In Magic:The Gathering, each color has its own thing. Black removes creatures, Red deals damage, Blue makes you lose friends, and Green casts big spells. It's part of the reason I love playing Green and why I find myself sleeving up Forests repeatedly. Sometimes though, depressing as it is, there is a benefit to cutting a 13 mana 10/10 Dinosaur for something that curves out a little nicer. So today we are going to look at the best One Green mana value cards to play in your favorite Green decks.

5. Crop Rotation

Green loves lands, and having the ability to toss any land from your deck onto the battlefield for the cost of one mana (and another land but who cares) is absolutely incredible. Utility lands are a great way to add extra power to a deck. Glacial Chasm can protect your precious life total from damage. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx can produce a ludicrous amount of mana. Dark Depths can be turned into a horrifying indestructible creature. Having access to the best land for any given moment for one mana, at instant speed no less, makes Crop Rotation an easy inclusion for best Green one-drops.

4. Nature's Claim

Artifact and enchantment removal for 1 Green at instant speed. That's the pitch. Green has many ways to remove pesky artifacts and enchantments from staple creatures like Reclamation Sage or Druid of Purification or even higher mana value spells that offer a bonus like Krosan Grip. Sometimes though, all you need is reliable and cheap removal that you can cast exactly when needed. To that end, few things are as useful as Nature's Claim, especially since its "downside" of having the player gain 4 life is functionally meaningless in a 4 player game. When you desperately need to answer a Bolas's Citadel, Omniscience, or Aetherflux Reservoir, this is the card that you want.

3. Tamiyo's Safekeeping

Green has a lot of options when it comes to protecting your permanents. Heroic Intervention especially has been a staple in the format for years. A new addition to the Green Protection Pantheon, Tamiyo's Safekeeping offers incredible protection for only one mana. It grants any permanent, not just creatures, indestructible AND hexproof, which helps better answer exile effects that are only becoming more and more prevalent. There is also a small amount of life gain stapled onto it, though that is far from the selling point. If your deck needs a card that offers protection to your most powerful pieces, be it Lurking Predators or Kodama of The East Tree, this is the card for you.

2. Worldly Tutor

Remember at the beginning of this article when we cut 13 mana 10/10 for more one-drops? Well, we lied. We are actually including one-drops so that we can get the exact 13-mana 10/10 we want at any given point in the game. In retrospect, it may not be the breakthrough in game theory I thought it would be to point out that Tutors are, in fact, good. Even tutoring to the top of your deck is still one of the strongest things you can do in the entire game. Now, what you do with that tutor is up to you. Do you search for a Seedborn Muse to start a never-ending advantage engine or do you search for an Apex Devastator to spin the proverbial 99 card slot machine? It's that kind of flexibility that makes Worldly Tutor a card that can be just as fun as it is powerful.

1. All Those Little Mana Dorks

At the top spot of Green drops we have a tie between about a dozen different mana dorks. Elvish Mystic, Llanowar Elves, and Fyndhorn Elves are all functionally the same card and they are great at what they do. Provide a body, extra mana, and occasionally dip into synergies with other cards. Arbor Elf also provides extra mana by untapping forests rather than producing it itself. Then we have the real standouts like Birds of Paradise which produces mana of a color and Delighted Halfling which allows Legendaries you cast with its mana to be unable to be countered.

So that's the list of the best Green One-drops in Commander! Hopefully, this list provides a little help to anyone looking to start a career in crushing their foes under an army of beats and dinosaurs. What cards would you put in your own personal top 5? Let me know on my socials!