You may be here to purchase a card or two to complete a deck which is fine, but I want to talk to you about something called ‘staples’.

Staples are cards so powerful they go in every deck that you can put them in… and some of them, in fact, most of them are pretty pricey.

Whether you’re new to the game or a veteran here to get another copy of that $$$ card I think you’ll enjoy a quick list of commander staples.

 I’ve put them in the following categories: 

Tutors

Counters 

Card Draw

Mana Ramp

Lands

Lands are important especially if they tap for more than one color AND come in untapped. Some lands even have abilities that tilt the game in your favor like Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth which makes all your opponents lands swamps, pair him with Zombie Master and now all your creatures are unblockable. 

So let’s get into it. 

Tutors.

     Tutors are important especially at instant speed because you can hold up mana for other things then use it on the end step before your turn to get the exact card you need for the situation or maybe even fetch the piece of your combo. 

     Enlightened Tutor Is a white 1 mana tutor that lets you get and artifact or enchantment and out it on top of your deck. 

     Mystical Tutor does the same in blue for 1 mana but lets you get an instant or sorcery spell.

     Black sometimes has the added cost of paying life but in commander 40 life is plenty anyway. 

     Vampiric Tutor is the only instant speed tutor in black on the list and cost and additional  2 life to cast but that’s black for you. 

Demonic Tutor is 2 mana, Grim Tutor is 3 mana and both happen at sorcery speed but you get to put the card in your hand AND you don’t pay life so there is a trade off. 

In green, Worldey Tutor let’s you fetch a creature and put it on top for 1 mana at instant speed. 

And Green Sun’s Zenith let’s you pay into it to get a creature and put it on the battle field but happens at sorcery speed. 

Red is the most Aggro of the colors and doesn’t have very many tutors but the best by far is Imperial Recruiter. 

Counters

Most counters are in blue but there are some that deflect a spells effect to another opponent and those are just as nice. 

Imp’s Mischief in black and Deflecting Swat in red do exactly that.

In blue

Force of Will

Force of Negation 

Pact of Negation 

Can all be cast for free

While Mana Drain can counter a spell AND give you mana ramp for just 2 Blue mana

Flusterstorm is great for counter wars because of the storm effect it has and swan song can be a good early game stall if you’re playing a midrange deck both for 1 blue mana

Green and white don’t have hard counters but are filled with cheap easy ways to protect your board. 

Card Draw is bountiful in most colors so I’ll keep this park short 

Blue

Rhystic Study 

Mystic Remora 

Kindred Discovery

White 

Esper Sentinal

Black

Necropotence takes the cake hands down the best card in black for card draw. 

Red

Wheel of Fortune 

Green 

Green is the card draw color and with so many ways to draw cards nothing really stands out. 

Mana Ramp

We’ll start with colorless since they go in all decks. 

All the Mox’s :

Mox Opal

Mox Diamond

Mox Emerald

Etc.

Are all free to cast and tap for a color instead of colorless like most mana rocks. 

Mana Crypt

Mana Vault

Jeweled Lotus

Black Lotus 

Are all free to cast and tap for more than one mana. Mana Vault is situational though as you want a way to untap it so make sure your deck can do that with other cards. 

White has Smothering Tithe to help get ahead 

Ashnod’s Altar and Phyrexian Altar also let you sacrifice creatures for mana and are colorless artifacts so you can fit them in anywhere.

And finally lands!!!

Any land that taps for more than one color and comes in UNTAPPED is going to be prime for any deck.

Ancient Tomb taps for 2 colorless at the cost of 2 life

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth pairs with Zombie master as mentioned earlier

Urza’s Saga taps for colorless, creates a thropter token, and then lets you fetch an artifact mana value 1 or less.

Mana Confluence lets you tap for any color as does Forbidden Orchard and City of Brass

Reflecting Pool is great for color fixing.

Fabled passage is one of the only fetch lands that will let you get any basic land and bring it in untapped.

With that; all of the Fetch Lands, Pain Lands, Shock Lands and BattleBond lands should be on your list too. In fact, there’s a lands set on this site!!!

Thanks for reading.