#set review

In terms of tech, there’s Well of Lost Dreams, Dawn of Hope, Angelic Accord, and Resplendent Angel. But that’s about it, and if you don’t draw those four cards, you’re left with a commander that gives you a small boost in the least important resource in a color that can’t use that resource for anything.

While it’s not great as a commander, it’s probably good in the maindeck of Karlov decks.

This seems quite bad. In contrast, Pianna, Nomad Captain does basically the same thing for two mana cheaper.

This is a very neat self-mill combo commander. The absolute best pieces of tech for the deck are Mirran Spy and Chakram Retriever, which allow you to cast as many artifacts as you have the mana for. If your deck is full of 0-mana artifacts and cards like Sol Ring and Mana Crypt that net mana when you cast them, you can really combo off with Emry.

Some of the more notable combos:

0-mana artifact creature + Thornbite Staff/Intruder Alarm/Mirran Spy + Grinding Station/Ashnod’s Altar/Phyrexian Altar/Krark-Clan Ironworks/Blasting Station

Basalt Monolith + Mesmeric Orb

Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth

Mirran Spy/Chakram Retriever + Lotus Petal/Lion’s Eye Diamond

Emry + Mindslaver

Walking Ballista is your outlet for infinite mana, generally.

The rest of the deck is mostly tutors and self-mill cards to help you assemble your combos and counterspells to help you protect it.

Sample decklist: Emry, Lurker of the Loch

He’s a better outlet for infinite mana than Ambassador Laquatus and he synergizes extremely well with Verity Circle. Unfortunately, I’m not seeing great uses for those guy aside from those two possibilities. Not being able to tap your own stuff means you can’t abuse Winter Orb/Static Orb (or even fun/fair stuff like the untap symbol or inspired) and having such a restrictive color identity prevents you from doing cool stuff like running Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Spreading Algae.

High Tide and blue’s untap spells (e.g., Frantic Search, Time Spiral) are also good non-infinite ways to generate tons of mana for your commander.

I am not super stoked about this card. While it could potentially have 7 or more power, that’s not an insane rate for 5 mana and it’s lacking the evasion, haste, and effective protection against removal needed to make it a good Voltron commander.

Thornbite Staff turns this into an unrestricted card draw engine, and she combos with Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler + any zombie to cause infinite life loss for your opponents.

Not only does it provide a discard outlet for the 8ish decent madness cards in monoblack, but you can usually get a free discard by dumping Bloodghast, Reassembling Skeleton, Gutterbones, Bloodsoaked Champion, etc. before you start recurring them to pay for the sacrifice ability.

It’s also worth noting that there are some fantastic death triggers in monoblack; Mindslicer and Corpse Augur are some standouts.

Shared Trauma, Dread Summons, and Mesmeric Orb are good ways to mill your opponents in monoblack, and Heartstone will greatly increase the efficiency of his activated ability. You can also try farming the ability with powerful discard effects like Mindslicer, Capital Punishment, Cabal Conditioning, and Myojin of Night’s Reach, and Black’s efficient removal will also help you get triggers.

I’ve also seen takes on this deck that combine the activated ability with Lantern of Insight to set up a soft lock where you prevent your opponents from drawing anything relevant.

With Syr Carah, the name of the game is cheap spells that hit multiple opponents. Fortunately, Red has a ton of these that are relatively cheap and so Carah makes it so you can draw a ton of cards for relatively little mana (spending 2 to draw 4 is a pretty common occurrence). If some of those cards net mana (e.g., rituals, moxes), then you can keep the combo going.

Sample decklist: Syr Carah, the Bold

Aside from boosting your creatures’ damage output, he also combines extremely well with Group Slug effects like Manabarbs and Spellshock; in fact, he’s probably the best Group Slug commander of all time.

Sample decklist:  Torbran, Thane of Red Fell

Bubble Matrix and Fog effects make it so that your creatures can’t take damage in combat but they can still dish it out.

You can also run Viridian Longbow and Thornbite Staff to make use of this guy’s deathtouch. Other than that, there’s not a whole lot of direction to build around this guy; bog standard Voltron package, I guess.

I wish this card had more power. +2/+2 is nothing and while I can think of creatures that could use a buff effectively (Infect creatures), I feel like I need to buff Syr Faren in order to buff them more. If that’s the case, why am I even using Syr Faren? Why not just buff the creatures directly and cut out the middleman?

You can get a bunch of counters with cards like Deranged Hermit, Deep Forest Hermit, etc, but 5 mana for 5 power isn’t even that great compared to some of the better auras and equipment.

Also, give that Yorvo’s reward is making himself bigger, the only way to build around him is Voltron; which he’s not well suited for. His base stats are a 4/4 for 3, which isn’t insane, and he doesn’t have haste, evasion, or resistance to removal.

Although I don’t like him as a commander, he could be good in the maindeck of Ghave decks.

This guy combos really well with sac outlets and creatures with persist, offering you infinite of whatever your sac outlet generates. Unfortunately, there’s only about 6 unrestricted sac outlets and 6 persist creatures in these colors, which is far from enough stuff to fill out a deck, so there’s a lot of room for token generators, proliferate effects, interaction, and a generally more straightforward aggressive game plan.

Sample decklist: Grumgully, the Generous

I tried building Alela a few ways before I settled on a build I liked. Initially, I tried running a bunch of cheap (3 CMC or less) anthem effects, because they were essentially “lords” when they came with a 2/1 Faerie attached. The issue with this build was that there wasn’t much card flow, and although I often ended up with a huge scary board, I didn’t have many cards in hand and I was very vulnerable to board wipes.

The second build I tried used a ton of 2-cost artifacts and enchantments that drew a card when they entered the battlefield; essentially, my deck was full of flying Silvergill Adepts. This has been working pretty well, as I can commit a bunch of dudes to the board while maintaining a respectable hand so I can rebuild if something goes wrong.

In addition to my card-drawing eggs and Auras, I’m also running the most efficient anthem effects in these colors, such as Favorable Winds, Shared Triumph, Intangible Virtue, and Konda’s Banner.

Combat damage triggers are pretty good when you have a bunch of flyers, so I’m running Coastal Piracy, Bident of Thassa, Larceny, and Kindred Discovery.

There are a few sac outlets that are powerful enough to justify diverting a few Faeries away from the beatdown, such as Attrition, Mind Slash, and Skullclamp.

Sample decklist: Alela, Artful Provocateur

This guy is a powerful combo commander centered around chaining cheap creatures together. He has very strong synergy with effects that subsidize or eliminate the cost of cheap creatures, such as Earthcraft, Aluren, and Tangleroot and he loves self-bouncing creatures like Shrieking Drake.

Sample decklist: Chulane, Teller of Tales

Works well with fetchlands, so a good Korvold build will likely have a solid land package. That being said, the heart of this deck is creature sacrifice, and this color identity has some great sac fodder in the form of token generation and self-recurring creatures, as well as some of the best sac outlets in the format. He also works well with creatures that really, really want to die, like Protean Hulk, Mindslicer, Seedguide Ash, and World Shaper.

Sample decklist: Korvold, Fae-Cursed King

I think Syr Gwyn is worth comparing to Kestia, the Cultivator. Both of them reward you when you attack with a narrow subset of cards. The main differences are that Kestia is significantly cheaper, is in a better color identity, and the things that trigger Kestia only require the commitment of a single card, whereas Syr Gwyn (generally) needs you to commit both a creature card and an equipment card to assemble a card-generating unit.

There are some exceptions to this rule: Living Weapon equipment come with a creature attached, as do the two equipment from M20 with a similar ability. Bloodforged Battle-Axe copies itself so you don’t have to commit as many real equipment to the board.

While there are a few low-casting cost high-equip cost cards like Colossus Hammer and Blackblade Reforged that really reward you for committing to Knights, most of the best equipment costs 1-2 mana to equip. I’m not sure saving 1-2 mana is worth committing to the Knight creature type.

Instead, I’d probably run the cheap doublestrikers in these colors (many of which are, admittedly, Knights) and a bunch of cards that synergize with equipment (not just Stoneforge and Puresteel; I think I’d also run Kor Duelist). In general, I want the deck to function without Syn Gwyn on the battlefield, since she costs a bunch of mana and isn’t very resilient to spot removal. Slapping a Mask of Memory on a Fencing Ace seems like a solid plan A in case Gwyn can’t get it together.

Sample decklist: Syr Gwyn

The Maindeck Cards of Throne of Eldraine

In this set review, I’ll be using two five-point rating scales to evaluate the nonlegendary cards, one that measures how many decks a card is playable in (we’ll call that “spread”), and one that measures how powerful it is in those decks (”power”). Here’s a brief rundown of what each rank on the two scales means:

Spread

1: This card is effective in one or two decks, but no more (ex: The Gitrog Monster).

2: This card is effective in one deck archetype (ex: self-mill decks).

3: A lot of decks will be able to use this card effectively (ex: decks with graveyard interactions).

4: This card is effective in most decks in this color.

5: Every deck in this color is able to use this card effectively.

Power

1: This card is always going to be on the chopping block.

2: This card is unlikely to consistently perform well.

3: This card provides good utility but is not a powerhouse.

4: This card is good enough to push you ahead of your opponents.

5: This card has a huge impact on the game.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

The -3 will never be bad, but spending six mana for this effect is not great. His 0 ability does synergize with sacrifice decks like Mazirek and Savra, but I’m still not sure he’s worth the price of entry in those lists.

Spread: 5 Power: 3

Shutting down someone’s commander is a big game, and the potential to activate him multiple turns in a row makes this a very big threat for just three mana.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

1st ability is weak, 2nd is a blank, ult will never happen and won’t even win you the game if it does. Don’t play this card.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Given that it only works in a deck with a critical mass of Knights, I think this guy is relegated to Aryel and Syr Gwyn. It’s def good in those lists, though.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

This costs one more mana to activate than I was hoping it would, but the opportunity cost to run it is basically nil, so I guess I can’t complain much. I think this is the narrowest of the five, though.

Notably, out of 23 cards in Magic that produce Human tokens, 9 are legal in Throne of Eldraine standard. This seems like too many to be a coincidence so this could mean that Human is now going to be the default white token type or we’ve got Human tribal coming up in the near future.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

I’m not a huge fan of cards that require you to jump through multiple hoops, as they pull a deck in two different directions. In this case, there’s not a big overlap between the decks running lots of legendaries and the decks running lots of Knights. There are about 10 playable Knight legends that you can stuff into a Syr Gwyn deck, but that’s barely a critical mass so I don’t see you consistently getting many Knight tokens off of this. Decks like Kethis and Sisay can trigger this way more frequently, but they probably don’t care about the reward; it’s not like they were running Primeval Bounty.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

Incredibly meta-dependent.

This is a super-powerful hoser for storm-y decks. The main problem with a silver bullet like this is that White doesn’t have many great ways to dig it out of your 100-card deck; you’ll need additional colors to help you find it. Like, side from Enlightened Tutor and Idyllic Tutor, how are you finding this early enough for it to save you?

Spread: 1 Power: 2

The removal spell will find targets in an average game of Commander, but they’re not always going to be the most important creatures. If we ever got human tribal, I’d consider running this as a value dude similar to Big Game Hunter. Or Peasant Tribal, I guess.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

This is never going to trigger and the ETB gives away 3 cards and 15 life. Don’t run it!

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Kicks ass in Oros, the Avenger.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

It’s better than Tocatli Honor Guard in White hatebear lists, but it’s very meta-dependent. I think Green decks are going to be hit harder by the Torpor Orb effect and Black decks will be hit harder by the death trigger prevention.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

If you’re running a deck with Black in its color identity and you could easily recur the creature half of this card, I’d seriously consider running this card, even if it’s one more mana relative to Wrath of God and Damnation; the potential for recursion is seriously that powerful.

And of course it’s really really good if your commander is a White Giant.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

It’s unfortunate that there are no white commanders that grant haste (well, I guess there’s Odric), as Commander does not take too kindly to 6 mana cards that have to wait a round of turns to start generating value. However, as we noted when Aryel was released, there was an embarrassing shortage of playable Knight token generators, so this may see play in Knight tribal decks.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

This type of card (land with expensive activated ability) is arguably better in Blue decks since you can hold counters up and activate it if your opponents don’t cast anything worth answering. As with all the other Castles, the opportunity cost to run this is extremely low in 1- and 2-color decks.

Spread: 0 Power:0

Wish effects currently don’t work under the official Commander rules; hence the ratings for this card.

However, it’s worth noting that Wizards has printed a wish effect in each of the last three Standard sets. These types of designs are clearly going to be a part of Magic going forward, and it doesn’t make sense that Commander’s rules don’t align with modern Magic design. You’ve probably heard me advocating for a rules change before, but I want to do more than theorycraft; I want some experience.

So, I’m planning on testing wishboards over the next few months to see what the pros/cons are and whether a rules change would be feasible or whether it would break the game. Now, I want to make a distinction: The wishboard will be used solely as a place for cards that I’ll search out with cards like Fae of Wishes; I’m not going to be testing a sideboard and I will not be switching cards between my sideboard and maindeck between games. I didn’t really want to test that because I think it will slow down games and sideboarding doesn’t matter that much unless your deck is really good at tutoring; a silver bullet sideboard card with no redundant effects is only 1% of your deck.

Expect a report back sometime at the beginning of 2020.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

I don’t think it’s particularly difficult to hit the cost reduction over the course of a multiplayer game, but it’ll be tricky to pull off early and there are lots of alternatives that have no such timing restrictions.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I’m really underwhelmed by this card. This is uncastable unless you’re running a spellslinger deck, and if that’s the case you can probably win by spell combo looong before this accrues enough knowledge counters to be good. Also, spellslinger decks can refill their hands instantly with a single card that actually synergizes with their deck’s strategy of casting instants/sorceries, such as Windfall, Time Reversal, Reforge the Soul, etc, etc. How much effort and how many turns will it take for Magic Mirror to draw you as many cards as a Windfall? How many opponents have to choose not to Vandalblast or Krosan Grip or Return to Dust the Mirror over that time period?

Spread: 3 Power: 2

Great card! It’s not hard to build a deck with plenty of mana rocks and utility enchantments that are good in multiples, and your opponents are likely to have some good targets, as well.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

If you’re in monoblue, and your commander can bounce lands, and you’ve got a critical mass of extra turn effects, this thing generates infinite turns.

That may sound unlikely, but there are a surprising number of monoblue commanders that can bounce lands; Uyo, Silent Prophet, Meloku, and Kefnet the Mindful all combo off with this thing, and there are 5 extra turn effects that don’t exile or shuffle that you can slot into this combo (6 if you’ve got Rogues).

Spread: 2 Power: 3

Very good with commanders with “cast X, get token” abilities, like Sai, Master Thopterist, Alela, Artful Provocateur, Kykar, and Talrand. Many of those commanders build around cards of the chosen type that cantrip, so you can use this ability to loot away lands and chain relevant cards into each other and continually trigger your commander.

Also, it goes infinite with the Locust God.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

This seems good in less-competitive Urza and Jhoira 2.0 decks as a means to get more gas off your Darksteel Relics and such. The good builds don’t have time for a 6-mana dragon, though.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

With the introduction of Syr Gwyn, there are now two Knight tribal decks in Commander. Run it in those decks and nowhere else.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

Life is, of course, worthless, but I’d still be wary of activating this when I had more than two cards in hand.

Spread: 1 Power: 4

Incredible combo piece in Grenzo, Dungeon Warden decks. All you need is a sac outlet and you can start juggling creatures between the library, graveyard, and battlefield, farming ETB and death triggers.

It also seems good in self-mill decks that can easily drop its cost down to two, but the bottom-of-library drawback is much more significant in those lists.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

This will often create 4 bodies for four mana, which is a great ratio. Black has a ton of sac outlet commanders that will be happy to run this card, including Torgaar, Whisper, Bontu, and Yawgmoth. Marrow-Gnawer lists may also be interested, as it’s one of the few Rat token generators that can make many at once.

Spread: 3 Power: 2

Hero’s Downfall sees play in almost 15,000 decks on EDHREC. While this card has some weird drawbacks (exiles itself, then buries itself on the bottom of your library), there are a lot of powerful things you can do with it because it’s stapled to a creature, like recurring it with a Phyrexian Reclamation or Volrath’s Stronghold in response to the death trigger. It works even better if you have access to Blue’s bounce engines.

I know it seems a little goofy compared to a Ravenous Chupacabra, but the instant speed on Swift End should not be underestimated, as there are a ton of situations where you need to interrupt something to keep from dying.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Upping your Rat count and snatching commanders seems solid in Marrow-Gnawer lists.

Spread: 3 Power: 3

If you’re running a combo deck, the drawback is basically negligible, since your deck can probably kill your opponent before they can use it.

Thanks to @ceta-maelstrom for pointing out that this works pretty well in Aminatou, since she can blink it back under your control.

Spread: 3 Power: 2

Probably the best in the cycle. It’s useful in the many, many red token decks and the rate on the activation is not bad.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

There aren’t a whole lot of Red decks capable of going wide that are interested in double strike for their commanders; most decks don’t go both wide and tall. Maybe Wasitora or Gishath can use this effectively?

Spread: 1 Power: 2

The Crush effect will never be irrelevant in Commander, so this is a solid card for Syr Gwyn decks that lean into Knight tribal. I probably wouldn’t run it in other decks, however, as Red has better artifact destruction than this.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

This guy is too inefficient for me to be excited to run him in most go-wide decks, but tribal lists always have a lower barrier to entry because their creature type is so valuable. In Syr Gwyn tribal Knights, I’d give this anthem effect a shot.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

This effect just seems too hard to break to be worth running. Let me know if you figure out a deck in which it’ll be good.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

This is a generally useful reward for something few decks can pull off. It’s tricky to find commanders that can reliably trigger this a bunch without straight winning the game in the process (i.e., Jhoira Weatherlight Captain, Anje Falkenrath). I think Arjun, Jori En, and Korvold could be good fits for this card.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

In order for this to be good, your commander has to be able to trigger this and make use of the reward. Lyzolda can do this by sacrificing the Rats to draw cards, potentially triggering Mad Ratter again if you activate her on your opponents’ turns.

Korvold behaves similarly, as you can feed him two Rats to draw two cards and trigger the Ratter again.

Finally, the Scorpion God can eat the Rats for cards, thereby creating more Rats.

Spread: 4 Power: 3

Sure, it’s got a drawback, but it offers a relatively unconditional instant-speed kill spell in a color that has far from a critical mass of them. This is one of the best Red spot removal spells, beaten out only by Chaos Warp, Lightning Bolt, and Abrade. This kills 14/21 of the most popular commanders on EDHREC and the vast majority of the most popular creatures.

Spread: 2 Power: 1

Casting exiled cards on later turns is a big benefit, but Robin Hood still has a ton of drawbacks relative to Grenzo, Havoc Raiser.

Spread: 3 Power: 2

I run Tormenting Voice in a LOT of monored decks, and this is strictly better. Excited to see Red getting more and better variants of this effect.

Spread: 3 Power: 2

Heavy Green decks tend to be creature-focused, so the restriction isn’t that significant. It feels a lot better if you think of this card as a Temple of the False God that can still tap for mana when you have fewer than five lands.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

I can’t see where this fits into the format; even Derevi birds would want this to have at least one power. Let me know if you think of a deck that can use this card!

Spread: 3 Power: 3

This is pretty comparable to Guardian Project or Beast Whisperer if you can reliably get a 3+ power creature on the field (perhaps from your command zone?), as the ability to tap for two means this effectively costs 2 less than whatever the reduced price ends up being.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

It took me a minute to notice the “one or more” clause, after which my interest in this card plummeted. However, it is a Cat that draws you a card every turn, so Arahbo with gladly welcome him into the pride.

Spread: 4 Power: 3

It doesn’t hose commanders as hard as Darksteel Mutation, Song of the Dryads, or Imprisoned in the Moon, but the cantrip more than makes up for it.

Spread: 3 Power: 3

Big fan of these effects, and I don’t think the non-Human restriction is very relevant.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

The existence of Bane of Progress (and the dozen tutors to find it) in Green makes this card a lot less appealing. However, the Hydra type makes it a great utility creature for Gargos decks.

Spread: 3 Power: 3

Anyone who’s played Gruul Ragebeast can tell you that this is pretty powerful creature control; if this goes unanswered, you’re going to eat all of your opponents’ threats. I would happily run this in monogreen decks looking for ways to remove multiple creatures, especially if my meta was light on spot removal.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

Never before have I seen an Impulse that was this hard to cast. Bird decks don’t run enough artifacts/enchantments to make this reliably hit, but if there was ever a commander in these colors that rewarded you for playing artifact creatures, I’d consider running this guy.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

This looks like a one-sided Open the Vaults to me, and there are lots of commanders that will be happy to run this, including Hanna, Breya, Tuvasa, and Kestia. I think this card was intentionally designed so that you can easily avoid animating your stuff if you don’t want to, as making your hard-to-remove artifacts and enchantments vulnerable to creature removal is not ideal (as anyone who’s played with Opalescence or Starfield of Nyx can attest).

Spread: 2 Power: 3

This is pretty close to drawing five cards for five mana, provided your curve isn’t too high. I think I’d run this in Gruul or Naya decks with a low curve.

Spread: 3 Power: 2

Fyndhorn Elder and Greenweaver Druid are not good cards, but Llanowar Tribe and Somberwald Sage are. If you’re running 3+ colors, I would happily run this card, as 7 mana on turn 4 is no joke and can really launch you past your opponents.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Its color identity precludes it from being used in Aryel, so Syr Gwyn is the only home for this card.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

I like this effect way more than a typical anthem, since it scales to multiple opponents. I’d run this in tribal Knights, but don’t get your hopes up about firing off that activated ability when none of the Knight decks are in ramp colors.

Spread: 3 Power: 2

This is one of the best 2-drop mana rocks, but not every deck needs those. Best when used with non-Green 4-CMC commanders.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

This is quite good in Arcades, the Strategist. The rate isn’t terrible and granting all of your creatures haste is very powerful in a deck that can vomit out five 4-toughness defenders in a turn.

Spread: 2 Power: 1

There are a couple lists that are very excited for new Eggs (cheap artifacts that draw cards and sacrifice themselves), such as Gerrard 2.0, Teshar, and some Breya builds.

Spread: 3 Power: 3

I generally do not like anthem effects that only buff for a single point of power, especially when they cost three mana. I also generally do not like mana rocks that cost three and only produce a single mana. However, the combination of these two effects is kind of attractive. Tapping for mana means your anthem essentially only costs two mana, and producing a mana every turn thereafter is a significant bonus. I really like this in Alela since it also triggers her token production ability, but I’d consider testing it in other go-wide token decks as well.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

It’s a 2 CMC scarecrow, which means Reaper King is interested.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

This seems like a solid draw engine for monowhite decks, and maybe monored and red/white decks. As long as you have a commander that doesn’t mind attacking, this’ll probably act as an Underworld Connections.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

Even monocolor decks now have a ton of options for fetches; we’re at the threshold of a critical mass of fetches so you can more consistently assemble an engine with Crucible of Worlds. I’d run this in 3-color decks, 2-color decks, and monocolor decks with Crucible and Scroll Rack. 

Wrapping Up

The easiest build of this deck treats Atla as a Jalira, Master Polymorphist and just runs a single copy of Blightsteel or some other heinous beater.

But there’s a more interesting angle of attack if you try to build it a little more like Egg tribal. You can run a bunch of changelings (they’re all eggs) and once you have two eggs on the board, you can sacrifice them until you’ve cycled through all the Eggs in your deck and hit Ulamog 1.0. Then you can sacrifice Ulamog to recycle all your used up changelings. Normally, this process would operate at a net loss of one egg per cycle, but Irregular Cohort (and potentially Summoner’s Egg) up your egg count and make it so you can go through the loop as often as you like, netting whatever your sac outlet generates. You’ll also generate infinite Dragons and Birds.

Sample decklist

This might be the commander to use if you actually want to cast your madness cards. An activation that has discarding as a cost will make you want to minimize the downside--which is exactly what madness cards will do. The haste will work if you cast a critter from exile (which is where madness creatures are cast from), and you can discard a card on an opponent’s turn to get the madness cost reduction/timing cheat EVEN IF you don’t intend or are unable to cast a creature from your graveyard. Nice that you don’t have to commit to casting any particular creature when you discard, too. The floor on this is to pitch a creature, then cast it from the graveyard to give it haste; that’s definitely not nothing.

Sample decklist

This just seems like Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain but with White added. This deck runs as many 0-mana artifacts as possible to decrease your effective deck size and draw into one of your combo pieces.

This has a cute (and powerful) interaction with Sensei’s Divining Top; with a 1-mana cost reduction to the Top (Cloud Key, Etherium Sculptor, Foundry Inspector, Helm of Awakening, Jhoira’s Familiar) you can have as many cards drawn (and that many prowess triggers) as you want.

Also, Thought Lash is essentially a one-card combo.

Sample decklist

Gerrard can be used defensively to protect your stuff from your opponents’ board wipes or offensively to break the symmetry on your own. He can also be used with artifacts and creatures that sacrifice themselves for value (or that can be fed into sac outlets) to get a bunch of free stuff.

Some key categories of cards in this deck:

cards to help return Gerrard to your hand or the battlefield when he dies so you can get his trigger without having to send him back to the command zone (e.g., Gift of Immortality, Loyal Retainers, Nim Deathmantle)

a bunch of mass destruction effects that Gerrard can break the symmetry for (of which Nevinyrral’s Disk and Oblivion Stone have the most synergy with Gerrard)

a bunch of sacrifice outlets so can trade your creatures or value and then use Gerrard to buy them back (Ashnod’s Altar, Phyrexian Altar, Goblin Bombardment), and

a bunch of artifacts and creatures that either generate value when they ETB or when you sacrifice them.

The list could use some polish but it’s got a lot of potential; spinning Nev’s Disk every turn is not difficult to pull off.

Sample decklist

Ghired has similar problems to Anje in that the fun thing is not the most effective thing. While the addition of red to a populate deck means that you can make temporary copies of things with Kiki-Jiki or Flameshadow Conjuring, duplicate those copies with Ghired, then keep the duplicates!

Unfortunately, that’s usually slower and less effective than just copying the enormous Rhino he enters the battlefield with. It’s hard to make the case for durdling with copy effects when the alternative is accelerating him out on turn three (thanks to Sol Ring, Joraga Treespeaker, Generator Servant, Mana Crypt, etc etc) and then attacking for 10, 14, and 18 on the three subsequent turns. It’s not even that great to make 5/5 and 6/6 Wurms, as the spells that make them for 4+ mana and you can easily run Cloudshift effects to recharge Ghired’s Rhino for a single mana (often while dodging removal).

It does, however, work very well with other populate effects, since the Rhino is a good enough target most of the time.

Sample decklist

The deck feels like a pretty typical black/red control list with Greven as your finisher (and he’s quite a good one; it’s not hard to build your mana base and suite of control cards so that he reliably attacks for 10 or more without ever having to sacrifice anything). There are a couple of weird cards like Lupine Prototype, Rotting Regisaur, Cosmic Larva, Phyrexian Soulgorger and the Ball Lightnings that are worth running because they’re just such a good ratio of cards to mana.

Sample decklist

I don’t think this adds much to the format. If you want a beatstick commander in Green/Black, Hogaak is much larger and is virtually immune to the command tax. Tech for this guy includes Illness in the Ranks, Plague Engineer, Night of Soul’s Betrayal, and Engineered Plague.

This seems very good with flash granters like Leyline of Anticipation (newly encheapened by its M20 printing), Vedalken Orrery, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, and Vivien, Champion of the Wilds, as you can cast four free morphs per round of turns and draw four cards. 

In addition to flash granters, cost reduction effects are pretty good here, especially ones that reduce the cost of your morphs by two or more. Heartless Summoning and Semblance Anvil are big games, but I would also try to make room for Dream Chisel, Obscuring Aether, and Earthcraft.

You don’t need me to tell you that Aphetto Runecaster and Secret Plans are good here.

When choosing which morphs to fit in the deck (and to really get the engine running, you’ll need at least 40), I first prioritized morphs that flip for 1 or 0 mana, to make it easier to combo off with Runecaster and Secret Plans. Then I prioritized Morphs with useful effects and cheap morph costs, like Nantuko Vigilante, Den Protector, etc.

It’s notable that Kadena’s triggered ability works with manifest, so you can hit with a Jeskai Infiltrator and draw multiple cards.

I also like Beast Whisperer as another card draw engine. Unfortunately, draw engines that care about creature type, color, or power aren’t very effective here. Interestingly, morphs have no name, so Guardian Project will always trigger off of new morphs entering the battlefield, even if you already have other face-down creatures.

Win conditions: Triumph of the Hordes and Beastmaster Ascension.

Sample decklist

He’s harder to break than he looks because he can’t cover colorless costs. As long as you build your deck in a specific direction, he effectively generates mana at the cost of life. The life payments can be subsidized with an Aetherflux Reservoir but in order to really go off, you’ll need a way to draw cards (there aren’t that many black card draw spells without generic mana in their costs, other than greed). 

The best ways to do this are Null Profusion, Vilis, and Bolas’s Citadel. Let’s ignore the Citadel since it makes our commander unnecessary. Null Profusion can probably get there if you supplement it with lots of card draw spells to make it so you can still combo after hitting a land or two. Vilis works well, but like the Citadel, is so powerful on its own that K’rrik is barely necessary.

Worth noting: there are a couple cards (Shade’s Form, Shade’s Breath) that turn K’rrik into a shade. If you then slap on a Fireshrieker or Inquisitor’s Flail, you can pay a bunch of life to pump him up, then gain it all back with his lifelink.

Anyone remember Basandra, Battle Seraph? She’s one of the least popular commanders in one of the worst color identities, but apparently someone at Wizards thought they could redeem her by shaving off a mana, adding Green to her color identity, swapping flying for an extra point of power, breaking the symmetry on the casting restriction, and changing up how the forced attack ability works. Is this card different enough to succeed where the previous version failed? I don’t think so, but I’m prepared to be wrong.

This could be a pretty solid superfriends commander, as it’s really good at protecting your planeswalkers and the colors offer important effects like extra turn effects, proliferate, Jokulhaups effects, efficient board wipes, etc etc.

Sample decklist

This is an enormous amount of work for what amounts to a voltron commander. I am willing to bet cold hard cash that this will be the second-least popular Sultai commander of all time, if not the least popular.

First off, I love that he breaks symmetry on Earthquake effects.

Second, it’s worth noting that although this is a flashback deck, the ability works pretty well with Aftermath and Retrace cards, as well.

Unfortunately, there just aren’t that many Commander-playable cards with flashback, retrace, and aftermath in this color identity. 

Cards that do work: Secrets of the Dead, Finale of Promise, Goblin Dark Dwellers, Mission Briefing, Snapcaster, Torrential Gearhulk, Chandra, Acolyte of Flame) These all point to generic value though, and don’t offer a cool “build” other than Pariah and Pariah’s Shield. The first spell clause means that if you run flash granters, you can get the spell copy effect multiple times per round of turns. 

Adding menace makes him unblockable and if you can give him an extra 2 power, 3 players can gang up to ice the 4th. There’s not a whole lot of tech to this guy; just run standard Voltron enablers and you’ll do fine.

Infect creatures and Cold-Eye Selkie, Cephalid Constable, Dreamstealer, and Needle Specter are all pretty good when they have 7 power. The tricky part is, many of those creatures have 1 toughness, which means Volrath’s built-in counter generation isn’t going to cut it.

Unspeakable Symbol, Tetzimoc, Llanowar Reborn, and both Oran-Riefs are decent ways to counter up your dudes, but even a simple Gaea’s Anthem will also do the trick.

The Maindeck Cards of Commander 2019

In this set review, I’ll be using two five-point rating scales to evaluate the nonlegendary cards, one that measures how many decks a card is playable in (we’ll call that “spread”), and one that measures how powerful it is in those decks (”power”). Here’s a brief rundown of what each rank on the two scales means:

Spread

1: This card is effective in one or two decks, but no more (ex: The Gitrog Monster).

2: This card is effective in one deck archetype (ex: self-mill decks).

3: A lot of decks will be able to use this card effectively (ex: decks with graveyard interactions).

4: This card is effective in most decks in this color.

5: Every deck in this color is able to use this card effectively.

Power

1: This card is always going to be on the chopping block.

2: This card is unlikely to consistently perform well.

3: This card provides good utility but is not a powerhouse.

4: This card is good enough to push you ahead of your opponents.

5: This card has a huge impact on the game.

Spread: 3 Power: 1

That this needs to both tap and sac makes it seem too clunky to be a stand-out; it compares unfavorably to Selfless Spirit and Mother of Runes.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

The juice isn’t worth the squeeze until you’ve cast your commander at least twice. I would for sure run this card in a go-wide aggro deck running partner commanders, but this doesn’t seem great in other builds because it’s so bad in the early game, when aggro decks should be capitalizing on their advantages.

Spread: 2 Power: 1

This is slow and weak, even in white decks that want sac fodder. The most interesting thing about this card is the fact that it introduces the Sculpture creature type.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

Despite the timing restriction making it more narrow than Time Stop (and nearly useless against Storm-esque combo decks), it could serve as a pretty effective means to tilt a player off an important turn. At worst, it’ll play as a Fog, and given that it falls short of the “truly excellent” mark, it will likely catch people by surprise when used effectively. In a pinch, you can keep your opponents from casting spells in your second main, too.

Generally, however, I don’t think this effect will be worth a card in most games of Commander.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

This doesn’t have the long-term potential of Sun Titan but it has a couple things going for it. The initial reanimation comes at a much cheaper cost than the Titan’s and flashback reanimation is extremely powerful in self-mill decks. Teshar, for example, runs Mesmeric Orb and the possibility of milling Sevinne’s Reclamation and some key combo pieces that aren’t easily recurred (i.e., noncreature artifacts, like sac outlets) seems pretty good.

Unfortunately, Teshar is the only white deck that’s particularly interested in self-mill. This card would have been a very powerful tool in blue or black decks but it has less to do in this color identity. 

This card is best thought of as a narrower Nature’s Spiral that will likely offer a discount on the card you recur.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

It’s expensive and does nothing without (a) a spell to cast, and (b) a powerful token to copy. There aren’t that many cards that produce tokens so strong they can justify this 6-mana enchantment; certainly, there’s not a critical mass of them.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

I am very wary of cards with multiple hoops. This card not only requires you to be casting a ton of spells from you graveyard (which is rare for most decks) but it needs some token support and/or spirit tribal. I don’t believe there are currently any commanders that fit the bill, although Kykar might be a possibility.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

I wouldn’t run this outside of Kadena or an Animorphs deck, as morph/megamorph are still generally bad in Commander and this effect is not worth the five mana you’re forced to pump into it.

Spread: 5 Power: 2

Worst-case scenario, it cycles, but even with a relatively high floor I’m not very excited about this card. Blue has more efficient spot removal (Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, Reality Shift) and in tuned lists, the mana saved is worth more than the card. That being said, this is a pretty solid answer for commanders with shroud/hexproof/indestructible/protection/etc.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

Polymorphist’s Jest sees play in Silumgar 1.0 and Tibor and Lumia decks, and this should also slot into those decks.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

While playing precon Magic at Vegas, I used this to trade a vanilla creature for an In Garruk’s Wake, so I’ve already seen the absolute best-case scenario for this card. Even after having experienced the apex of its power, I think it’s going to be worse than a Negate most of the time. Holding up 4 mana is pretty onerous, and there are plenty of spells for which changing control won’t prevent a negative outcome for you (i.e., mass creature destruction, mass land destruction, etc.). 

I will do some more testing with it and see if screwing two opponents at once may be worth the price of entry, but that still seems pretty narrow.

Spread: 3 Power: 1

This is not good. If an opponent drew enough cards to make this vanilla beater a “great savings” you better have a sac outlet otherwise you’re still gonna lose. It doesn’t have evasion of any kind either and is still a dies trigger. Plagiarize is just SO MUCH BETTER. 

Spread: 2 Power: 3

A great answer to commanders with shroud/hexproof or good tap abilities, clone redundancy for the decks that need it, and a useful defender for Arcades decks. It doesn’t go in every deck but it’s a solid role player in the right playgroup or build.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

It has madness, keep it in your Anje precon.

Spread: 1 Power: 4

This could be really good in Varina, Lich Queen, since it has a relevant creature type, the tokens are also of the relevant type, and you can use the free mana to activate Varina. I don’t think any other decks are able to discard as many cards as consistently as her, though.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

It’s an autoinclude in Anje because it has madness and it goes infinite with Vilis. Other than those two decks, I don’t think anyone else can use this card.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

A cool take on morph, a weird sac outlet. Will probably only see play in Kadena and black voltron lists, as you often have some floaters to get a bit of gotcha cost reduction and instant speed safety.

Alex: The pseudo-Split Second that the “As you unmorph…” ability gives this card the ability to sneak protection onto your commander without your opponents having a chance to respond. Most opponents will not necessarily think they need to remove your high-priority target in response to you casting a morph.

This could be good in Olivia Voldaren and Judith decks as a way to enhance your pinging and protect your commander. Neither deck should care about the unmorph cost much; as they’ll both have plenty of sac fodder.

And yeah, you’ll run it in Kadena.

Spread: 2 Power: 1

This card does not get there as Black enchantment removal. It’s too easy to keep a creature on the field in Commander and I doubt this is going to be able to come through for you when you really need to remove a Humility or an Omniscience.

Spread: 4 Power: 3

A little strange that it can’t kill creatures with power equal to the number of cards in your hand. Black decks are good enough at filling their hands that I think this could easily be a viable wrath; Black does not currently have a critical mass of board wipes that cost 5 or less so I think it could definitely make the cut in Commander.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

This card looks a lot like Verdant Force, but don’t stop thinking there. According to EDHREC, Verdant Force is mostly played in Slimefoot (played in 600+ decks), Ghave (played in 300+ decks), and Thelon decks (played in 100+ decks), so a lot of its power appears to come from Saproling synergies. This may be similarly limited to decks that have synergies with what it’s doing (Kadena, mostly).

Spread: 3 Power: 2

I talk a lot about how much I love cheap rummaging effects, so you might be surprised to hear that I’m down on this card. To cast it for its madness cost, you need to jump through the hoop of finding a discard outlet, and your reward for doing so is… another discard outlet. 

There are diminishing returns to these types of effects, as a hand can only get so sculpted, and losing your entire hand, as opposed to one or two bad cards, is a steeper cost than it looks. It’s also unfortunate that you don’t have control over when it attacks and therefore you have no control over whether you’re discarding your hand each turn.

Spread: 3 Power: 2

If you have anything in your graveyard that’s good this becomes a must-kill target. That said, it’s got to stay alive to attack, and you have to have good stuff in the yard to cast. As just a value engine this seems clunky, but there are very few ways to actually cast cards from graveyards, so I welcome this slow dragon value machine.

Spread: 3 Power: 3

It’s a ritual, it’s ramp, it’s a Goblin, it’s a Pirate. It’s very good in combo decks for which mana is often the limiting factor (e.g., Zada), it’s good in Brudiclad as a cheap source of tokens, it goes infinite with Deadeye Navigator, it just does a ton of stuff for a bunch of different decks. Great card.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I wouldn’t run this if you’re making a random 3/3 (or smaller) token. But if your metagame has lots of small utility creatures and you’re populating huge monsters like Ghired’s Rhino or Omnath 2.0’s Elemental, I’d be into it. I also like this for the commanders that can make weird tokens, like Gyrus, Inalla, Kiki-Jiki, Feldon, Brudiclad, or Riku.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Pretty good in Ghired and Brudiclad, pretty mediocre everywhere else.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

The Red Harmonize. This seems great in any Red deck that doesn’t have access to Blue/Black/Green card draw, especially those that can realistically generate enough mana to flash it back (e.g., Neheb, the Eternal).

Spread: 1 Power: 1

This doesn’t happen that many times in a game, so if I’m looking for self-recurring sac fodder I’d rather run something like Flamewake Phoenix. Also, if I care about sac fodder, I’m probably also in Black, in which case I get a million better options.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

I can’t think of a deck that would want this card. Please let me know if you’ve got an idea of where this could fit into the format.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Well, it’s free value and there probably aren’t that many bad spells being thrown around (although hitting counterspells is pretty painful). I would try running this in a slower red deck with lots of spells looking to grind out long-game card advantage.

Spread: 4 Power: 3

This card is notable because it gives Green a critical mass of mass creature removal. Prior to the Altisaur, Green had Ezuri’s Predation, but it didn’t have any ways to tutor it out, so it was unlikely that you would be able to find it when you needed it. However, because Altisaur is a creature, it can be tutored out by Green’s many, many tutor effects, so whenever you need an answer to multiple creatures, you’ll be able to find it. The fact that you can choose to end the fight-chain, allowing this to survive, and then restart it any time this blocks or becomes blocked definitely adds to its effectiveness. But for nine mana, I suppose it had better be effective!

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I’m going to evaluate these new populate cards as if I’m making Rhinos. 3 for a Rhino seems weak, 5 for 2 ain’t great, 7 for 3 compares unfavorably with lots of other green cards at a similar price point.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

I would happily run this in any green token deck, since your attacking 1/1 is going to pick up a card no matter what. I’d probably also run in green decks that are good at vomiting lots of (nontoken) creatures onto the battlefield, like Sachi, Seton, Reki, both Ezuris, and less competitive Edric lists.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

Nature’s Spiral doesn’t see a ton of play, but putting a commander from your command zone into your hand is a rare enough ability that this might see play for that half of the entwine alone.

It is worth noting that, per the rulings on Command Beacon: “If you cast a commander from your hand, the additional cost based on the number of times you’ve cast it from your command zone (sometimes referred to as the ‘commander tax’) doesn’t apply. Additionally, that casting won’t add to the tax if you later cast the commander from the command zone.”

So not only will this let you cheat the command tax if you’ve been heavily taxed already that game, but if you have a spare slot in your seven-card hand earlier on in the game, you can cast this preemptively to dodge the first round of command taxation.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I don’t love this card. It does nothing in the early game and it’s still pretty situational in the late game, as you have to have a token worth copying and graveyards have to be stacked.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I wouldn’t jam this in every Green deck, but in decks like Ezuri or Seton that care about its creature types, I would happily run it as “+1 relevant creature, draw 1 or more cards”.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

With Prototype Portal/Mechanized Production, you can swap between an opponent’s turn and your own and lock everyone else out of the game.

However, I don’t think there are many decks that can assemble that combo easily, and most of the time this will be a slower, bad Time Warp.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

This effect is just not worth a card.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Prismatic Geoscope is fairly analogous, and sees play in over ten percent of certain 4- and 5-color decks (the decks in which it shines the most). In decks that can manipulate the number of counters or are interested in untapping artifacts often (Atraxa, Vorel, lists running both Voltaic and Manifold Key) this is worth taking a second look at. An easy heuristic might be: most lists wanting Astral Cornucopia will probably also want this.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

This seems like a great rate in any deck where your commander talks about tokens. Once you have drawn three times, this card is really overperforming. Around 20 commanders that are dragons have a >10% play rate for Dragon’s Hoard, and this is offering a comparable incentive. The Eldrazi token is probably flavor text, but it is a nice populate target if you get to it.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

This might be the worst Tempting Offer card ever printed. Most tempting offers give you something even if nobody takes the offer. This gives you nothing unless your chosen opponent decides to spend two mana activating this. Why would they ever do that? Probably only good in Zedruu, and only because it saves you the trouble of donating it.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

If it cost three I would seriously consider running this in some colorless, monowhite, and monored decks as a value engine, but casting it on T4 and not getting your first trigger until T5 is painfully slow.

There are enough scarecrows and changelings with CMC 3 or less that I don’t see this making the cut for Reaper King, but both King Macar and Emmara, Soul of the Accord have a bunch of ways to tap this guy so you can put the Tiller to work every turn without risking him in combat. I’ve also heard people talking about putting this in Derevi for repeated tapping and untapping, but I feel like Derevi has better things to do.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Helps you get an extra Kadena trigger each turn, great with blink commanders as it can help you cheat big mana costs. and it’s essentially a flash granter for decks that don’t care about ETB triggers.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

It’s a solid bounce engine for ETB commanders. Note that it goes infinite with Zacama.

Wrapping Up