(Sublime Epiphany | Art by Lindsey Look )

Awake, and lift your faces to the sun

Hello, everyone! If you've ready any of my previous list articles on most played Commander cards from different sets (like Duskmourn), this one is like those, but slightly different. In honor of Magic the Gathering: Foundations (FDN), I'm showcasing the most played modern, mono-color core set cards! To be precise, I'm drawing from the cards released in core sets Magic 2010 to Core Set 2021, including Magic Origins. I won't be covering cards from older sets like Tenth Edition or older, because those were all reprints. Now, with that out of the way, let's get to the cards!

 

White

3. Silence - 141,595 decks

This is an incredibly powerful and unique effect that mainly threatens to prevent your opponents from interacting with your game-winning combos. That's why it's most commonly played — according to EDHREC data, at least — in comb0-oriented builds of Kraum, Ludevic's Opus and Tymna the Weaver that play Underworld Breach, Tainted Pact, Thassa's Oracle, and a bunch of mana producers.

It's worth noting, too, that you can cast this reactively to mess with your opponents' game plan. Maybe you cast it in response to a Cascade trigger or you prevent them winning with a combo they've nearly assembled.

 

2. Grand Abolisher - 194,179 decks

Like Silence, but in "hate bear" (a creature, often a 2/2 and usually in white, that disrupts your opponents in some way) form. Abolisher will see play in a lot of the same types of decks as the instant, but it can also perform well in much more aggressive Human kindred decks. I'm not saying Humans can't combo — we've got Winota, Joiner of Forces, after all — but Abolisher shines in decks led by Greymond, Avacyn's Stalwart and Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, that play a bunch of hate bears and eventually kill you with them.

1. Sun Titan - 231,774 decks

In my article on the most played mono-white cards in Commander, Sun Titan figured in 7th place. Even though it's a little on the expensive side as a six-drop, it can win the game single-handedly if left unchecked, either by recurring a steady stream of creatures, fetchlands, or cantrip baubles, or by forming an infinite mana, infinite enters and death triggers combo.

You probably won't even have to pay full price for it often, given how well it works with some more midrangey, graveyard-oriented white or Boros () commanders. You've got a few that bring it back from the dead, like Celestine, the Living Saint or Sefris of the Hidden Ways. Others double its triggers, like Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, Preston, the Vanisher, or Duke Ulder Ravengard. Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd is another dirt-cheap option.

 

Blue

 

3. Talrand, Sky Summoner - 5,325 decks as commander, 113,124 in the 99

This 2/2 is a little less buildaround, a little more plug-and-play, because slotting him into a spells theme deck really isn't that hard. There really are a plethora of blue-based spell decks, often with red, that would love playing an army-in-a-can, especially when you can play protection effects that are cheap or free, like Fierce Guardianship or even Abjure if you're feeling spicy.

As a commander in a mono-blue deck, you're looking to do a couple of things: control the tempo of the game with the cheapest interaction available like Unsummon, Pongify, and Spell Pierce. Then, once you have Talrand in play safely, you let loose a flurry of cantrips like Opt and Ponder and other spells that let you churn through your deck like Frantic Search. High Tide gets you a ton of mana and helps make sure you can do everything you need while still holding up enough mana for counters.

 

2. Teferi's Ageless Insight - 121,150 decks

Drawing cards, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. It makes sure you have action throughout a long game of Commander, and it even makes your game plan and combos more consistent. It helps you hit your land drops; you might even have heard, perhaps half-jokingly, that card draw is mana fixing, because it gives you more shots at finding different lands. I believe it!

Teferi's Ageless Insight offers pure card advantage and only asks you to play other card draw effects in your deck. So, why not build around one of the many commanders that gets more powerful the more cards you draw? This Legendary Enchantment is a popular choice in Minn, Wily Illusionist, where you can leverage Insight to turn cantrips into Illusion tokens on your opponents' turns. It's also great in Niv-Mizzet, Parun, as every card turns into an extra point of damage. Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir doesn't even need to be in play to synergize, and I do love the challenge of building a Knights deck that also wants to be drawing a ton of cards.

The list goes on, and we're only talking about commanders! Chasm Skulker is supercharged, and you can go ham with alternate win conditions Laboratory Maniac and Twenty-Toed Toad. And, we're always looking for ways to make Rhystic Study better....

1. Preordain - 258,834 decks

This cantrip isn't just the most played mono-blue cards first printed in a core set; it's one of the most played mono-blue cards overall. You simply need to run cards like this to filter your draws, assemble combos, and trigger other cards like Niv-Mizzet, Lord of the Nazgûl, Talrand, and many, many more. The Scry 2 effect also gives you a lot of information about your next turn, so that extra bit of text should be not be discounted. For more writing on how Preordain measures up to other one-mana cantrips in blue, check out this Commander's Herald article!

 

Black

 

3. Sanguine Bond - 139,756 decks

This expensive, do-nothing enchantment needs some help to get going, but when it does it's one of the best combo cards in black. You'll commonly find it in Vampire-themed decks, where you can combine it with Exquisite Blood, where cards like Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, Marauding Blight-Priest, and others provide redundancy, and where it can even put a decent shift in as a source of damage even when you're not going off. Remember that Foundations brought us Bloodthirsty Conqueror, which has the same effect as Exquisite Blood and therefore gives you more ways to win the game on the spot.

 

2. Viscera Seer - 229,636 decks

This is another card for Vampires that is also valuable as a free sacrifice outlet in decks that build around that theme. Truly a format all-star, is likewise a cheap piece in a popular mono-black combo:

Playing white means you need one fewer card:

 

You can even run this out early and the scry it provides you helps you find your other combo pieces. In any case, you probably want to play this alongside a package of sacrifice payoffs that includes Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, and Cruel Celebrant in Orzhov decks.

1. Sign in Blood - 237,751 decks

As with Preordain in blue, card advantage and filter effects like Sign in Blood are simply going to see more play than more powerful cards that may not slot into every type of deck. This card is wonderful as a two-mana draw-two, but it packs a little extra punch when you play it in decks led by the Phyrexians K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

Interestingly, it's played slightly more than Night's Whisper, which wasn't printed in a core set. Why is that? Likely in part because you can make your opponents Sign in Blood, affording you the potential of a cheeky win now and then.

UPDATE: Turns out you all get a bonus 4th most played Core Set card in black! In the original article, I omitted what was actually the most played black card because I thought that it was first printed in Kaldheim, which actually came out about half a year after M21.

- 241,976 decks

What's an EDH list article about black cards without multiple Sacrifice theme cards? Village Rites is one of the most efficient ways to turn creatures into value and sac triggers that isn't a "free" sac outlet like Viscera Seer or Nantuko Husk.

There are also several versions of this effect available, from functional reprint Corrupted Conviction to spicier variants like Deadly Dispute and Reckoner's Bargain. It can be a bit tricky to find the right mix of enablers like these, payoffs like Blood Artist, and Commander staples like removal, but it's great knowing that Sacrifice as a theme is extremely well-stocked!

 

Red

 

3. Young Pyromancer - 108,801 decks

"Peezy" is a nice payoff for an aggressively-slanted spells deck like ones led by Bria, Riptide Rogue, Balmor, Battlemage Captain, and Urabrask in mono-red. There's just something so satisfying about unleashing a barrage of cheap spells and suddenly having a giant army to turn sideways and destroy opponents with. In Jeskai (), this can be a whole game plan, because you have a lot of redundancy in Third Path Iconoclast, Talrand, Kykar, Wind's Fury, and Monastery Mentor.

2. Terror of the Peaks - 117,760 decks

This Dragon is already a must-kill because of how quickly in can get out of hand just by playing other creatures, but it's also a combo card! All you need are to untap with Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink and have eight mana available. 125 damage should be enough to end the game, infinite life shenanigans aside! Rite of Replication works, too!

Combos are fun, but what about the first thing, the playing other creatures thing? Well, you can do this in a Dragon kindred deck, and you can take advantage of ways to get more triggers from Terror or of effects that get it into play sooner. The Ur-Dragon's Eminence ability works with other cost reducers and mana creatures like Birds of Paradise and Goblin Anarchomancer to cast the 5/4 flier before your opponents even know what's happening. Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm is another way to make more copies of it, while Kaalia of the Vast is a classic enabler for any huge, devastating Dragon.

1. Warstorm Surge - 124,369 decks

Like a Terror, but slightly more expensive and harder to remove as an enchantment. This resilience might make it more preferable in non-Dragon decks. Or, you can just play both. There are too many creatures that repeatedly make tokens to count, so it won't be hard to get value of this expensive investment. Omnath, Locus of Rage, Atla Palani, Nest Tender, Gishath, Sun's Avatar are popular options that go pretty big with putting stuff into play.

It also has combo applications, including with a Vrondiss, Rage of Ancients that has been made indestructible. Terror works here as well.

Green

 

3. Garruk's Uprising - 334,943 decks

Core sets have been good to green, with some of the most played mono-color spells coming from these booster packs. Garruk's Uprising is a great card in many green decks, given that the color is unrivaled at playing creatures with power 4 or greater. You don't really need to build around it, and the trample it gives your team is a significant bonus that can help you close a game out once you've stabilized with card advantage.

2. Elvish Mystic - 399,425 decks

Mystic is another in a long line of mana creatures that are essential cogs in green EDH machines. In pretty much any card game, an effect that costs one and that boosts your mana or energy for the following turns is an excellent tool to have. It's so powerful in Magic that Wizards of the Coast had declined to print these creatures into Standard for years, until Foundations reprinted Llanowar Elves. Never underestimate cheap acceleration!

1. Cultivate - 1,038,305 decks

Did you know that Cultivateis the second most played mono color card in all of Commander? It's in over a million EDHREC decks! While the number is pretty staggering, it's not surprising that a ramp card and color fixer is widely played in a format where multicolor decks full of expensive, splashy spells are popular. This three-mana sorcery, alongside Kodama's Reach, which does the same thing 99% of the time, simply enable EDH players to do whatever they want in whatever colors they want.

 

No part goes to waste

What a great list! I've always appreciated how core sets have given us powerful-yet simple and clean designs for various formats, including EDH. I'm so glad that they're back in the form of Foundations, which I'm sure will add to its predecessors' significant contributions to Commander. As for cards I personally enjoy but didn't make the list, I'm tickled by the idea of casting In Garruk's Wake and Rise of the Dark Realms on successive turns, or maybe the same one! Sai, Master Thopterist also has a special place in my heart as an army-in-a-can that also delivers card advantage. Let me know which core set card is your favorite!

 

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