#card evaluation

Why you want to play that card :

There’s a lot of cards that are similar to it (Elvish Piper, Flash, Lure of Prey, Quicksilver Amulet, Sneak Attack, etc). Unlike those more popular options, Surprise Deployment is white, doesn’t need any set up, is totally instant speed and you get the creature back in your hand. Flash is the most similar, giving you more flexibility, but doesn’t give you a second cast or ETB on the creature.

By using this card, you have the occasion to use the ETB trigger twice on the creature you’re putting into play. Combine with Panharmonicon or other doubling triggered ability, you can really abuse the ETB of a card. It’s perfect in a flicker deck.

Great for a defensive tool, when your opponent attack you can sneak in a big creature, block and kill the opponent’s creature.

The best thing about it, is probably the price of the card, that is less than 0.25$.

What colors bring to the card :

White : The card isn’t good with white creatures, but all the “flicker” effects are great to keep the creature in play.

Blue : Like white, there’s flickers in this color as well. For the good ETB, there’s draws, get spells back from graveyards, bounces, counterspells, tutors for artifact, gain control of stuff, and more.

Black : Deathtouch creatures are interesting removal creatures when blocking, but you should consider the ETB that destroys creatures, drains the opponent, “Edict” effects, reanimations, tutors.

Red : Not the best color for this card. The ETB is often around dealing damage, Threaten effects, creating tokens (usually goblins or dragons). 

Green : The ETB are varied. Can get lands, destroy artifacts or enchantment, bring cards from your graveyards in your hand (or even in play), gain you life, create tokens, draw you cards, tutor for creatures.

Note : There’s also a lot of great colorless options (Artisan of Kozilek,  Meteor Golem and   Solemn Simulacrum for example)

Final thought :

Roon and Brago are great commanders for that kind of card, using flickers and lots of ETB. After looking at all the colors, I personally would include it in a Abzan graveyard theme deck. Could really gets you a lot card advantage and has a good amount of flexibility.

Can be good in early, to get a big ETB or ramp more. Can be great in a defensive position, to have a surprised blocker and get more value from a single card. It’s also good in a long and grindy game.

Why you want to play that card :

It’s a great defensive option against aggressive deck. You may have enemies in a game and had no blockers or attacked with everything last turn. By playing this, not only you save your life, but you make a non-optimal attack phase to your opponent.

By redirecting attacking creatures to other opponents, you create a little bit of chaos, making bad trades or even makes someone betrays alliance or even kill another player. 

For sure, creatures will die, but not yours. You’ll feel like someone walking through a battlefield, but you’re the only one that is unhurt by all this mess. You sure get a big advantage at the end of this turn.

Can be a kind of uncontrolled board wipe, in the way that a lot of creatures gonna die.

Great for politics. You always can say “Don’t attack me, you’ll regret it” or make a deal that cause someone else to attack you. 

You might get enemies by playing it, but you should always say that if the one that attacked you didn’t attack, nobody would have lost life points.

What colors bring to the card :

White : Usually, you have better board wipe options in this color. Blue can bring lots of control option, but this card is probably not what you want.

Blue : Good defensive tool in a mono blue deck. Goes well with Aetherize and other effects like that, punishing your opponents to attack you.

Black : If you have triggers out of creatures dying or opponents losing life, that cards can be useful.

Red : Chaos decks might want this card for... chaos purposes.

Green : Kinda neutral here. It depends entirely on you deck. If you have a good board, always bigger creatures and don't mind about being attacked, then this card is useless. But if you play a more combo deck that needs more protection or try to politics around the table, it might be interesting.

Final thought :

This is not a synergistic card. It’s a defensive tool, that may destroy lots of creatures and deals damage to opponents. Usually good in a not too controlling deck, for tempo play, delaying the anger of your opponent. Need to be played carefully, it may backfire.

Why you want to play that card :

First of all, it’s a repetitive sac outlet on an enchantment. Yes, it’s 5 cmc, but it’s harder to remove than a creature. That card works great in a deck with a lot of death trigger or that need creature to die for any reason.  

Great if someone wants to clean the board, so you can get a lot of lands out of your deck. This way, you’ll be able to rebuild faster (if you have enough cards in hand).

This card makes you ramp for higher cmc spells. Usually, green have good options in this category, as well as Eldrazi. It’s also useful to fix your mana, getting you the duals you need.

In a deck that you may take control of opponent’s creatures, this is a great tool for your second main phase, make you sacrifice their creatures instead of yours.

What colors bring to the card :

White : This color is great to provide you tokens, usually need ramps, so paired well with green. There’s also a lot of combo options that may need sac outlet.

Blue : Not the best colors. Usually, you gain the control of creatures permanently or copy them. It may be interesting to get big blue creatures out (Kraken and sea monsters). Not the best color pair.

Black : Provides you a lot of options. Creatures dying usually will provide value and that may trigger other permanents you control (Grave Pact and stuff like that). Also, you have a lot of reanimation / graveyard recursion. So you never really lose your creatures.

Red : Provides you Threaten effects, so you can sac opponent’s creatures. Undying creatures work well with it as well.

Green : As said, you get big creatures, you also have a lot of graveyard recursion.

Final thought :

I would see that card in an abzan reanimation, token or aristocrat deck, pretty much any golgary deck or decks that gain control of opponent’s creatures for a limited duration.

Why you want to play that card :

I’ve discovered this rule (and card) while I was looking for a game ender in a creatureless deck. With this card, I can have no creatures in the deck, but still get one when needed (like a Laboratory Maniac).

In any green deck, you might want to use this card. You can make a toolbox out of your sideboard, so when you get Living Wish (or any other “outside the game” ability) you can grab one of those 10 answers to a threat on the board.

Interesting addition, you can grab a land as well. I don’t know how this is relevant, but in a 5 color deck, you can but dual lands or even basic lands in your sideboard, to have fixing if needed.

In green, there’s a lot of options to find a creature in a deck, but they usually tend to be expensive (money wise). So this is an affordable option to find something that is not always core to the strategy, but that might help you in varied situations.

The sideboard can be used to hide your win condition against exile effect from the library (like Sadistic Sacrament). It’s a meta call for this one.

What colors bring to the card :

White : There’s a lot of hatebear in white and green that you might want to get to slow someone’s strategy. Some win con could be placed in the sideboard as well, like Felidar Sovereign.

Blue : Access to Laboratory Maniac in a creatureless deck. You also get card draw, bounce effect, landwalk creatures. Also, copying this spell must be great.

Black : There’s many black creatures that when they enter the battlefield, they destroy another creature. Mixed with another color (like green) for other kind of removal, it might get a nice range of options. Also, graveyard recursion is an option.

Red : Beside artifact removal from a creature, red is mostly aggressive and doesn’t make the best tool box in a control situation. However, you might get the best offensive creature for that specific situation.

Green : Enchantment or artifact removal on a creature, big creatures, graveyard recursion, ramp, flying defenses. Green has a lot of different options to play with. Combine with other colors, you’ll have an answer to most things happening. Yeva, Nature’s Herald is also great here, to be able to play the card you searched for when you want.

Final thought :

This card (and other “Wish” cards) is very interesting in a deck building, making you spaces to add other cards cause this one has a lot of options. It’s a mechanic that i haven’t seen in commander and that should be more known. It’s like creating a 110 card deck instead of 100. 

If you plan to build a creatureless deck (or something else than creature using another wish) this might be useful to get this one creature you need but still having your deck building clean of creatures. For the curious of the deck I was building, it was based on Oath of Druids, so without any creature in the deck, I just mill my entire library. With Living Wish, I still have access to Laboratory Maniac to win the game. 

Why you want to play that card :

Ideal card when you have creatures with high CMC and good ETB (ex : Terastodon). That way, you can get a free ETB every turn, while cheating a creature in play. Let you attack or use an activated ability, then, you get another one, next turn.

This goes well with death triggers, but ideally with ETB and death trigger (ex : Solemn Simulacrum). Synergies well with reanimation as well. Creatures are always easier to bring back in play when they are out of your library.

Good with indestructible creatures. Since you destroy the enchanted creature at your upkeep, you keep the indestructible creature and get one out free. Sadly, if the new one is not indestructible, you’ll lose it at your next upkeep.

To stop the cycle of getting something new every turn, you need to destroy the creature or enchantment while the trigger is on the stack (to get the most value out of it). By doing so, you still reveal cards till you get a creature out, but since Shifting Shadow is no longer in play, you can’t attach it to the creature.

Tokens are great to start the chain.

Persist, Undying and creatures that shuffle themselves back in the library are great with it.

What colors bring to the card :

White : There’s a good amount of cards that can bring back enchantment or low CMC permanent from the graveyard into play (Sun Titan).

Blue : There’s a similar effect from the card Polymorph and many other similar cards (that may apply to multiple targets). Also good if you can gain control of opponent’s creatures.

Black : Persist, undying, graveyard recursion and death triggers are the advantages you get out of this color.

Red : Good value creatures with undying or that trigger out of attacking are useful here (ex : Etali, Primal Storm).

Green : This card is a similar to Birthing Pod, with randomness added to it. Beside persist ability, another reason why I like green with this card is the giant CMC creatures that has ETB or death triggers (ex : Woodfall Primus, Worldspine Wurm, Terastodon)

Colorless : The Eldrazi are often just good stuff, that fit well in this strategy. Same goes with Blightsteel and Darksteel Colossus. As mentioned, Solemn Simulacrum is also a nice include. I’ve seen people using Crown of the Ages, which can be great, but I’m not sure if it’s really worth it.

Final thought :

This is an amazing budget card, but with kind of niche ability, that you need a deck built specifically with that in mind. Gruul, Jund and Temur decks could probably use it better (graveyard recursion, big creatures, similar effect, etc). We got this card in the Commander 2017 Wizard precon, in the Grixis color. That card was interesting there cause of the constant ETB you want all the time. That’s a good example of a deck build with that card in mind.

The biggest downside is probably that is not instant speed and it does nothing till your next upkeep. Better in early game, to develop your board, more offensive than defensive and not the best in late game.