An adorable Otter Elemental companion became the fastest banned card in Magic history.
Just five minutes after Lutri, the Spellchaser was debuted on the Magic: the Gathering Twitch stream, following the Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths preview, Sheldon Menery of the Commander Rules Committee posted this update.
While Lutri is only banned in Commander, it still marks the fastest action taken against a card ever. With its inclusion coming at no cost, Lutri would be a fixture in every Izzet Commander deck.
But what about in Standard and other 60-card formats? First, let’s look at the Companion requirement.
Each nonland card in your starting deck has a different name.
This deck-building restriction has been seen in other digital card games before, but this is the first time we’ve seen it in Magic outside of Commander-style formats. Can a competitive Standard deck even be built with singletons? Is the juice worth the squeeze with Lutri?
Flash
When Lutri, the Spellchaser enters the battlefield, if you cast it, copy target instant or sorcery spell you control. You may choose new targets for the copy.
The deck would have to built with one-ofs, mostly instants and sorceries, and be in the market to copy them for three mana to get a 3/2 body with no evasion. Sounds like a lot to ask, but the guaranteed pay off from an essentially free extra card could make the difference.
However, Lutri doesn’t have to be played from your sideboard. You can ignore the companion clause altogether, and play an Izzet deck stocked with powerful instants and get to sleeve up a playset of the tricky Elemental Otter as part of your game plan. Whether that’s enough to move the needle, we’ll have to wait and see.