As I said in
my set review, I find Return to Ravnica a solid set for Commander. There are a number of cards that jumped out at me for existing decks, as well as a few suggestions
for new decks. I’ll share the former with you today and we’ll get to the latter in the coming weeks. I’ve taken the opportunity of the new set to put in
exciting new cards as well as replace a few underperformers.
There are a few cards that I’m tempted to use in multiple decks. The most bonkers card for Commander in Return to Ravnica is Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord,
whose ability can get out of hand pretty quickly. Being a two-color creature, I don’t see it becoming a problematic card, but it’s extremely strong,
especially when there are cheap, arbitrarily large creatures like Lord of Extinction and Malignus running around. Guild Feud is another one that just
amuses me to no end.
I’m also happy about the reprinting of the shocklands, making them more readily available to a new generation of players to help with mana bases. I’m also
not sad that the new printings mean foil versions of the cards are going to be cheaper. I need five or six of them to complete decks in foil, representing
10%-ish of the 50 cards (counting the RtR ones) that I need complete my 15 decks. It’s interesting that more than half (26 to be exact) of the cards that I
need are lands, speaking strongly to the value of quality mana management.
ADUN OAKENSHIELD and HIS BEASTS
Despite this being an interesting set, it’s full of fail as far as Beasts go. Batterhorn is a worse version of Indrik Stomphowler. The rest are simply not
getting there. Given that my guys are mostly pretty beefy (or I like their enters-the-battlefield effects), Guild Feud seems sufficiently chaos-embracing
to add. Wild Beastmaster is thematic enough. It says Beast right there! I’m slotting Gruesome Encore and Ink-Eyes for a deck that actually cares about
reanimation.
In: Guild Feud, Wild Beastmaster
Out: Gruesome Encore, Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
ANIMAR, SOUL of ELEMENTS
While there are still a few Proliferate cards in the deck, it’s changed a fair amount recently. I felt as though the Proliferate stuff was just a little
too cute and found myself staring at cards that didn’t do much if I didn’t have counters. I also found that I had way too many enters-the-battlefield
tapped lands, so I worked on the mana some. Someday, casting Worldspine Wurm for GGG will be tech.
Pre-RtR Changes:
In: Seedborn Muse, Primordial Sage, Garruk’s Packleader, Warstorm Surge, Vorrac Battlehorns, Yavimaya Elder, Teferi, Wood Elves, Vesuva, Tropical Island,
Volcanic Island, Deadeye Navigator.
Out: Primeval Titan, Apocalypse Hydra, Protean Hydra, Blade of the Bloodchief, Vivid Crag, Contagion Clasp, Contagion Engine, Mystifying Maze, Plaguemaw
Beast, Primal Beyond, Vivid Creek, Molten Hydra
Post-RtR Changes:
In: Worldspine Wurm
Out: Thrummingbird
GEIST of SAINT TRAFT
After some less-than-stellar results, Geist is going back to the drawing board. There are some nice cards in the set for it (Sphinx’s Revelation, Supreme
Verdict, Detention Sphere), but for now, anything is on the table.
INTET, the DREAMER
My most difficult-to-play, brainpower-draining deck is pretty tight, so there isn’t much room to work with. I’m trying to play more and more tutor-less
EDH, so Fierce Empath came out for the amazing Cyclonic Rift (it was basically only fetching Primeval Titan anyway, maybe sometimes Avenger of Zendikar).
I’m also trying to find some room in this deck for Overmaster. In case you’re wondering, I replaced Primeval Titan in this deck with Riku of Two
Reflections—so I basically went from one absurd card to another.
In: Cyclonic Rift
Out: Fierce Empath
KARADOR, GHOST CHIEFTAIN
The Return to Ravnica card which will likely have the greatest impact on this deck is one it wouldn’t play: Rest in Peace. I love this deck quite a bit,
but with more quality graveyard hate coming every day, it’s becoming more of a challenge to play, or more correctly, not get hosed. I’ve certainly had
games where I still did well despite being on the bad end of Bojuka Bog, but it’s quite a tightrope act. This is the deck that’s most likely to get
completely blown out by a single thing happening.
Every slot in the deck is carefully selected. I’m not unhappy with any single card, and there’s nothing jaw-dropping enough to want to put in, except of
course Jarad. I’d like to avoid simply stuffing him into every Black/Green deck. If I were to put him into this one, it’d probably be for Vish Kal, Blood
Arbiter, just to lower the curve a little. I’ve been pondering replacing Ghostway with M13’s Faith’s Reward, but have yet to pull the trigger, so for now…
No changes
KARRTHUS, TYRANT of JUND
Knowing that RtR was coming, I simply waited to replace the not-nearly-as-good-as-I-thought Exuberant Firestoker, and again, Fierce Empath is just a nod
toward playing fewer tutors. With big, nasty Dragons, Guild Feud seems like a winner. The obvious include here is Utvara Hellkite, who makes EVEN MORE
DRAGONS.
I was playing this deck while spellslinging at the Prerelease and finally got to activate Sarkhan the Mad when I had a pile of dragons (including someone’s
Chameleon Colossus, which got snapped up when Karrthus came into play). Raining fire from the sky is awesome.
In: Guild Feud, Utvara Hellkite
Out: Exuberant Firestoker, Fierce Empath
KRESH the BLOODBRAIDED
If there were a contest between Death’s Presence and Jarad for “most emails and messages I got wondering if it were going in the Kresh deck,” I’m pretty
sure it’d be close to a dead heat. They’re both ridiculous in the deck. I had only put in Sneak Attack on a lark, although it had its moments. Crawlspace
is simply too defensive. You don’t need defense when you just kill the other guy.
In: Death’s Presence, Jarad
Out: Sneak Attack, Crawlspace
LORD OF TRESSERHORN
Rakdos Charm might be my favorite card in Return to Ravnica. It will absolutely punish any deck that creates too many tokens. It will also remove the
graveyard of the most dangerous player before casting Living Death or Patriarch’s Bidding. There aren’t any good Zombies (a least that don’t have Green in
them) in the set, but I’m not complaining because we got a boatload of great ones in Innistrad Block. Grave Betrayal makes the creatures into Zombies, so
it had to come in. Dread Slaver was underperforming, so it got shipped out to the minors. It always seemed like I either didn’t have enough mana for Cruel
Revival, there wasn’t a good enough creature to kill, or there wasn’t a good Regrowth target in the graveyard. Out.
In: Rakdos Charm, Grave Betrayal
Out: Dread Slaver, Cruel Revival
MERIEKE RI BERIT
Some deck has to play Detention Sphere, and Merieke raised her hand first. Day of Judgment was in the deck only because I had a foil but no more foils
Wrath of God, so Supreme Verdict was an easy choice. I had also noticed some wonkiness with the mana base, having had cards like Coastal Tower and Salt
Marsh in forever (because they were foily). I poked around and found that I had an extra Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author], Tundra, and Underground Sea laying around, so the
enters-the-battlefield tapped lands came out, the awesome original duals came in.
In: Detention Sphere, Supreme Verdict
Out: Day of Judgment, Peel from Reality
THE MIMEOPLASM
I considered Lotleth Troll for this deck, but I’ve been trying to make it more about other peoples’ graveyards instead of my own, even recently adding
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre (when Primeval Titan left) to help keep from decking myself if I’m in the process of trying to deck other people. I briefly
considered Deathrite Shaman, and still might try to find some room for it.
Psychic Spiral is a great follow-up to Dreadwaters as the deck transforms into more of a mill deck than something that’s just copying crazy things from
graveyards.
In: Psychic Spiral
Out: Liliana Vess
NATH of the GILT-LEAF
Staying with the idea of CMC less than 6 is easy when cards are as good as Vraska the Unseen. Deathrite Shaman is an inclusion here because I’d like to be
the only one with creatures come Living Death time.
In: Vraska the Unseen, Deathrite Shaman
Out: Diabolic Servitude, Spider Spawning
PHELDDAGRIF
I like Isperia, Supreme Judge as a “don’t attack me” card way better than Edric, Spymaster of Trest because my opponents will never draw cards off her.
Out: Shielding Plax
OROS, the AVENGER
Another deck that I haven’t messed with in a while, Oros needs some work with the consistency of the mana. The color combination is nearly as bad as Grixis
for getting lands into play with any regularity. Actually, it might be worse because you don’t have Blue to Clone or copy their mana rampers. Since it has
the Sunforger package in it, it’s a good deal of fun. I just need to get it where it doesn’t fall flat on its face so often. I might consider some
token-creators in order to make Rootborn Defenses worthwhile.
RITH, the AWAKENER
I know Bennie Smith loves her as a General, and I’m certainly eyeing her up for the Green/White deck for the one of each color combo project, she screams
going into the Rith deck. I took out Mentor of the Meek because this is a Soldier deck, and Soldiers cannot be meek.
In: Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice
Out: Mentor of the Meek
RUHAN of the FOMORI
Ruhan is the deck that got the most cards from Return to Ravnica, some of them seeming like they were printed specifically for him. As much as I will happy
“GG” anyone who casts Essence Backlash when I try to get Lord of Extinction in there, I’m going to enjoy doing the same to someone else. I never wanted to
go down the road of Whispersilk Cloak on Ruhan (boring!), but I think Rogue’s Passage is reasonable since it can provide mana and I have to activate it
when I want to use it. I also can’t wait to have some giant thing (Blightsteel Colossus?) attack someone, make it unblockable and then Mirror Strike
it—although I suppose I could just tell the person “don’t block.” Supreme Verdict goes in because the deck just wants one more Wrath. New Prahv Guildmage
and Martial Law are both nice defensive cards and raise the Angel’s Trumpet stakes a little.
City of Brass was the right land to take out. I’ve wanted to get “You Did This to Yourself” away from just getting stuff out of opponents’ decks (Bribery
will probably eventually be another cut), and once again, Enlightened Tutor is a casualty of playing fewer tutors. If you haven’t read it in the tabloids,
Ruhan and Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker had a highly-publicized, nasty split (“private” videos got released, texts got shared, it was all really ugly), so it
seemed wrong to keep them together in the deck.
In: Essence Backlash, Supreme Verdict, Rogue’s Passage, New Prahv Guildmage, Martial Law
Out: Acquire, Enlightened Tutor, Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker, City of Brass, Telemin Performance
THRAXIMUNDAR
I liked playing Prince of Thralls in this deck, and although it’s a little expensive, I might go back to it someday. Grave Betrayal, at the same CMC, is
less vulnerable since it’s an enchantment. Sure, it only gets creatures, but unlike Prince of Thralls, they have no options. Okay, Prince of Thralls is
back in, although I’m not quite sure what I’m going to take out. Skeletal Vampire would have been the choice, but it came out to put Kokusho in. RtR’s
version of Fleshbag Marauder, Slum Reaper, seems like a fit, but isn’t worth the extra mana, since it’s probably what’s getting sacrificed anyway. I keep
thinking about taking Minion Reflector out of this deck, and then it comes up in a game where I also cast Puppeteer Clique, and that thought dies pretty
quickly. I wonder if that Sneak Attack that I just took out of Kresh might make an interesting card to put in here. Certainly seems like it’s an even
cheaper way to get value out of those Evoke creatures. HolycrapSneakAttackwithPersist. More thought (and likely a little more red mana) required.
In: Grave Betrayal, Rakdos Charm
Out: Diabolic Tutor, Moriok Replica
Those are my changes (so far) for Return to Ravnica. I’m certainly willing to listen to suggestions for other ideas that I might have missed. I’ll probably
be working on one of the new two-color decks in the near future, and it makes sense to pick one of the RtR guilds. Boros would probably be my first choice,
but I’m going to wait to see what goodies Gatecrash will bring. Izzet certainly seems like a real challenge, because Jhoira of the Ghitu(which I’d
certainly never play) and Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind bring a fair amount of hate. The new Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius might be even better than the original, so
I suppose it’d be down to Nin, the Pain Artist or Tibor and Lumia. But that’s putting the cart before the horse. Let’s first see what coverage of this Pro
Tour brings. Remember to tune in on Friday!