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Main » Articles » The One

The One

Adrian Sullivan
Posted on December 21, 2018
 Reddit

The One. I know it is early to be talking about The One, since it's Christmas and New Year's that are just around the corner and not Valentine's Day nor the anniversary of the release of the Matrix, but after looking at a few recent innovations in lists, it seems worth discussing in detail now.

Playing a single copy of a card used to be something that would get you made fun of. In recent years, it has gotten a bit more traction. I've long been an advocate for thoughtful selection of single copies of cards in decks, but that isn't advocacy for a willy-nilly random singleton; rather, it is making sure to make those choices for robust reasons.

Let's take a recent example of one of my favorite uses of a singleton.

Izzet Drakes | Guilds Standard | Andrew Jessup, 1st Place, SCG Invitational 12/7/18

Jessup's list is an update on Yuuya Watanabe's Top 16 list from Grand Prix Shizuoka. It makes a few small changes, but the one I find the most meaningful is a very subtle one. Dragonskull Summit.

My friend Rob Castro was prepping for the World Magic Cup with Watanabe's list, and I advocated for the inclusion of a single Dragonskull Summit (rather than a Drowned Catacomb) because of the increased ability to cast a turn two Discovery, despite there being less Mountains to turn the Dragonskull into an untapped land. During my experience prepping for Grand Prix Milwaukee, I tried a pure Izzet build of the deck, and it was important then. Seeing Jessup independently make the same change was very heartening.

So, what is it about this kind of singleton that makes me excited?

I love that it takes a minimal cost - an extra, single non-basic, which will inevitably slow the deck down in some games - and gives a return of the potential to actually cast Dispersal from Discovery // Dispersal.

Lesson 1, The Analog: You can maintain consistency even with a singleton if it is analogous to other cards in your deck.

For Dragonskull Summit, the card is analogous to a Mountain, however, in casting Discovery, it is also analogous to Island, because the Black mana might as well be Blue mana for the purposes of casting it. Why only run a single copy, though?

Lesson 2, Diminishing Returns: If a card can have diminishing returns with extra copies, a single copy will never have diminishing returns.

In some cards, there can be a real issue with diminishing returns. Being Izzet as opposed to Grixis comes with some massive advantages, most notably lands coming into play untapped or without pain. Every single non-basic land adds to the deck some bit of instability. Running a single Dragonskull Summit opens access to Dispersal but with minimal pain. Legendary cards are one of the most common examples of cards that we see as single copies because of the issue of diminishing returns - think of the number of decks you've seen with but a single copy of Ral, Izzet Viceroy. When decks choose to have extra copies of Legendary cards, this is generally because the card is so good, it exceeds the cost of the diminishing returns - my choice to run four copies of Niv-Mizzet, Parun at Grand Prix Milwaukee is one such example.

Lesson 3, Inevitability Power-ups: A late game can be even stronger with more options.

In many instances, the access to a card becomes greater and greater over time. If you have zero copies of a card, you can never get the payoff, but if you have a single copy, the options of that card become available.

This is especially relevant with the potential late-game payoffs that can be just fine early game. Take Discovery // Dispersal again: that Dispersal is not only more likely to be able to be cast because of having found the Dragonskull Summit late in the game, but when it does get cast, it could be taking out an otherwise difficult to answer card, be it a Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, a Carnage Tyrant, or even an Experimental Frenzy. This makes Discovery // Dispersal a lot more powerful because of the existence of a Black source in the deck.

If you have a lot of card draw, library manipulation, or recursion, this can be especially impressive. My Grand Prix Chicago Top Eight with U/W Control included eleven one-ofs ("fun-ofs") in the main and eleven more in the sideboard, and between a full set of Jace, Architect of Thought and Sphinx's Revelation as well as an Elixir of Immortality, the late game of the deck was marked by endlessly finding the one-ofs.

Interestingly, you can see the value of this element in the other one-of in Andrew Jessup's list: Beacon Bolt. If a game goes long, Jessup can expect that a Beacon Bolt will show up as a potential answer to some big creature, or two big creatures, depending on his preferences. This also has elements of the lesson of Diminishing Returns, as well, because if Andrew ran three or four copies, in many instances, he might have a Beacon Bolt that was insufficient to answer a creature he needed to kill.

Finally, there is one more lesson, albeit one not usually seen in Standard these days. Let's take a quick glance at one of my favorite Modern decks:

U/R Prison | Modern | nk20, 5-0 Competitive Modern League 12/18/18

This is one of my favorite decks in Modern, but I know that every time I play it, I'm just bleeding results from errors. However, it puts to great example the value of another lesson of singletons:

Lesson 4, The Tutor: You can't find a card not in your deck.

In some ways, this is similar to the lesson of Inevitability, above, except that instead of having to wait until some hypothetical "later on", a tutor effect let's you search through your library and find a card now, but only if it is there to be found.

If you've played this deck, you know exactly the power of each of the singleton cards. While tutoring for Ensnaring Bridge or Welding Jar is extremely common, each of the single copies supplies an important effect. Damping Sphere, Grafdigger's Cage, Pithing Needle, Sorcerous Spyglass (an analog to Pithing Needle!), and Witchbane Orb all shut off avenues to victory for an opponent. Bottled Cloister, Crucible of Worlds, Expedition Map, and Pyrite Spellbomb being in the mix of the deck all let the deck gain a stronger late game, whether it be in enacting a kill or helping to protect the deck from threats.

Amusingly, the single enchantment in the deck actually showcases all of the four elements of the singleton! Artificer's Intuition is analogous to a Whir of Invention, albeit of a limited variety. It suffers from diminishing returns, as extra copies are almost entirely useless. It is incredibly impressive when accounting for inevitability, often finding Chalice of the Void in some frightening number and Welding Jar to lock down the end game. Finally, while it can't tutor for everything in the deck, it is a tutor card - so while it isn't in your deck to be tutored for, it does showcase the power of tutors in a deck.

With the four lessons, let's take a quick look at a build of Golgari in Standard that has seemed to made enough waves that some of the choices in it feel fairly ubiquitous.

Golgari Midrange | Guilds Standard | Evan Whitehouse, 2nd SCG Invitational 12/7/18

In the maindeck, there are three singletons. Let's briefly talk about each.

Karn, Scion of Urza is a great example of a powerful singleton. It is vaguely analogous to Vivien Reid as a source of repeatable card advantage. However, it does have diminishing returns as a Legendary card, and in Evan Whitehouse's determination, it isn't valuable enough to have extra copies of like Vivien Reid is. This is a pretty simple example of a powerful, great card that perhaps could be played in more copies, but is excellent as a single copy.

Assassin's Trophy is the other spell that is a singleton here. As it gives away a land, it certainly has diminishing returns. In conjunction with the rest of the removal in the deck, it is analogous to all of the cards which can help clear the table. In addition, if you look at the mana curve of the deck, if there were a decision to include more removal of some kind, it would all be fairly expensive, whereas the single Assassin's Trophy is low on the curve, analogous with the other "twos" (two-casting-cost spells) in the deck.

Either of these two spells could be included in greater numbers, but it does appear that they were both chosen as singletons for good reason.

Finally, the single Detection Tower is absolutely important to talk about as well.

Like the Dragonskull Summit in Andrew Jessup's list, Evan Whitehouse's single Detection Tower increases the power of the deck by adding an option that simply wasn't there. If you ran too many of the card, you'd deeply cut into your mana stability (diminishing returns); even as a singleton, you are hurting yourself on this metric, but with an important payoff: potentially killing a Carnage Tyrant or a Blue creature through Dive Down. Right now, having access to this ability feels incredibly relevant, and I expect it will continue to be after Ravnica Allegiance is on the deck-building menu.

Understanding singletons is wildly important for building and selecting decks. If you overlook The One, oftentimes it will mean a far less rich experience in Magic.

- Adrian Sullivan

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TAGS articles, standard, constructed, modern, decklist, adrian sullivan, guilds standard, 12212018, singletons, one-ofs

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