Commander 101: Card Advantage

Hello internet, my name is Blue! Today we’ll be looking into the inner workings of my favorite format, commander. We’ll be discussing the difference between literal and virtual card advantage, the best colors for card advantage and how card advantage works in EDH compared to other formats. Without holding you up any further, let’s get into it!

Literal VS. Virtual

So first up on the docket, let’s talk about the two different types of card advantage or CA. Literal CA is super simple and straightforward. It refers to anything that puts cards in your hand from your library or graveyard. This can be card draw spells like Ancestral Recall, tutor spells like Demonic Tutor, or regrow effects like, well, Regrowth. Virtual CA, on the other hand, is a lot more complex. Virtual CA refers to anything that puts you ahead on cards over your opponent. This can range from reanimation effects like Reanimate, token generation like Raise the Alarm, or discard spells like Mind Rot. Thoughtseize and similar cards also fall under here since they give you information as well as discard, where cards like Vicious Rumors don’t since it’s only 1-for-1 discard, you get no additional information, and they choose the card themselves.

In Commander, both types of CA are imperative to ensure you can win, so you need a nice balance. For literal CA, I wouldn’t recommend playing one-shot spells like Opt unless you’re focused on cheap instants and sorceries. Instead, play repeatable effects like Greed or spells like Pull From Tomorrow. For virtual CA, I don’t recommend discard spells unless you’re built around it for several reasons. The big two are 1. It isn’t fun to play against and 2. Discard isn’t really viable in EDH. For reanimation and token generation, we again circle back to repeatable effects. Ol’ reliable reanimate never disappoints, but it’s better to do that every turn, like Sheoldred, Whispering One. Similarly with tokens, Servo Exhibition is fine, but Bitterblossom is better. Basically, always think “repeat, repeat, repeat” when you aren’t sure.

Colors

Next up: colors. Each color has a different way of generating CA, and some do it better than others. It’s important to note here which colors provide which different types of CA; literal or virtual. Blue is almost exclusively literal since a lot of blue cards randomly have “draw a card” tacked onto it. Where on the other side of the coin, white is almost exclusively virtual since it has a plethora of cards that generate tokens, but not many that draw cards. Black is split pretty evenly down the middle with a lot of card draw like Dark Prophecy, reanimation like Ever After, and tutors like Beseech the Queen. Green has gotten better over the years, but it’s CA is mostly creature-based card draw, ranging from how many creatures you have like Shamanic Revelation to how big your creatures are like Rishkar’s Expertise. Red is still pretty weak, but it has a lot of ways to cycle cards like Tectonic Reformation so at least you can turn bad cards into okay cards.

Card Advantage in Commander

Lastly, we need to discuss how CA works in EDH as opposed to other formats. In eternal formats like Modern and Pioneer, Thoughtseize is arguably one of the most important cards and for good reason. It provides important card advantage by discarding a card, gives information on your only opponent’s entire hand, and lets you choose any card so you have control over what gets thrown away. In Commander though, you only get to see one hand of your three opponents and you’re getting rid of one card out of a potential twenty-one options among three opponents. It loses a lot of its appeal. On the opposite side of that, Greed is slow in Modern and you’re generally already pretty close to dead by the time it comes down, but it’s a staple in most EDH decks.

Wrap-Up

In conclusion, card advantage is an important tool in commander and you should never play without it but it’s important to understand why as well. Do you have any questions? Did I miss anything you think I should go over? What’s your personal favorite card advantage spell in Magic? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @TheRealBlueMTG! Don’t forget to follow the site @MTGOracle as well while you’re there! This is Blue, signing out!