad Nauseam"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Necropotence"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Peer into the Abyss"></div></div>
<p>Each of these cards come with a cost in deck building, whether it be shifting the mana curve of your deck to meet Ad Nauseam's optimal requirements, or running a combo to achieve sufficient mana for Peer into the Abyss.</p>
<p>Despite that, each of these three cards has gone on to define decks and archetypes, cementing their role in the format as the ultimate one-and-done source of card draw.</p>


<p>Last but not least, we switch over from the sources of one-off card draw to the sources of reliable, consistent, and repeatable card draw. These might not provide nearly as much card draw in a single turn as the rest of the cards on this list (well, unless the stack really heats up), but - over time - they often add more than anything other than burst-draw sources we just checked in with.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Rhystic Study"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Mystic Remora"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Esper Sentinel"></div></div>
<p>One extra card in one turn isn't a lot. One extra card <em>per</em> turn, <em>every</em> turn, on the other hand is exactly the kind of cumulative advantage that can leave opponents scrambling for answers.</p>


Card Advantage in cEDH

EDHREC Guide To Card Advantage in cEDH

<p style="text-align: right;"><em><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ad Nauseam" href="#" target="_blank">Ad Nauseam</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | Art by <a href="https://jarvisartstudio.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jeremy Jarvis</a></em></p>
<p>Black is the cEDH showstopper.</p>
<p>It might not necessarily be the cards that quite literally end the game, but it does an excellent - if not over-the-top - job at helping you get there. Whether it be bursts of mana, individual tutors, or mass card advantage, black's got you covered.</p>
<p>So, what tops off black's contribution to the competitive meta? Let's find out.</p>
<h2>#5 - <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Orcish Bowmasters" href="#" target="_blank">Orcish Bowmasters</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span></h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Orcish Bowmasters"></div></div>
<p>First up on our list is also the newest card here, and that's Orcish Bowmasters.</p>
<p>For <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-1" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>, this 1/1 Orc Archer with flash does an absolutely brutal job of punishing opponents for even daring to draw more than one card a turn (something which has really come to define cEDH, especially as of late).</p>
<p>Pairing Orcish Bowmasters with a wheel effect, a la <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Wheel of Fortune" href="#" target="_blank">Wheel of Fortune</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, either in response to your own or in response to an opponent's, is a way to deal out massive amounts of damage in a blistering instant. But what really makes this card tick is its ability to mow down creatures over the course of long, drawn out games.</p>
<p>Mana dorks, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Esper Sentinel" href="#" target="_blank">Esper Sentinel</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer" href="#" target="_blank">Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, hell, even other Orcish Bowmasters will all die to this thing, assuming there's even a single player trying to get ahead in card advantage. If Orcish Bowmasters was the least bit more proactive (I mean, it already triggers at least once, and all you have to do for that is get this guy to resolve) then it would certainly be higher on our list.</p>
<p>As it stands, the prolonged removal which this Orc provides has confidently earned it the fifth spot.</p>
<h2>#4 - <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dark Ritual" href="#" target="_blank">Dark Ritual</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span></h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Dark Ritual"></div></div>
<p>Now we turn from the newest card on our list to something that's tied for oldest - a source of ramp that dates back to the very earliest games of <em>Magic</em>: Dark Ritual!</p>
<p>You know it, you love it, you leapfrog turns ahead by casting it. For <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>, this instant has just one effect: "Add <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>." So, why is it above something as oppressive as Orcish Bowmasters? Simple - proactive acceleration.</p>
<p>Competitive Commander is all about time. Even in untimed rounds full of card draw engines stalling out the board state, players are constantly looking for a way to get ahead of their opponents in <em>Magic</em>'s primary resource system, mana.</p>
<p>Think of mana like <em>Magic</em>'s intrinsic clock: Each missed land drop is a turn you might as well have skipped, and each extra mana - even if just from a ritual - is an extra instance you've outpaced your opponents. Viewed that way, Dark Ritual is just the best method to time travel in cEDH, full stop.</p>
<p>Sure, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Cabal Ritual" href="#" target="_blank">Cabal Ritual</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Rain of Filth" href="#" target="_blank">Rain of Filth</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Culling the Weak" href="#" target="_blank">Culling the Weak</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> can add more mana than Dark Ritual, but they all require some amount of setup beyond a simple input of <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>.</p>
<h2>#3 - <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Demonic Tutor" href="#" target="_blank">Demonic Tutor</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span></h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Demonic Tutor"></div></div>
<p>Next up, we're keeping the classic <em>Magic</em> train going with the game's very first tutor effect: Demonic Tutor.</p>
<p>For <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-1" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>, Demonic Tutor is a sorcery that functionally allows you to search your library for a card, put it into your hand, then shuffle. Read another way, Demonic Tutor is another copy of any card in your deck, it just costs an extra <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-1" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span> - mana that can be invested before you even need to worry about casting the main spell.</p>
<p>Demonic Tutor, like all tutors, seeks to break the volatility inherent to Commander. As a singleton format, games can swing widely from one round to the next, as the odds of drawing any one specific card are terribly low. Demonic Tutor, however, is the best-in-class when it comes to flexibility and efficiency, giving you an extra way to dig for what you need, when you need it.</p>
<p>Other tutors come and go as <em>Magic</em> keeps on creeping on, but Demonic Tutor remains a bedrock of the format.</p>
<h2>#2 - <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ad Nauseam" href="#" target="_blank">Ad Nauseam</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span></h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ad Nauseam"></div></div>
<p>Now it's time to shift from the glue of cEDH - the rituals and tutors - to the explosive bursts of card draw that lead to spectacular moments in games all across the format. For our penultimate pick, let's dive into Ad Nauseam.</p>
<p>For <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-3" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>, Ad Nauseam is an instant that allows you to - as many times as you wish - reveal the top card of your library, put that card into your hand, and lose life equal to that card's mana value (each card is a separate instance, the decision to continue is sequential).</p>
<p>Since Ad Nauseam causes you to lose life equal to a card's mana value, dedicated decks which run this card as their closer will necessarily make adjustments in the mana values of their decks in order to maximize the number of cards picked up off of Ad Nauseam.</p>
<p>"Turbo Naus" decks, as they're often named, are singularly dedicated to finding and casting Ad Nauseam as quickly as possible, as the bevy of zero-cost mana rocks, cheap rituals, tutors, and counterspells which Ad Nauseam often reveals will be sufficient to not just win the game, but defend or stop a win attempt as well.</p>
<h2>#1 - <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Necropotence" href="#" target="_blank">Necropotence</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span></h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Necropotence"></div></div>
<p>Remember Dark Ritual? Well, a single Dark Ritual can't cast an Ad Nauseam, but it can cast our next pick. That's right, it's time for Necropotence.</p>
<p>For <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>, Necropotence is, essentially, Ad Nauseam, but as an enchantment and with some weird timing restrictions baked into how it works. Rather than putting cards into your hand and losing life equal to their mana values, Necropotence has an activated ability that allows you to pay one life to exile a card from the top of your library, which you'll then put into your hand at the beginning of the next end step. Additionally, to make things even more awkward, you skip your draw step, and whenever you discard a card you'll exile that card from your graveyard.</p>
<p>So, with all the awkwardness presented, why is Necropotence above Ad Nauseam? Well, being immediately castable off of Dark Ritual is certainly a plus, but that's not all. Even the best Turbo Naus decks don't usually get an average mana value below the 1.3-1.4 range, meaning that Necropotence causes you to lose an average of 30%+ less life per card put into your hand off of its activations.</p>
<p>Additionally, since these activations are abilities from a permanent, it means that you can split it up however you want; look at seven cards on your first turn, hoping to find a tutor or the like, then dump all your life into Necropotence the next turn, backed up by the flash-enabler you just tutored for so as to make the most of your pre-discard card access in your end step.</p>
<p>Ad Nauseam is definitely the flashier single-spell resolution, but Necropotence can oftentimes show you more cards and in safer fashion - two very appealing qualities of a burst-draw spell.</p>
<h2>Wrap Up</h2>
<p>That wraps up our best-in-class list for black's contributions to cEDH. Rituals, tutors, burst draw - the color really pulls a whole lot of weight in accelerating victories and smoothing out inconsistencies, while also being no stranger to absolutely brutal punishing effects (*cough* Orcish Bowmasters *cough*).</p>
<h3>More cEDH:</h3>
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cedh card advantage

The Top 10 Creatures in cEDH

EDHREC Guide To Card Advantage in cEDH

The Top Five Black Cards for cEDH