#cmdr14

In which we review the black and red cards from Commander 2014

Welcome to part two of my review of all new cards from CMDR14. I covered white and blue in a previous article, and today we’re going to look at black and red cards. To clarify, I’m not going to look at new legendary creatures or planeswalkers from the set, as these are covered in their own articles. I am approaching this review not from the standpoint that they will remain in the pre-constructed decks, but as pieces of hand-built decks.

So, without further ado, let’s get started. In black, we have the following:

[cardlist] [Black Cards] Demon of Wailing Agonies Flesh Carver Infernal Offering Malicious Affliction Necromantic Selection Overseer of the Damned Raving Dead Spoils of Blood Wake the Dead [/Black Cards] [/cardlist]

A decent mix of spells and creatures here, we have a good mix of power level as well. For creatures, we have [card]Demon of Wailing Agonies[/card], [card]Flesh Carver[/card], [card]Overseer of the Damned[/card], and [card]Raving Dead[/card]. The first, the Demon of Wailing Agonies, is black’s Lieutenant mechanic entry, making it a 6/6 flying creature for 5CMC, that forces a player to sacrifice a creature when he hits them. Honestly, this sounds cool but is not that good. The board state will need to be pretty specific – a defender having creatures that cannot block a flying attacker, and few enough that they have to choose a good one to sacrifice – to make it work that it’ll whiff far too often. Flesh Carver, on the other hand, is quite good, and is a ton of value in a 3CMC body. He starts at 2/2, but gets bigger over the course of the game, then drops a replacement body after a boardwipe. There is no downside to this guy, and I’ll run one in every black deck I can. Overseer of the Damned is another solid entry, and I would have quite liked a copy of this in my [card]Sheoldred, Whispering One[/card] deck, back when I didn’t care if anybody had fun. He requires spot removal, or one-sided board wipes, but both are pretty common. This will see play, but will be underpowered in about half the decks it is in. Rounding out the creatures is Raving Dead, which looks amazing but will be cut from every deck after two or three games. Forced attacks are never fun, and this is never getting through to take half a life total. Especially with a casting cost of 5 – this will be chumped for days, and will be the target of every removal spell and exile effect at the table.

Moving on to the new black spells, we have two sorceries and three instants. [card]Infernal Offering[/card], a sorcery, is the black member of the cycle, and is honestly one of my favourites. Forcing sacrifice on a player who doesn’t want it is mean, sacrificing

You’re probably winning this deal

one of your own for profit at the same time is awesome. Giving another player a creature – or not, you can choose someone with no creatures in their yard – and getting one back yourself is a kick in the teeth. This card is 100% EDH, and I love it. The other sorcery, [card]Necromantic Selection[/card], is a weak attempt to placate us for not reprinting [card]Damnation[/card]. I do like that it’s another black sweeper that adds an effect, but I just want a Damnation reprint. Coming in at a casting cost of 7 will hurt this – it will work, but there are better options.

[card]Malicious Affliction[/card] is our first instant, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. It’s a [card]Dark Banishing[/card] for BB, which is nice, but with Morbid it gets copied. I like the effect, but I’m not sure how many decks I would put this in. I feel this would be a late cut in most builds, but I may be wrong. [card]Spoils of Blood[/card], however, I have no doubt about at all. Couple this with a sweeper like Necromantic Selection, [card]Phyrexian Rebirth[/card], or [card]Blasphemous Act[/card], and you’re going to lose some friends. This is an auto-include to punish players who sweep the board a lot. Rounding out the new black cards, we have [card]Wake the Dead[/card], the only true combat trick in this list. Basically, an X spell that gives you surprise blockers. Which sounds fun, but let’s be honest – if you’re playing black, you shouldn’t have that many creatures coming at you anyway because you’ve killed them all. It’s a nice pressure release valve, and I’ll run it, but I can’t see me casting it that often. I’ll feel better having it in my hand, though.

Black has a decent mix of cards, but Infernal Offering and Flesh Carver are the two standouts. Neither are off the charts, but may show up in other formats.

Moving on to red, we have this list:

[cardlist] [Red Cards] Bitter Feud Dualcaster Mage Impact Resonance Incite Rebellion Scrap Mastery Tyrant’s Familiar Volcanic Offering Warmonger Hellkite [/Red Cards] [/cardlist]

Fewer creatures this time around, with three, though we get an enchantment as well. Let’s look at the permanents first. I’m going to start with [card]Bitter Feud[/card], the enchantment, because it’s the first in the list, but also because it deserves to go first. This is an extremely political card, and it is a way to even the table when two players get out of reach of the rest. Unless something has gone very, very wrong, you’re never choosing yourself for this effect. The upside is the two tanks are now targeting each other. The downside is, maybe they don’t want to, and both come after you. You really, really need to pay attention with this card – not to the board state, but to the way your opponents think, play, and react. If you target the wrong personality with this, you may as well scoop. I like this card, but I will be terrified every time I play it.

[card]Dualcaster Mage[/card], on the other hand, hits every good spot in my brain. Cheap to cast – check. 2/2 body – check. Flash – check. And it copies spells when it hits.

Snapcaster’s best friend/worst enemy

This will see Legacy play, and should be in 99% of EDH decks that run red. Amazing, amazing card. [card]Tyrant’s Familiar[/card] is red’s Lieutenant mechanic entry, and is a damn good one. Expensive to cast, but it becomes a 7/7 flying hasty dragon that deals 7 damage to a creature the defending player controls. Note that this happens when it attacks, not when it deals combat damage. So it blows a defender out of the way – I like this guy, and he’s the top end of the mana curve in my Daretti deck. The last red creature is [card]Warmonger Hellkite[/card], and it is the card in the red deck that doesn’t really fit. I really don’t like this effect, because I want to choose when I attack. I really dislike forced attack steps, and this craeture doesn’t fit in the pre-con list. I can see it having a place in a [card]Ruric Thar, the Unbowed[/card] deck, but my personal preference is to avoid forced attacks.

For red spells, we have two instants and two sorceries. At instant speed we have [card]Impact Resonance[/card] – a lively little effect that punishes alpha strikes, and will be an early addition to most red decks – and [card]Volcanic Offering[/card]. Red’s entry into the Offering cycle is a little weird. I’m not sure if I like this or not, and will need to cast it a few times before I decide. At face value, I like it. I like that “you don’t control” caveat on both effects, but I’m not sold on giving your opponents the choice, even if you get the same one. [card]Incite Rebellion[/card] is a risky sorcery-speed effect. In a creature-light build, this could be back-breaking. But it could also backfire in a hurry, and I am hesitant to recommend this. It’s flashy, for sure, and could win a few games, but I can’t see myself ever casting it. Saving the best for last, we round out red’s new cards with [card]Scrap Mastery[/card], which is [card]Living Death[/card] for artifacts. I. Love. This. Card. When I bought the red pre-con and took it apart for pieces, I built [card]Daretti, Scrap Savant[/card], and this was the first card I slotted in; there was never any doubt. Artifacts tend to run heavy in most environments, but if you build your deck with the knowledge that you can do something like this, the advantage will be all on your side after resolution. This is a perfect card, in my opinion – it will not be in every red deck, but the decks that could use it will be absolutely insane with it.

A look at the new white and blue cards in Commander 2014

With the new Commander pre-constructed decks we get, as always, new cards. These are created solely for the Commander series, and while they are legal in Vintage and Legacy, these are generally tailored toward our favourite format. Some of these make the shift to Standard, by being reprinted in core sets or blocks – [card]Scavenging Ooze[/card] started in a Commander deck, for example.

With the latest release, I want to look at these new cards, and give my impression of each. I am skipping the new legendary creatures, as we have articles covering these already (or will, soon). I am looking at these not as pieces of the decks they are in, but with my thoughts of their impact in Commander as a format, overall. Let’s start with white.

[cardlist] [White Cards] Angel of the Dire Hour Angelic Field Marshal Benevolent Offering Comeuppance Containment Priest Deploy to the Front Fell the Mighty Hallowed Spiritkeeper [/White Cards] [/cardlist]

In white we have four creatures, two instants, and two sorceries. [card]Angel of the Dire Hour[/card] is the first creature, and comes in at 7CMC on a 5/4 body. Flash is always nice, and I really like that it’s a somewhat better [card]Sunblast Angel[/card]. It affects attacking creatures only, and exiles them. No bouncing shenanigans, though. Expect to see this in a lot of defensive decks as a way to keep aggressors in check. [card]Angelic Field Marshal[/card] boasts the new Lieutenant mechanic, which I love, and becomes a 5/5 flyer that gives all your other creatures vigilance. In the right deck, this will be amazing, but it’s a niche card. [card]Oathsworn Giant[/card] does this better,

Basically, ‘Nope’.

with no restrictions. [card]Containment Priest[/card] is, in my opinion, the [card]True-Name Nemesis[/card] of this release. This is a beast of a card, and will be in Legacy decks forever. A two-drop with flash that stops reanimator strategies cold. No more cheating in fatties on the cheap. [card]Hallowed Spiritkeeper[/card] is a solid little body, 3/2 vigilance for 3 is not a bad deal. It’s the die effect that sells this, though – cast [card]Wrath of God[/card], then cast and sac this to [card]Ashnod’s Altar[/card], and you got a stew goin’. Will not be in every white deck, but expect to see this is white/black builds – Teysa 1.0 loves this guy.

For instants, we have [card]Benevolent Offering[/card] and [card]Comeuppance[/card]. The offering is probably the weakest of the cycle, but like the others it is a very political card. The wording is confusing at first glance, though, and it will not make new players love it. At a casting cost of four, and the fact that it helps one (or two) opponents, this will be in a lot of group hug decks, but even then it will be sparse. Comeuppance also costs 4, but will be seen more often. I like that it not only saves you and your planeswalkers, but it reflects the damage back to the controller – aggro players will hate to swing into 3W with this card around.

[card]Deploy to the Front[/card] is the card that people will want to cut first – I always want to play the pre-cons straight a few times, just to get a feel for them, but there is always one card that is just bad. This is that card. It will be played in niche decks, and serve a redundancy role. It will not be a splasy, game-winning card in anything except [card]Rhys the Redeemed[/card], but that deck doesn’t need any more of these effects. [card]Fell the Mighty[/card] is my favourite of the new white cards, and when I first read it my thoughts immediately turned to [card]Blood Artist[/card], and how back-breaking that play is. This is in every white deck ever, from now on.

Moving on to blue, we have these:

[cardlist] [Blue Cards] AEther Gale Breaching Leviathan Domineering Will Dulcet Sirens Intellectual Offering Reef Worm Stormsurge Kraken Well of Ideas [/Blue Cards] [/cardlist]

Surprisingly, four creatures in blue, two instants, one sorcery and one enchantment. [card]Breaching Leviathan[/card] is similar to Angel of the Dire Hour in that it costs a lot, you have to cast it, and has a neat ETB effect. If you manage to land this, just about everyone will sweep. If you manage to land it. At 9CMC, that’s a big if, even in Commander. [card]Dulcet Sirens[/card] is far more practical, and kind of amazing. I like this card, a lot. I want one for my newly-built [card]Tromokratis[/card] deck – I like that you can threaten other players with somebody else’s creatures. This is a huge card, and will be popular at tables. [card]Reef Worm[/card] is a fun little card that becomes a scarry big card in a hurry. 0/1 for 4 is a terrible investment, but paired with some sweepers or sac outlets, this quickly becomes very worthwhile. Expect to see a lot of 6/6 Whale tokens in play from this guy, as that is the ideal place to stop killing it yourself. [card]Stormsurge Kraken[/card] is the final new blue creature, and is the Lieutenant of the blue deck. I can see this as a source of card draw in a lot of Ux decks that needs that effect, but the fact that it has to be blocked is worrisome to me. Yeah, it’s a 7/7, but [card]Ambush Viper[/card] doesn’t care how big you are. The only other new blue permanent is [card]Well of Ideas[/card], which is an enchantment version of [card]Howling Mine[/card] that will get you punched in the face. Yes, that blue player will run this. Yes, it is alright to call her names when she does.  She probably has [card]Consecrated Sphinx[/card] in her deck, too.

[card]AEther Gale[/card], a sorcery, makes me happy. I want seven copies of this card. At 5CMC, it bounces any six non-land permanents. They do not need to have the same owner, and they don’t even have to be controlled by an opponent. Amazing card, expect to curse at it a lot. [card]Domineering Will[/card] is a great political card, but it lacks a certain something – the fact that nobody knows you can do this until you do lessens the impact – it makes you less a nice guy at the table than it makes you the jerk who ruined one opponent’s plans. I like the card, and it will see a lot of play, but it’ll end up like [card]Deadeye Navigator[/card] – an amazing card, but one that nobody plays because it leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

*maniacal laughter*

Finally, we have [card]Intellectual Offering[/card], one of the better members of the cycle. The first option is more card draw, because blue was lacking in that, but the second is what pushes this over the top. This is a puppet master card – say Player A is attacking into an overextended Player B, who has no untapped defenders. Arch your fingers like Montgomery Burns, and untap all of those defenders, but give the attacker three cards to see what they can do. Laugh maniacally. I absolutely love this card, and will expect this out of every blue deck.