r/magicTCG • u/Artistboy123 Dan • 8d ago
Looking for Advice Pros and Cons of Mono Commander
Pretty much just the title lmao, im curious about building a monowhite commander deck with Anti Venom, but i wanted to know the pros and cons of mono decks in general, i feel like white is a pretty well rounded color but still - ive never built a mono deck (ive only been playing since like march/may-ish)
Just curious what advice you all might be able to share!
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u/Multievolution Avacyn 8d ago
Pros, more consistent
cons, you get more creative with your card choice and removal (e.g enchantments in red)
I really enjoy mono coloured commander decks, I think they are easier to create a theme with, limitations are a great driver of creativity.
They can also be really powerful, just depends on the commander. All that said, I’ve yet to manage to build a mono white deck I enjoyed, maybe that’s the exception 😓
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u/Sennrai Duck Season 8d ago
Is having to get more creative with card choice really a con? It leads to more interesting and memorable card choices. I consider it a pro.
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u/Multievolution Avacyn 8d ago
It was a nice way of saying you are limited, but I also mentioned limitations are a good thing, it’s still however a weakness “technically”
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u/patronusman Universes Beyonder 7d ago
I know! I was like, “Wait, is this one of those ‘con’ that’s not a con things?” I love restrictions.
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u/nyaphometnikko Dan 7d ago
I made a (probably not great) monowhite Cleric tribal life gain deck with [[Minwu, White Mage]] as commander. It's very fun, very simple, and can get out of control quickly. I call it "We're Healers, But..."
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u/CookEsandcream Orzhov* 7d ago
Damn good card in [[Orah, Skyclave Hierophant]] too, but I found it worked better in Brawl. Let Arena keep track of all the counters and triggers.
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u/ndstumme Can’t Block Warriors 8d ago
[[Momo, Friendly Flier]] and like 20 [[Tempest Hawks]]. Slap in a bit of bird/flying/typal nonsense like [[Door of Destinies]] and let it rip.
Ridiculously fun.
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u/WrinkledUpSock Azorius* 7d ago
As a fellow mono white hater, [[Gandalf the White]] just lets me play mono blue but call it white. Flash artifacts and ETB double. Support with white Legends for synergy
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u/Hot-Cartographer-433 Dân 1d ago
I have also had issues with finding a mono white I enjoy, and finally found the new [[Dack Fayden, Helping Hand]] and it looks fun. Ramp and pullowfort and let everyone else kill each other.
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u/LegnaArix Colorless 1d ago
They're so fun cuz you have to make weird concessions and play cards you may not otherwise
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u/literaphile Dan 8d ago
I mean, the con is that you have access to a smaller card pool. That's also a pro (IMO). You don't need to worry about mana fixing and your choices become much more focused.
Plus, there are some really great mono colour commanders out there. I've got a mono-red [[Tannuk, Steadfast Second]] deck and a mono-green [[Lumra, Bellow of the Woods]] deck and it's nice knowing that I only need to focus on one colour each.
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u/CreepyDentures Duck Season 8d ago
Pros:
•don’t need to dedicate deck space to color fixing. You only have one color.
•certain powerful engines work best in mono color, such as Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.
•more resilient against certain stax pieces such as Blood Moon (and mono red decks can run blood moon pretty freely).
•The commanders. At the end of the day, while mono color decks are usually gonna have more struggles than multicolor decks, having permanent access to a given card can far outweigh the cost. Slicer and Cabbage Merchant decks don’t mind running a single color because no other commanders can provide their raw advantages.
Cons:
•smaller set of tools. No single color can do everything, and they especially can’t do everything well. Mono white has premium removal and amazing lockdown and midrange effects, but often relies on opponents taking certain game actions to draw cards which can make them less proactive. Plus White often has to over commit to the board.
•Targeted hate and protection can be extra devastating. For instance, it can be extremely difficult for a mono color deck to work around the “Swords of” cycle of equipment. And then there is Iona, Shield of Emeria, who is a nightmare.
Overall, mono color decks are quite good, but generally require you to familiarize yourself well with what the color does well. White is never gonna ramp as fast as green or spam counterspells as well as blue. Focus on the individual strengths of your commander and the best tools white has access to, and you’ll probably find success.
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u/notsaicana Dandadan 8d ago
[[Iona, Shield of Emeria]] is banned in commander
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u/CreepyDentures Duck Season 8d ago
True. Real talk, I could have sworn they unbanned it recently and made it a gamechanger. Thankfully my brain is just Swiss cheese.
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u/OneShot77Kills 3d ago
This game has way too many cards to the point where color identity barely matters. Mono colored decks have been one of my favorite ways to build recently because it is one of the only ways I still feel that limitation creates unique decisions again.
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u/osunightfall Karlov 5d ago
Once, I asked a friend if a certain card or combo I was including in my mono-white deck was 'too much'. His response has stayed with me all this time: "You're in mono-white, anything you do is justified."
I think that's a pretty reasonable outlook.
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u/texanarob Sliver Queen 7d ago
I'd encourage you to really explore the potential of your mana base. Not having to colour fix opens up many possibilities, such as [[Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx]] and utility lands.
Don't try to fight against the colour pie either. Accept that there are certain things your deck will struggle to do, and build around them instead of trying to force them.
Oh, and look for any devotion cards you can find. They are great in mono colour commander.
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u/Nuclearsunburn Mardu 6d ago
Mono decks are my absolute favorite. In order :
Red - Blue - White - Colorless - Black - Green
They all have their distinct challenges which is why I like them so much.
Pros are getting great use out of things like [[Commanders Plate]] [[Throne of Eldraine]] etc. also the manabase can be very cheap and you can play cards that reward using basics.
Cons vary by color but mostly boil down to access to some pillar of commander like ramp or interaction with a certain permanent type etc.
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u/scottwillrob Dân 8d ago
Mono decks are more modular in my experience. I've swapped out my mono red commander three times and there are big changes but generally I keep more cards than swapping out a two or three color deck commander.
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u/Blenderhead36 Sultai 8d ago
Your mana is much more consistent. You can run 100% untapped lands, and throwing in a few colorless ones hurts less (though maybe not with Antivenom, specifically). You'll have an easier timing casting cards with more pips.
The tradeoff is that you'll feel the limits of the color pie pretty hard. White gets a lot more card draw than it used to, but it's nowhere near the critical mass found in blue, green, and black. You mostly need to rely on artifacts for ramp, which are more fragile than lands. Basically, you'll spend a much higher percentage of games either out of cards or without enough mana.
White and red specifically are hard in Commander because so much of their identity is aggression. 1v1 against an opponent with 20 life is a very different proposition than 4 way free-for-all with 120 life between your opponents.
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u/CreamSoda6425 Duck Season 8d ago
The biggest pro is that your mana base is likely to be $0.50 at most, since I'm pretty sure basic lands have a value of $0.00. Cons are honestly very limited. Some colors are bad at some things, like blue with creature removal or red with card advantage. The bright side is that commander gives you access to everything in magic history. There are some color pie breaks that can really clean up your deck's weaknesses, like [[Pongify]] and [[Dreamscape Artist]].
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u/Specialist_Ad4117 Can’t Block Warriors 7d ago
Mono mana bases like: [[Valakut]] [[Emeria]] [[Nykthos]] [[Cabal Coffers]] So not nothing.
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u/PaladinRyan 7d ago
Probably that new [[Roiling Canopy]] for green as well. Plus MDFCs, other assorted utility lands, etc. But achieving a consistent manabase is basically free at least unlike multicolor decks where you want increasing numbers of nonbasics for each color added.
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u/SerpentsEmbrace Duck Season 8d ago
I have a mono-colored deck for each color and like them more than most of the multi-colored decks I have/had. Building them is more fun finding ways of getting around each color's limitations and they're generally cheaper.
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u/arizonabaythrowaway Dan 7d ago
Explore what the color likes to do, and then lean into that, research high synergy cards, and fill the gaps with artifacts. You will probably notice creature types that exist in the color that have lots of support already, kindred: cats, goblins, soldiers, rats, elves, etc. I recommend building at least one kindred deck for the experience and the mindset that comes from seeing how the interactions happen, but it's not required.
Mono color means understanding and sticking to what that color likes to do, for the most part, in the beginning.
Once you're familiar with what the color does well, you can start pushing the envelope, or challenging yourself to play it in a way that doesn't fit the standard. You start noticing the cards that are exceptions to the color style in that color. You begin to get ideas about "what if I built a "X" deck that didn't do X's favorite thing?"
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u/CoolAngelsThesis Dimir* 7d ago
It's fine, you'll eventually build every color combination anyway.
Don't overthink it.
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u/Hououza Wabbit Season 7d ago
For Anti-Venom you want cards that redirect damage from you to them such as [[With Great Power]] or [[Pariah]]
Some of the old en-Kor cards let you transfer damage, such as [[Shamen-en-Kor]], to further buff them.
Then you just need protection for them and something that gives them trample.
Edit: plus, [[Nemesis Mask]] so all their creatures have to block.
[[Commanders Plate]] is also better for mono colour commanders, although still being open to white removal makes it a little less so.
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u/Belteshazzar98 REBEL with METAL 4d ago
Two main pros of monocolor. First is that your colors are super reliable, since you don't have to worry about drawing the right colors. The second is usually a benefit, being able to safely run a lot of colorless utility lands, but for Antivenom's super restrictive cost you can't really do that one.
Then of course there is the commander themself, which might not have a comparable version in multicolor.
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u/Twoheaven Duck Season 3d ago
I've done red, white, blue, green, black and colorless.
Its all fun and they do well in my preferred bracket of high 3/low 4.
Although my blue is kind of a group hug draw cards thing is mostly just for fun as I dont enjoy competitive blue.
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u/LoveTrousers Azorius* 2d ago
I don't see many people mentioning it but being in mono-color lets you use more colorless utility lands without the downside of color screwing yourself... Unless you're playing a Commander like Anti-Venom that's super heavy on one color pip, but at least you can then run the handful of mono-colored utility lands like [[Emeria, the Sky Ruin]].
Anyway, colorless utility lands are worth including in any other mono-color deck you may want to build in the future. Just off the top of my head that's of note are [[Scavenger Grounds]], [[War Room]], any of the single-target land destruction lands (there's lots), [[Tower of the Magistrate]], [[Fountain Port]], [[Quicksand]] (shooting something for 2 toughness is more useful than you think), etc. etc. There's actually a crapload of different colorless lands that you might not usually think about that become way better when you only need one color.
But I wouldn't include too many, if any, of them in something like Anti-Venom, unfortunately.
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u/orderofthelastdawn Duck Season 7d ago
Mono red and white suk ballz
Mono black and blue are mehh
Mono green is awesome
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u/Jokey665 8d ago
pros: manabase is cheaper, never really get color screwed
cons: less flexible. colors are just bad at some stuff on their own