Copper Pickaxe

This is the pick you wake up with, and its only job is to get you enough ore to replace itself. It gives out at meteorite, which is the first wall a new character actually runs into. Every metal pickaxe you can craft after a single mining trip beats it, and the difference in how quickly blocks come apart is obvious within a minute of switching.

Reach is the part people notice last and suffer most. It digs a shorter distance from the player than nearly anything else, so tunneling with it means constantly repositioning to clear the next block instead of standing still and sweeping. That alone is a reason to move up a tier early rather than mining out your whole starting area with it.

If you fish one up, a Reaver Shark skips several tiers of this at once and needs no ore at all.