Preview season is exciting. We get to see and speculate about new cards.
Magic players do a great deal of “if. . .thens,” as in “if they’re doing this, they’ll probably do that!” Early glimpses allow us
to dream about the possibilities of a new set, which might take us down
crazy roads, but is fun nonetheless. Preview season is also face-paced.
Cards begin trickling out, which eventually becomes a flood, and finally
the reservoir of the full list. The prudent choice is to wait until all the
cards come out and then do commentary on them. But who wants to be prudent?
Luckily, we now have the whole thing!
Today I’m going to discuss the ten cards which have caught my eye as of
this moment (and only for Commander). Assassin’s Trophy has generated quite
a bit of chatter since it was previewed, and it’s going to be an important
card in other formats, but it’s not on my list because it’s not all that
exciting in this format. And not to worry: We’ll be doing a full set review
for Commander very soon. This is just the mouth-watering appetizer before
the delicious meal.
10: Impervious Greatwurm
Sure, it’s the buy-a-box promo, but this is no Nexus of Fate. It’s the kind
of card the format grew up around: the ones that end up in the dollar rare
box. It may be the Timmiest of all Timmy cards ever. Just hardcast at 16/16
for ten mana, it’s fine already. Since it has convoke, you’ll never be
spending that much for it. You’ll be playing it in your Rith, the Awakener
deck and casting it for two mana or something. Then once you get Asceticism
onto the battlefield, or Swiftboot Boots equipped to it, you’re, well,
impervious (okay, nearly; there’s always Cyclonic Rift, Final Judgment,
etc.). Impervious Greatwurm is unsubtle, unnuanced, and exactly what people
who like playing cards like this want. Cast and smash. It doesn’t have any
kind of evasion, but it’s pretty easy in green to give it trample-Nylea,
God of the Hunt, Brawn, Aggressive Mammoth (another pretty Timmy card), any
number of equipment, and much, much more.
9: Omnispell Adept
“. . .without paying its mana cost” is one of the most dangerous phrases in
Magic. In Commander, we cast giant spells. Omnispell Adept gets around
timing restrictions, so you can wait until someone’s end of turn to cast
Time Stretch or Damnation, most importantly keeping up counterspell mana,
instead of committing all those resources on your own turn. The saving
grace is that it’s a creature and creatures don’t often last long in
Commander games, but this one might just be a game-changer, especially for
that control player in your group.
8: Mission Briefing
This card gets tricky to play with, but opens possibilities. You’ll
obviously want something saucy in your graveyard already; you don’t want to
have to risk hitting the surveil lottery in order to do the thing you want
to do. Because Mission Briefing is an instant, you can use it in Snapcaster
Mage-like fashion to get you out of a tight spot,
perhaps casting that Mana Drain out of your graveyard. You’ll see that
Mission Briefing tells you to exile the card instead of putting it into
your graveyard-but unlike Flashback, which exiles the card no matter what,
if the targeted card isn’t headed for the graveyard, like with Beacon of
Tomorrows or Blue Sun’s Zenith, you’ll still have the card in your library.
In the case of a card with buyback, it will still go into your hand;
perhaps you cast your Whispers of the Muse early in the game because you
needed the card but couldn’t afford the buyback cost. Now you can get it
back to do the work you want it to. On your own turn, Mission Briefing gets
you access to that battlefield wipe that you so desperately need, like the
aforementioned Damnation. Mission Briefing is one of those cards that
doesn’t necessarily do something on its own, but it makes many of your
other cards better.
7: Niv-Mizzet, Parun
The colored mana requirements on the latest version of everyone’s favorite
Izzet Dragon aren’t particularly onerous considering you’re playing it as
the commander anyway. Sure, you can’t use Sol Ring or Mana Crypt to get it
out early, but it’s pretty likely in a deck with a few dual lands in it,
once you get to six mana, you’ll have access to at least three of each.
After that, all bets are off. You’ll be casting instants and sorceries,
everyone else will be casting instants and sorceries, and before you know
it, you’ll be drawing cards and damage will start flying around. No
planeswalker will be safe with Niv-Mizzet, Parun on the battlefield. You’re
certainly going to drop the original, Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind into the
deck as well, so now you’re dealing two damage for every card you draw.
You’re in red, so you play Braid of Fire, then at some point just kill
everyone by casting Blue Sun’s Zenith during your upkeep, maybe with
Psychosis Crawler in there for good measure.
Some of you might not be aware, but back in the earliest days, when
Commander was called EDH, 21 damage of any kind from a commander (we called
them generals back then) was lethal. Two cards-Heartless Hidetsugu and
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, changed that. Wanting to foster a more
combat-oriented format and realizing how easy general damage kills would be
with those cards, we changed it to combat damage.
6: Beast Whisperer
One of the hits against Primordial Sage is that it’s expensive. Enter Beast
Whisperer and we can start drawing cards two turns sooner. As far as I’m
concerned, it’s a straight upgrade, because in Commander the difference
between a 4/5 creature and a 2/3 is nearly negligible. Do note, however,
that while the draw on Primordial Sage is optional, it is not on Beast
Whisperer. It’s not likely to be an issue, but if you’re facing down a
Nekusar, the Mindrazer deck and you need to cast creature spells to solve
your problems, you’ll be in more of a corner. Still, Beast Whisperer is
worth the risk. Plus, it’s a Druid, and Druid tribal is definitely a thing.
5: Doom Whisperer
A 6/6 flying, trample Nightmare Demon for 3{B}{B} already seems pretty
good. Add the ability to surveil at any time for the low, low cost of two
life, and you have a card that’s ready for some abuse. I’m sure the folks
who like to mess around with Ad Nauseam have already taken a good look at
Doom Whisperer. If you’re using some sort of graveyard combo, you can get
nearly half of your deck into the graveyard and be off to the races. Those
of us who want a more conventional approach will also love Doom Whisperer,
since we can just use it to fill our graveyards with goodies to bring back
to our hands with Oversold Cemetery or reanimate with Dawn of the Dead.
Doom Whisperer doesn’t just fuel combo, it fuels Karador, Ghost Chieftain,
Muldrotha, the Gravetide, and more.
4: Etrata, the Silencer
Certainly the card which has created the most early buzz, Etrata is one of
those cards that looks extremely scary when you first see it, but isn’t
nearly as frightening as you might think. I’m not diminishing the card in
any way. It’s quite strong and still a little scary, but I’m not running
around flailing my arms or anything. Yes, as your commander, you can put
Etrata back into the command zone instead of shuffling it into your
library. Still, the conditional nature of the card’s triggered ability
keeps it from being too terrifying. The other player has to have a creature
that you can target, and the creature still has to be on the battlefield
when the triggered ability resolves. Without bounce, blink, or other
tricks, however, you’ll need haste and extra mana to hit someone three
times in a row (although Helm of the Host speeds up that clock). They’ll
also need three creatures, but that’s generally not an issue. Of course, if
folks will avoid playing creatures because they might get hit, that’s
fine-and you can up the anxiety by adding some equipment, threatening a
commander damage kill. Argentum Armor or Empyrial Plate will get them
hoping pretty quickly that they have a Fog around. Etratra will be one of
the most written-about cards from Guilds of Ravnica, not just for
Commander, but Standard and Modern as well.
3: Divine Visitation
I love Angels anyway, so the ability to turn my tokens, of whatever type I
desire, into flying, vigilant warriors from heaven is my kind of card. The
mana cost of 3WW seems eminently reasonable, even if you only end up
turning two or three 0/1s into 4/4s. I want to be careful about the term
“turn into.” Divine Visitation doesn’t change the type of any of your
tokens which are already on the battlefield. It creates a replacement
effect (which you can always recognize from the word “instead”) which
creates Angels instead of whatever else. The first card that comes to mind,
of course, is Avenger of Zendikar. Creating an army of Angels is way better
than Plants. The only downside, and it’s pretty slight, is that Avenger of
Zendikar’s landfall ability triggers for your Plant creatures. Those
Plants-turned-Angels aren’t going to continue to get bigger. As far as I’m
concerned, they’re already big enough. The other card Divine Visitation is
primed to bust in half is Hazezon Tamar. Hazezon has always had the problem
that the Sand Warrior tokens get exiled when he leaves the battlefield. You
had to do some tricks to keep them around. With Divine Visitation, not only
are they bigger, but Hazezon is no longer the boss of them. Is Divine
Visitation over the top enough to get people to start playing more
enchantment removal? Time will tell.
2: Underrealm Lich
I know the Dredge players will love Underrealm Lich, and I get it (my
thoughts on dredge in Commander are well-enough known by now). I’m
certainly on board with using Underrealm Lich to trigger The Gitrog
Monster. What I’m more on board with is Underrealm Lich putting giant piles
of stuff in my graveyard to make casting Karador, Ghost Chieftain cheaper,
so that I can cast all those cool things out of my graveyard. We’ve already
seen the undergrowth mechanic (like on Moodmark Painter), which cares about
the number of creature cards in your graveyard. Underrealm Lich is there to
provide plenty of undergrowth.
1: Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
I don’t even know where to start. Izoni as a commander in a deck which
contains lots of surveil and self-mill, plus Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and
Lord of Extinction. I don’t even think you’ll need to make notes to build
the exact deck you want; you’ll just start pulling cards, which will
include Underrealm Lich (which is why you see them as the top two on this
list). Don’t forget Masked Admirers. Izoni as 1 of 99 in a Karador, Ghost
Chieftain or Muldrotha, the Gravetide (where have we heard that before?)
gives you the live sacrifice outlet to do all the graveyard tomfoolery you
like plus gain life and draw cards. There is no end to my
excitement about Izoni. Of the cards we’ve seen so far, it’s the first one
I’m compelled to build a deck with.
There are many more exciting, high-quality cards from Guilds of Ravnica that have already been previewed. I’m sure you
have favorites of your own. What’s more is that we’ll continue to get more
of them revealed to us each day until the whole list is available. I’m
already on an adrenaline high from the ten cards above, and I doubt that
I’ll come down any time before the Prerelease.
Question of the Week
This week’s question is suggested by a number of sources in an online
conversation I watched for a while and then participated in.
“Is it okay if someone attacks me for what would be lethal damage and I
scoop in response (like to deny them combat triggers)?”
Is it legal? Yes (rule 104.3a).
Is it okay? No.
There are terms for this move that I won’t use here, but it’s not okay.
Some of you will argue that if it’s within the rules, then it’s fair. I
hear your argument and disagree (that it’s fair; it’s obviously legal). I
might point out that the Comprehensive Rules are not the only thing which
guide a game of Magic; for example, I defy you to find where in the
rulebook that it says you’re not allowed to cheat.
If someone is killing you, then a certain amount of retribution is
acceptable-combat blocks that kill their best creatures, disenchanting
something, etc., are all within the bounds of social behavior. The person
attacking you is well aware that you’re going to make it as painful as you
possibly can and have accepted the risks when they chose to knock you out.
The retributive concession, however, is a violation of the social contract
we agreed to when we sat together. Moreover, it’s just petty and childish.
Someone might try to make a “strategic advantage” argument, which is utter
nonsense. When it comes down to it, the person who makes the retributive
concession doesn’t care about whether or not the rest of the table is
enjoying the game, they care only about themselves. Commander lives and
breathes on the idea that we’re all interested in each other’s good times
too. The player who pulls this move sucks the life out of the game.
We have a limited amount of leisure time, and I choose to spend mine around
people who bring positivity to it. If you pull this move, you’re correct
that it’s within the rules of the game; no one can stop you. The rest of us
are correct if we’d rather not invite you to play with us again.
Check out our comprehensive Deck List Database for lists of all my decks:
SIGNATURE DECKS
Purple Hippos and Maro Sorcerers
;
Kresh Into the Red Zone
;
Halloween with Karador
;
Dreaming of Intet
;
You Did This to Yourself
.
THE CHROMATIC PROJECT
Mono-Color
Heliod, God of Enchantments
;
Thassa, God of Merfolk
;
Erebos and the Halls Of The Dead
;
Forge of Purphoros
;
Nylea of the Woodland Realm
;
Karn
Evil No. 9.
Guilds
Lavinia Blinks
;
Obzedat, Ghost Killer
;
Aurelia Goes to War
;
Trostani and Her Angels
;
Lazav, Shapeshifting Mastermind
;
Zegana and a Dice Bag
;
Rakdos Reimagined
;
Glissa, Glissa
;
Ruric Thar and His Beastly Fight Club
;
Gisa and Geralf Together Forever
.
Shards and Wedges
Adun’s Toolbox
;
Angry, Angry Dinos
;
Animar’s Swarm
;
Borrowing Stuff at Cutlass Point
;
Ikra and Kydele
;
Karrthus, Who Rains Fire From The Sky
;
Demons of Kaalia
;
Merieke’s Esper Dragons
;
Nath of the Value Leaf
;
Queen Marchesa, Long May She Reign
;
Rith’s Tokens
;
The Mill-Meoplasm
;
The Altar of Thraximundar
;
The Threat of Yasova
;
Zombies of Tresserhorn
.
Four Color
Yidris: Money for Nothing, Cards for Free
;
Saskia Unyielding
;
Breya Reshaped
;
Yidris Rotisserie Draft Deck
.
Five-Color
Partners
Tana and Kydele
;
Kynaios and Tiro
;
Ikra and Kydele
.
THE DO-OVER PROJECT
Adun Oakenshield Do-Over
;
Animar Do-Over
;
Glissa Do-Over
;
Karador Do-Over
;
Karador Version 3
;
Karrthus Do-Over
;
Kresh Do-Over
;
Steam-Powered Merieke
Do-Over;
Lord of Tresserhorn Do-Over
;
Mimeoplasm Do-Over
;
Phelddagrif Do-Over
;
Rith Do-Over
;
Ruhan Do-Over
.
If you’d like to follow the adventures of my Monday Night RPG group (in a
campaign that’s been alive since 1987) which is just beginning the saga The Lost Cities of Nevinor, ask for an invitation to the Facebook
group “Sheldon Menery’s
Monday Night Gamers.”