10 Budget Hidden Gems You Should Be Playing in Commander – 01 Compost

Commander continues to be one of the most popular and accessible Magic: The Gathering formats around, with hundreds of different ways to express yourself within the singleton format. Given the breadth of cards and releases these days, it’s impossible to keep up with all the new cards that see print, and in some cases, you may easily miss out on some sweet cards that could factor into your next Commander build, or help bolster an existing one.
Let’s look at some of the cheaper Magic: The Gathering yet powerful cards that you may have either forgotten about or didn’t know existed.

Compost
Cards such as Compost aren’t always a must-play in Commander, but can be tremendously effective based on your local metagame. Sometimes, if you begin to see a particular trend within your Commander meta (such as a higher representation of one color, for example), curating your deck to combat these trends can be a sound strategy. Compost, in particular, is quite good if the Commander meta centers in the color Black, meaning you may draw a card each time a Black card enters an opponent’s graveyard from anywhere. The “anywhere” text is crucial here, as it means you may draw a card when an opponent casts a Black non-permanent spell, and once that spell resolves, it goes to the graveyard. It also includes any form of discard or even if a Black permanent card is destroyed and enters the graveyard, too!
Oh, and Compost counts for each Black card that enters the graveyard, so if you manage to resolve a mass-discard spell in a Commander game, you may draw a card for each Black card discarded into the graveyard this way. Another quick thing to note about Compost is the card does not trigger whenever a Black token enters an opponent’s graveyard because a Token is not technically a card. While hate cards are typically narrow when discussing the broadness of Commander, if you play with a similar group of people and have an idea of the colors and archetypes they play, sliding in a few hate cards is worth considering.