1 mana commanders

Commander (EDH) forum

Posted on July 7, 2020, 7:49 p.m. by Omniscience_is_life

Is Rhys the Redeemed the only viable option for a good 1 mana commander? I've been thinking about how fun having 1 cmc general would be, but all my attempts at Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter and Zurgo Bellstriker decks fall short of glory. Thoughts?

tpmains says... #2

What about Kytheon, Hero of Akros  Flip? Do white weenie with some hate bears and some anthems.

July 7, 2020 8:11 p.m.

griffstick says... #3

There are 9 legends at 1 cmc

July 7, 2020 8:29 p.m.

enpc says... #4

Rhys the Redeemed will give you the most flexibility since A) you have access to two colours, B) can run an elf theme and C) provides the flexibility to not just have to run dead one drops just because they are one drops.

I have actually put together a 1 CMC Rhys deck last year:


Keeping a one-land hand

Commander / EDH* enpc

SCORE: 1 | 96 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER


which demonstrates why Rhys is best suited to the task.

July 7, 2020 9:26 p.m.

enpc I actually quite agree, but I was asking if there are any other good options. But thx for dropping a decklist, I'll definitely take a look

July 7, 2020 10:23 p.m.

Isamaru, Hound of Konda could be a decent Voltron. Also: Norin the Wary

July 7, 2020 11:37 p.m.

enpc says... #7

Omniscience_is_life: Good is subjective. I mean any of them can build a list, but other than Oviya you're going to struggle with said list. And the only reason Oviya does ok is thanks to jamming in a crapload of mana dorks. Most of the other lists will hit the "chaff to pad this out to 100 cards" pretty quickly.

July 8, 2020 12:04 a.m.

enpc Of course it's subjective; that's why I'm asking for thoughts and opinions, not a definitive guide. The main/only reason I said anything in response is I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page with everything, I'm not trying to merely butt heads.

cheers!

July 8, 2020 12:30 a.m.

enpc says... #9

All good. As I said, I think that the reason Rhys is good compared to all the others is that he doesn't suffer from what all of the others do which is just trying to get to 100 cards without putting in junk just to get there. And even with Rhys, I found when putting the list together that there was a danger that the deck would start to just try and do random stuff purely because I was trying to hit the 100 card count. But Rhys suffers the least from this. And the fact that you have access to both hte mana dorks in green but also the removal suite in white makes the deck surprisingly playable.

The other thing is that white/green as a colour combination excels at +1/+1 counters and anthem effects. This is super important for a 1 CMC deck since outside of hydras, you're generally going to be stuck flooding the board with weenies, which might make you strong for the first few turns but you ultimately suffer from as they don't scale well with turns.

July 8, 2020 1:35 a.m.

sergiodelrio says... #10

July 8, 2020 3:48 a.m.

sergiodelrio says... #11

DeinoStinkus I hear you and you have a point. My train of thought was, while you'll have to pay more mana when you recast the 'classic' 1-drops, Tasigur has the potential to always be cast for 1 mana, if you build your deck this way. Just me thinking out of the box here

July 8, 2020 8:16 a.m.

enpc says... #12

Omniscience_is_life: It's probably also worth mentioning that when I read 1CMC commander, I for some reason thought you were trying to make hte whole deck 1CMC. That's probably been colouring a bunch of my comments about 1 drops in general :P It's been one of those days.

July 8, 2020 10:06 a.m.

kpres says... #13

I've seen Isamaru, Hound of Konda go nuts with auras and equipment. 21 commander damage by the time I have enough mana for Cultivate. See Ethereal Armor with other cheap white enchantments, Sigarda's Aid with Colossus Hammer, and Fireshrieker

Deck search:

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/search/?q=&format=edh&general=isamaru-hound-of-konda&price_0=&price_1=&o=-date_updated&submit=Filter+results

July 8, 2020 3:39 p.m.

RNR_Gaming says... #14

It all depends on how you're defining "viable". If you're playing cedh no 1 mana commander is going to be up for that task. Now if you're just goofing around with some friends zurgo may fall a little short unless its 1 v 1; mono red decks don't scale very well with multiple players. Now obviously Rhys scales very well due to it having a very solid ability that's relevant both early game and late game. Oviya can be optimized but will often be over shadowed by other commanders that do what she does more efficiently.

July 9, 2020 9:52 p.m.

At this point, I really feel like I should repeat: Norin the Wary is a pretty powerful commander. He isn't super-cheap to build, but can definitely do some great things.

July 10, 2020 12:19 a.m.

RangersGuild says... #16

I just recently made decks around some of the prime dinosaurs. My favorite is Nezahal, Primal Tide and another one that I used in a deck is Ghalta, Primal Hunger. Ghata can have for really interesting and funny decks build around it, and Nezahal can be a monster. Especially with cards that make it unblock able or buff it's damage.

July 22, 2020 10:30 a.m.

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