Welcome to Cardboard Spotlight, my new biweekly feature, in which I focus on whatever cards and cycles catch my fancy.

Sometimes, I’ll be looking at how best to use format staples. Other weeks, I’ll be shining a light on some cards you may not have seen before. This week, I’m covering the already-luminous Sun Titan.

You can shove Sun Titan into almost any deck and generate some value. But the more you consider it while deck-building, the stronger it becomes.

I love the little synergies and subthemes that make Seal of Doom better in one deck and Eyeblight's Ending better in another. Sun Titan is the sort of card that helps you diversify your decks by giving you reasons to choose one card over another. So, what are some good things to look for in potential Sun Titan targets?

Value!

Our number-one plan with Sun Titan is to turn that small permanent into something more valuable. There are a number of ways to do that.

Plenty of cards cost 3 or less and draw a card, but we can do better than that. Stoneforge Mystic, Trinket Mage, and Treasure Mage all let us tutor up artifacts. Fierce Empath is especially cool because it can tutor for Sun Titan, chump-block, and then be brought back to tutor up something else.

Animate Dead, Necromancy, and Dance of the Dead can all reanimate large creatures from any graveyard. Phantasmal Image lets us copy Sun Titan or any other creature on the battlefield. Eternal Witness is the best Regrowth effect available, but Snapcaster Mage, Treasure Hunter, and Cadaver Imp are reasonable choices.

Baleful Strix is great because it draws a card and trades with large creatures, and Scarecrone can sac to draw a card or recur larger artifact creatures. Finally, there are a handful of planeswalkers cheap enough to recur with Sun Titan, including the oft-maligned Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded.

Mana

Sun Titan has always been able to do a decent Primeval Titan impression, but that service seems much more valuable now that Prime Time is banned.

One of the easiest ways to ensure Sun Titan has valid targets is to bump up your number of fetch lands. The Onslaught/Zendikar cycles are obviously the best options, but Terramorphic Expanse/Evolving Wilds or the Mirage cycle are also fine choices.

Green decks have a ton of great options. Sakura-Tribe Elder, Yavimaya Elder, Yavimaya Granger, and Fertilid all sacrifice themselves for easy recursion. If you have plenty of sacrifice outlets, Wood Elves and Yavimaya Dryad are similarly solid.

Outside of green, there are plenty of other options you should be considering. Knight of the White Orchid and Pilgrim's Eye both ramp and block. Expedition Map, Armillary Sphere, and Wayfarer's Bauble are all cards you should probably be running already.

Finally, there are some self-sacrificing utility lands that bear mentioning. Strip Mine, Wasteland, and friends are the most obvious. Buried Ruin and Mouth of Ronom can do good work in the right decks. Blue gives us Cephalid Coliseum, and G/W gives us a variety of awesome options: Krosan Verge, Horizon Canopy, and Grove of the Guardian.

Removal

Choosing removal that Sun Titan can recur is a powerful strategy. The right graveyard can net you a free Vindicate every time it attacks.

White alone gives us some great options such as Seal of Cleansing, Aura of Silence, Soul Snare, and Prison Term. Oblivion Ring and friends also work, but they’re generally weak in sweeper-heavy formats like Commander.

White already has plenty of creatures that destroy enchantments such as Ronom Unicorn and War Priest of Thune, but red and green give us more flexible options that can deal with artifacts as well. Qasali Pridemage, Harmonic Sliver, Keldon Marauders, and Duergar Hedge-Mage are all good choices.

Black gives us a ton of great additions—Seal of Doom, Big Game Hunter, Fleshbag Marauder, and Bone Shredder are all solid creature kill. Vampire Hexmage kills planeswalkers and provides some random utility. Necrotic Sliver is a bit pricey to use repeatedly, but it is a very powerful and flexible option.

Pernicious Deed is an incredible option if you’re in the right colors—you can sweep the board every turn without killing your Titan. Oblivion Stone and Plague Boiler are cleaner sweeps and worth considering, but you can’t generate the same repeated value out of them as easily.

Finally, we have some good options for recurrable graveyard hate in case anyone else wants to abuse it as much as we are. The best option is the black-aligned Nihil Spellbomb, but Tormod's Crypt and Scrabbling Claws are perfectly valid options.

Combos and Miscellany

Sun Titan provides infinite sacrifice fodder with both Angelic Renewal and Saffi Eriksdotter. It’s not really my preference, but it’s reasonably powerful if you’re trying to abuse sacrifice outlets such as Greater Good. You can pull a similar trick with any two of the aforementioned Animate Dead, Necromancy, and Dance of the Dead by alternating targets and sacrificing Sun Titan in response.

If you’re running a lot of enters-the-battlefield effects, Cloudstone Curio and Crystal Shard are both strong options. For something more offbeat, try Colfenor's Urn.

Anathemancer is a criminally underplayed card that can often hit for 10 or more damage, and Sun Titan ensure he keeps coming back for more. Tainted Sigil goes the other direction and can gain enormous amounts of life each turn.

Archetype – Tokens

Token strategies often rely heavily on enchantments, and this can make Sun Titan surprisingly devastating in the right deck. Instead of focusing on numerous self-sacrificing targets, consider the power of bringing back any of the following even one time:

Aura Shards and Attrition are powerful repeatable removal. Earthcraft and Ashnod's Altar turn tokens into mana, and Skullclamp and Fecundity turn them into cards. Beastmaster Ascension or Fervor/Fires of Yavimaya can give you a win in the red zone. Contamination is a bit mean for my tastes, but if you’re in a cutthroat metagame, go for it.

Archetype – Equipment

Sun Titan is also incredible in Equipment-based decks. It can return your best Equipment, the value weenies you want to equip, or the high-value threats such as Mirran Crusader.

Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots can be returned and let Sun Titan immediately attack to recur something else. The five Mirrodin Swords are obviously great targets, and it would be a grievous sin for me to overlook Sunforger, another card I wrote an entire article on.

Value weenies such as Stoneforge Mystic, Trinket Mage, and even Pilgrim's Eye are a great fit for Equipment decks in which you can suit them up and go to town. Finally, small double-strikers and infect creatures can be terrifying threats when repeatedly brought back and suited up. Mirran Crusader, Phyrexian Crusader, Skyhunter Skirmisher, and Inkmoth Nexus all hit the sweet spot of having low costs, evasion, and hard-hitting keywords.

Wrapping Up

I hope you’ve enjoyed the first Cardboard Spotlight—there will be many more to come! Let me know in the comments if you’d rather see me explore misunderstood bombs, weird, build-around strategies, or your favorite hidden gems!