For quite a few years now, I’ve tried to pick some spicy new legends to do deep dives on for each new set release, but two factors have me reevaluating that approach. First, each new Magic set these days seems to be stuffed to bursting with brand new legendary creatures, so it’s quite difficult to do them justice in a weekly column. For instance, Bloomburrow has a whopping 25 new legendary creatures, so even if I wanted to cover the best five legends, that would take over a month to do a deep dive on each.
Second, the pace of releases has accelerated to the point that previews for the next set starts hitting just a couple of weeks after players finally get their hands on the last set’s cards. There’s just not enough time to do things the way I used to.
Instead of doing deep dives focusing an entire article on one legend, I’ll do a smaller exploration into multiple legends from the latest set in each article. An upside to this will be that if one or two of the legends aren’t of interest to you, you might be curious about the remainder. Hopefully you all will like this approach. Please let me know what you think!
Okay, let’s dig in!
Lumra, Bellow of the Woods
We’ve known about Lumra for a while, as it was one of the first cards previewed from Bloomburrow. Y’all know I love big green monsters that do cool things, and Lumra checks all those boxes quite well. I currently have a Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar deck that I might convert into Lumra once I get a copy of it.
Assuming the mana ramp in the deck is land ramp, Lumra will come down as a 6/6 and should immediately grow when its enters trigger resolves, putting all land cards from your graveyard onto the battlefield tapped. This will also likely cover Lumra’s commander tax too, which will make Lumra very resistant to most removal spells that take it off the battlefield. Vigilance is an incredibly powerful ability in Commander, letting it play both offense and defense, and adding reach means it covers a weakness that green traditionally has against flyers.
Putting Lands in the Graveyard
While Lumra mills you when it enters, which should net you at least one land in the graveyard, you’ll want to include ways to get lands in the graveyard before you cast Lumra. The best candidates are lands themselves, starting with Myriad Landscape and Blighted Woodland; these will let you ramp towards casting Lumra, which will bring those lands back for another go. Lotus Field is another neat option, putting two lands in the graveyard while not setting you back in mana, and you can play Thespian’s Stage to copy Lotus Field for more mana. Command Beacon is another land I’d want to run if Lumra’s commander tax gets too hefty, since you’ll get Command Beacon back on the battlefield when you cast Lumra again from your hand.
Harrow and its ilk seem like excellent choices too, and of course Scapeshift is a wild way to get whatever special lands you want into the mix and potentially double your lands once Lumra enters. Urza’s Cave will be amazing in a Lumra deck, slowly finding all your best lands.
Self-Milling
Self-milling is another way to get lands into the graveyard, and green has some excellent options there. Six seems perfect, milling and finding a land to bring back, and giving your nonland permanents retrace is another way to get lands into the graveyard. I haven’t seen Rampant Frogantua much yet, but I imagine it’ll be a great support card for Lumra.
Lumra’s enters ability will often give you multiple landfall triggers, so Tato Farmer will ramp up your rad counters which will increase your self-milling, though I’d look for ways Tato Farmer can steal lands from an opponent’s graveyard where I can, since Lumra will eventually recover lands from your own graveyard.
Gain Trample
Lumra will be a huge threat, but without evasion, it will be hard to push damage through chump blockers. Rancor seems like a slam-dunk, and if you own a Shadowspear that seems like an excellent choice as well. Overwhelming Stampede and Triumph of the Hordes will make excellent finishers.
Final Thoughts on Lumra
Since Lumra’s enters ability puts lands onto the battlefield tapped, this seems like an excellent place to run Spelunking. You will also likely want all the usual landfall suspects in the deck too. Lastly, you should find a slot for Greater Good, which will draw a ton of cards if you have to sacrifice Lumra, and when you discard three cards, if any of them are lands, Lumra will bring them right back for you.
Helga, Skittish Seer
Helga’s abilities support the “spell with mana value four or greater” theme that runs in Bloomburrow, and that theme is incredibly good in a format like Commander, which was conceived as the exact place where more expensive spells can shine. I can’t wait to play a bunch of those spells in Commander decks going forward, including Helga!
Creatures for X Mana
The Tyranid creatures like Termagant Swarm with X in their mana costs seem perfect for a Helga deck, since the ravenous ability will often mean you get to draw an extra card when you cast them with Helga. Since Helga gives us access to Bant colors, we also get to include the awesome Hydroid Krasis and The Goose Mother, and we can even make use of Mikaeus, the Lunarch. Troyan, Gutsy Explorer is an incredible card to support Helga’s plan of casting expensive creatures.
Higher-Mana Creatures
Got a favorite creature in Bant that costs four mana or more? Throw it in your Helga deck! There are a ton of choices, and what I’ve listed here are the ones that caught my eye. Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma and Thryx, the Sudden Storm both support the plan and seem worth deck slots. Defiler of Vigor lets you discount a green mana from green permanent spells by paying two life instead, and it also adds +1/+1 counters to all your creatures, and boosting Helga’s power that way will help cast more or bigger spells! And seriously—any Commander deck that can realistically cast Apex Devastator will be loads of fun!
I did want to point out Monstrous Vortex, Up the Beanstalk, and Kozilek’s Unsealing as awesome support cards for the big-mana creatures strategy. Note that if you reveal an X-spell with Monstrous Vortex, you can just put it in your hand to cast next turn.
Power Boosting for Helga
You can skip ahead of the game by boosting Helga’s power in ways other than her own triggered ability, which will let her tap for more mana to cast bigger spells. Equipment like Blackblade Reforged work great, but I’d also think about Giant Growth and Invigorate, which will function like a green Dark Ritual when targeting Helga, and since you’ll be drawing an extra card anyway, they could be worth a slot.
Final Thoughts on Helga
I might consider some ways to untap Helga, like Thousand-Year Elixir or Seeker of Skybreak. I’d want to find room for Inga and Esika, another card drawing engine for casting big-mana creature spells.
The Infamous Cruelclaw
Lastly, let’s look at the amusingly named The Infamous Cruelclaw, which can easily be built in whichever way you want, whether it’s calculated and high-powered, or simply chaotic good fun.
Haste
Cruelclaw doesn’t do anything but block until it deals combat damage to a player, so haste enablers seem like the first thing you’ll want to fill up your deck with. Equipment like Swiftfoot Boots seem great, or cards like Rising of the Day and Crashing Drawbridge. Bloodsworn Steward is a great choice too, since it will boost Cruelclaw by +2/+2.
Evasion
Cruelclaw’s avenues for good attacks can dry up really quickly in most games of Commander, so we’ll want to add in some ways to give it evasion. The new Assassin’s Creed card Brotherhood Regalia does a ton of work in a Cruelclaw deck, making it unblockable and giving it ward 2, and since Cruelclaw is legendary, the equip cost is dirt cheap. Demonic Embrace seems like some sweet technology, giving Cruelclaw a nice big power boost and flying, and you can even cast it from your graveyard by discarding a card.
Extra Combat
As fun as one trigger from Cruelclaw will be, why not go for more with more combat steps? Permanent-based ways to do this seem best to me, and red has plenty of them, from Karlach, Fury of Avernus to Aggravated Assault.
Library Stacking
If you don’t want to just spin the wheel of chaos with Cruelclaw’s ability, you can always attempt to manipulate the top of your library before attacking with Cruelclaw. Whether it’s a permanent like Sensei’s Divining Top and Scroll Rack, or tutor spells like Vampiric Tutor and Scheming Symmetry, you can put the biggest, baddest impactful spell right there on top to take advantage of Cruelclaw’s ability.
I’d also consider Bolas’s Citadel, which would be a cool spell to cast for free with Cruelclaw’s ability, though I’d want to include plenty of ways to gain life to take full advantage of that.
Final Thoughts on Cruelclaw
Cruelclaw’s ability requires that you discard a card to pay for the spell, so you’ll want to include plenty of card draw spells to keep your hand full. Think Wheel of Misfortune, Reforge the Soul, and maybe even Peer into the Abyss if you’ve got some sweet combo finish.
Which of these three have you most excited to build around? Which cards did I overlook that will be awesome in those decks?
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!
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