The Fantastic FourThe Fantastic Four | Art by Yasmine Putri

Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that Vexing DevilVexing Devil is the only one-mana, nonblack creature with four power?)

Marvel Super Heroes brought us a take on The Fantastic Four I didn't expect: a card that cares about the number four.

A play on the space that cards like Chalice of the VoidChalice of the Void and Talion, the Kindly LordTalion, the Kindly Lord opened for the game, The Fantastic FourThe Fantastic Four wants you to cast spells that either cost four or have four power and/or toughness. Now, on initial read, that doesn't seem very abusable. Four mana is a lot, and even a Helm of AwakeningHelm of Awakening isn't going to be enough discount to really get you going.

What if I told you, however, that you can actually find a ton of creatures that have four toughness for just the price of a single mana?

Top 10 Nonblack, One-Mana Creatures with Four Toughness or Four Power

Criteria: Nonblack creatures with four toughness or four power at the time you cast them that are one mana or less. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

10. Greenbelt RampagerGreenbelt Rampager

(3.32k Inclusions, 0.08% of 4.21M Decks)

Well, if we were looking to abuse an enters trigger repeatedly with a cheap creature with four toughness, it's hard to imagine how our prayers could've been answered in more fitting fashion than Greenbelt RampagerGreenbelt Rampager. For those that haven't ever seen this Elephant wrecking shop in its native habitat, decks playing this thick fellow tend to cast it with the intent of it returning to their hand so they can then cast it again. This happens twice natively before the Elephant then sticks by paying the two energy it made upon entering the first two times.

In other words, when it comes to The Fantastic FourThe Fantastic Four? Greenbelt Rampager says: : Draw a card, make a Wall, and either make a creature bigger or BoltBolt someone's face. And that's if you haven't managed to acquire any other enters triggers along the way.

9. Turtle-DuckTurtle-Duck

(4.24k Inclusions, 0.18% of 2.37M Decks)

In fact, the most confusing thing about Greenbelt RampagerGreenbelt Rampager is that it's not further up this list. While it has a clear purpose and niche to fill, the same can't really be said about Turtle-DuckTurtle-Duck despite its extra 1000 inclusions. Put simply, this card is here because it has four toughness and has words on it. If it didn't, it'd be down with the rest of the Yoked OxYoked Oxen, gracing 40s in Limited and not doing much else.

Since we're going to be joining the ranks of Walls decks out there, however, maybe we should take a closer look at what kinds of cards make Turtle-Duck (and Yoked Ox, for that matter) worth playing.

Top 11 Toughness Matters Cards (That Care About Something Other Than Gaining Life)

1. Last March of the EntsLast March of the Ents
2. Assault FormationAssault Formation
3. Fecund GreenshellFecund Greenshell
4. Arbor AdherentArbor Adherent
5. Canopy GargantuanCanopy Gargantuan
6. Bedrock TortoiseBedrock Tortoise
7. Baldin, Century HerdmasterBaldin, Century Herdmaster
8. Walking BulwarkWalking Bulwark
9. Towering TitanTowering Titan
10. The Pride of Hull CladeThe Pride of Hull Clade
11. High AlertHigh Alert

Why Top 11, you ask? Because High AlertHigh Alert neatly sums up what we're going to be doing with The Fantastic FourThe Fantastic Four, more or less. Playing a whole bunch of efficient, high-toughness creatures that then become efficient beaters and which happen to make more of said efficient, high-toughness beaters whenever we play more of them (after we draw a card to replace them, of course).

I'm not sure we'll find room for Turtle-Duck in all that efficiency, but really the only reason why that might be the case is because unlike most of the other Toughness Matters decks out there, we're in four-color. Otherwise? Yeah, we'd bite the bullet and put in the cute duck hybrid like everyone else has.

8. Armored ArmadilloArmored Armadillo

(4.35k Inclusions, 0.10% of 4.24M Decks)

Another cute critter with a big butt, Armored ArmadilloArmored Armadillo comes with another line of text that makes it way more relevant than Turtle-DuckTurtle-Duck could ever be: ward . Now, don't get me wrong, will there ever be much call to remove this cute little guy? Probably not. Even if Baldin, Century HerdmasterBaldin, Century Herdmaster and Fecund GreenshellFecund Greenshell have combined to make the 'dillo swing in for 13 damage and a card, the correct targets to remove there are Baldin and Greenshell, not Armored Armadillo.

But can I see situations where the little 0/4 that could being difficult to remove could be to our advantage? Yes. Yes I can.

7. Excavated WallExcavated Wall

(4.95k Inclusions, 0.05% of 9.11M Decks)

Probably a much more relevant ability to have on our one-mana 0/4, however, would be the ability to mill ourselves. The question is: does The Fantastic FourThe Fantastic Four want to mill?

Well... maybe?

While there isn't much to do with Walls or toughness that cares about the graveyard, there are a ton of cards available that can be cast from your graveyard that will trigger The Fantastic Four. Even better, this can sometimes be done at a discount, as cards cast from your graveyard will still have their original mana value on the stack. If there were more cards that were decent and could be cast "for four" from the graveyard for actually cheaper than that, we'd be leaning into this a little harder. As it is, we'll still be happy with Excavated Wall, but mostly just because it's going to cost us one (or maybe zero) to cast, and will trigger Fantastic Four.

6. Secret DoorSecret Door

(6.26k Inclusions, 0.14% of 4.49M Decks)

Obviously, there's not an amazing upside here, as we're not going to go deep on a Dungeon theme. Still, if we're looking for a cheap four toughness creature with upside, this technically qualifies, so... let's look at some Dungeons?

Five mana to repeatedly venture into the dungeon is not a rate that blows me away, but could definitely yield results over a long game. My personal vote, much as I love the Tomb of AnnihilationTomb of Annihilation, would be for proceeding down the Dungeon of the Mad MageDungeon of the Mad Mage. It provides by far the most value over the long haul, even if it's a bit slow to get started.

5. Merfolk SecretkeeperMerfolk Secretkeeper

(6.55k Inclusions, 0.15% of 4.49M Decks)

Hey, look, another cheap 0/4 that can also mill! I'm not as crazy about Merfolk SecretkeeperMerfolk Secretkeeper as I am about the cost-reducable Excavated WallExcavated Wall, but it does come with one big advantage: it can naturally attack. That means that if we have a Baldin, Century HerdmasterBaldin, Century Herdmaster but haven't found a High AlertHigh Alert or Arcades, the StrategistArcades, the Strategist yet, Secretkeeper will already be putting out serious damage.

4. Vexing DevilVexing Devil

(8.52k Inclusions, 0.19% of 4.54M Decks)

What if you don't have any of that toughness matters stuff, though? Does that make Vexing DevilVexing Devil worth it? Normally I would say no, not on your life. Triggering Fantastic Four for a single mana, however, and tacking on four damage on top if it? I'm a fan.

3. Steel WallSteel Wall

(10.8k Inclusions, 0.12% of 9.11M Decks)

We see example after example of inertia here at Too-Specific Top 10, week after week. Well, here's another. The "vanilla" Steel WallSteel Wall has 5,000 more inclusions than the strictly better Excavated WallExcavated Wall, for no reason other than it's been around longer. That said, are we going to solve this problem? Nope, not even a little bit. Another 0/4 that could easily have its cost reduced to zero is going in the deck, strictly worse or not.

2. Wall of RunesWall of Runes

(17.7k Inclusions, 0.39% of 4.49M Decks)

If we're looking for real upside, though, I think the first one we've really found is Wall of RunesWall of Runes. It's a bit unfortunate that if we draw off of Fantastic Four that it will happen on a cast trigger, before Wall of Runes' enters trigger happens to scry for us. That's no reason to be down, however. We'll be stoked to see this little guy, anytime.

1. Perimeter CaptainPerimeter Captain

(22.7k Inclusions, 0.54% of 4.24M Decks)

While Perimeter CaptainPerimeter Captain is technically another one-mana 0/4 "Wall" with upside, it seems doubtful that we'll ever really care much about the life gain. With that said, we probably still care more about the incidental life gain of the Captain than we do about the natural attacking of Yoked OxYoked Ox. In other words? I wouldn't call this even close to better than Wall of RunesWall of Runes, or even Steel WallSteel Wall... but we will still be playing it.

Honorable Mentions

We actually went fairly far down the rabbit hole this time. There are a bunch of vanilla 0/4s left, but it's doubtful that we'll find the space for those. Of the cards that still have text on them and four toughness, however, there's really only one that didn't make our top ten that stands out:

Sidisi's FaithfulSidisi's Faithful provides two options for our deck, both of which we're huge fans of. The first is what most folks have played it for throughout the years: it comes down and acts as removal, bouncing an opponent's creature. Longtime fans of Man-o'-WarMan-o'-War will know, however, that often when it's at its most broken is when it's bouncing your own things, or even itself. With us hunting for triggers, Faithful allows us to repeatedly cast it while sacrificing other creatures, a strategy that's even more breakable because our commander provides creatures as one of the options of its modal trigger.

In other words? If those Walls aren't a-swingin', chuck 'em in the bin for more cards in hand, counters on creatures, and damage to opponents. (I think there was supposed to be a rhyme in there somewhere.)

As for the deck overall? It could be quite a bit quicker with the addition of some mana rocks or dorks, but if you're looking for some Bracket 2 fun, I think this more than does the job. Don't be nervous to play down your efficient butts early, there'll be plenty more being ripped off the top of the deck after you get The Fantastic FourThe Fantastic Four down and start raining in the triggers.

Nuts and Bolts

There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, NOT my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall search.

What Do You Think?

Is it sad that I'm slightly happy about there only being one Fantastic Four card that encapsulates all of them, despite there also being individual cards for each of them? Honestly, that feels like progress, in the world where every legend has four versions in the same set.

And finally, what is your favorite cheap creature with four power or toughness? Would you play it in The Fantastic FourThe Fantastic Four, or lean more into effects that are cheaper than they appear?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the table with four legs, four chairs, and four friends. Aww.