EDH: Top 10 Best Red Card Draw

Do you need red card draw for your deck and don't know which cards to use? Check out our top 10!

This is the sixth and last article of our series of articles with the 10 best card draw spells for each color. We chose them specifically for Commander decks.

If you want to check out the other articles we have so far, just click the links below:

- Top 10 Best White Card Draw

- Top 10 Best Black Card Draw

- Top 10 Best Green Card Draw

- Top 10 Best Colorless Card Draw

- Top 10 Best Blue Card Draw

We created this series to help players who haven't played a lot of Commander and just don't have a lot of cards in their collection find the cards they need for their Commander decks!

If you enjoy this type of article and would like to suggest a theme for our next ones, leave a comment down below!

Before we start, here's how we picked the cards in this article, and what are the iconic impulsive draw and red loot.

There's a wide variety of instants, sorceries, and even cards that interact with a few specific mechanics that will help you get ahead in card advantage, the iconic concept Magic: The Gathering players constantly look for.

We understand this text will serve as a base for any experienced player who wants to check it out, but, particularly, our target audience is new players. That is, players that haven't played MTG for long, and want some help to build their decks efficiently.

As a result, for all of these "Top 10s", we'll prioritize cards that are more generic and/or don't depend on specific decks to work.

Example: Humble Defector is a great creature to draw cards because it doesn't force you to discard other cards or have any other downsides. However, after you activate this card's ability, your opponent will gain control of Humble Defector and there's no way to guarantee you'll regain control of it later on.

Additionally, we prioritized permanents, as they usually stay on the board for longer and will give you card advantage again and again until your opponent can (or want) to remove them.

With this in mind, let's see our top 10 best red card draw spells!

The legend tells us the term "impulse draw" came from this card:

Impulse Draw is a mechanic mainly associated with red decks that lets you exile the top cards in your deck and cast them for a limited period of time (example: until the end of the current turn, or until your next turn).

There are a few commanders who give you bonuses if you cast cards from the exile, like Rocco, Street Chef, Prosper, Tome-Bound, and the pair The Thirteenth Doctor and Yasmin Khan. We even have a deck tech for them, if you want to it out.

As for loot, it lets you draw more cards and then discard either the same number of cards you drew or less.

This mechanic apparently started with Merfolk Looter, but now we have many options that draw you cards before you have to discard them.

Some players use the term "rummaging" to refer to this mechanic because of this card:

These spells "filter" the cards in your hand, and are incredible in decks with different mechanics.

For instance: you can discard a creature that is just too expensive mana-wise and reanimate it with a spell that costs less, like Reanimate or Feldon of the Third Path's ability.

Even if the final result is the same (more cards in your hand), these mechanics are slightly different from one another because of how they add cards to your hand.

Unlike our other articles, we'll take into account impulse draw and loot for this top 10.

Let's see the list!

10. Faithless Looting

A classic in red decks, particularly WotC's own precons, this sorcery only costs one and also has flashback, so you can cast it from your graveyard.

It's cheap, efficient, and recursive. Faithless Looting definitely deserved a spot on our list.

9. Jaxis, the Troublemaker

This troublemaker is incredibly valuable!

When you use her activated ability, Jaxis, the Troublemaker creates a token by copying another creature you control. It gets haste, but you have to sacrifice it on your next end step and, when it dies, you'll draw a card.

The fact that you don't need to exile or sacrifice the target creature you want to copy is interesting. Furthermore, you can use this copy to attack or as a way to get the most out of any ETB effects on your board.

8. Professional Face-Breaker

Professional Face-Breaker is also from Streets of New Capenna. It is quite versatile and fits aggro-inclined strategies incredibly well.

With this card in play, when one or more of your creatures deals combat damage to a player, you'll get a treasure token. You can sacrifice a treasure to exile the top card in your deck and play it on that same turn.

You can also activate this effect on your turn or your opponent's, and Professional Face-Breaker herself has Menace to help you put even more pressure on the board.

7. Etali, Primal Storm

This card is a classic that almost every player faces at some point. Etali, Primal Storm is an Elder Dinosaur that exiles the top card in each player's deck and lets you cast any number of spells from among those cards without paying their mana costs.

This ability is useful to steal any cards that benefit you or get rid of possible threats; if you don't cast the card in question, it will be exiled for the rest of the game.

6. Birgi, God of Storytelling // Harnfel, Horn of Bounty

For this list, what's interesting about this card is the legendary artifact on its back: Harnfel, Horn of Bounty.

If you discard a single card, you can use this artifact's ability to exile the top two cards in your deck and play them on that turn.

It is a great way to recycle your hand and look for answers in the top cards in your deck.

5. Combustible Gearhulk

This is another card no opponent likes to face.

When Combustible Gearhulk enters the battlefield, a target opponent may have you draw three cards. If the player doesn't, you mill three cards, then Combustible Gearhulk deals damage to that player equal to the total mana value of those cards.

Will you mill three lands? Maybe an Etali, Primal Storm? Or will your opponent be too afraid to use this effect and just let you draw cards?

This card adds more chaos to the game, and, of course, it's a big bet.

4. Bonehoard Dracosaur

Bonehoard Dracosaur is big enough to be a great blocker, and also has two keywords that make it an incredible attacker.

Besides these details, its "exile" effect happens at the beginning of your upkeep for no cost at all (like discarding cards or paying mana). It lets you play the cards you exiled and also creates 3/1 Dinosaur tokens or treasure tokens, depending on what you exiled.

This Dinosaur Dragon has a great cost for the advantage it gives you, and that's what earned it a spot in our top 10.

3. Brass's Tunnel-Grinder

Speaking of bets, what do you think of discarding any number of cards in your hand to draw that same amount plus one more?

If that seems good to you, Brass's Tunnel-Grinder is your best pal.

Besides its ability when it enters the battlefield, this artifact interacts with the descend mechanic (when you put a permanent into a graveyard from anywhere) to turn into a land.

2. Jeska’s Will

Jeska’s Will is a classic card for any red Commander deck.

This modal sorcery lets you either:

> exile the top cards in your deck and play them in that same turn, or

> choose a target opponent to add red mana to your hand equal to the number of cards in their hand.

If you control a commander, you can use both effects.

This card is so incredible that, even though it isn't a permanent, it's almost the best red card draw in our list.

1. Valakut Exploration

This enchantment interacts with a great mechanic in MTG: landfall. So, any time a land goes into play under your control, you'll exile the top card in your deck and may play it for as long as it is exiled.

If you can't cast these exiled cards, they'll go to your graveyard, and Valakut Exploration will deal damage equal to that number of exiled cards to each opponent.

This was our top 10 best red card draw for Commander! It was also the last article in this series.

I hope you enjoyed discovering new cards, and that we, in some way, inspired you to upgrade your decks.

Please don't forget to share, and tell us if you have any theme suggestions for our other articles.

See you next time!