Magic’s newest expansion takes us to the newly introduced plane of Thunder Junction for a rootin’ tootin’ treasure huntin’ time. A new set means new cards, and we’re kicking off our review with the multicolor cards that serve as signposts to let you know what direction each color pair is trying to build in.
Last time we covered the mechanics, and this time as usual we won’t be looking at everything, and we’ll be doing this primarily but not exclusively with an eye for Commander play.
Multicolor Cards
Assimilation Aegis
Marcy: Although there are a lot of exile effects in White for 3 CMV at the moment in Standard, there’s certainly some arguments to be made that this could be useful in U/W control shells in match ups that play difficult to deal with or valuable creatures. Many U/W shells run basically no creatures at all, though, but I suppose there’s something funny about turning your Mirrex tokens into a Sheoldred.
Loxi: This is pretty neat actually; I’m sure you can do some junk to combo with this as well. Face value though, it’s a good way to redirect a threat on the board. I think the decks that want it are a bit niche, but if you’re a Jeskai Artifact deck or something like Shorikai, Genesis Engine, this might be a solid tech piece.
BPhillipYork: Neat and complicated but I’m trying to think what the real use is other than simply being a temporary exile spell. If the creature is useful enough you want a copy of it, then it’s a pretty bonus. The real question is if would you pay 1WU to exile something; though the upside of basically stealing a commander is pretty nice, you’re liable to see this get blown up so they can get their commander back.
Jem Lightfoote, Sky Explorer
Marcy: I think this is probably only useful in EDH formats that want to run tempo control and focus on casting on the opponent’s turn; in Standard, I think it is a little too expensive and a little too low impact for 4 mana, a spot that is currently being fought over by one of your many board wipes, Wandering Emperor, Jace, and others. In a Humans deck, I think it is too costly and slow for the type of aggro the want to go for right now.
Loxi: I get the use case here for draw-go control decks, but even those still use some things on their turn, especially in EDH. Unless you’re playing “Oops, all Instants!” or naturally have flash on your commander, I’d probably pass on this. If it was a slightly cheaper card I might suggest jamming it in more decks, but 4 mana can draw you 3ish cards instantly on a lot of spells.
BPhillipYork: Neat; definitely incentivizes holding up for interaction, and since there are so many ways to cheat things out now or else plot or foretell or exile and cast this seems like something you could really reliably trigger. That being said, it’s basically +1 draw when you meet conditions for 4 mana on a 3/3 body which is kind of meh for a commander to be honest.
Intimidation Campaign
Marcy: With the amount of low-cost Dimir removal and counters in Standard, I think there’s a good argument that you could likely get this card back in your hand and use it for multiple purposes; I don’t know if it would be setting up a drain loop, but returning it to your hand at the end of their turn to use for discarding for advantage or drawing a card might have some merit.
Loxi: It’s worth noting early how easy it is to commit a crime; you can have this card in hand quite a bit. I think it’s absolutely juicy for limited play, though in Commander maybe a bit less so. In a U/B enchantment deck, it’s a really good way to get a hell of a lot of enchantment casts though.
BPhillipYork: This seems decent; to really pop it off you’d want cost reduction and some way to benefit from casting enchantments, which definitely exists, and then you could reliably be committing crimes and benefiting from it. So, nice to see WotC coming up with ways to make crime pay.
Ryan: This is the long con in Magic. You have to have a dedicated way to continue committing crimes turn after turn, plus the spare mana to have to consistently keep casting it over and over again. Intimidation Campaign will probably be brutal in Limited formats though.
Lazav, Familiar Stranger
Marcy: The basic thing here is that you have a thick creature that grows every time you target something, which in these colors is very simple. Unfortunately he can only grow slowly, so the second ability becomes important in the sense of wanting/needing Graveyard hate, and the third benefit is that maybe he becomes something valuable. That’s not entirely without use; there are many re-animator decks and graveyard centered decks right now, but only getting one activation a turn is not really enough to counter an entire deck.
Loxi: This art whips. It’s a pretty solid Lazav, sticking with his creature copying ways. Personally, I don’t find it too groundbreaking compared to the other iterations of this character, but he’s still a solid tool for mill or self mill decks. Sadly, he only stays as that creature until the end of the turn, so his usefulness is somewhat restricted, but at the bare minimum his activation cost is pretty low.
BPhillipYork: This is fine, I just really don’t… like this guy. What he does is always so complicated and it’s just becoming copies of things and, you know, who cares really? But he shows up in set after set. Graveyard hate is generally kind of a nice little bonus, but the crime payoff isn’t sufficient on this one.
Satoru, the Infiltrator
Marcy: This might actually see some play in reviving Ninjutsu decks for a bit; he’s very cheap to get on the field early, and because Kamigawa is still legal, there are a LOT of ninjas still you can use. Outside of Standard, I bet you could find good uses for him in EDH Ninja decks for sure, and possibly even in ‘cheat into play’ decks.
Loxi: If you cheat creatures into play often, go crazy with this. It’s fun that it synergizes well with Ninjutsu, clearly an intentional design choice. Even other decks that just try to use similar methods of cheating creatures out of hand can always benefit from more cards, and at 2 mana and a decent body for the price, it’s a low opportunity cost.
BPhillipYork: This is a great thing to throw into a ninja deck since you’ll be ninja’ing them in and out of play for card draw. It’s less thematic but probably more relevant in reanimation decks. Two mana for a 2/3 with menace and card draw is pretty solid.
Akul the Unrepentant
Marcy: Rakdos kind of fell off in Standard after some bans, and I’m not exactly sure this is the card to put it back on top, but this could be an interesting or weird way to cheat out extremely expensive creatures if you have cheap tokens or low-cost creatures like Voldaren Epicure and such on the field.
Loxi: Speaking of cheating out creatures, this is a neat one. It’s functionally quite similar to a more sacrifice-oriented Rakdos, Lord of Riots: generate tokens and use them to gain a value advantage by avoiding mana costs, only instead of Rakdos’ damage triggers Akul just needs more dudes. The once per turn restriction is understandable considering this is only a 4 drop, but that keeps this a viable commander option that won’t be uncastably expensive if he gets countered once or twice. That creature typing is also out of a horror film.
BPhillipYork: Potentially really dangerous if you are cheating out the right things, and sacrificing itself can add value as well as the creatures dying. This is a pretty common Rakdos archetype built around cards like Mayhem Devil and general aristocrats, so this is a new flavor to build around or a sold enabler. Other than that the 5/5 flying trample isn’t really that helpful, its fine and nice to have, but the 4 mana cost is a bit prohibitive, if you can’t cheat out your cheater then the whole shenanigans take too long to get going.
Laughing Jasper Flint
Marcy: An aggro mill deck is certainly an interesting idea; if you have enough rogues to get this going, even if you aren’t looking to win by milling your opponent, you are removing those cards from your opponent’s various zones, and potentially getting them onto your side of the board. I think he’s got some good Limited potential just in terms of shaving down an already small deck, and I’m curious to see if ‘outlaws’ becomes a deck type in Standard; if so, I could certainly see him in it.
Loxi: Ceiling? This guy doesn’t have one, he clearly blew it off with a cannon. Getting to build up a big board and just chew through someone’s’ deck and cast the best spell is a pretty sweet payoff for running…literally just creatures of good Typings anyway. Plus, anything you steal helps you out here, so you can go pretty deep on theft spells if you want to swing that route from the start, but I’d wager this is a really fun start for Rakdos Rogues or Pirates.
Here’s a fun thought too- note that those exiled cards don’t get shuffled back into the deck. Maybe you could do some fun Rakdos Mill with rogues here? Stay tuned to a Goonhammer near you for more cooked takes.
BPhillipYork: Cares about outlaws is pretty unsurprising to see as a set. The first ability that turns creatures you’ve stolen into mercenaries seems kind of meaningless in red and black, especially since it’s stapled onto an outlook triggering ability. Red has plenty of temporary steal spells, but they tend to be sorceries that steal until the end of the turn. Aside from that, just build a deck that cares about casting from exile and runs lots outlaws, and you’ll do pretty well.
Rakdos Joins Up
Marcy: I think there’s something really funny you could attempt here with Akul on turn four and this card on turn five, but you’d need legendaries to sacrifice, which is probably unlikely to have in large number at that turn. But frankly having this in a deck with something like Atraxa, sacrificing her and then just chucking her into your opponent’s face is very funny.
Loxi: If you have enough legendaries to make the second trigger go off even a few times, I’d say this is a decent reanimation spell. Of course, you have to be interested in big enough legendaries to warrant the damage, but it’s not like there aren’t a wealth of big and scary legendary creatures to run in these colors.
BPhillipYork: Expensive but pretty solid, especially if you are doing an aristocrats/sacrifice/reanimation deck. The five mana is really probably too much, but if you’re popping up something like Archon of Cruelty and have some good legendaries you want to cycle through your yard over and over, that’s solid enough.
Rakdos, the Muscle
Marcy: You know, I’m starting to think we might see some return of Rakdos Sacrifice in Standard. There are certainly a lot of cards in this set that want to help you get there, and setting up your early turns with Oni Cult Anvils and such might work, if you can stave off the turn three kills from Boros and RDW, at least.
Loxi: Synergizing well with his namesake card above, we finally have a really solid Rakdos back in rotation. A scary body, protections, a sacrifice outlet, and card advantage (from your opponent’s decks, but still advantage nonetheless) all in one angry, flaming package. I’m a huge fan of this one for a sacrifice deck, although power-level wise I think it probably won’t outclass a commander that naturally has damage like Judith, Scourge Diva, I think he brings enough to the table to make a really powerful deck. Like anything that uses cards from other players, it scales naturally with the table, which can be good or bad depending on who you ask.
BPhillipYork: Really solid enabler for sacrifice decks and also can protect itself, which is pretty useful. Pretty fairly costed but you’d really want to be cheating something like this out, especially in red/black.
Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier
Marcy: If there were some way to generate a lot of token copies of outlaws, this little dude could probably end a game.
Loxi: Neat! I don’t know if this is something I’d bother fully building around, but this is a really cheap way to pump more damage out of an aggressive Rogue or Pirate deck.
BPhillipYork: Neat, there’s probably ways to cycle a lot of creatures though and 2 for a 3/2 is fine. It’s definitely not a patch on the original Vial Smasher, but fine.
Cactusfolk Sureshot
Marcy: While he’d be off tempo by a turn because they’re both 4 mana, this is a really strong and more reliable way to make the Mole God have haste. I don’t know if that will revive that deck, but it could be fun to try. Gruul is really struggling in Standard; stuff like this could help.
Loxi: Cactusfolk. You know that one scene from Avatar: The Last Airbender? With the cactus? Yeah, you remember.
Anywho, this is the greatest creature concept Wizards has ever came up with and this card could be trash and I would adore it. Thankfully, it’s actually pretty solid. This is a really nice way to make some of your bigger threats…well…more threatening. If a lot of your deck doesn’t naturally have these keywords, this is a great card for Gruul stompy, and it has some nice defensive tools to boot. Clearly, these guys are just the quenchiest!
BPhillipYork: Really solid enabler for Gruul stompy.
Jolene, Plundering Pugilist
Marcy: 
Loxi: The activated ability is a nice way to kill off some annoying small creatures hiding on the board, but I don’t expect it to be used for any big damage swings. Generating treasures just for mashing face is a nice bonus though. Nothing crazy to write home about, but if you want big creatures and treasures, she’s your gal.
BPhillipYork: Neato but doesn’t seem worth it. Turning your treasures into pings is nice but this doesn’t really generate enough treasures unless you are stacking up other treasure creators. This is useful if you want to set up repeated combats with various red extra combat spells, since those frequently rely on a lot of mana.
Roxanne, Starfall Savant
Marcy: First, I want to say I love the art on this card. Super cute and colorful and fun. If you have the ability to copy these Meteorites, you really only need one of them to probably become a problem, and her added ability to double mana makes treasure tokens very good.
Loxi: Well, she didn’t have to put on the red light, but she DID have to become a cat druid with a weird obsession for meteroite. Me too, girl.
Roxanne is a neat tool that amps up your treasures and other artifact tokens as well as making little super treasures a bunch. If you want to play a big mana or Gruul Artifacts deck, she might be a good direction to push for if you don’t want to go the classic dork-and-land-ramp route. Special callout to Replicating Ring, which could potentially just do unethical things if you can have it go off.
BPhillipYork: Wow, that is a nasty token. This will frequently get out of control; if you get a few of these meteorites and have Roxanne out, you’ll ramp a lot. Also doubles treasures which is pretty nice.
Congregation Gryff
Marcy: Cares about Mounts is kind of weird for a card that isn’t that strong; it feels like you’d just be Saddling it with other Mounts. That said it is flying with lifelink and a big butt for 3 mana, which at least makes it a decent blocker.
Loxi: What the actual hell is this art, and I mean that as a term of endearment. Saddle is like Vehicle crewing…but for creatures that are already creatures. Alright, fit three dudes on that thing and try to ride it, I dare you. Technically, you could use Kher Keep to make an absurd number of 0/1 creatures and crew all of them in addition to three dudes and just have the goofiest mental image ever. Where is the person on X-formerly-known-as-twitter who draws the goofy magic rules as art when I need them.
This card is fine, but I think running a lot of Mounts currently seems like a weird go-tall deck with extra steps where you’re probably best just trying to run Auras or better creatures.
BPhillipYork: Okay, but there don’t seem to be enough Mounts for this to really be good in commander. Funny in a 4-of deck.
Miriam, Herd Whisperer
Marcy: The fact that they gave it to Vehicles also makes this card quite scary. I can’t say that there are many terrifying Mounts but there are a LOT of scary Vehicles.
Loxi: Hexproof is a nice layer of protection, but that still leaves (likely) three other player turns in which someone can blast your board. I think this helps Mounts pull their weight a little more, but I’m not 100% sold if they’ll be worth fully building around. If your commander is a Mount, I think this has a really good use case there.
BPhillipYork: If you really want a Mount/Vehicle deck, that’s great, but limiting it to Green/White there just won’t be enough cards to really make it pop off. If this was three colors I think you could probably build a fun deck around it, but instead it’ll just have to be a piece in your 3-4 color Vehicle deck which seems kind of meh.
Selvala, Eager Trailblazer
Marcy: I feel like her tap ability has the potential to be scary and even broken but I’m not entirely sure she’s that impressive. Token generators like Jinny Fay can’t survive in the current Standard meta, so I don’t know if Selvala can. I did always like playing around with Jinny Fay and Jetmir, though, so who knows, maybe Selvala adds an extra layer of potential to that combo.
Loxi: They played around with this sort of mechanic in the last return to Innistrad, and I think this is a lot of work to generate mana when there are equally as powerful ways to do it that don’t require you to play Sudoku with your board state. I think a lot of the payoff here is making a whole bunch of dorks who can buff up one creature, which could make for some pretty neat Exalted or Aura/Equipment shenanigans.
BPhillipYork: Neat. Kind of a strange ability but making a bunch of 1/1 mercenaries could be quite useful, and typically you’d want mana dorks and such in a deck around this, so you could pretty easily get some big mana to hopefully pump out some big fatties or do something decisive.
Seraphic Steed
Marcy: Limited star, but there’s potential here for Standard against the waves of Boros and RDW aggro; the first strike and lifelink really matters in both cases.
Loxi: This card has an absolutely juiced up rate for limited, and I expect this to be a house there. I probably wouldn’t run this in commander, Saddle 4 seems like a bit much.
BPhillipYork: Pretty good for a 2 mana creature, not gonna lie, but what use is making 3/3 angels while attacking with a 2/2? For constructed it’s probably something, maybe but you need saddle 4 to make it go. Maybe for tempo?
Wylie Duke, Atiin Hero
Marcy: I was like yeah this is a cool card, people want to block but you get advantages, and then I saw it has vigilance, and I became really confused.
Loxi: This is a good Human Ranger. If you like Humans and/or Rangers, this is pretty solid.
If you’re playing a deck that has a way to naturally tap your creatures, this is pretty sweet as well. I’m sure with Umbral Mantle and Cryptolith Rite plus Nyxbloom Ancient or something similar you can draw your whole deck as well, if you’re into that. Oh no, we broke Nyxbloom Ancient!
BPhillipYork: Well, this is the blatantly obvious thing you mount creatures with: High power low toughness, benefits when it taps. Vigilance is interesting but doesn’t let you double dip so I guess it’s just there to make it so you can’t just get your draw.
Kambal, Profiteering Mayor
Marcy: Wow, this is a brutal card, especially for the current lifegain/drain decks that are running around in W/B. I could certainly see him getting some play, at least experimentally; the fact that you get tokens when your opponent does is a big boon for you because aggro decks relying on tokens are not going to be happy about you gaining life off the the transaction, such as from spells like Gleeful Demolition.
Loxi: Aside from an absolute drip upgrade, this is an absolutely bonkers card. More decks than not can make at least some kind of token, and having the chance to steal at least one of them a turn can be a scary proposition that requires a bit of finesse from opponents to play around – which is wiggle room not every player might have in some games. Draining the board when you make tokens is also a solid grindy win condition as well. I expect to see this one both in the command zone and as a tech piece in decks that like Hatebears.
BPhillipYork: This is about as dangerous as the original Kambal; doubling tokens is nice but the life loss is pretty brutal, and there’s plenty of ways to create loops there. Or this can just be a grindy deck around token creatures and treasures and that is constantly pinging everyone. The nice thing about this kind of deck is it makes you super popular and your creatures are very much the benefit of crimes from your opponents.
Breeches, the Blastmaker
Marcy: Coin flips are a thing. I don’t know if Breeches is strong or not, but at the very least maybe he can give Izzet some life in Standard? Probably not. I think he’d be more fun in EDH for sure.
Loxi: This is a really fun take on the coin flip style commanders, since there is an element of randomness that doesn’t really feel bad either way. It requires spellslinging small spells to consistently cast multiple in a turn, as well as some big enough spells to have good payoffs of copying, all on top of some artifacts to be worth sacrificing (hint: Treasures). This is probably my favorite Izzet Spellslinger commander to come out in recent time, and while all of the things I mentioned are normal fare for Izzet, it leaves a lot of room for some fun deckbuilding choices and finding the right balance between all three.
BPhillipYork: This is fun and neat in my opinion. Pretty balanced, incentivizes an interesting playstyle and casting on opponents turns while generating treasures, which are all kinds of things Izzet is good at.
Kraum, Violent Cacophony
Marcy: Maybe there’s some potential. I think the issue is that when building around ‘casts more than one spell each turn,’ you’re still waiting to have mana open to do that off the back of say a 3 CMC creature or a 4 CMC creature, who has to also actually survive the turn they get played.
Loxi: Kraum wasn’t on my bingo card for being here, but I’m pretty glad he is. He’s a well-rounded support card for spellslinger decks, and he importantly provides a good way to just beat up the board if he gets left alone for too long.
BPhillipYork: Solid and straight forward commander, with card draw linked to a growing threat and a good reason to be casting instants; love to see more of this kind of thing because it leads to good games.
Lilah, Undefeated Slickshot
Marcy: I believe this card sounds a lot scarier than it actually is, in the sense that it seems like you’re potentially setting up some gigantic storm turn, but there are not actually that many multicolored instants and sorceries in her colors that don’t require you to have other colors available to really take advantage of. However, if you’re playing something like EDH or other formats, you could always fetch yourself a Painter’s Servant. Just saying.
Loxi: I quite like plot, it seems like a more interesting version of Foretell since you don’t need to worry about the cost later on, even though it’s restricted to Sorcery speed. This card is wild – getting to double cast basically everything like it has Rebound, but more flexible since you can hold on to it for as long as you need, with the only restriction being that you have to go hard on multicolor spells. I’m sure this won’t have any weird implications with Storm…surely not.
BPhillipYork: Essentially doubling all your cast triggers is interesting, though a bit slow. There’s definitely potential to build up a horrifying storm count and then just win the game, and it really gets you two for one for everything. Probably one of the most interesting commanders in this set.
Malcolm, the Eyes
Marcy: Malcolm Tribal somehow becoming a thing is funny, but as far as the other ‘cares about second spell’ creatures, this is one of the best and easiest value ones you get.
Loxi: Malcolm works well with Breeches? Who could have ever seen this coming. Solid for spellslinger decks that want artifacts, not much more to say.
BPhillipYork: So a lot of second spell triggers, which is nice, and these three work pretty well together, though it’s kind of unimaginative. I think there’s definitely enough support for a cast on every turn deck that mostly wins through interacting and card advantage, which is a cool archetype.
Pillage the Bog
Marcy: I’m thinking this is far better Plotted than not, but I suppose if you have it early and are struggling to find what you need, this isn’t a terrible way to dig through four cards. I think the biggest, weirdest thing to me is that they go into your library and not your graveyard, which feels like what this sort of color combo is known for?
Loxi: It’s a nice selective draw spell, but I find I tend to like quantity over quality when it comes to drawing cards in commander. I can see this being pretty solid in decks that ramp out really fast though, since even casting this on 3-4 mana lets you look at a solid chunk of your deck. If you’re looking for specific pieces it could have some nice play.
BPhillipYork: Cool search-ish card that’s actually balanced and pretty straight forward.
Honest Rutstein
Marcy: Pretty okay ability, kind of wild how much of a downgrade he is from Old Rutstein.
Loxi: Get a dude back, make dudes cheaper. Neato, solid. Nothing really groundbreaking here, but it’s pretty good value for the cost.
BPhillipYork: Well cost reduction is good, but weird to see it so flatly on a creature. Returning a single creature from your yard is fine. Just kind of boring.
The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride
Marcy: This might be like the worst Gitrog, right?
Loxi: Big Frog is back as a Big Frog Horse this time. This is a really fun design actually, and I think the payoff is strong enough that it’s worth being harder to trigger than a lot of sacrifice effects. It’s fun to see a potential lands and sacrifice deck jammed into one package, it makes my old school Golgari heart proud.
BPhillipYork: Super neat, especially if you can do things like reanimate powerful creatures that would sacrifice or exile at the end of the turn anyway, then use them to mount the Gitrog and ram into your opponents. Seems like a fun deck.
Vraska, the Silencer
FromTheShire: Good lord this is strong, and the flavor is excellent. It feels like most creatures that see play these days have an ETB so you don’t really care that it comes back as a Treasure, and then if that wasn’t enough value next turn you can use it to pay for the next round of petrification.
Marcy: Really strong ability and nice to see Vraska back in action. Assuming you have the mana for it, and you should, this is a great way to discount your removal spells and get some extra value out of it.
Loxi: This is a really brutal card against any decks that leverage creatures with powerful effects that are useful even if that creature isn’t attacking; that’s quite a few decks nowadays. You’ll want to be killing a lot of things to make use of this, but you have access to the best “just kill things” color in Black, so I think you’ll know what to throw in this one.
Also, she’s just jamming a boot heel right into that dude’s gonads. Ouch.
BPhillipYork: Well just grabbing treasures is pretty solid, though it doesn’t do anything particularly important for you other than strip out graveyards. It will work really well with aristocrats and especially Syr Konrad, the Grim with which it will just go berserk.
Bruse Tarl, Roving Rancher
Marcy: I think that there is a good chance this card can see play in the current Boros shells. For one, those decks have a big problem if the game lasts more than three turns, which a 4-mana creature like this might actually work to fix the mid to late game problem the deck has if it stalls out. Unfortunately, that means having to find space for it, so I’m not entirely sure. You could dig him up with Knight Errant of Eos, though, and have him ready for turn 4 if you need him.
Loxi: Certified Lad Bruse Tarl is back as an… Ox commander? Hell yeah. There are 15 legal Oxen you could field with this deck, and while most of them are hot ass, I expect to see this guy helm a lot of decks that run all of them. Double Strike is powerful at the least, and boy he can make quite a few tokens, especially if you’re keen on blinking him. I feel that the real nice part of this card is that it provides both token generation and card advantage, which is something many Boros commanders lack. If you’re willing to run a few janky cards here and there, this can honestly be a pretty fun go-wide strategy.
BPhillipYork: Well oxen tribal is uh, yep, uh, well, here you go. There’s 19 oxen, 4 of them are green, so you can run all fifteen. Do it. I dare you. Run them.
Ertha Jo, Frontier Mentor
Marcy: Certainly not for Standard, but Ertha here might have some value in other formats. She doesn’t fit the Boros decks that exist right now though.
Loxi: Copying abilities that target creatures or players has so many use cases that I don’t even think I want to dive too deep into them here, but this card is powerful and has a ton of options for buffing abilities as well as targeted removal. This is a very powerful card if you build around it.
BPhillipYork: The second ability is definitely breakable; if it’s untap something then you get two untaps, then that’s it. The make a mercenary on entrance is kind of bleah, but the other thing is pretty dangerous.
Taii Wakeen, Perfect Shot
FromTheShire: Seems sweet to build around. The smart way is probably with burn and X spells but I would be trying to get people with cards like Lightmine Field and Caltrops just for laughs.
Marcy: Could be a really funny way to turn a Lightning Helix or similar into a giant bomb spell at the end of a game when you’re flooded with mana.
Loxi: This is a super fun and unique design. Finding ways to deal exact amounts of damage means you have to be pretty selective about what cards you pack, but letting you draw tons of cards off sweepers is really powerful. I really like to see cards breaking out of their traditional color mold, and this is some unexplored new territory for R/W decks.
BPhillipYork: Potentially you could draw a lot here off cards like Earthquake which is a neat thing, the second ability is bafflingly bad.
Bonny Pall, Clearcutter
FromTheShire: Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox here is one of my favorite cards in the set because I loved the tall tales as a kid. Are they the best Simic lands matter commander? No, but they are still sweet as hell. For six mana you’re getting a whole lot of power on the board that will continue to get bigger as the game goes on, and it has a solid little advantage engine to make sure you can keep casting it if people are targeting you. It even has reach as a bonus, on a body that can credibly threaten most flyers.
Marcy: You know there are a lot of Simic and R/U/G decks in Standard right now that chuck tons of lands onto the field, and I could absolutely see them potentially using Bonny Pall as a new or alternative win-con. This could also let Simic do it without having to be RUG, but the problem there is neither of these creatures have trample, and you can remove the Ox with a single mana white spell, soooo.
Loxi: Art? A+. Flavor? A+. Rules? Simic+. Hell yeah, this card is a certified Commander banger.
BPhillipYork: I get the reference. I do not care. Draw and play a free land on attack is not good enough for that much mana.
Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius
FromTheShire: Unlikely to be your commander but great in the 99 of your Kellan, the Kid deck.
Marcy: Very curious to see if Squirming Emergence decks try to get any use out of this, but I’m a little unsure he’s worth the two mana you need.
BPhillipYork: Cost reduction from exile is pretty dangerous if it had any red identity in it. Probably WotC knew that and created this instead. Still you could certainly work out a four color deck around mass exiling to cast and this could go really berserk.
Oko, the Ringleader
FromTheShire: I still don’t like planeswalkers in Commander; in 60 card this seems pretty potent though. Has the typical card advantage / protect itself combo, but also can become your biggest threat and help close out the game faster before he can be dealt with. Or just go infinite with Spark Double and friends.
Marcy: Well he’s not as broken as the original Oko, but that -5 is scary.
BPhillipYork: The only real reason to play this is to turbo out the -5 with some kind of +counters thing, if you do that potentially game winning. Of course there’s an annoying Elf reference and I don’t see much of the use of a “planeswalker becomes a creature” on your turn because it’s not your turn on which it’s going to get clipped in the face by a Mesa Pegasus.
Eriette, the Beguiler
FromTheShire: This is a neat effect; I question if it will be worth it to at best trade evenly mana wise to steal one thing at a time, especially as a lot of the more expensive Auras just go ahead and steal the thing anyway.
Marcy: Eriette wasn’t really able to work in her own set which revolved around auras, so I’m not exactly sure she’s going to work here either, especially since most Auras at least currently in Standard are like, 0, 1, or 3 mana tops.
Loxi: My only worry with a deck like this is that if any enchantment sweeper hits the board, all those cards go back to their rightful owners and your board is going to be barren. I really like the idea, but if someone’s packing a Farewell or some other silver bullet for sweeping enchantments, you’ll be even more screwed than with a regular Aura deck. It has a high ceiling for how powerful it can get, but it can fall too hard for me to want to be too interested.
BPhillipYork: This seems kind of strange. Yes, you could load up on holy strength and turn those into control magic, but of course nobody is letting you control magic for B or W so Eriette, the Beguiler is going to get blown up or you’ll just take everyone’s stuff.
Marchesa, Dealer of Death
FromTheShire: Whenever you play Magic, pay 1 to essentially draw 2. Even if you weren’t in reanimator colors this would be extremely powerful.
Marcy: Really good card ability. We don’t need to ask why she’s here, it doesn’t matter.
Loxi: It was Marchesa! With a knife! In the Saloon! Wait, Clue was last set, wasn’t it?
BPhillipYork: What the hell is she doing here. Doesn’t she have like a kingdom to run? Anyway, cool ability, neat way to draw and fill your yard and really nice color spread. So, solid all round.
Annie Flash, the Veteran
FromTheShire: An interesting mashup of Sun Titan and a draw engine. I wish the body was a little bigger for the mana cost and needing to rumble to continue getting your value, the flash doesn’t necessarily feel like it makes up for that, especially since you can’t flicker it to loop things out of your graveyard.
Marcy: She’s soooo expensive.
Loxi: This feels a bit expensive for a value engine card that needs a bit of support to get rolling, but if you have any ways to blink and/or tap this, I’m sure it can put in some work. I don’t think she’s powerful enough to be the commander, but I think might be good in decks helmed by Partners with someone like Livio, Oathsworn Sentinel.
BPhillipYork: Six mana is so much mana, but this is really solid to build around. Mount tapping or just straight up attacking to exile 2 to play is really good, and you’re hopefully running a god awful amount of ramp so that you can cast this in turn 4, and then you’ll have the mana to really leverage your additional card draw.
Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds
FromTheShire: Nothing to see here, definitely no way this can get horrendous in the creature based Doubling Season and Anointed Procession colors. At least it’s not in blue I guess.
Marcy: Oh this dude is certainly going to be a problem for sure. I think he might even be a problem in Standard.
Loxi: Not to sound mopey, but this is really following the trend I mention every set with there being some abundance of crazy copying or doubling spells every time out now. Will there be a Panharmonicon-like effect in this set too? (Spoiler: yes.)
BPhillipYork: Okay. I really like the idea of copying something really big like Marit Lage, yes yes I know Marit Lage is legendary. Still, there’s some fat tokens to make or just things that copy permanents now, and particularly the Smaug token would be funny to copy to instantly make a ton of treasures.
Kellan Joins Up
FromTheShire: For when you have Cathars’ Crusade at home. In Commander you probably don’t care a ton about the plotting but if your deck is stuffed full of legendaries there are worse buff effects. Personally I still prefer win out of nowhere anthems but I wouldn’t hate on someone for playing this.
Marcy: Honestly this is pretty nice, three mana gets you back something at three mana and then if you’re playing Legendaries, which are pretty easy these days, this could certainly get you some solid value.
Loxi: I can see some merit in the right Kenrith, the Returned King decks for this, but nothing too new and crazy. I really love this art though.
BPhillipYork: Potentially this could make your creatures really big pretty fast. Would have really interesting side-effects with flicker decks. These join up enchantments are neat but it seems like they should reduce the cost of Kellan or something?
Kellan, the Kid
FromTheShire: Comes down early with a solid body, evasion, and lifelink, and that ability…. Stop me if you’ve heard me say it in every single set, cheating mana costs is one of the most powerful things you can do in the game. Fortunately for the rest of the table he doesn’t have red in his identity so you’re not immediately being beaten over the head with all of the recent impulsive draw effects, but trust me, even in these colors if you’re not cheating you’re not trying. Flashback, foretell, suspend, plot… you’ll figure it out. Even lets you put a land in to play if you somehow don’t have something to cast because that needed to be stapled on too.
Marcy: Kellan finally gets the spotlight and I think this is one of his best versions. I think it’s likely to see play in Standard, as right now decks are struggling to get over the Turn 3 problem, and there’s some potential that Kellan’s ability and just the fact that he’s a 3/3 flying lifelinker might help you survive that turn.
Loxi: This is a pretty powerful and pushed card, but I like that it’s opening up a Bant Spellslinger deck that we haven’t really seen before. I wish it was in a slightly more unique way than just “crazy value,” but it’s still at least supporting some new colors.
BPhillipYork: Foretell, plot, impulse draw, all these things are increasingly prevalent so this is a really rampy commander potentially in just green/white/blue. Good stuff.
Obeka, Splitter of Seconds
FromTheShire: Okay this is extremely powerful even if you’re just hitting for 2 for 2 extra upkeeps with your evasive body. Spoiler alert though, you are not going to be only hitting for 2, unless it’s because you’re chaining together extra attacks instead. Lots of directions you can choose for your upkeep triggers, and these colors nicely cover a lot of commanders that already host Paradox Haze. It’s nice that you get them right away too, you’re not having to wait for your next turn.
Marcy: I mean what can I say, having extra upkeeps will never be potentially broken.
Loxi: If you’ve ever played against a deck using Paradox Haze, you know how powerful extra upkeeps are. If you’re in that boat, this card looks like a nuclear bomb. If you haven’t played against a deck like that, you can search through the literal hundreds of cards that trigger on your upkeep, that this will make trigger a stupid number of times.
BPhillipYork: Well lots of upkeeps is funny. There are some pretty hilarious things you can do with this, like generating tons of mana via Braid of Fire or lots of draw or life loss. I really like the idea of Black Vise‘ing people to death since I haven’t done that since about 1995. Unfortunately it won’t work. Still there are lots of things that happen that are very beneficial during upkeep, and you could build around those, though it has the flavor of being a bit of a jerkoff deck since you’re spending a lot of time on your turn planning and upkeeping and handling triggers.
Riku of Many Paths
FromTheShire: This seems like a really fun deck to build, if stuffed right full of Charms and Commands and Spree cards. All of your spells are really flexible, your commander can lean in whatever direction works best in a given game, do whatever you feel.
Marcy: I guess this is fun in a deck with a lot of modal spells. There are some modal spells in standard currently, but frankly I’m not super convinced this is a card for Standard.
Loxi: Riku? What the heck are you doing here? I also quite like this design, and I’m curious if there is a formal list of what counts as being modal. Either way, a bonus for just playing good, flexible cards is always welcome for a sweet control shell.
BPhillipYork: Well just filling your deck with modal spells and going hog wild is pretty straight forward. There are enough of them by now, a couple hundred in these colors, that your deck can almost purely be modal. Though in the end you’ll have a fat Riku and a bunch of birds, and a lot of choices to be made.
Next Time: Monocolor
That wraps up our look at the set’s multicolored cards. Join us next time as we review the sets monocolr cards, picking out our favorites, and talking about the future build-arounds. In the meantime, if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.
