As a Commander content creator, it’s my job to pore over each release with Commander in mind, but Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has unleashed such a firehose of new products, even I miss cool cards sometimes. I’ve committed to writing this article twice a year to help shed some light on the cards that I think aren’t being played as much as they should be. My goal is to help you discover cards that might have otherwise been overlooked in the deluge, and maybe even find some that I missed too!
I scanned through all the new cards released this year since my last article this summer, drew up a list of likely underplayed cards, and then checked them on EDHREC to see how many potential decks each one is showing up in. Those showing up in 1% or fewer of decks make my list. If you haven’t read the previous article, make sure to check it out for hidden gems released early this year!
I’ll kick off with the “OMG Why Aren’t You Playing These?” cards that show up in 0% of decks they could be in.
Candy Trail
Candy Trail has done impressive work every time I’ve played it. It goes in Food decks, Clue decks, and any artifact-themed deck, especially ones that have ways to recur artifacts from the graveyard. This card has me thinking about bringing Salvaging Station out of Commander retirement.
Glowcap Lantern
For many decks, knowing the top card of your library is essential, and for all decks, that little bit of info helps with decision-making. Any green deck with many creatures can consider running Glowcap Lantern, since the explore effect is surprisingly useful for smoothing out your draws. You don’t need to deal combat damage; you just need to attack to get the trigger.
Bedrock Tortoise
If you have a green deck that cares about Equipment, Auras, or other ways to modify your creatures such as counters, see if you have room for Bedrock Tortoise, which gives your team hexproof during your turn. Also, it’s basically a 6/6 for four mana, and any creatures you control that have a high toughness get much punchier in combat. I’ve been sliding this bulk rare into more and more of my decks!
Zygon Infiltrator
I totally overlooked Zygon Infiltrator as I was sifting through my Doctor Who Commander decks until just recently. Shapesharer always overperforms when I’ve played it or had it played against me, and for one more mana to cast, you get a lot more punch with Zygon Infiltrator. I might even compare it more to Eldrazi Displacer, since you can sink a bunch of mana into it to tap down and put a stun counter on multiple creatures. And if you’ve got Training Grounds in your deck, this card slots right in there!
Deconstruction Hammer
Deconstruction Hammer is another cheap Equipment from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan that I’m very impressed with. One mana to cast and one mana to equip for +1/+1 is already playable in Equipment decks and potentially even artifact-heavy decks, but having the option to sacrifice it for a Disenchant effect is a lot of upside for a one-mana card.
Okay, the following are a bit more played but still only show up in 1% of potential decks!
Sonic Screwdriver and Laser Screwdriver
I love that WotC has been making mana rocks that cost three mana increasingly powerful and useful to compete against the trend of people playing two-mana rocks, and these two “Screwdrivers” from the Doctor Who set have a ton of options built into them. Sonic Screwdriver is slightly more useful, since untapping another target artifact creates more options than tapping a target artifact, though any opponent playing Mana Vault will be quite sad about your Laser Screwdriver.
Gruff Triplets
Gruff Triplets does a lot more work than just putting nine power spread across three trampling bodies for six mana. If you can sacrifice one of them, you’ll get two 6/6 creatures, and if one of those dies, the remaining Triplet will be a 12/12. Since each token is a copy of the first one, cards that care about the mana cost get a big boost – think Food Chain, Birthing Pod, or even Burnt Offering.
Asinine Antics
Asinine Antics is bonkers in Commander. It puts a Cursed Role attached to each creature for all of your opponents, making them 1/1s. You can cast it precombat to make your attacks more powerful, or you can cast it postcombat to kill off any blockers that may have survived. If you’ve got an untapped Goblin Sharpshooter, you can go nuts! Plus, for two more mana, you can cast it as though it has flash. This is a lot of power packed into a relatively cheap sorcery.
Unfinished Business
Unfinished Business was another card that I’d initially missed, but ordered a few copies to have available for my Commander decks. It is great to have alongside Mantle of the Ancients as ways to recover from a battlefield sweeper that has destroyed all of your Equipment or Aura cards. Unfinished Business has the advantage of bringing back a creature from the graveyard to the battlefield, which means you can potentially set up a powerful turn by either milling a bunch of cards into your graveyard first or stocking your graveyard with precision using cards like Entomb. Think about Aurelia, the Warleader having some unfinished business with Eldrazi Conscription and, say, Shadowspear. Boom!
Diamond Pick-Axe
Here’s yet another cheap Equipment card from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. While Diamond Pick-Axe is showing up in more decks than the previous ones I mentioned, it still seems criminally underplayed. It’s cheap to cast and equip, and provides a +1/+1 boost, but the fact that it’s indestructible means it’s much less vulnerable to mass removal of artifacts. Plus, it makes Treasure tokens on attack, which is incredibly powerful.
Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress
Part of the bonus cards from holiday reprinting of Tales of Middle-earth Commander, Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress seems like an excellent land to add to any black deck that’s not obsessed with speed and efficiency (since it enters the battlefield tapped). It provides black mana, and later on is an excellent mana sink to help crack stalled games open: you can either add a shadow counter to a big monster that can now attack unblocked for the most part, or you can shift a problematic blocker into the shadow zone because you can target any creature on the battlefield, including your opponents’ creatures! And since you can give one of your own creatures shadow, any opposing creature with shadow might not want to attack you, since you can make one of yours available to block.
Keep in mind, black is quite able to produce a ton of black mana with cards like Cabal Coffers, so the cost of activation usually won’t be a problem.
The Everflowing Well
The Everflowing Well has a ton of value tied up into just three mana. It’s a double cantrip, drawing two cards while it mills you two cards (potentially covering 25% of your descend requirement). If you’re playing enough permanents that can end up in your graveyard either by sacrifice or by being good enough an opponent has motivation to destroy them, this will transform into The Myriad Pools sooner or later, land ramping you and providing a nice effect when you use the mana to cast a permanent spell. Imagine casting a Sun Titan and turning one of your random lands into a Sun Titan for the turn!
Giant Inheritance
Auras need extra help to be worth playing in Commander, and Giant Inheritance one delivers! For five mana, you give enchanted creature +5/+5, and when it attacks, you get to create a Monster Role token attached to up to one target attacking creature. Assuming the Aura recipient didn’t already have trample, you’re giving it trample and an additional +1/+1 with that Role, which is extremely helpful at pushing damage through with your now-gigantic monster. Next time you attack, you can add that Role to another attacking creature you have.
As if that wasn’t enough, if Giant Inheritance is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, you return it to the owner’s hand to use it all over again. This is obviously awesome in Aura decks, but I see playing it in all sorts of creature-focused decks that want to push through combat damage, and with just one pip of green mana, it’s easy to cast in multicolor decks. This card is awesome!
Weeping Angel
Weeping Angel has a bunch of fantastic abilities that make it a great addition to any deck with access to the Dimir color combination. Since it’s got flash, it’s super-easy to ambush an unsuspecting attacker with a block, and since it’s got first strike, its ability to shuffle the creature back into its owner’s library is quite powerful. Remember, if you block a commander, they can put it into the command zone instead of shuffling into the deck, but that’s still an awesome effect. And while an opponent can time their attacks once it’s on the battlefield by casting a creature before attacking, you can potentially do tricky stuff like bouncing it back to your hand and casting it again with flash.
Twists and Turns
Twists and Turns is obviously powerful in explore decks, but I’m giving it a try in any creature-heavy green deck. Once you’ve got a creature on the battlefield, for just one mana, you get to scry 1 and then explore, snagging a land if that’s what you need, or pushing it away if it’s later in the game and you’re set for lands. Green also has plenty of land ramp options, so meeting the transform requirement will be easy, and let me tell you, folks, Mycoid Maze is an incredible mana sink for the late-game to find gas in your creature-heavy deck.
Last Night Together
It’s a little narrower than other effects that give you extra attack steps, but giving two creatures two +1/+1 counters, untapping them, and giving them vigilance, indestructible, and haste along with an extra attack step will be amazing in decks where you have already large creatures with some form of evasion such as trample. Keep in mind the rest of your creatures can participate in the initial attack, and you’re nearly guaranteed to have two beefy creatures on defense afterwards.
Olórin’s Searing Light
Some years back, my partner Wendy reminded me just how good Crackling Doom is in Commander, since it typically takes down the most threatening creature each opponent has. Olórin’s Searing Light costs one more mana but is easier on the specific mana requirements, and it exiles those creatures instead of forcing the sacrifice, which can be huge against decks that bring creatures back from the graveyard. And then there’s the spell mastery bonus if you have two or more instant or sorcery spells in your graveyard as you cast it, dealing extra damage to your opponents. Plus, at four mana, it’s still eligible to fetch up with a Sunforger activation!
The Belligerent
Playing cards from the top of your library is a powerful effect, and The Belligerent makes it pretty easy by simply attacking to unlock that ability for the turn. As a 5/5 attacker, there’ll usually be an opponent you can safely attack into. Plus, it gives you a Treasure token, which can help you cast more spells from the top of your deck.
Over the Edge
I love having modal cards in my Commander decks so you have more options. While you likely will have artifact or enchantment targets at most points in the game, sometimes there’s nothing you really want to burn a card on. You can just hang onto it for future turns, or effectively cycle it away by exploring twice with a creature you control.
Which of these cards sparked some ideas for your Commander decks? What other cards do you think have been overlooked in Commander decks this year?
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!
