This weekend is the release of Ravnica Remastered, and it includes reprinted cards from across nine base set Magic expansions set on Ravnica, as well as Commander product cards set on Ravnica. It’s a fully draftable set, so Draft fans are sure to find this a fun spin on old favorites.
For us Commander fans, what we’re excited about are the reprints, and hopefully chase cards that will come down in price with the new supply. Today, I’d like to highlight some of the legendary creature reprints, so if you’ve thought about building a Commander deck around any of these, now is a great time to pick them up cheap. And if you already have a deck built around one, you might want to take advantage of the new card frames and the new art options that will be available.
Let’s jump in!
Three Times the Niv-Mizzet!
Niv-Mizzet has a lot of different versions, and three of them have reprints here. And yep, there are two other versions (so far):
The first two versions are combo engines, so if that’s your jam, you’ve got plenty to spread over your bread. Here are some of the cards you can use to go off:
Fireminding
Here’s how it works. First, you need one of the Niv-Mizzets on the battlefield along with Curiosity or Ophidian Eye attached to it, or Tandem Lookout paired with Niv-Mizzet, or Body of Knowledge on the battlefield.
Then, you have a way to draw a card. Original version Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind has that ability built in by simply tapping. This basically gives you the ability to draw your deck, and to deal damage equal to your remaining deck size distributed to your opponents. You can stop the loop by targeting yourself with Niv’s damage.
Combo Reborn
Niv-Mizzet Reborn is an entirely different card, offering up a powerful enters-the-battlefield effect that draws cards if you build your deck in a way to take advantage of it.
When Niv-Mizzet Reborn enters the battlefield, you get to look at a whopping ten cards from the top of your library, and for each color pair – each Guild – you get to choose one of them to put into your hand. This offers up an intriguing deckbuilding challenge, since if your deck is nearly 40% lands, that leaves you with an average of six nonland cards per trigger. Each card you’re playing that’s not exactly two colors – artifacts like Sol Ring, ramp spells like Farseek or Cultivate, or removal spells like Swords to Plowshares – “misses” here. Also, any duplicate guild colors will make one of them a miss, since you can only choose one, so you’ll want to have an equal balance between all ten guilds.
Commander Rules Committee member Toby Elliott has a really cool build that literally has no non-guild nonland cards and is perfectly balanced between all ten guilds. That’s right: there isn’t even a Sol Ring in the deck! It’s a slow burn, but it’s really cool and a lot of fun to play against.
Krenko, Mob Boss
Krenko, Mob Boss is far and away the most popular Goblin typal commander, and for good reason—Krenko is extremely powerful. Goblin as a creature type has enjoyed powerful typal synergies since the very beginning of Magic, and with over 30 years of printings, you can build a very powerful deck around them.
Many Goblin cards get much, much better the more Goblins you have on the battlefield, and once Krenko is able to use its tap ability, you have a never-ending supply of Goblin tokens. This is why Goblins that give all your Goblins haste are so good in this deck, and there are plenty of them, so even in a singleton format, odds are pretty good you’ll have one on the battlefield once you cast your commander.
There are lots of other Goblin cards that really get your engine cooking. Skirk Prospector can turn extra Goblins – like all those tokens Krenko churns out – into mana, which can let you cast even more Goblins. As Goblins die, Pashalik Mons starts sending out one-point damage pings to any target, so you can start taking out problematic creatures or even finish off an opponent who is low enough in life. And the newly printed Roaming Throne from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan makes all your goblin triggers doubly good.
Yeva, Nature’s Herald
Yeva, Nature’s Herald offers a very different style of mono-green deck for Commander players looking for a change of pace, and facing a green deck playing at instant speed can be quite a challenge for your opponents. Ways to untap your lands really help this deck hum, so you definitely want to play Seedborn Muse, though Wilderness Reclamation, Nature’s Will, and Bear Umbra can do nearly as good a job.
Arboria is a sweet bit of technology here that takes a little bit of work to fully unlock, since casting Arboria during your turn incentivizes everyone else to get their attacks in while they can. Also note that if you play a land on your turn, you won’t get Arboria’s benefit. See, I told you it takes some work! The version of Arboria from Legends isn’t unreasonably pricey, but since it was reprinted in Dominaria Remastered, you can get a copy for cheap if you’re up to the challenge.
I really love Yeva letting your creatures with enters-the-battlefield triggers come down at instant speed, especially Acidic Slime, since it can be a surprise blocker with deathtouch. Saryth, the Viper’s Fang can come down to be a nasty surprise for anyone blocking your tapped and attacking creatures.
I brewed up a deck around Yeva when it first came out back in the summer of 2012. Check it out below.
Fblthp, the Lost
Fblthp, the Lost is a fun character, and while we all know and love it as a legendary Elvish Visionary, I’ve always been curious to see if anyone could build a Fblthp, the Lost commander deck that takes advantage of the entire text box. Like, don’t we all want to see someone playing Fblthp, the Lost from their library so they get to draw that sweet, sweet extra card? However it’s done, I imagine it involves Proteus Staff, creature tokens, and no actual creature cards in your deck. Maybe The Reality Chip? Please, if you know someone with a Commander deck that takes full advantage of Fblthp, talk to me!
Borborygmos Enraged
Borborygmos Enraged offers some interesting deckbuilding options. For instance, how many lands will you put in the deck to ensure that you play enough lands to cast your whopping eight-mana commander, and still have lands in your hand to turn into Lightning Bolts? If you enchant him with Keen Sense or Snake Umbra, you can get a free redraw for each land you chuck at an opponent.
Torbran, Thane of Red Fell can make each activation be worth five damage instead of three. I would definitely run Titania, Voice of Gaea and Argoth, Sanctum of Nature—each land you discard will give you two life, and it should be a snap to get four lands into your graveyard to activate the meld trigger so long as you also have Argoth, Sanctum of Nature. Green has plenty of ways to search up particular lands, such as Crop Rotation.
All of these cards are awesome ways to fuel your hand with lands you can discard with Borborygmos Enraged, and I imagine Change of Fortune can lead to some huge turns with your Cyclops commander slinging Lightning Bolt lands all over the place.
I’d likely find room for Cultivator Colossus if your opponents have pointed removal at your commander one too many times. With enough lands in your deck, you should be able to ensure you won’t ever have a problem casting your commander for the rest of the game, plus a gigantic trampling Plant Beast for your trouble.
Back in 2013 I wrote about Borborygmos Enraged, where I experimented with 69-land and 45-land versions of the deck. Check it out below.
Lazav, the Multifarious
If you happen to own a Phyrexian Dreadnought, you’ve probably at least thought about building a Lazav, the Multifarious deck! If you don’t, I wouldn’t recommend ponying up $75 to pick up a copy, but there are still tons of fun shenanigans you can do with it.
Training Grounds is a great card here, shaving off the cost of copying sweet creatures in your graveyard. Newer cards like Rona, Herald of Invasion and Likeness Looter play great with your gameplan. And if you’re like me, you already love Necrotic Ooze and are always looking for a cool deck to slot it into.
Back in 2018, The Professor from Tolarian Community College got to preview Lazav, the Multifarious, and he asked me to help him brew up a sweet Commander deck around it. Be sure to check out the video below if you haven’t seen it!
Ilharg, the Raze-Boar
The God cycle from War of the Spark was really cool with a nifty spin on immortality, and I always thought Ilharg, the Raze-Boar was the neatest of the bunch. First, it was the biggest, and had trample, so for the most part it was pushing through damage. But the attack trigger was sweet, putting something potentially huge onto the battlefield, like Terror of Mount Velus, Combustible Gearhulk, or the new Trumpeting Carnosaur.
Since the creature you snuck onto the battlefield doesn’t have to return to your hand until the beginning of your next end step, you could potentially use Port Razer to get another attack step and another Ilharg trigger. This is another great commander to run Sundial of the Infinite in, letting you keep the creature you snuck in if you want to by putting the return trigger on the stack and then end the turn with Sundial.
All this thinking about Ilharg has made me want to go ahead and build a new Commander deck, so stay tuned!
Savra, Queen of the Golgari
I made a Savra, Queen of the Golgari deck way, way back in 2011.
As a fan of green and black before Golgari was a glimmer in the eyes of Mark Rosewater, I’m sad that I ended up walking away from Savra and many other Golgari all-stars because I just didn’t like the play patterns that Savra and other cards like Grave Pact encouraged. It was just way too easy to generate token creatures with free sacrifice outlets to effectively shut out other players from keeping a creature on the battlefield. I hated it when it happened to me, and I never wanted to be the cause of someone else experiencing that. In 2018, I wrote an article pondering better ways to embrace Golgari sacrifice without shutting people out of the game.
But the new artworks available for Savra are just too cool for my self-imposed moratorium to stay in effect. If I actually cracked that artwork from Daisuke Tatsuma, would I just stick it in a box and never play it? It occurs to me that I could simply play no other black creatures in the deck and instead only play green creatures and take advantage of the life drain shenanigans from Witherbloom and other sets.
Might be a fun deckbuilding challenge!
Bruvac the Grandiloquent
Lastly, a quick shout-out to Bruvac the Grandiloquent. This hard-to-find mythic rare has been incredibly costly, so if you’re a fan of the challenge of trying to mill out multiple opponents who start the game with 99-card decks, here’s hoping the cost will come down considerably once a bunch of Ravnica Remastered packs are cracked open.
Which of these reprinted legends do you want to build around, or have decks already built around? Are there any other reprinted legends Ravnica Remastered that you consider as cool or cooler than these?
Talk to Me
Do me a solid and follow me on Twitter! I run polls and start conversations about Commander all the time, so get in on the fun! You can also find my LinkTree on my profile page there with links to all my content.
I’d also love it if you followed my Twitch channel TheCompleteCommander, where I do Commander, Brawl, and sometimes other Magic-related streams when I can. If you can’t join me live, the videos are available on demand for a few weeks on Twitch, but I also upload them to my YouTube channel. You can also find the lists for my paper decks over on Archidekt if you want to dig into how I put together my own decks and brews.
And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.
Visit my Decklist Database to see my decklists and the articles where they appeared!
