Blue White Black Card Draw Life Gain Commander

Card draw is probably the most important aspect of any deck, but in EDH, it is even more crucial. Drawing into more cards than your opponents gives you more tools, it let's you outpace them in every aspect of a game. Today in the second episode of Commander Philosophy, we will dive into each color's methods of card draw, and how it's philosophy translates onto the cards and into gameplay. Let's get into it!

In the case for this analyzation, we will not cover cantrips---or cards that replace themselves in your hand by allowing you to draw a card---as a method of drawing, since they don't effectively put you ahead with card advantage, rather keep you alligned to where you were before.

White

It sucks to be on the bottom again, but white just doesn't have many good ways to draw cards. White is the color of order and balance, thus it enforces it by stopping your opponents from taking advantage of prominent game features. Examples of this include Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter which shut down tutoring, whereas Blazing Archon and Windborn Muse shut down attacks. In a similar fashion, Alms Collector shuts down extra draws, making it so your opponents card advantage is slower and you gain incremental advantage over the long game.

The rest of white's non cantrip based drawing effects are quite conditional. Armistice and a new enchantment Dawn of Hope both let you pour mana into drawing cards, however they are either dependant on you gaining life or on you willingness to give your opponents life for that advantage.

Green

Green may be good at ramping, but at card draw, it's quite sluggish. Green is the color of nature and growth, and as such, Green's card draw is usually single action and related to the number of creatures you have, or the power of creatures you control. Green is of course focused on it's creatures, so drawing cards off them entering through Glimpse of Nature and the new Beast Whisperer make perfect sense being in this color.

Green is also the color of Sylvan Library. This card is a powerhouse on it's own. It provides topdeck manipulation the likes of which cannot be found in the other colors besides blue, and also allows you to take a hit of 4 life to draw one of those extra cards you peeked at in addition to the one you draw for turn. This gives the color unprecidented reach, an advantage that cannot be ignored. The color also has has a single way to draw cards without stipulation at all in the form of Harmonize from Planar Chaos. It may just be a simple 4 mana draw 3 sorcery speed spell, but that's still quite potent for a color not known to possess any direct draw.

I feel it's also important to note that green, being the color of nature, is reluctant to be wasteful. As such, the color has the most "reuse" spells, such as Regrowth, Seasons' Past, and the new spell Vivid Revival which allow you to reuse some of your most powerful spells again and again.

Red

Ah, red, the color of wastefulness and sacrifice for greatness. Even the color's card draw reflects this philosophy. Red is known for it's loot or rummaging effects, effects that make you discard cards and then draw that many. Even though black can be related just slightly in this regard, it's most prominent in red. Faithless Looting, Cathartic Reunion, Rummaging Goblin, even Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded, there's so many to list. Higher up on the curve, looting gives way to wheel effects. Wheel, named after the original Wheel of Fortune, has you discarding your entire hand to draw that many. Many newer cards replicate this effect with minor drawbacks, like in the cases of Wheel of Fate, Reforge the Soul, and Magus of the Wheel.

There is only one way to gain constant card advantage in red, and it's the slow and painstaking process that is exiling from the top of your library and getting the opportunity to play that card that turn. Outpost Siege, various iterations of Chandra planeswalkers, and a newer commander Etali, Primal Storm all use this effect. Its even available to all 5 colors (although not without drawback) in the hideaway lands from Lorwyn. Red is good at short term gains but I'd look elsewhere for late game stretch.

Black

Black has proven to be a very resourceful color, and it even proves that in card draw. Just look at some of it's most popular commander cards like Necropotence and Phyrexian Arena. The color let's you exchange for more value asset, your life total, into card draw. Most of the best ways to do so fall under the simple fact that 1 life = 1 card, but some other sources like the black God Erebos, Greed, and Arguel's Blood Fast also let you draw cards but at steeper costs of life than these options.

But what if your low on life? Well there's one more way to draw cards in black, and that is through sacrificing creatures. Creatures are another valuable asset, and black wants to use them for their own needs. Harvester of Souls, Grim Haruspex, and Dark Prophecy all draw you cards as a trigger for when a creature dies. Smothering Abomination nets you a card everytime a creature is sacrificed. The color is very flexible and resourceful with it's card draw as long as you can stomach the costs.

Blue

"Blue is the best color for card draw,". Now that is a statement nobody can disagree with. If you can name an practical excuse to draw a card, blue probably has a card that can do it. Mystic Remora and Rhystic Study net you cards by greedy opponents that want to play multiple spells a turn. Concecrated Sphinx nets you two cards for every one they draw, including the one they draw per turn. Azami and Arcanis are commanders you tap for card draw. Jin-Gitaxias nets you a new hand of 7 cards on your end step.

The only real catagory of spells I can talk about in blue, besides the obvious Ancestral Recall draw effects, is the topic of wheels. Similar to Red, blue has wheel effects like Windfall and Jace's Archvist that make use of blue's card draw to refill your hand in a pinch or to get rid of unuseful things and hopefully draw into better.

I'm going to sin here, I said I wouldn't talk about cantrips, but blue is the color made of them. Ponder and Preordain are great cards, the knowledge they provide you with from your future draws can't be underestimated. This knowledge though, is exactly what blue wants. Blue is the color of control and knowledge, it uses it's power to look into the future, as in your future draws. It's topdeck manipulation is similar to that of Jace's mind manipulation. Knowledge is power in blue's case, hence it's very good options for card draw. Just be careful and try not to go overboard with using it.

Just remember that blue is that wonderful color that gave us access to Enter the Infinite, a way to literally draw your deck and try to win before you can die by decking yourself. So go have fun and try to master the craft of winning in two turns with it!

Colorless

And here goes nothing! Colorless has so many ways to draw cards it's pathetic. Each 2 color and half the 3 color combination have card draw in the forms of banners, cluestones, or lockets that produce mana of the color combination as well as self sacrifice for card draw. Commanders Sphere is similar in this regard. Mind Stone, Hedron Archive, Dreamstone Hedron are all colorless producing mana rocks that do the same.

Don't just think it's rocks that sacrifice themselves for card draw. Colorless has repeatable effects such as Staff of Nin, Font of Mythos, and Temple Bell to just draw you cards every turn. Well of Lost Dreams nets you cards based on however much mana you pay compared to life you gained. Each mono color has spellbombs that draw when you sacrifice them to do something different, making them highly versatile. But of course, we can't talk about card draw without bringing up the Top.

The three words "Sensei's Divining Top" are enough to encite groans from even the most veteran of players. The card has power that can't be matched. For one mana you get an artifact. Pay 1 and reorder the top three, put what you want most on top of your deck. Then tap the top and send that card to your hand and the Top to your deck. Now you have topdeck manipulation for any color combination and better than that of blue, at the cost of 2 generic mana. This ability is even so good it was auto-banned in Modern and eventually got banned in Legacy to boot. It's a pricy tool but it sure will help you alot over the course of a game.

Just to make sure we cover all the bases, I feel like it's only fair we discuss all the card types in colorless instead of just artifacts. Kozilek, the Great Distortion may seem to you like the weakest of the Eldrazi Titans but it has it's use, like refilling your hand! Drop him late game, he draws you cards, which if you don't need you can discard to counter spells. He's good versatility and just another noteworthy option.

If you wanted to draw cards from colorless lands, there's two expensive way to do that, but since Library of Alexandra is banned in Commander, your stuck with only one. Bazaar of Baghdad is a great card, Draw 2, Discard 3 may seem like disadvantage but your getting to swap out useless things for better so the advantage is there. But for those not able to play type 1 in Commander, we always have access to cheaper options like Mikokoro, Center of the Sea, Sea Gate Wreckage, and Geier-Reach Sanitarium which can give us incremental advantage within our manabase.

So, thats all I got for you today. I'd like to thank Cole, Boros Emissary, and Julie Hen TE of the EDH Hub for helping me compile examples for this wiki. I'd also like to know any thoughts or ideas you have for future wikis, since that's about all I have for this series thus far. I'd like to hear about what ideas and philosophies you have about commander and other formats as well! So until next time, this is Atony1400 signing off!

Blue White Black Card Draw Life Gain Commander

Source: https://aminoapps.com/c/mtg/page/item/commander-philosophy-card-draw/vd6i_WI1MzoQ06830474B2oPeJa5WbG

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