What's in a mana?

Igor Stravinsky, the famous 20th century composer of orchestral music like Rite of Spring, was interviewed on the radio in Los Angeles in the 50's. He'd moved there, and he'd stopped writing massive orchestral works, instead focusing on small, delicate pieces of music with rigid rules around the composition. When asked why he had moved from such freedom of composition to such structure, he replied that the smaller the box he forced himself into, the harder he had to work to be creative, to do something new. In other words: restrictions breed creativity.

Deck-building As Expression

We talk a lot in Commander circles about expressing ourselves, being creative, in our deck-building process. Why is it, then, we see the same cards at every table? We're creative... but everyone includes Sol Ring. We're creative... but the answer is always Swords to Plowshares. Staples and "EV" get in the way of our creativity all the time. That's fine! If you want to build a deck that will work, and you don't want to express yourself, you are allowed to do that and you should. But if you do want to go against the grain? Show your personality in cardboard? You're going to need some restrictions.

Different Levers To Adjust

We can make this happen a number of ways. Try asking a friend to choose a Commander for you. Give yourself a budget or limit yourself to specific sets. Force a color combination you don't like, or make a color combination do something it doesn't normally do ( control anyone?). I hope to spend much of the this year playing with these levers with you.

Mana And Colors

So, for my next set of four, we're going to constrain our deck-building quite a bit: four decks, four mana values, four color amounts. The first deck will have nothing but one-mana spells, and will contain exactly one color. The second will have two mana spells and two colors. Then three and three, and finally four and four. (Lands are considered required for all decks and are exempt from limitations outside of traditional Commander rules of color identity.)

Where do we begin?

There are 39 one-mana Commanders out there, but one in particular stood out as being able to manage the restriction easiest. That may not be the best reason to select it, but let's ease into this project.

Tinybones, the Pickpocket lets us cast spells out of our opponents' Graveyards when Tinybones does Combat Damage to that player. We can use our mana because we can use mana of any type to cast the spell. This gives us access to lots of things we otherwise don't have, thanks to our restriction. Plus, it balances well to a table, since we'll be playing with things people put into their own decks - harder for opponents to complain when it was theirs to begin with.

Tinybones, the Single-Pip-Pocket | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Tinybones, the Pickpocket

• Creatures (18)
• 1 Cryptbreaker
• 1 Cult Conscript
• 1 Dread Wanderer
• 1 Eye Collector
• 1 Faerie Dreamthief
• 1 Forsaken Miner
• 1 Gas Guzzler
• 1 Gnawing Vermin
• 1 Greedy Freebooter
• 1 Gutterbones
• 1 Infestation Sage
• 1 Iridescent Vinelasher
• 1 Knight of the Ebon Legion
• 1 Moonshadow
• 1 Nested Shambler
• 1 Nezumi Linkbreaker
• 1 Shadow Alley Denizen
• 1 Thieves' Guild Enforcer

• Instants (21)
• 1 Aphotic Wisps
• 1 Corrupted Conviction
• 1 Cut Down
• 1 Dark Ritual
• 1 Darkness
• 1 Defile
• 1 Desperate Measures
• 1 Fatal Push
• 1 Feign Death
• 1 Fungal Infection
• 1 Malakir Rebirth
• 1 Rotten Reunion
• 1 Scarblade's Malice
• 1 Shelob's Ambush
• 1 Spoils of Blood
• 1 Tragic Slip
• 1 Undying Malice
• 1 Unfortunate Accident
• 1 Vendetta
• 1 Village Rites
• 1 You Are Already Dead

• Sorceries (11)
• 1 Bloodchief's Thirst
• 1 Bone Shards
• 1 Bubbling Muck
• 1 Deadly Precision
• 1 Divest
• 1 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 1 Insatiable Avarice
• 1 Lethal Throwdown
• 1 Reanimate
• 1 Unearth
• 1 Vicious Rumors

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Hopeless Nightmare
• 1 Kaya's Ghostform
• 1 Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1 Tinybones Joins Up

• Artifacts (15)
• 1 Altar of the Brood
• 1 Cliffhaven Kitesail
• 1 Codex Shredder
• 1 Commander's Plate
• 1 Dino DNA
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Ghoulcaller's Bell
• 1 Hot Soup
• 1 Manifold Key
• 1 Prying Blade
• 1 Retrofitter Foundry
• 1 Skeleton Key
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Vorpal Sword
• 1 Zephyr Boots

• Lands (30)
• 17 Swamp
• 1 Access Tunnel
• 1 Accursed Duneyard
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Castle Locthwain
• 1 Escape Tunnel
• 1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1 Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress
• 1 Mortuary Mire
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 The Black Gate
• 1 War Room
• 1 Witch's Cottage

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Mana

I did some math for this. The deck runs smoothly on a single Black mana, so really what we want is a single Basic Swamp in our opening hand. We have 17 of them, which means in a single hand of seven cards, there is a 74% chance of having a Basic Swamp. Add in a mulligan (my group still just shuffles the hand back in and draws a new seven the first time) and that goes up to 93%. 14 out of every 15 games, you'll have a hand with the only engine you need for this baby to hum.

There are also a few ways to increase our mana, like Prying Blade and Dark Ritual, but no rocks. I can't think of a turn when I would rather draw Sol Ring than anything else in this deck.

Draw

I chose Tinybones because he is such a value-generator. I knew going into the challenge using only one-mana spells would be very limiting, so I wanted to make sure the Commander brought some power to the table. One of our primary methods of card draw comes from our Commander himself doing Combat Damage to another player. Skeleton Key is a nice way to move through your Library, as is Zephyr Boots, since they both let you draw a card then discard. (Both provide nice evasion as well!)

Skullclamp is a classic and well worth sacrificing a random Token for, since the -1 to Toughness will kill many Tokens, drawing two cards. Gas Guzzler is another cool way to use up stuff we might end up with. Plus we have a few Village Rites-style cards, where we can sacrifice a Creature (and sometimes an Artifact) to draw two cards. Hat tip to Insatiable Avarice for its combination Tutor and Draw, depending on the amount of Mana you want to put in.

Threats

Whatever our friends happen to have! Perhaps we cast someone's Ancient Copper Dragon? Maybe we cast their Cruel Ultimatum? Or their Insurrection? We push Tinybones through (more on that in a minute) and see what we can pick up along the way.

Answers

We're fairly limited at one mana. Answers which are necessary in 60-card formats like Modern (like Fatal Push, which we have here) are often massively outclassed in a format of 9/9s. We have an assortment of Fatal Push variants, like Cut Down and Defile. Unfortunate Accident is a cute but fair way around the one-mana rule. It's a one-drop, but paying more gives us extra effects, and frankly, we like them both.

Bloodchief's Thirst and Deadly Precision are both slow at Sorcery speed, but we'll often be able to pay the requirements they need to make them slow Murders. Bone Shards lets us Sacrifice a Creature to kill another Creature. We've also got a few ways to prevent Tinybones from dying like Feign Death, which basically auto-Reanimates him.

Synergy

There are three basic places the rest of the cards go.

• Getting Tinybones through
• Building Graveyards
• Light Reanimation

Let's go through them in order.

Getting Tinybones Through

One of the best ways to do this is with Rogue's Passage, which lets you pay and tap it to make a Creature Unblockable for a turn. Tinybones is little, so Access Tunnel, which only costs but is Limited to dudes with Power 3 or less, works too.

But wait, there's more! The Black Gate lets us make him Unblockable to the Opponent with the most life, and Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress costs more to activate but permanently gives Tinybones Shadow, making him effectively Unblockable. If someone randomly has a Shadow blocker to keep you out, you'll eventually find an answer in someone else's 'yard.

Aphotic Wisps is just too cool to not include, since Fear is so rare and old-school. Surely there will be a player at the table not running Black, and you'll be able to sneak Tinybones right in. Shadow Alley Denizen isn't as cool but does leave behind a body we can sacrifice to Skullclamp or Bone Shards or something.

Then we have a number of pieces of Equipment to help get him through. In addition to the two mentioned before, Hot Soup, Commander's Plate, and Cliffhaven Kitesail all can sneak him by defenses. Manifold Key is another solid way to ensure he gets through.

Building Graveyards

This is mostly leaning on Ghoulcaller's Bell-type effects: we want people to have to turn cards over. In addition to the Bell, we also have Altar of the Brood, Codex Shredder, Eye Collector, and Thieves' Guild Enforcer which triggers off Tinybones - and what a Rogue he is! Tinybones Joins Up will also trigger off Tinybones, plus any Legendary Creatures we happen to cast out of Graveyards.

Then we have a bit of mild Hand disruption with spells like Inquisition of Kozilek and Vicious Rumors. I love the idea of a turn one Divest and plucking the Sol Ring out of a player's Hand before they even draw a card. Then we'll probably cast it two turns later.

Light Reanimation

Basically this is Reanimate and Unearth. Reanimate gets us whatever Creature we want from any Graveyard, which can be incredibly powerful when someone flips over an early Etali, Primal Conqueror or something. Unearth limits us to our own 'yard and , but that'll hit anything of ours. Then there's Dino DNA, which Exiles things from Graveyards and turns them into 6/6 Tramplers. Seems like a decent use of a dead Mana dork.

The deck has a Vorpal Sword. How can you not have Vorpal Sword in the one-mana Black deck?

Final Thoughts

There are a few more little toys in the deck, like Retrofitter Foundry. Basically, they're things to do with extra mana if there's nothing in a Graveyard we want to lift.

I didn't consider budget when building this deck, though there are personal choices I often make, like not including Thoughtseize - it's best in class for a reason, but that benefit matters a lot less in a slower, bulkier format. However, there are no cards I didn't include for budgetary reasons that I would like to have - this is the deck as I would want to play it.

If you get Malakir Rebirth before you've hit your third Land, play it as a Land. The deck works fine with one, but eventually you'll want to cast things from Graveyards worth more than a single mana. Three seems about the stability point; it allows us to start casting early ramp spells like Cultivate, and early kill shots like Murder.

Finally, don't tell people what makes the deck special. Just say it's not a "normal Tinybones deck." Let the players figure it out. Way cooler that way.

Thanks for reading.