Starting Column
Artifact
Start your engines! (If you have no speed, it starts at 1. It increases once on each of your turns when an opponent loses life. Max speed is 4.)
: Add one mana of any color.
Max speed — , Sacrifice this artifact: Draw two cards, then discard a card.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Aetherdrift
- Price
- $0.06
- EDHREC rank
- #8501
Starting Column enters and immediately gives every creature you control an additional combat step's worth of value — if Samut, the Driving Force is your commander, that means each attacker untaps and swings again before opponents can blink. The cost is a three-mana enchantment that does nothing the turn it lands, so it earns its seat only in decks built to weaponize it from the first attack step it sees.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Samut, the Driving Force
Samut, the Driving Force turns Starting Column into a doubling engine — Samut's untap trigger already rewards attacking, and Starting Column's additional combat clause means each creature swings, untaps, and swings again, burying opponents in damage and triggered abilities before they get priority. At 60% inclusion across 4,300+ Samut decks, this isn't a spicy include; it's a staple.
Vnwxt, Verbose Host
Vnwxt, Verbose Host cares about flooding the board with tokens and keywords, and Starting Column lets every one of those tokens attack twice in a single turn cycle, which multiplies Vnwxt's go-wide pressure faster than most removal sequences can answer.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Starting Column is a Commander card in practice — the additional combat trigger scales with wide boards, synergistic commanders, and the longer game length that makes a three-mana enchantment worth casting. In Constructed formats like Modern and Pioneer, additional combat effects at this mana cost face stiff competition from instant-speed threats and faster clocks, and Starting Column's sorcery-speed deployment makes it too slow to matter before the game ends. Standard and Pauper are legal homes, but the card needs a critical mass of attackers with enters-the-battlefield or untap synergies to pull ahead of simpler threats at the same cost. Legacy and Vintage have zero interest here — the format's density of free interaction and combo kills makes a three-mana enchantment that waits a full turn to do anything a non-starter. Play Starting Column in Commander, full stop.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.06 bulk tier
At $0.06, Starting Column is deep bulk — you'll find it in a common box or throw it in as a freebie with any order. Bulk enchantments with narrow Commander homes rarely climb unless they show up in a high-profile deck or get reprinted into a popular precon, so don't expect movement in either direction.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.