As summer is on the downhill ride to fall and the upcoming release of Dominaria United approaches, it’s a great time to think about all the awesome cards Commander fans have access to from the 2022 releases so far!
What’s that? Your head is spinning from all the releases that have been dropping one after another, alongside Commander sets, so that you can’t keep up with all the stuff that’s below the hype cards of each set? Well, I’m here to help! I’ve scoured all the new cards from the sets released this year, and I’ve got the best ones that people should be playing in their decks but apparently aren’t, according to the deck database of our friends at EDHREC!
Topiary Stomper: 3% of Decks
If you follow me on Twitter, you may recall I was pretty down on this card when it was first revealed. Seven or more lands before this creature can attack or block is a ton, and by the time in a game when you’d meet that threshold, a 4/4 creature isn’t exactly going to be dominating battlefields. But after playing it, I see that I was clearly wrong.
A 4/4 creature isn’t a dominating size, but it’s not insignificant either. All it takes is a piece of Equipment, and suddenly it’s very relevant. Think about when you might put Farhaven Elf in a deck—sure, it can be a speed bump if you cast it early on, but if you draw it later in the game, a 1/1 is pretty sad. For the drawback of not being able to block or attack early, you get a decent sized body if you draw it late. Not to mention, it’s a Dinosaur for all the Dino fans out there, and I think this card should make the cut into more decks than it currently shows.
Mechtitan Core: 1% of Decks
I think too many people get hung up on Mechtitan Core being a Vehicle and think it only belongs in a Vehicle deck, but read the card more closely—it only needs four other artifact creatures and/or Vehicles to activate! So, if you’re playing a deck with a lot of artifact creatures (Myr, Thopters, Golems), you should definitely give Mechtitan Core a try. I mean seriously, who doesn’t want to create a Mechtitan, a legendary 10/10 with flying, vigilance, trample, lifelink and haste?! In a pinch, you can activate Mechtitan Core to protect four key artifacts from mass removal; when Mechtitan goes away, you get to return all four artifacts to the battlefield.
Rabble Rousing: 3% of Decks
Rabble Rousing clearly deserves consideration for token creature decks, but I think it has a lot of more applications. If you have any deck where some number of creatures want to attack, you can leverage this card’s ability to churn out token creatures. If you want to attack but fear the crack back from an opponent, Rabble Rousing will create chump blockers. Should you want to advance your battlefield presence but fear overextending into a battlefield sweeper, Rabble Rousing’s got you. If you’ve got a Skullclamp on the battlefield, but none of your creatures are small enough to die to it, Rabble Rousing will get you some fresh cards. And oh yeah—there’s the hideaway ability, and all you need is to attack with five creatures to make five more creatures to satisfy the hideaway condition to play that card.
Silkguard: 2% of Decks
I think people get hung up on Silkguard being a spell you only play in a “modified creature” deck or a deck that’s all about +1/+1 counters, but it has nice applications outside of that. Even if you don’t have any creatures and only a green mana available, it’s a one-mana counterspell to any removal spell targeting one of your Aura or Equipment cards or a creature you have that’s equipped or enchanted by an Aura. And for each extra mana you have available, you can add a +1/+1 counter to a creature at instant speed, which can mess up combat math for your opponents.
Witness Protection: 2% of Decks
Darksteel Mutation. Imprisoned in the Moon. Song of the Dryads. These are potent Aura spells that neutralize creatures with potent abilities yet don’t destroy or exile them, which makes them quite good at handling overly powerful commander cards. The problem is that these cards are very difficult for some Commander decks to handle, and if their commander is permanently locked away, it can lead to a very unpleasant play experience. Which is why I really love Witness Protection, since nearly every commander deck should eventually be able to kill a 1/1 creature and free its commander from the Aura. But honestly, the best part of the card is that it changes the name of the creature to Legitimate Businessperson, which offers up some hilarious table talk options for your pod.
Monster Manual: 3% of Decks
People used to jam Elvish Piper into every green Commander deck back in the day, but over time the format got a bit hostile to investing so much mana into a fragile one-mana creature that needed to survive a turn before it started giving you some value. Monster Manual costs the same mana to cast and one extra mana to activate, but since it’s an artifact rather than a creature, it’s a bit harder to remove from the battlefield, and you can use it right away.
This is a great way to delay sorcery-speed removal and to get around counterspells. And if you’re playing enough creatures to make good use of Monster Manual, then the Adventure side Zoological Study might be useful too—you can even use it alongside something like Sylvan Library or Sensei’s Divining Top to clear off cards from the top of your library, or just a way to prime your graveyard for shenanigans.
Seize the Spotlight: 2% of Decks
There’s a lot of text to this card, and I think that it might put people off it to some degree, especially since each opponent gets to choose a mode, and if a player doesn’t happen to have a creature, they can choose fame, and you get nothing. But honestly, how many Commander games do you play where at least two of your opponents don’t have creatures on the battlefield?
Most of the time they’re going to choose fortune, which lets you draw two or three cards and make two or three Treasure tokens, which is a solid floor for the card. But you can use politics to squeeze more out of it—an opponent may have incentive to let you take their best creature and attack someone else with it, so long as you promise not to sacrifice it and not to attack them with it. The few times I’ve played it, I really liked how it resolved.
Campfire: 0% of decks (1,213 of 366,500)
Some players enjoy building a deck around an “impossible” commander like Phage the Untouchable and Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. Campfire brings us another way to work around the problem of getting those commanders out of the command zone. There are also engine commanders like Dargo, the Shipwrecker and Prossh, Skyraider of Kher that can become stranded in your command zone because you’ve cast and sacrificed them a hundred times in the course of one big turn that didn’t somehow win the game.
But I think Campfire should be in a lot more decks, especially any that play partners or commanders with the Choose a Background ability. Commander tax for two commanders can add up over the course of the game, and Campfire gives you a one-shot way to circumvent that. If your commander is quite expensive to begin with, commander tax can become impossible to overcome even faster, so Campfire can help bring your commander online again.
There’s also that nice little ability to shuffle your graveyard back into your library, kicking it old-school like Feldon’s Cane. If you don’t have any graveyard recursion in your deck and your games tend to go long, this is a great way to just increase the density of gas to lands in your deck.
Delayed Blast Fireball: 2% of Decks
Blasphemous Act. Chain Reaction. Star of Extinction. Hour of Devastation. Almost all the premium red creature removal in Commander is symmetrical, which is what makes Delayed Blast Fireball so cool to consider even outside an “exile matters” deck. At three mana it’s a fantastic way to sweep away all those crazy token decks that generate a ton of small token creatures just waiting for Jetmir, Nexus of Revels to hit the battlefield and kill everyone.
It’s also perfectly acceptable to foretell the card early and just tuck it away in exile, and by the time you’ve got six mana to cast it, five damage to every opponent and their creatures could really impact the battlefield state. What’s even better is you’ll always have access to the card, and don’t have to discard it away if you really need something like Magus of the Wheel to draw a fresh hand.
Titan of Industry: 2% of Decks
Titan of Industry is a fantastic design, generating a ton of really flexible utility without being completely busted (Primeval Titan, I’m looking at you). I know a lot of Commander players these days think seven mana should immediately win you the game, but there are plenty of pods out there where grinding out value over the course of two hours is exactly the sort of Commander game they’re looking for. If you like those sorts of games, and you’re playing mono-green or a two-color green deck, consider Titan of Industry!
Legion Loyalty: 2% of Decks
I think people have residual impressions from the cards with myriad the first time around, but the myriad designs in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate play a lot better than you may expect. Legion’s Loyalty costs a whopping eight mana, yet has the incredible effect of giving all your creatures myriad. If you’re playing a green and white creature deck with a fair amount of ramp spells, eight mana is certainly within reach, and the turn you play it you can send your value creatures attacking immediately and get your value again! Just imagine attacking with Sun Titan and Titan of Industry the turn you cast Legion Loyalty…
Cephalid Facetaker: 1% of Decks
This is one of the cards that I had totally missed during the crush of new card releases, but I’ve been slotting it into several of my decks since I discovered it. Speaking of Sun Titan, a 1/4 Sun Titan that can’t be blocked is going to generate some sweet value, don’t you think? Sun Titan can even bring back your Cephalid Facetaker from the graveyard! If you copy a creature with haste, you can copy it and attack with it the turn you cast it. It’s a perfect carrier for Equipment cards like Sword of Fire and Ice, Quietus Spike, or Vorpal Sword.
Firbolg Flutist: 1% of Decks
Speaking of value, borrowing something like Sun Titan or Titan of Industry from an opponent and giving it haste and myriad is going to be a big, splashy fun play that will shake up any game. Or in a pinch you can borrow someone’s commander and when you attack, keep one of the copies and sacrifice the original to get it off the battlefield.
Mighty Servant of Leuk-o: 0% of decks (1,304 of 366,500)
If you’re playing a creature deck, particularly one with a fair number of smallish size, consider adding a Mighty Servant of Leuk-o to the deck. I recently cast this on Turn 3, and on Turn 4 I crewed it and smashed in and drew some cards. Mighty impressive! A 6/6 with trample and ward of discarding a card is a pretty good rate for the crew cost. Give it a try!
Contraband Livestock: 1% of Decks
I’ve mentioned Contraband Livestock in this column before, but I definitely wanted to bring it up again. Swords to Plowshares is in 57% of possible decks; Path to Exile is in 34% of possible decks. Contraband Livestock is obviously not as efficient as those exile removal spells, but it’s much more fun! I wouldn’t suggest replacing Swords to Plowshares with Contraband Livestock, but I would suggest playing both.
I’d definitely put Contraband Livestock on par with Reality Shift; half the time, it’ll be as good as or better than Reality Shift, and half the time you’re going to give them a 4/4 Ox token, which, let’s be honest, is going to be much better for you than the creature you got rid of, even if it’s bigger than a 2/2 or an 0/1. Rolling the dice creates a nice little sub-game that can be a quite fun break in the normal course of the game. Seriously, give it a try. I promise you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
What do you think of this list? Are there any cards from 2022 that you think are underplayed that didn’t make the cut here? Let me know!
Talk to Me
Do me a solid and follow me on Twitter! I run polls and get conversations started 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.
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And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.
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