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When playing Commander, having colorless Magic: The Gathering cards is incredibly important. This way, no matter what lands the player has access to, there is going to be potential cards that can be played. In the recent Double Masters 2022 set, a vast number of powerful cards were reprinted for players, particularly colorless artifacts.
Quite a few of these are or could be staples for Commander, so the focus is on the ones that stand out as must-haves for a variety of Commander decks in Magic: The Gathering. These cards are utility cards, and Wizards of the Coast did not skimp with classic powerful cards.
Artifacts are powerful in Magic: The Gathering, but which are the best Double Masters picks?
It’s important to pick MTG cards that are right for the Commander deck that is being built. Thankfully, most of these cards are useful no matter what kind of deck is being built. As Magic: The Gathering’s Commander meta demands 100 cards, it can be incredibly hard to find the cards necessary to win games.
This is why utility cards like these are important. Colorless artifacts are more flexible that way, not requiring a particular mana color.
Which are the best Commander cards in Double Masters
- Planar Bridge
- Mana Vault
- Sensei's Divining Top
- Aether Vial
- Pithing Needle
5) Planar Bridge
Admittedly, Planar Bridge is a little costly, and so is its ability. It is a six mana rare legendary artifact. But what it does is make players with enough mana take advantage of it into powerhouses. One of the most stressful parts of Commander in Magic: The Gathering is that you can only have one of each card.
Because of that restriction, it is hard to pull the perfect card for any situation. It is also a format that has tons of mana ramping, so it is easy to get 6-8 mana early. For 6 mana, players can put this legendary artifact in play.
They can then tap eight mana and tap this to search their library for any permanent card and put it into play. While it cannot pull instants and sorceries, it can seek creatures, artifacts, lands, enchantments, and planeswalkers. Whatever permanent you need for your combo, or to get back on your feet, suddenly, they are not far away.
It is a slow card, but it is also excellent to pull 0/1-cost cards, so they can be quickly and efficiently put into play. While it may not be something players will drop immediately, it is a complete game-changer in Commander games.
4) Mana Vault (Mythic Rare)
Speaking of needing more mana, say hello to Magic: The Gathering’s Mana Vault! This powerhouse card is an ancient piece of technology. It’s an ancient card, and is an artifact that drops for one mana. It doesn’t untap during your untap phase, but can be tapped for three colorless mana.
It is such a weirdly fascinating card. During your upkeep phase, you can pay four colorless mana, and if you do, untap Mana Vault. If this card is tapped during your draw step, it deals one damage to you.
Fortunately, there are so many cards that can untap artifacts. You could simply use it on turn one to play a card that costs two or three mana.
Galvanic Key, for example, requires three mana to untap an artifact, and the player would still have three mana to tap from the artifact, so it essentially loses nothing. Mana Vault has more uses in the early game, but it is a wonderfully powerful card.
3) Sensei’s Divining Top (Rare)
Sensei’s Divining Top is a staple across Commander decks anyway in Magic: The Gathering. It is a low-cost, high-value card that can make finding cards very simple. For one mana, this comes into play. You can tap one mana to look at the top three cards of your deck, and them put them back in any order.
That is already amazing for decks that have card draws or simply want to look into the future and properly plan moves. You can also tap this to draw a card, and put Sensei’s Divining Top back on top of the owner’s deck.
When this was tournament-legal, it was in virtually every deck. Sensei’s Divining Top is a simple card, but it is easily one of the most powerful artifacts printed for Magic: The Gathering. No matter what deck you are playing, you can always use a bit of extra knowledge, and the Top delivers.
2) Aether Vial (Rare)
Aether Vial is a card that Magic: The Gathering aggro decks made famous upon initial release. It is a disgustingly powerful card, and the longer it is on the table, the more powerful it becomes. When you start your upkeep, you put a charge counter on this card, and it comes into play for one mana. This means you can start getting value immediately.
This card can be tapped to put a creature card with mana value equal to the number of charge counters Aether Vial has into play from your hand. So on turn one, you can play a 1-mana creature, then a 2-mana creature, and so on.
There are only two major downsides. Creatures with an “Enter the Battlefield” trigger will still get their abilities as they literally enter the battlefield. But cards like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, that have an ability that triggers upon “casting” the creature, will not happen. Cascade triggers will also not happen, because that requires the card to be “cast”.
You also cannot “tick” this card down. There are ways to remove counters from cards, but this, by its own function, only goes up. That does not change how powerful and useful the card is, however.
1) Pithing Needle (Rare)
This card is the most simple on the list, and easily the most powerful. This is particularly a nightmare for the Commander. As long as this card is in play, a particular card's activated abilities are useless. When Pithing Needle comes into play, name a card.
Activated abilities of sources with that name in Magic: The Gathering cannot be activated unless they are mana abilities. Why is this great? Because players can see their opponent’s commanders! It is easy to know if that card is the one that needs to be countered. It is also common to run cards that allow players to see their opponent’s hands (discard spells in particular).
It’s also a planeswalker-killer. All a player has to do is name the planeswalker they know their opponent has, and it will be borderline useless for the rest of the game.
Magic: The Gathering’s Double Masters 2022 set is absolutely filled with power cards, and this is just a small sampling of them. As always, this list is the opinion of one particular writer, and a player’s use of these cards varies by deck and situation.
