Playing One-Drops in Limited
Creatures that cost one mana are as old as Magic itself.
And 25 years later, well
Tons and tons of one-mana creatures have been printed. There have been plenty of incredibly strong one-drops which have seen play at the top levels of Magic. After all, if you can impact the game for the cheapest amount you can pay (free spells aside), that's just using your mana wisely. And in Constructed, you have your pick of the litter when it comes to potential one-drop plays.
When you play Booster Draft or Sealed Deck though, when should you be including them? You're only going to have access to a handful. When is it right to jam them in, and when should you leave them on the bench?
It can be hard to know.
There are a lot of factors that go into whether you want to play a one-drop in your deck or not. Let's take a look at this today!
The Cost of a Card
If you could just snap your fingers and materialize a
One-drops might have the lowest mana cost, but they still cost a card to play. Every card you play in your deck and subsequently draw is at the cost of something else. If you spend a card to play a one-mana creature, you need to make sure you're really getting value out of it.
How much damage does a one-drop need to deal to be worth it?
A kind of one-drop I see played a lot when it probably shouldn't be is a one-mana 1/1 flier.
It doesn't get stopped on the ground! It just pecks away for 1 point of damage at a time! What's not to like?
Well, let's think about it for a moment.
If you have a
Direct damage to the face with cards like
Even if your
To be worth a card, you are going to want your one-drop to have more potency on attack and defense. One simple way to do that is
The Second Power
The number-one quick heuristic that grabs my eye about a one-drop creature in Limited is if it has 2 power.
1-power creatures have trouble being worth the price of a card as attackers and blockers. They only trade with 1-toughness creatures, which aren't that common in Limited, and even if you do play it on turn one, you might get in for 2 or so damage before it's outclassed—and dealing 2 damage then chump blocking later isn't a card you'd generally want in your deck.
A card with 2 power, though, is a different story entirely.
Bears—two-mana 2/2 creatures, named after
If you have a 2-power creature that only costs one mana, you're just being mana efficient. If you're an aggressive deck, it means that you have the potential to get out of the gates early and attack for more damage: a turn-one 2-power creature followed by another 2-power creature on the second turn let you attack for 4 on your third turn.
But even if you're a more defensive deck, it lets you trade with your opponent mana-efficiently. If you can spend one mana for
And it's for that reason that the second power, not dealing a second damage, is important here. There is a tremendous power level gap between, say,
While it's easy to read them as similar—they both attack for 2 damage—Conquistador really only fits in the most aggressive of decks, or decks leveraging its Vampire subtype. It's significantly worse at blocking, and on the attack a lot harder to get in there with. An
While you won't always play 2-power one-drops, it's a great first check—and they often make my Limited deck.
Utility Throughout the Game
If the problem with one-drops is that they stop being relevant later on in the game, a great way to help obviate that is if they have abilities built in that are functional later on.
Let's take
Like the aforementioned
If your one-drop can cash in for a card down the road, that's great! It means you can get the few points of damage out of it while it's still relevant, and then turn it into something more meaningful once it's outclassed.
But it's not just about card advantage.
Something like
And then, of course, there is
On turn one, this card is just so impactful: it puts you ahead a mana on your opponent, meaning you can be a step ahead for the rest of the game. It adds late game utility by being relevant for the whole game. And while, yes, it's a weak topdeck late in the game, it's tremendous strength early on is worth the risk of drawing it late—which is really all you can ask for in a one-drop. There are very few one-mana plays that are stellar on turn ten, so often the question is, "How strong is this in the first few turns?"
And in the case of
Finding Synergy
The last thing I want to bring up, and something quite relevant to you Guilds of Ravnica drafters out there, is synergy. Guilds of Ravnica has some of the best one-drops ever in Limited.
Let's take this card:
This is pretty close to a card I was advising you against not playing just moments ago. Yes, it picks up lifelink which is nice—but still, in a lot of Limited formats, I wouldn't generally play this card.
But what flips the script here? Convoke and mentor!
Two of the key things I've mentioned previously in this article are finding that second power and tapping for mana
It's pretty trivial to buff your Hawk up to a 2/2 or larger with mentor, which makes it quite worth playing. Accelerating out your creatures even quicker via convoke turns your Hawks into
And while this may be what's going on with the current set, finding that synergy is always something to look toward. For example, if there are a lot of Auras, one-drops can become a lot better. Although it's a risky strategy, plenty of Core Set 2019 games were ended by a turn-one
One with Everything
The next time you go crack open a Sealed pool and are staring at one-drops, you can ask yourself how impactful they will be early game, what they're doing late game, and if that trade-off is worth it. If you do play with them, think as you draw and cast them about what impact they're having in the game. Mindfully noticing these things is often the first step toward realizing if they were good choices.
There's a lot that goes into choosing which cards to include in your Limited deck—and when it comes to one-drops, hopefully you feel even better informed.
Have thoughts you'd like to share on this? Any questions? You can always find me by sending me a tweet, asking me a question on Tumblr, or emailing me at Beyondbasicsmagic@gmail.com.
Have fun playing with Guilds of Ravnica—and may your one-drops always show up in your opening hand. Talk with you again soon!