There can only be one:
An Introduction to Singleton
When constructed Magic gets stale, and limited proves to be too hard on the wallet with too small of a return most people take a break from Magic. With Prismatic and Singleton, players can build a deck that will over the course of many games provide them with a varying, and challenging experience. Personally, I do not play Prismatic because my collection can not handle it (my brother has all my white cards on his account), but Singleton is something anyone can do. This article is an introduction to Singleton, with the intention of recruiting some people to this insanely fun format. The next article will be about how I specifically approach the format, and I will tear my individual decks and concepts apart and hopefully offer up insight for people who want fresh ideas or people who want some ideas to start them off. This format is wide open to anyone, I strongly urge you to play.
What is Singleton?
Singleton, also known as highlander, is a constructed variant where each deck is restricted to only one copy of a given card, sans basic land. The only banned cards are Skullclamp and the vanguard avatars. This format is, in my opinion, far superior prismatic because you only need to hunt down 1 copy of a given rare and you should not need more than 75 cards (I always make a sideboard for every deck regardless of whether it will be used in a tournament). Both prismatic and singleton offer the fun of variety from game to game. That is the primary reason to play. If you find traditional constructed formats to be too confining in that only a handful of decks are truly “good” whereas the rest are chaff, I strongly urge you to try your hand at singleton, it is completely undefined as a format, and as such, there is no elite group of tier 1 decks. In fact, because of the inconsistency inherent in the format virtually any deck with a win condition can win, I can not stress that enough! If you are going to get lucky, this is the format to do it in.
What Cards Get Better/Worse in Singleton?
This is one of the most important topics any Singleton article can address. There are certain cards that go from nearly unplayable to solid gold in Singleton. Because you can not run more than 1 copy of any spell, you have to find spells that do almost the same thing. So while normally a deck that utilizes a heavy discard approach will start off with 4 Duress, in Singleton, you have to stretch yourself, so perhaps for selective discard you run the following: 1 Duress, 1 Castigate, 1 Coercion, 1 Distress. I do not think I have ever seen Coercion in a competitive top tier deck list, but in Singleton if you want to do something, you can not over look anything that does it. Tutors become priceless because they enable you to break the fundamental rule of Singleton, which is 1 copy per spell. Every color has tutoring effects. One copy of Steelshaper’s Gift in your deck suddenly means that you have 2 copies of your Sword of Fire and Ice, Umezawa’s Jitte, or whatever juicy bomb equipment you are packing. I chose Steelshaper’s Gift because it is a marginal tutor, not particularly strong in extended where it is legal, but it is great in singleton. Difficult to remove “bombs” become even more potent in this format because removal is at a premium. Extremely good and flexible removal that can kill Magic’s most challenging creatures is just not available with serious redundancy. Most Wrath of God variants cost about 6 mana. This makes it much harder for a control player to consistently sweep aggro assaults before they have done a significant amount of damage, yet these lesser Wraths have made the cut because they fill the sweeper role. Your Umezawa’s Jitte is more likely to go unanswered for several combat phases because of the reduced probability of an artifact removal spell from popping up. The dynamic of threats versus answers makes Singleton extremely exciting to play. To summarize, cards that fill a role but may me too weak otherwise, tutors, and bombs all become better in Singleton due to the nature of the format.
Just like any constructed format, when some cards get better, others get weaker. Inflexible, but efficient removal is not as good in this format as it is in constructed, where opponents’ decks are easier to predict. Oxidize may be the best artifact removal card ever printed, but I would not run it in a Singleton Deck. It is too narrow. In any game of Magic, you only see a portion of your deck. Nothing is worse than top-decking a narrow and unusable answer when you desperately needed something else. Dead cards never feel deader in Singleton. Cards that draw and do nothing else are pretty crappy in Singleton too. Yes, we all know card advantage is a good thing, but, if you are on the verge of losing to a Loxodon Hierarch carrying a Bonesplitter do you really want to cast Thirst for Knowledge and draw Compulsive Research, Deep Analysis and Serum Visions? Tutors get what you want when you want it! Get your card advantage from permanents; there are myriad ways to increase the number of cards you see per game without wasting precious slots on temporary boosts of cards, use those instead. Lastly, cards that require a deck to built around it for any effect can not be counted on to appear when you want/need them. Death Cloud is a freaking monster when you build your deck to abuse it, but you can not get to it fast enough or often enough for it to dominate in Singleton. To summarize, narrow answers, cards that do nothing but draw cards, and cards that need to built around have their value diminished in Singleton.
What Strategies Get Better/Worse in Singleton?
This is where my unique views on Singleton are really going to show through. Magic it self is game of resources, the two most important are the Hand and the Land. Outside of a deck designed to utilize the graveyard, once a card in Singleton hits that zone, it is gone forever, and you will not see a copy of it. Therefore strategies that move stuff to the graveyard have a leg up on those that do not. Discard, land destruction, counter spells, etc all stymie the opposition and stuff their cards where they belong, away from you. Aggro decks that do not care what they attack with, as long as they are attacking are strong in Singleton. Essentially you have to ask yourself one question about your strategy. The question is “does this concept have enough redundancy to back it up”. A lot of good deck ideas fall apart because there just are not enough similar cards to support it. I have attempted several decks, gotten to about 40/60 and then run out of ideas to fill it out. This issue with Singleton will kill many combo decks because of the lack of consistency. Strategies that embody a color’s strength will have ample redundancy, for example, White weenie, Black discard, Red burn, Blue counter, Green beats. Splicing color concepts that complement each other is always a strong strategy. Strategies that depend on specific cards to work are substantially weaker because the odds of getting those cards are horrendous.
I know this section seems slightly abstract, but deck concepts are intrinsically abstract. To summarize my thoughts, the strongest strategies in Singleton are ones that either force the opponent’s cards to the graveyard or embody color concepts, since those have the highest level of redundancy and therefore the make for the most consistent decks. Putting something in the graveyard for most decks in Singleton is as good as removing it from the game in many cases; discard is particularly vicious because you can preemptively “destroy” things before they become an issue. Decks that embody color concepts have the highest redundancy since there will always be new versions of these effects released with each set. Decks that rely on combos or strategies that are too shallow are poor in singleton.
The Role of Utility:
The most important thing about utility spells in Singleton is to ensure that it is flexible, or at the least is never dead. I use removal interchangeably with utility, since the bulk of my utility spells destroy stuff, i.e. removes it from the zone in which it is most effective. Oxidize is narrow, but efficient, so it is not good in Singleton, but for 2 more mana, you can run Viridian Shaman, which is removal and a 2/2 creature. Putrefy and Mortify are versatile and should be auto-includes for decks that can support them, due largely in part to the lack of the “non-black” clause that plagues most spot removal. Things that destroy permanents need the key words “or” or “and” on them. Creature removal just needs to be flexible enough to destroy whatever shows up, and is probably never dead since creatureless singleton decks are few and far between. I do not think I have ever seen one to be perfectly honest. Creatures that have comes into play, leaves play, etc removal attached to them are great as well, since lately we have been getting them at good mana costs. Sweepers like Wrath of God are nice, but make sure you do not shoot yourself in the foot with it, since you will probably be using the combat step to win. Graveyard recursion is always nice since graveyard removal is probably not going to show up. Tutors and draw have already been addressed. Focus on this mantra “flexibility is more important than efficiency”. Terror is brutally efficient, but it will be stranded against any decks with all-black creature bases, at least Nekrataal gives you a 2/1 first-striker. This format is inherently casual (which does not mean bad, it means there are no prizes at stake, see this article for more information) so games tend to be more laid back, and therefore slightly slower, due in part to the inconsistency factor. So you can afford to run slightly pricier, albeit more flexible utility spells. Indrik Stomphowler from Dissension looks promising as a flexible, affordable addition to any singleton deck. To summarize, push for flexibility, make your utility do more than answer something your opponent does so that you are not stuck playing catch up.
And that is my introduction to Singleton. I hope this intriguing and highly varied format has caught your attention. Once Dissension hits MTGO my work in progress will be completed and I’ll be running rampant in the casual room with my latest monstrosity. But you will hear all about in the next article, where I go through my different approaches to Singleton deck construction, and a nice list of Singleton tech you might want to try out.
David A Coughlin III
Dzawutang76 on MTGO
Quick Tips to Get Started in Singleton: