Green may not have the best track record when it comes to competitive formats inMagic: The Gathering, however, Commander is another matter entirely. In fact, giving yourself access to more mana as early as possible is a staple mechanic of the Commander format.
RELATED:Magic: The Gathering - The Best Black Cards In Commander Masters
As it just so happens, green is the best color for doing exactly this. It’s also a color that’s chock full of expensive spells and creatures that you can spend your inordinate amounts of mana casting. For these reasons, the green cards in Commander Masters are among the most exciting reprints in the entire set.
10Azusa, Lost But Seeking
Despite being susceptible tocommon removal, Azusa is a great card to include in any deck looking to make a lot of lands hit the battlefield quickly, as opponents don’t get a chance to respond to her entering the battlefield until after you’ve played your first two additional lands.
This is thanks to the fact that playing lands doesn’t pass priority to your opponents. In other words, you’re bound to get some value out of Azusa the same turn you play her. She then becomes a required target for opposing removal. Otherwise, you’ll quickly pull ahead with a mana advantage that other players won’t be able to match.
9Selvala, Heart Of The Wilds
Selvala is another popular card in Commander, as it is capable of benefitting other players at the table instead of just its controller. Of course, not every deck is going to be running creatures big enough to draw cards off of this wild heart.
Like Azusa, this is another relatively cheap creature that begs removal from your opponents. In this way, it’s perfect for clearing opponents' hands of answers for yourmore expensive creatures. When Selvala does manage to survive, you’ll be rewarded with both card and mana advantages.
8Heroic Intervention
This instant is a great answer to all kinds of cards your opponents will be playing including targeted removal and manywrath effects. The dream is to play this in response to someone else playing a board wipe, keeping your board intact while all other players lose their battlefields.
That’s not going to happen every time you cast this card, but it’s bound to happen sooner or later. Besides, Intervention can be just as great when it’s used to save a single powerful planeswalker or creature from spot removal.
7Tooth And Nail
This is one of those big mana payoff cards that we mentioned in the introduction. You’ll want to cast this spell for its entwine cost in most cases, but it’s nice to have the option of fetching creatures into the safety of your hand as well.
RELATED:Magic: The Gathering - The Best Blue Cards In Commander Masters
Tooth and Nail is best suited for fetching creatures with powerful enter-the-battlefield effects such as Apex Altisaur. Effects like the ones printed on these cards turn Tooth and Nail into an answer as well as a threat, which is what we want out of cards that cost this much mana.
6Regal Behemoth
The princely Dinosaur that is Regal Behemoth is so stunning that it makes you the monarch upon entering the battlefield. While you remain the monarch, you draw a card at the beginning of your end step. However, you lose the monarch if another player manages to deal combat damage to you.
Consequently, Regal Behemoth would be quite a bit better if it had reach instead of trample, but we can’t always get everything we ask for. Trample does at least make it easy to take the monarch token back if someone else manages to steal it from you.
All this being said, the real icing on the cake here is the extra mana you generate while you have the monarch token. The threat of doubling your mana availability alone turns Regal Behemoth into a must-remove target for opponents.
5Finale Of Devastation
If your deck has the ability to generate infinite mana, Finale of Devastation can win you a Commander game on the spot, as long as you have a creature with trample to attack each remaining player with. However, a lot more often you’ll be casting Finale to finish off a single player with the creature you pull from your library thanks to haste and the power and toughness boost.
Obviously, creatures with trample are preferred targets, as they ensure that your damage will get through, even if your opponent has a fair amount of blockers. Both the notorious Craterhoof Behemoth and the lesser-known Pathbreaker Ibex are great finishers to pull from your library.
4Craterhoof Behemoth
Speaking of which, this Beast’s enter the battlefield trigger is so powerful that it has seen play in both Modern and Legacy as a game-ending threat. Behemoth originally rose to notoriety as the creature at the top end of Elf decks, since Elves go wide on the battlefield and produce a lot of mana.
This makes them a perfect pair for Craterhoof as the mana they produce allows you to cast it early and their many small bodies pay huge dividends on Craterhoof’s trigger. While Elves are an ideal pair for this creature, Craterhoof is great in any deck that’s playing a fair amount of creatures, as its effect is usually strong enough to knock a player out of the game even with just a handful of creatures on your side of the battlefield.
3Arachnogenesis
Originally released in Commander 2015, Arachnogenesis has skyrocketed in playability and price as more and more Spider cards have been printed. Effects that prevent combat damage (commonly known as Fogs) are typically unplayable in higher-power games, however, Arachnogenesis is much more than a simple fog.
RELATED:Magic: The Gathering - The Best Red Cards In Commander Masters
For the small cost of three mana, this instant can completely turn the tables on anyone trying to swing in for lethal against you. Token decks and other go-wide strategies may even fold outright to this card as it creates a number of Spiders equal to the number of creatures that attacked you. In combination with other Spider cards like Ishkanah, Grafwidow, these tokens can be game ending.
2The Great Henge
There are many artifacts in Commander that players must either contend with or lose to. The Great Henge is one of the more popular of these artifacts as it goes hand in hand with any deck that plays a lot of creatures.
This artifact supplies life gain, card advantage, and a mana advantage all for as little as two green mana as long as you have a creature with seven power on the battlefield. The Great Henge is especially frustrating to play against as it makes removal spells close to useless, since each creature that enters the battlefield replaces itself immediately with another card in hand for your opponent.
1Doubling Season
Whether your game plan is creating tokens or placing counters, Doubling Season is too good of a deal to pass up. This card works great in all token and counters deck strategies playing green, but especially ones like Atraxa, Praetor’s Voice or any kind of planeswalker.
In the simplest terms possible, Doubling Season makes every other card in your deck that interacts with it twice as powerful. Any time you can play a card that literally doubles the power of all other cards in your deck, you’re going to play it. More than that, Doubling Season can also be used alongside many cards tocreate infinite combosthat win you the game on the spot. Needless to say, if you ever see an opponent cast this enchantment, prepare for the worst.
