Tuesday Night Takeover

Top 10 Green Commander Staples Intro to EDH!

This list serves as a great resource for new players to gain some familiarity with cards they may be seeing frequently!

Commander staples are cards in every color that are just universally good and played in most decks that can play them todays list focuses on very common green spells and permanents you will encounter throughout your EDH journey! Please note that this list is definitely meta / playgroup dependent although these cards are played heavily this list may not be totally accurate to your EDH environment!

Green is a very strong color in commander, both when used in a multi-color deck and in a Mono-Green deck. Green is efficient a great way to ramp your mana and great for casting humongous creatures! Without Further Adieu lets look at 10 cards you will see in almost every green deck!

10. Cultivate / Kodama’s Reach

Mana and mana ramp are a key part of magic, Cultivate and Kodamas Reach are two of the best mana ramp spells. The reason these two are grouped together is because they are functionally the same exact card. These are very efficient ramp spells that can be played early and give you two lands. You will find this card in most green decks and it is just a great way to gain some mana advantage.

9.Doubling Season

The decks that do play doubling season are very specific but it is still one of the best and most common green cards. being able to double counters and tokens fits into so many mono-green decks and especially succeeds in Simic and Selesyna strategies. Doubling Season is a huge threat when it hits the field because of how quickly it can get out of hand. Doubling Season is definitely a build around card but it is very easy to be very effective with it on the field.

8. Seedborn Muse

Seedborn Muse is a very cool card allowing you to untap your permanents during each other players untap step. This can be used to your advantage in a number of ways, such as untapping creatures you just attacked with our untapping mana to activate spells and abilities. Overall there is nothing wrong with untapping our permanents every time and will give us a benefit every turn. Seedborn Muse can be used more heavily in decks that are built around costed abilites but can really fit in any green deck.

7. Worldly Tutor

Worldly tutor is an extremely efficient green spell that allows you to search for any creature and put it on top. Not being able to put it directly in your hand may seem like a downside but it is an instant so you can cast it at your opponents end step. Worldly tutors biggest benefit is cost being so cheap it can really be cast anytime and is a great way to search for important creatures or combo pieces.

6. Burgeoning

Burgeoning is a very interesting card when played on the first turn of the game, it can give you an advantage that your opponents cannot come back from. Burgeoning does get worse as the game goes on as opponents play less lands on the later turns but it is a very cheap enchantment that could possibly have a positive effect at any stage of the game!

5. Heroic Intervention

Heroic Intervention is one of the quintessential green spells that has a very green effect, giving your permanents hexproof and indestructible for only 2 mana makes it one of the most common / best green spells in the format. While it may not help you end games it will absolutely help you in getting your game ended whether you are trying to avoid a kill spell or a board wipe Heroic intervention is played in nearly every deck it can be for a reason.

4. Beast Within

Beast Within is a great piece of removal for green decks for a long time, green struggled with the ability to remove anything. Beast Within allows you to take out any permanent whether its a problematic land or creature being able to target anything is a great abliity and it being an instant lets you do it at any time. Beast within does technically come with a downside but giving your opponent a 3/3 beast is nothing compared to the value you get out of blowing up a high value permanent.

3. Sylvan Library

Arguably one of the best green cards of all time this card was severely broken in 20 life formats in 40 life formats and especially green it is extremely easy to just draw three cards a turn with no real downside or consequence. Even if you don’t take the 8 life every time you draw being able to look and “fix” your draws is another great benefit. Sylvan library is an amazing card that comes down early and helps you greatly till the end!

2. Triumph of the Hordes

Triumph of the Hordes is another very broken green staple and is one of the most common game enders. Since it can be played in any green deck and even with a small board presence it can end games quickly. This card not only gives your creatures a buff, infect and trample it is very easy to cast. In some token / creature swarm strategy’s you can use Triumph to end the game within the first 5 turns!

1. Craterhoof Behemoth

Craterhoof Behemoth is one of the best game-enders that green has. Green almost always has a lot of creatures and with hoof you can usually take 2 to 3 people out in one combat step. Most decks that are green and have creatures play it and that’s for a good reason it is an easy to cast / easy to recur threat that must be dealt with or you win the game!

Thanks for reading to the end!