The 24 Best Attacks Alone Cards in Magic Ranked

Raiyuu, Storm's Edge | Illustration by Heonhwa Choe

Many sets in MTG have incentives for you to use only one attacker instead of going wide with creatures. Exalted was the mechanic that pioneered this idea back in Shards of Alara (2009), and Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty pushed this theme into samurai and warriors. With Marvel Super Heroes and its interesting black and white attack alone archetype, we have a good reason to revisit these cards and rank them!

What Are Attacks Alone Cards in MTG?

Squall, SeeD Mercenary | Illustration by Yuu Fujiki

Attacks alone cards in MTG are any type of cards that gives you a direct benefit for attacking alone.

It’s usually bad for creatures to attack alone in MTG because your opponent can easily chump block your only attacker, use a deathtouch defender, double block your creature, or cast some spot removal. To overcome that, the incentives must be worthwhile.

Creatures, artifacts, enchantments, and all sorts of cards generate an advantage while you’re attacking with only one creature. Some other creatures give you the benefit for attacking alone, or play a support role, like a tapper, a defender, or a card like Patriot, Shield Wielder that can protect your lonely attacker.

What Does “Attack Alone” Mean in MTG?

“Attack alone” means you declared a creature as the only attacker that combat during the declare attacks step. This is different from “attacking alone”; a creature is considered attacking alone if it's the only creature currently attacking at whatever point in the combat step you're in. It's possible for a creature to attack alone, but no longer be “attacking alone” if other tokens or creatures enter attacking after attackers are declared.

The mobilize mechanic is a great example. Let’s say I only have Voice of Victory in play. I declare it as the only attacker, which means it attacked alone. But after that, the mobilize 2 mechanic creates two tokens that are tapped and also attacking, so Voice of Victory is no longer attacking alone.

In a Commander pod, attacking each player with only one creature isn’t considered attacking alone; you’re using more than one creature to attack.

#24. Asari Captain

Asari Captain is a solid 5/3 haste for 5 mana by itself. Of course, if you have more warrior or samurai creatures standing by its side, it packs a bigger punch.

#23. Grasping Shadows / Shadows’ Lair

Grasping Shadows gives a creature that attacks alone deathtouch and lifelink, two excellent keywords. You’ll recover some life and kill a lot of creatures if your opponent tries to double block you. Just granting this bonus to a menace or first strike creature is excellent. And once you transform it into Shadows' Lair, you get rewarded by drawing additional cards.

#22. Norika Yamazaki, the Poet + Heiko Yamazaki, the General

These two cards act on the card advantage axis, allowing you to cast artifacts or enchantments from your graveyard when a samurai or warrior attacks alone. You can even curve one into another. Norika Yamazaki, the Poet and Heiko Yamazaki, the General require very specific cards in the graveyard to be good, but when you’re playing something like Boros samurai Voltron, you’ll probably have targets for both.

#21. Strategic Intervention

Strategic Intervention gives a small bonus, but it’s also cheap and resilient as a 2-mana enchantment. It’s an exalted effect combined with a tap effect, so you can clear the way for your attack or take out that pesky deathtouch blocker.

#20. Peggy Carter, Secret Agent

Peggy Carter, Secret Agent grants any creature you have attacking alone indestructible, which is an excellent bonus. In the early game, it means unblockable because your opponent won’t want to chump your indestructible 2-drop. It loses the punch in the late game because it’s fragile as a 2/1 for 2.

#19. The Last Ronin

This card enters the list basically because it’s a 6-mana wrath. You get a lot of advantages with The Last Ronin, and attacking alone gives you three +1/+1 counters and a bunch of powerful combat mechanics. You’ll need to wait a lot, though, and there’s the chance that you destroy the creature you’d use to attack alone, so plan accordingly.

#18. Grunn, the Lonely King

Grunn, the Lonely King is a 5/5 that attacks alone as a 10/10. Yes, it costs 6 mana and doesn’t have any evasion or good combat keywords, but the bonus is very solid. This is the kind of guy onto which you want to cast a Giant Growth and a Rancor, and get into the red zone.

#17. Altar of the Goyf

Altar of the Goyf gives any creature you control that’s attacking alone the same bonus Tarmogoyf has. And if you attack with a ‘goyf, it even gets trample. More often than not, your creature gets a +4/+4 bonus or more. This card works wonders with changelings because lhurgoyf creatures are rare. Maybe you’ll run into a Cube where this card exists, and you can also play powerful cards like Barrowgoyf and Pyrogoyf.

#16. Black Widow, Double Agent

As the lynchpin of the attack alone strategy in Marvel Super Heroes, Black Widow, Double Agent gives a nice bonus to creatures that attack alone. Menace and first strike are a powerful combination, but in the end it’s just evasion, no stat pump, lifelink, or similar stuff. Black Widow on her own is incredibly hard to block.

#15. Battlegrace Angel

Battlegrace Angel is a solid angel that attacks as a 5/5 lifelinker if it’s attacking alone. But giving +1/+1 and lifelink as an attack alone bonus is a great incentive, and it combines pretty well with a well-statted creature, double strike, or +1/+1 counters.

#14. Tempered in Solitude

Tempered in Solitude doesn’t let you straight-up draw a card each time you attack alone, but it’s close. Ideally, you cast this and attack right away with a creature, and you can sometimes play the card if it’s a land or a cheap threat. It's just hard to find a home for this enchantment.

#13. Raiyuu, Storm’s Edge

Raiyuu, Storm's Edge gives us an excellent bonus for attacking alone, and that’s an extra combat phase. For this to be effective, you need to have a very powerful threat, or at least a creature with many auras and equipment so that it’s worth attacking twice with the same guy. And it has to survive, too….

#12. Finest Hour

Finest Hour is the older version of Raiyuu, Storm's Edge, and it's not locked to specific creature types. Having a strong commander in play and attacking twice might very well be game over.

#11. Team Avatar

Team Avatar takes the template established by Angelic Exaltation, knocks a mana off the cost, and adds an alternative removal mode if you discard it. Strangely, it's a card that wants you to go wide but only attack with one creature anyway, kind of giving all your other creatures pseudo-exalted.

#10. Reaper’s Talisman

Unlike many cards from this list, Reaper's Talisman is more of a sacrificial card, so if you attack with a 1/1 alone and drain your opponent for 2, you don’t care if the creature dies or not. But the creature also has deathtouch, so it’s probably not getting blocked unless your opponent also has fodder to spare. Aristocrat cards that benefit from said creature loss complement this strategy well. Another interesting experiment is to combine this equipment with cards that care about the lifegain trigger, like Amalia Benavides Aguirre.

#9. Agent 13, Sharon Carter

We still don’t have the ability to straight-up draw a card when we attack alone, but Agent 13, Sharon Carter lets us investigate, which is pretty close to drawing more cards every single turn. You’re not even sad if you “chump attack” with a token just to investigate, and many cards in blue and green have additional synergies with investigate, not to mention with artifacts and tokens.

#8. Sigil of Valor

Sigil of Valor is basically Angelic Exaltation in equipment form, and it’s cheap to equip at . Equipment loses a lot of value when they don’t do anything on defense, but in a go-wide strategy, this can do some work.

#7. Ironsoul Enforcer

Ironsoul Enforcer only applies its bonus to commanders or to itself, but the bonus is quite powerful, and you’ll basically reanimate an artifact. This card isn’t attacking alone often without any major support as a 4/4, so you’ll need some help. For context, this card was printed in an artifact creature and vehicle matters Commander deck, though the artifacts you’ll want to reanimate in general are vehicles, equipment with living weapon (Batterskull and friends), or expensive artifact creatures like Wurmcoil Engine.

#6. Black Panther, Claws of Bast

Black Panther, Claws of Bast is just solid overall as a 3/3 lifelinker that can get additional +1/+1 counters by attacking alone, and the counters stick after the end of the turn, unlike most bonuses. A 4/4 lifelink for 3 mana is already pretty good, so this card has the stats to get into the red zone and compete. But even in the late game, if you have a flier, you can attack with it alone and get a free counter.

#5. Squall, SeeD Mercenary + Seifer Almasy

Two cards from the same Final Fantasy game (FFVIII), two equal rivals with the same ability. Squall, SeeD Mercenary and Seifer Almasy give a creature that attacks alone double strike, although without any exalted or stat-pumping effect. You also get rewards when these creatures deal combat damage, and that’s a nice way to use double strike. Squall retrieves small creatures, while Seifer gets cheap spells, so between spellslinging and recursion, you’re choosing what fits best in your strategy.

#4. Rafiq of the Many

Rafiq of the Many gives a creature double strike and +1/+1 if it’s attacking alone, so Rafiq itself attacks as a 4/4 double striker. This card was a very classic Voltron commander; all you have to do is beat down with Rafiq, slap on some auras and combat tricks, and win via commander damage. But turning a 3/1 flier you’ve just played into a 4/2 flying + double strike creature is also very good.

#3. Idolized

Idolized is a 2-mana aura that basically gives all nonland permanents exalted, so to speak. It has all the downsides related to an aura, but if you have a Voltron creature that gets even better with more auras (the Kor Spiritdancers and Ethereal Armors of this world), this is a strong aura. It’s nice that it counts all the auras, equipment, tokens, and whatever you have to give bonuses to the enchanted creature, so this card can also go in enchantress builds.

#2. Nick Fury, Spymaster

Now we’re talking. Nick Fury, Spymaster gives you an excellent attack alone bonus: You can cast it and attack with another creature right away, then you’ll draw a card and get a free attacking indestructible 3-drop. Just drawing a card would be a good incentive! Nick attacks as a 4/4 first striker, which can often be good enough to go solo, too.

#1. Bilbo’s Ring

It’s hard to top Bilbo's Ring here – yeah, we all know it was The One Ring all along. The creature gets hexproof and unblockable, so all the downsides are gone. And then, you attack and draw a card. The biggest setback is how expensive it is to equip a non-halfling creature.

Best Solo Attacker Payoffs and Enablers

Cards like Silent Arbiter establish that only one creature can attack or block each combat. If you already have this restriction, your attacking alone buffs can have maximum efficiency, considering that you’re already keen on attacking alone and your opponent can only block with a single creature.

Stoic Angel is another creature that helps when you’re attacking alone because you’re only untapping one creature each turn anyway.

Cards like Mother of Runes and Giver of Runes aren’t exactly known for attacking, so you can use them to protect your attacker or give it evasion.

Creatures that have evasion, like flying, unblockable, menace, or trample are prime candidates for attacking alone. A card like Baneslayer Angel has flying, first strike, and lifelink, so it’s hard to block and kill, and you’re getting life to offset the downsides of attacking alone.

The exalted mechanic is a very good incentive for attacking alone, and Sublime Archangel gives all your creatures exalted. One hit from Sublime Archangel, and you could be attacking for 7 in the air or more, and it gets silly in multiples.

Mechanics like bushido, enrage, and even crazier ones like rampage also make a lot of sense because they discourage your opponents from blocking your creature.

Cards like Homicidal Seclusion give you a good +3/+1 incentive for having only one creature on the battlefield, although you’ll rarely want only one creature because it’s such a risky proposition.

Do Tokens Entering Attacking Prevent Attacks Alone Abilities?

No, not necessarily. “Attacks alone” only requires that you choose one attacker during the declare attacks step. Anything that comes in afterwards is fine, since those creatures were never declared as attackers.

However, cards that mention “attacking alone” (instead of just “attacks alone”) can be disrupted if other attackers enter later that combat. For example, Yuan-Ti Malison will no longer be unblockable if you create a token with, say, Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, since it's no longer attacking alone. Yuan-Ti Malison will, however, trigger Tempered in Solitude, even if other creatures enter after it declares attacks.

If I Attack Multiple Opponents with One Creature Each, Are They Considered Attacking Alone?

No. When you attack alone, it means that you’re declaring only one creature to attack that combat, not that you’re using only one creature to attack a given player. Your attacks alone payoffs won’t work if you attack multiple opponents with one creature; you can only attack with one creature total per combat step to trigger those payoffs.

Do Attack Alone Cards Work in Two-Headed Giant?

They do, as long as there’s only one creature attacking per team. In Two-Headed Giant (2HG), each player decides which creatures they’ll use to attack, and both allied players attack together. A creature is only considered to attack alone if it’s the only creature attacking in that combat phase. So, if I attack with a creature and my partner attacks with one creature, my creature did no attack alone, and is not considered “attacking” alone.

Wrap Up

Ironsoul Enforcer | Illustration by Antonio José Manzanedo

Attacking alone is hard to make work, largely due to the disadvantages. Blockers often have the advantage of choosing how to block and whether to use some form of removal mid-combat. That said, recent sets are making attacking alone an interesting proposition, and in formats like Commander where attacking with all your creatures is a huge risk, it’s often a good idea to use only a single creature to attack or poke at one of your opponents while leaving the rest for defense. It’s a nice mechanic for grindy games, and it’s cool that the archetype is getting more support.

What do you think of attacks alone cards and their mechanics? Have you ever built a deck around it? Let me know in the comments section below, or let’s discuss it over on the Draftsim Discord. For more from us, subscribe to The Daily Upkeep on YouTube.

Thanks for reading, and may you have viable attacks and synergies when playing a loner strategy.