Top 10 Colorless Staples Every Commander Player Needs

Building a Commander deck is one of the most creative experiences in all of Magic: The Gathering. You pick a legendary creature, choose your colors, and craft 99 cards around a theme or strategy that feels uniquely yours. But no matter what commander you're running - whether it's a five-color dragon tribal monstrosity or a tight mono-white control build - there are certain colorless cards that belong in virtually every deck.

These are the staples. The cards that show up again and again across thousands of decklists because they're simply too good to leave out. If you're building a new Commander deck and aren't sure where to start, start here.

1. Sol Ring

There is no card more synonymous with Commander than Sol Ring. For a single colorless mana, you get an artifact that taps for two colorless mana every turn. That's an immediate two-mana advantage that compounds over the course of a game. It accelerates your gameplan faster than almost anything else in the format and it goes in every single deck, no exceptions. If you own one Sol Ring, put it in your next deck. If you don't own one, that's the first thing to fix.

2. Arcane Signet

Arcane Signet is the second piece of mana rock every Commander player needs. It costs two mana and taps for one mana of any color in your commander's color identity. It's efficient, reliable, and works in any deck that has a commander with at least one color. Pair it with Sol Ring and you have a rock-solid mana base foundation that will serve you in every game.

3. Command Tower

Command Tower is the best land in Commander and it isn't particularly close. It enters untapped and taps for one mana of any color in your commander's color identity - no drawbacks, no conditions, no hoops to jump through. In a two-color deck it's a dual land. In a five-color deck it's a five-color land. It belongs in every Commander deck that isn't mono-colorless.

4. Swiftfoot Boots

Your commander is the centerpiece of your deck. Protecting it matters. Swiftfoot Boots costs two mana to cast and one mana to equip, and grants the equipped creature hexproof and haste. Hexproof means your opponents can't target your commander with removal spells or abilities. Haste means it can attack or use tap abilities the turn it enters the battlefield. For two total mana, that's an incredible amount of value and protection.

5. Lightning Greaves

The companion piece to Swiftfoot Boots. Lightning Greaves also grants haste and shroud - a slightly stronger version of hexproof that prevents your opponents from targeting the equipped creature at all, including with your own spells. The trade-off is that you can't target your own commander while it's equipped, which occasionally matters. The upside is that equipping costs zero mana, making it the fastest protection piece in the format. Run both if you want to keep your commander safe.

6. Sol Ring... wait, we covered that. Let's talk Thought Vessel

Thought Vessel costs two colorless mana, taps for one colorless mana, and removes your maximum hand size. That last part is more relevant than it sounds. Many Commander strategies involve drawing lots of cards - and without a hand size increase, you'll be forced to discard down to seven at the end of every turn. Thought Vessel lets you hold onto everything you draw, which in a long multiplayer game can be the difference between winning and running out of gas.

7. Reliquary Tower

Same idea as Thought Vessel but on a land. Reliquary Tower enters untapped, taps for one colorless mana, and removes your maximum hand size. It costs nothing beyond a land slot, which makes it essentially free value in any deck that draws extra cards. Even if you never draw more than seven cards in a game, you've lost nothing by including it. And the games where it matters, it matters a lot.

8. Wayfarer's Bauble

Wayfarer's Bauble is one of the most underrated mana acceleration pieces in Commander. It costs one mana to cast and two mana to activate, putting a basic land from your library directly onto the battlefield. That's ramp - land ramp specifically, which is harder to remove than artifact ramp. It's especially valuable in non-green decks that don't have access to the usual suite of land search spells. A one-mana investment that guarantees a land drop is always worth considering.

9. Skullclamp

Skullclamp is one of the most powerful card draw engines ever printed and it's legal in Commander. For one mana to cast and one mana to equip, it gives the equipped creature -1/-0 and draws you two cards when the equipped creature dies. In any deck that runs small creatures - tokens, mana dorks, utility creatures - Skullclamp turns every death into two fresh cards. It's so efficient that it was banned in every other format it was legal in. In Commander it's fair game, and it's absolutely worth running.

10. Everflowing Chalice

Everflowing Chalice is a flexible mana rock that scales with how much mana you invest in it. Cast it for zero and it does nothing. Cast it for two and it taps for one. Cast it for four and it taps for two. The beauty is that it can be cast for free in a pinch to trigger artifact synergies, or saved until later in the game when you can charge it up for serious mana production. In decks that care about artifacts or proliferate effects, it gets even better over time.

Honorable Mentions

A few cards that just missed the list but deserve a mention: Mind Stone (mana rock that replaces itself late game), Worn Powerstone (taps for two colorless, great in high-cost decks), Burnished Hart (repeatable land ramp on a creature), and Sensei's Divining Top (top-of-library manipulation that's been a Commander staple for years).

The Bottom Line

These ten cards form the backbone of a functional Commander deck regardless of strategy, color identity, or budget. Some of them - Sol Ring, Command Tower, Arcane Signet - are so fundamental that experienced players include them almost automatically. Others, like Skullclamp and Thought Vessel, reward players who understand the long-game dynamics of multiplayer Magic.

If you're just getting into Commander, picking up these staples is the single best investment you can make. They'll serve you across every deck you ever build.

Now go find your commander and build something legendary.