#(Very relevant to my Cousin C too so YES I Am Following This)

[road-rhythm]

Hey! Sorry if this is weird, but I really enjoyed your fic "The Very First Stone" and I was wondering if you would say more about the setting and the folklore in it? You mentioned in your notes that it's based on a real town and in general it seems like you put a lot of research into your stories, so I was just wondering how much is real and how much is fiction.

The fic in question

So a lot of things in that fic are indeed ripped straight from real life, and you are correct, I tend to research A Lot. To say nothing of the timeline. I hated myself the entire time I was writing it. It's a sickness.

Anyway, I feel like details in fiction can be plotted along axes of accuracy and plausibility, thus:

Quadrants B and D are probably the least entertaining to talk about, though as B is relevant to your ask I'll show some stuff that (probably) goes there. Quadrant C is usually interesting to writers from a craft perspective, but assuming too much about which inventions were convincing seems unwise, so let's start with quadrant A.

————————————————————

Real shit that seems fake

A lot of things in quadrant A will be about either religion or geography. To say that the religious items "seem fake" is of course to imply that these things are bizarre and other; that in turn assumes that the reader is an outsider to this particular religious subculture. If you are not an outsider to it and find this chauvinistic, I am moderately sorry. Although I personally find pretty much everything about the brands of Christianity that inform so much of this fic incompatible with my own values and beliefs, I did sincerely want to represent it as something complex, by no means devoid of merit, and above all real, a force of paramount importance in millions of people's lives. On the other hand, I have met some real nuts.

Religion

The Christian Flag

It's real, and a couple buildings in the lake town the fic is based on fly it today. A lot of denominations use it in one capacity or another, apparently, but I've only ever personally encountered it in the context of American evangelical Christianity. I have never seen it flown or displayed otherwise than level with the national flag.

(Not a particularly good picture, sorry.)

Pledges of Allegiance to the Christian Flag and to the Bible

I was home schooled as a kid. This was not because my family was religious—we weren't in the slightest—but since literally everybody else in the home schooling community there not only was Christian but was home schooling because of this, we knew some very devout evangelicals. At least two families were Quiverfull.

If you're wondering whether any of their practices registered to young Roadie and sibling as odd, yes, they did. One time I was at a bonfire for some short-stay camp and three of the kids got into a serious debate about whether this constituted burning crosses. Another time while in the woods owned by a family that for some reason had a lot of free-range peacocks I was handed a pamphlet that explained that the reason it's difficult to memorize the entire Bible verbatim is because Satan doesn't want you to. I got to peruse some Chick tracts on a couple of occasions, and I once got given a Cooper Kids Adventure and urged to read it, as this would surely open my heart to the message of the church. (It didn't, but I remembered the book vividly enough to use it to shitpost about antis twenty-five years later.)

Anyway, yes, both these pledges are real. This one Quiverfull mom had her kids say the pledge to the Bible before they started school every day. The pledge to the flag I never knew about until later. I think I first heard of it on the Apocrypals podcast. (They're on Tumblr and worth a follow, but I ain't tagging them in this.)

The church marquee (A 4-IN TONGUE CAN BRING A 6-FT MAN 2 HIS KNEES)

Before it was a meme, this was an actual church sign. I have seen it displayed unironically in the wild as recently as 2018.

"my cousin Bethany, she got baptized in an inflatable pool down by the speedway"

Circumstances of the baptism of a distant cousin living outside the Triangle.

Chapel for lake baptisms

I never saw any actual baptisms take place at it, but the chapel's really there, with the stairs leading straight into the lake as described, so I'm pretty sure that happens. Or did: the real-life Jewel Lake was famous for decades for astonishingly clear water, but in recent years human activity (mainly boating and jet skiing), interference with the water level via a man-made outflow, and climate change (rising temps) have contributed to rampant algae growth throughout the whole body of water. It is now green soup. Which doesn't stop people getting in it, but I suppose might make it less appealing for ritual cleansing.

Strip-mall church where John meets Silas

I guess I slightly lied; the Family Dollar’s down the street.

The church service Sam attends

is based on services I attended over a period of some months as part of my research.

Please don't get the wrong idea; I didn't attend months' worth of services for a religion I don't believe in to write a Supernatural fanfic. I was doing that anyway, because I wanted to understand religious extremism in my home country (USA) a little better. I'm not a journalist. There was no payday. I was just curious, so I did it. Then I used it to write a Supernatural fanfic.

Churches are thick on the ground in Beulah County's real-life counterpart. The brand of Christianity I was interested in was the radical, evangelical sort that I'd stood on the outside of as a kid in a small home schooling community, that gave us Patrick Henry College (whose first-generation graduates are coming home to roost in exactly the political positions the movement exists to funnel them into), that so many friends I’ve met over the years have escaped from. So what I did was pick the church that looked the kookiest and go there.

I'll be honest, it wasn't as kooky on the inside as I was expecting. I do believe a lot of that is rhetorical strategy: the radicalism is there, and not far under the surface, but the church doesn't want to scare off newcomers so opts for a frog-boiling approach. That probably sounds very cynical. Well, I am pretty cynical about religion, but I also believe rhetorical manipulation is never entirely absent from human communication and pretty much a gimme in any kind of proselytization. The church leadership I met struck me as more sincere than I thought they would.

If anybody is actually still reading this, perhaps you're slightly appalled by my ethics. After all, I did insert myself into a religious community in, if not exactly bad faith, certainly a conspicuous lack of it. I was ambivalent about it at the time; I'm less so now I've had some months to think about it. In any case, here are my arguments for the practice:

They did say all were welcome. I didn't attend any of the very small, clearly very traditional Pentecostal or Baptist churches burrowed back into the pine trees that I definitely considered and whose practices I would have liked to see very much, because while those places did sometimes have a line reading "all are welcome" on their little marquees, they vibed a lot more insular. This church, by contrast, appeared to be engaged in outright advertising war with its competition for the souls of Beulah County. They have a website that's actually pretty slick for what it is. They have bumper stickers. They have t-shirts. It's not a mega-church, but I get the distinct impression it aspires to mega-churchdom.

I met the head pastor and told him (broadly) why I was there. I told him I was curious about the church's practices and culture (true), that I'd had a fascination with religion as a outsider since childhood (true), and that I was not myself a believer or sure I was capable of belief (extremely true). I did leave out relevant things about myself, like the fact that my response toward the church's explicitly patriarchal creed of spiritual headship starts and ends with "go fuck yourself," but so did they. In fact, I note that the list of beliefs available on the website today no longer includes the portions about "traditional gender roles" or sexuality. They were definitely there in early 2019, and the sermons still being published confirm that the beliefs themselves haven't gone anywhere, but the institution has seen fit to remove their explicit enumeration with Biblical citations from the credo page. Interesting.

Fundamentalist evangelical Christianity is not a private pursuit. It wreaks havoc at every level of American government and society, by design. It is my fucking problem, and I consider anything I can do to understand what's driving it my prerogative.

In the end, I'm not sure I learned that much. I certainly didn't walk away feeling like I understood, once and for all, why the thing is the way it is or why it's so widespread. I guess I was mildly surprised by how much psychological insight the messages displayed—that they correctly identified various emotional/spiritual problems common to nearly all humans and offered persuasive (and for many people, effective) solutions—but, like… I shouldn't have been. So I guess to that extent, the experience served to blunt the edges of some knee-jerk othering. But mainly the rhetoric was what was interesting.

I don't mean only, or even mainly, what was said or how. I mean the service as a whole. From start to finish, it's a carefully orchestrated experience, immersive and multimedia in a way none of the church services I ever saw as a guest musician were. It would be easy to lambaste them for emotional manipulation—except emotional manipulation is a feature, not a bug, and I don't think they're terribly untransparent about it. I still wonder how qualitatively different these modern-day protestant services are from historical ones that used (say) Bach's masses for their original intended purposes.

I was fascinated by the staging (it's much as described in Sam's chapter; they have these stylized crosses that double as the church logo, and rather than just A Cross front and center, the stage has two of these, like, trademarked crosses (yes, backlit in purple) to either side, centering the pastor), and by the timing (again like Sam's chapter, they have a giant digital clock over the stage displaying a countdown to the start of the service, and then the pastor comes jogging out right on the mark like a talk show host; the musical numbers are carefully woven into the instructional segments, and the band will start quiet little riffs while a speaker is still going to underscore what they're saying and give it a little emotional gloss), and by the props (the paper chain really happened; one week there were big building blocks made out of cardboard boxes; ceiling tiles appeared on the wall glued in abstract patterns at one point and I waited all sermon for an explanation of their significance that never came), and by, yes, the disco lights.

But probably the most interesting feature was the altar call. I didn't know it was called that at the time; I had to describe to exvangelical friends a few times before somebody went, "Oh! Yes! That's an altar call!"

Once I had the name for it, I could look it up online, and that was really interesting because it turns out altar calls are actually quite controversial even within evangelical circles.

It happened a lot like in Sam's chapter. In fact, I thought I was going to have to write a sermon myself, but while watching video archives on the website to get the diction, I happened on one that basically did what I needed—the David and Jonathan one—and worked off of that.* Of course I cut stuff for length, but that was the general shape of it.

After the sermon, the pastor invites everybody to come down to the stage and pray. In this particular church, a primary purpose of this was for laying on of hands. As in, you go down there and a pastor lays hands on people and those people lay hands on everybody else in a kind of human chain and the purpose of this, as announced via microphone, is spiritual and physical healing. I have since found out that this is not common. Laying on of hands, people have told me, is 1) primarily for induction of clergy, and 2) otherwise reserved to special occasions. Not a routine part of weekly services either way. But it was part and parcel of the altar call at this church. Their official creed mentions a belief in speaking in tongues; I only heard that happen once, but unlike Sam, I never went down into the heart of the mosh pit. I mostly watched from across the room.

One interesting thing that ended up on the cutting-room floor was that there were notably fewer Bibles around than you might have expected. In fact, there were fewer Bibles in this church than in any other I have been in in my life. Congregants brought Bibles with them, many of which were study editions and frequently accompanied by a notebook, but when the preacher told us all to open up to a particular chapter and verse, we were on our own. As in the fic, there are no pews. The space much more closely resembles an auditorium than a traditional church sanctuary, and the chairs are those ones you see in convention halls that lock together on the sides to form rows.

On their bottoms, there are wire book racks. There are no books there, Bibles or otherwise. Instead what you will find is a survey card, aimed mainly at newcomers; I no longer have mine, but to the best of my recollection, it looked something like:

NEWCOMER SURVEY Today, I… [ ] Found fellowship in praise [ ] Understood the truth of the Word of God [ ] Accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior [ ] Made a decision to follow Jesus Christ in my life [ ] Am ready to be baptized and born again

Sam flipped it over. The reverse read:

NEXT STEPS I'm interested in… [ ] Growth Track: Adults [ ] Growth Track: Youth [ ] Donation: Beulah Flood Relief [ ] Donation: Finding the Few & Vision-Giving [ ] Donation: Missions [ ] Tithing

A pen or stub of pencil is helpfully included to complete the card, which can be redeemed at a station in the lobby after the service for a t-shirt.

Geography

"Blinding white" sand

So much.

Everywhere.

The stuff looks almost like powdered sugar in places. It’s absurdly bright. Which really does help to set off the…

Blood-red water

Southeastern North Carolina has a shitton of pine trees, a very high water table, and a shitton of pocosins. You don't really need a pocosin—any slight depression will do—but the area featured is more pocosin than not. Anyway. There are so many pine needles that they tint the water.

It's hard to photograph. In person, the color can range from dark, coffee brown—almost black—to whiskey amber, with a deep, red-amber being fairly common. You see it in lakes, pocosins, creeks, and puddles. The abundance of pale sand around notably enhances the effect.

(This one is not my picture: it was taken by Dan Griffin of the University of Arkansas on the Black River. The bald cypresses seen here are estimated at around 2,600 years old.)

The only part that's made-up is both the red water and perfectly clear water coexisting in the same body. The real-life Jewel Lake is not fed by a creek; it's an ellipsoid lake with no obvious source and nobody knows how it got there. Eastern NC has a lot of lakes like that, though as far as I know only that one is (was) clear. I smashed two lakes together into one lake with a handwavy explanation about a creek because I liked the effect. I am cheap.

Hog lagoons

I don't know how fake these maybe seemed. I mean, I hope they didn't seem too fake, since my plot hinged on them and all. But are they really Ghostbusters II-pink? Are they really that dangerous? Can they really kill anyone who disturbs them, even (say) healthy teenagers just trying to dunk another healthy teenager without getting in themselves?

Yes

yes

and yes.

If you're wondering how communities economically dependent on industrial hog farming are impacted by close proximity to these, the answer is not well.

(Incidentally, though white conservatives often point to calls for hog farming regulatory change as an example of tree-hugging environmentalism taking aim at the family traditions of hardworking (white, natch) small-scale farmers just trying to keep their wholesome way of life alive—going to far as to piss me the fuck off by outright stealing the slogan "No Farms, No Food" from the American Farmland Trust for their shitty propaganda—hog farming in the state is overwhelmingly industrialized, and all those campaigns came out of fucking Smithfield. And the operations are highly concentrated in poor, majority non-white areas—areas with high dependence on well water and low access to healthcare. And that's been the case for decades (at least).)

————————————————————

Real shit that seems real

Hopefully, the folklore and folkcraft portrayed in the fic fall here. To wit:

Silas Ward's yard protections

Lifted straight from Arts in Earnest: North Carolina Folklife:

AGAINST ALL WITCHCRAFT WROUND THE HOUSE: Buy 4 cans of lye; punch 9 holes in the bottom of each can; turn the holes toward the ground and bury one can round on 4 corners of your yard. Sprinkle some salt, red pepper and sulpher around your front yard and back doorsteps.

According to Arts in Earnest, these recipes were found among the effects of a Charlotte root doctor murdered by a client in 1979.

The madstone

(from grandviewoutdoors.com)

Madstones are just bezoars under an American name. The term applies primarily to stones from deer (some purists would argue only from deer) rather than goats, but that's what they are. In historical folkcraft, they were used primarily as a treatment for rabies (less commonly spider or snakebites since those are so time-sensitive—the more common folk remedy for those is moonshine); I know I found a couple sources that talked about them being used against witchcraft, but that part of my research happened well over a year ago and I've misplaced a lot of references.

However, none of them had anything about victims holding the stone in their mouths. That part was straight-up invention for Teh Dramahs.

Anyway. That's… that's probably enough.

————————————————————

Anon, you might not be, but I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED me this, because if there is one thing I love, it is SHOWING MY WORK.

TEACHER: Show your work ROADIE’S CLASSMATES: *groan* YOUNG ROADIE [softly]: You will know the taste of regret.

You're welcome. I hope it's salty enough.

————————————————————

*I’m not linking back to the church website from either this blog or AO3, for reasons I trust are obvious.

————————————————————

Bonus: I wish I were making it up about the “samurai,” but no

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Czech Republic to Eurovision with an unexpected geographical sight name

Another year, another Czech attempt at a national final that wasn’t televised also BUT this time we got some excitement announcements out of them - even if they were blatantly boring, kind of.

Keep in mind though that I know that the revamp's out, BUT this whole review is just me reviewing the version we all witnessed back when ESCZ hit. The one and only.

So the NF’s here because we saw Mikolas succeed from it the last time (eventhough it’s just a secret internal selection for just the Mikolas’s song and there’s no no denying hihihi), right? And thanks to that we got pseudo-official-but-not-so-official hotel music videos of each contestant’s songs just in case they decide to... like... change it for something different. Like those lyric videos last year. Eventhough they looked so very lowbudget this year, I still liked them to some degree, and eventually I had to witness this one video (set in presumably mostly the living room) where the lead singer confettis all over himself win this year (well not really the video as much as I only got to first hear that song on ESCRadio hahaha). Well, just the lead singer of it. As the buddies were on the other official video (the one I’ll talk about in my revamps update I guess but has anything changed other than the singer singing one of his talking parts?). As a whole the Czech entrants this year are known as Lake Malawi (it exists) and “Friend of a Friend” is their A-game! Let’s listen!

I liked it ever since my first acknowledgence(??) of it through ESCRadio. It reminded me of those happy-clappy 80s synth sounds (eventhough the 80s songs were mostly about gloom and doom), somehow somewhat mixed in with a bit of that ‘modern’ synthpop sound from the British music scene (Years & Years maybe? Nah that’d be too far-fetched). The lyrics, while cheap enough, at least paint a bit of a picture? I don’t think the person in the song was “making love” to his ‘old’ neighbouress back when she was 13, anyway. She’s, afterall, the “friend of a friend”. Who is a friend of a friend. Who is a friend of a friend. Who is a friend of a friend’s COUSIN~

The thing is that some songs out here are enjoyable besides their lyrical content. Or even without the singer’s background (still looking at those who’re shading Sheppard’s family business - shut up and enjoy “Geronimo” in peace, geez!). I, for example, jammed to RiRi’s “S&M” for my lifetime - yes, even since when it got big, and the pop music was being made to sound trashy, and not like something that sounds too somber and ‘foggy’, and with lyrics from r/im14andthisisdeep, and then later slapped on those a e s t h e t i c moodboards with tulips and liquid (of colour blue/red) splashed onto them to make it loof more effective, and placed in front of a yellow background on a white table. I miss late 2000s-early 2010s pop a whole lot, because at least it had fathomable-to-the-ear hits of the time - cheap, fast food, techno melodies with overproduction and lyrics that actually mean something more intimate and grotesque (with sometimes even hinting to the love surface) - that was the shit. Now it’s just drowsy stuff with blurry melodies and lamentings of lost love and devotion in an equally slurry, pathetic, vocal whine. I’m so tired of it. It’s unsettling. Get it off me. And thankfully, none of that invades this small little bubble of Eurovision’s just as of now (unlike the other pathetic musical cliche of nowadays that’s Soundcloud rap - ‘thanks’ a lot USNK). And I guess I shouldn’t be blessed that Lake Malawi brings this “this bangs but the lyrics are... a choice, but it still bangs so idc” back onto Eurovision? Like, come on, we all have had such kinds of songs like those all of that time. From “I Can’t Go On” (a man being a slut for love???) to countless of national final shlocks made by these usual suspects from rent-a-songwriter corner, ESPECIALLY in the 00s, to some of those actual 00s entries that made it - so stupid to sing along to, yet so infectious you can’t drag your earworm out of your ear canals just now. What does “Friend of a Friend” have for itself? Keyboard melody in the 2nd half of the chorus that is easily stuck in MY head, with a female voice (I assume it’s the song’s protagonist’s subject of speech - the neighbourina herself) reassuring that “[she’s] only [his] friend” - not in a “haha I’m friendzoning you forever >:)” way, but “ehhhh there’s truly nothing between us as he says, we’re just friends, not lovers, don’t give me that look” way. Sure it’s believable, sure. It might as well turn out that these neighbours are indeed doing the same thing as in all those local anecdotes where a family’s mother or father has an affair with a next-door neighbour for shits and giggles to move the joke’s plot forward.

So it is, as a whole, a fun little throwback-ish piece of fine and smooth music, accompanied with the lead singer’s ‘British’ ‘accent’ (aha so this is why I get a lot of British radio vibes from this - not to mention, tropical beach ones too for some reason!), some sort of spoken dialogue, energy and the ability to raise you up from your seat the 45875th time you’re actually giving in to all of this. You know you want to, despite this song possibly not being your cup of tea. But I see you, and I look forward to seeing you bopping to this fully in May, no matter if this isn’t Mikolas you’re dealing with anymore, and no camel spaghetti. Ahw yeah!

Approval factor: Although it’s also slowly wearing off me like it already wore off everyone else back then, I’m still giving it one hell of an approval. Yay!

Follow-up factor: I definitely like it more than “Lie to Me” as well. Somewhat. Honestly. Don’t bash me in secret.

Qualification factor: the naysayers are saying this will flop but imo they’re mostly just upset that Barbora didn’t go (even if they were only still upset back in the say), STILL. Ugh can’t they just leave. I am positive about this song’s chances somewhat, just hoping it gets a really memorable and stand out staging and maybe it will escape this hellhole of its semi. Not very confident, just positive. (Also they rocked the Vidbir stage so hard even the uncomfortable question queen Dramala couldn’t not give in the dance, lolz.)

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

Honestly, the best possible thing that came out of this NF was the oh-so-unexpectedly-expected winner choice, and it is like this because, yet again, people couldn’t get over Barbora losing at first, to which I’m like “to be quite honest, you were all into it because that’s the closest thing to Lana del Rey you’d ever get in Eurovision because Lana herself is American and America should NOT set their foot into ESC... besides, she wouldn’t probably do it anyways”. ESCZ wasn’t pretty bad of a NF honestly:

• people actually laughed at the fact every single video of this NF is so low-budget that it looked like it was all filmed in the same hotel room! (in reality I’m just jealous at the slick-ass hotels they’ve had on there, feels like someone’s house more than a hotel actually)

• Pam Rabbit, one of Mikolas’s last year’s backings, brought the second-best NF song this year imo (Barbora for me is likeable but not to THAT degree, lol calm yer tits), as it was a lowkey bop and I can’t not appreciate one!

(her officially official MV is here but in the spirit of this NF’s, you’re gonna have to subject yourself to this above in order to witness spectacular budget-MVs that happened for this NF especially, come on. Hardly a cool NF without its own little perks!)

• Fine, I’ll bring up Barbora Mochowa too. I gotta say she DOES sound like Queen Bee Lana, same to say on her earlier works which, among them, has one enchanting and haunting forest-like ballad. “True Colors”, her ESCZ entry, is just a pop ballad, which is not THAT bad, it’s just that... did y’all see any more in that song beyond the Lana vocals? Sure sure the melody is pleasant but... did ya?

(Lord alive, she also has a live video for this song on her channel, which is in fact the ESCZ’s unplugged version video!)

• The ex-ESC entrant jury is back for another year! This time though, the votes of all of the participants in it were all up and public (unlike secrety mcsecret ones from 2018 where I’m not even sure if the Eurojury panel was correct), and most of them were #TeamMalawi or #TeamBarbora... up until AWS (yes AWS are relevant enough for their own panel!), being the “wait do we still have to do Eurovision related things??? it’s sooooo 1 year ago already, let us go goddammit!!” type of participants that they are, totally and utterly half-arsing their own experience in there by 12ing Andrea Holá. The thing is that she’s first alphabetically from the artists so that’s probably the best possible theory why. “GIVE ME A HINT, ANDREA!!!”

• The best part? The NF itself taking place in the second floor of an abandoned warehouse somewhere in Czech Republic (Czechia go to hell), in the middle of the day, with no live performances, just that video above played in full motion and some random people speaking in between. Silly of them to leak my ideal NF design location if I ever were a Lithuanian HoD. And yes, it was streamed on Facebook, the platform that I can barely play livestreams on my 11-year-old laptop on, while suspiciously enough, it worked for FiK 56... which meant that I was barely able to grasp a screenshot but I managed!

Well of course I didn’t get to watch much but after someone said Lake Malawi (or, in their words, Lake Malala <333) won, I almost believed it until I found out that the show’s still going... and only saw the thing on the projection screen later out of nowhere. IDK who’s hugging who and if that audience on the right are all the participants then I may have an idea but for now IDK. Ahh, relevant video media being projected on projection screens (duh) <33 giving San Marino, Albania’s Powerpoint scoreboards and Belgian 2013 radio NF runs for their money.

I might find mistakes and off-the-wall blabbers in this write-up later but for now I’ll carelessly submit this beauty to Tumblr today and wish the best of luck to Lake Malawi in Tel Aviv! May you qualify for the 2nd year in a row for CZ ^^

[neingel]

Complete review of Aether Revolt cards for Commander!

Well as the spoiler season ends as a new set prepares to be released. Aether Revolt does look to me one of the most exciting sets Wizards have made in a long while. Many new toys for Standard as well as minor tweaks for various decks in Modern to enjoy. However I myself am a Commander player and today I’ll be looking as well as handpicking a group of cards. Yes but not only any ordinary group of cards, but more specifically cards to a format I call home, yes that’s right! It’s time for a good breakdown of the potential cards in Aether Revolt that could see play in Commander!

Starting off, it’s no surprise that with every new set, everyone is excited with what new Legendary Creatures are in the set as they could make strong generals in the Future. I must say among the 5 all of them are very unique and have strong abilities. Sram falls perfectly into decks that already run Equipment, Auras and even recently printed Vehicles (Yes I’m looking at you Depala), while Baral features a Goblin Electromancer v2.0 with extra cycling effects, though not as good as a general but very promising in the 99. Yaheeni does seem to me my favorite pick for this entire lot, she’s low costed,able to protect herself and fits perfectly with popular graveyard strategies in EDH . Kari Zev does admittedly look the weakest among the 5 but who knows what build she might fit in. Last but not the least Rishkar can either be an excellent General fr a new build or give decks that play around with +1/+1 counters a unique “Cryptolith Rite”-like ability. Overall, I feel that the Legendary Creatures in this set has been of great success!

Again, a new set comes with a new cycle of special spells to play with. Not only are these spells pretty flavorful when it comes to the storyline, but they are all very powerful for what they do at their cost, getting a sweet effect and being able to cast a card for free from your hand is always nice. As for Commander I’m generally in favor of both Yaheeni’s and Rishkar’s Expertise, reason being Yaheeni’s is a mini board wipe early game which would result you in placing a reasonable 3 drop afterwards, while Rishkar allows you to draw a lot of cards and being able to not worry about mana and place a 5 drop from what you’ve drawn. However what I like most about them is despite each having the same “free cast” effect, each of them are still very unique in their own way and would definitely find a home in many decks.

WHITE  

Do note, I might include the previously mentioned Expertises and Legendaries in these lists. Well in no order or ranking whatsoever, we shall start off the 5 best cards for each color in Commander!. 

Consulate Crackdown

Now Consulate Crackdown is an interesting card that caught my attention when it first got spoiled, it was not only expected to be quite strong in Standard but also in EDH. White has gotten a unique way to get rid of pesky, troublesome artifacts (yes Darksteel Forge is definitely something this loves looking at) without actually having trouble blowing them up, resulting in all artifacts being reanimated through something like Scrap Mastery. Also this card works insanely well with Myconsynth Lattice, serving as another combo piece for the artifact that is well dreaded in Commander, this neat little trick causes you to exile each and every one of your opponent’s permanents, leaving them with nothing but your board in play. Insane boardwipe for artifact themed decks and it also serves as a powerful artifact removal for others.

Exquisite Archangel

Well about this card..yes it isn’t very good on paper as they are more reliable cards that prevent you from losing the game, cards like Platinium Angel and Phyrexian Unlife are both excellent in Commander. However do keep in mind, this card is just another one of those ways to prevent you from losing the game. Especially when it’s a long game, everyone has either ran out of answers or resources. Your opponents would most likely not want to see this being played. Also, this could fit in some neat Angel Tribal theme or some deck that aims to recur it’s creatures for their powerful effects.

Call for Unity

Ah yes..a White Coat of Arms! Being in White has never been better when you can run 2 Coat of Arms! Call for Unity does stand out a little bit from Coat of Arms though, it does not require a tribe to be played and it’s an enchantment. White in Commander is well known for some of it’s aggressive synergies, in particular creatures and their enchantments. This card’s strength is no stranger to many players. However, with it’s Revolt ability, a lot and I mean a lot of decks that play around flickering their own creatures/permanents will adore this card. It will be interesting to see how players will build around this card and how it might grow to be the next Coat of Arms.

Sram, Senior Edificer 

Sram is a very interesting card. He could play effectively as a general but I feel he would be much better being in the 99 for decks playing Auras and Equipments, and boy there are a lot of generals that would love him in their deck! Zur, Kemba, Bruna Light of Alabaster, Krond, Aurelia, Jor Kadeen...the list just goes on! He is perfectly costed and acts as a very powerful draw engine for these decks.

Sram’s Expertise

Ah..token decks players are probably rubbing their hands in glee. Sram’s Expertise is literally a 4 for 1. Netting 3 tokens which make excellent blockers or simply piling them up to your already growing token army. The free cast for a ≤ 3 cmc card from your hand is just icing on the cake. Many token decks like Trostani, Rhys the Redeemed, Teysa Orzhov Scion and many more would have this auto-included.

BLUE

Mechanized Production

For players outside of Commander, seeing this Mythic might leave them a bad taste in their mouth. It does look quite horrible at times but Commander’s specialty is turning bulk rares into rock stars. This is just one of those fun cards Wizards prints once in awhile, Mechanized Production does remind me of Biovisionary but somehow easier to pull off due to it’s synergy with artifacts. You don’t necessarily need to copy a big fatty, but what you could do is to place it on “artifact tokens”. Thopters, Myrs, Golems...the list is endless, this card has quite the chance to shine in most artifact decks being a cheap and reliable copy generator or just simply a win-con in decks that produce a lot of tokens!

Whir of Invention

I clearly remembered when this got spoiled, I just started sharing with my friends about this “artifact chord”. While Improvise is slightly worse than chord, it does give artifact decks a strong instant speed tutor for any artifact in their deck. Also cmc isn’t really an issue with the amount of mana rocks artifact decks run, they can just improvise away~. Overall, solid card, not too over or under powered.

Disallow

As a control player and someone who adores counterspells...FINALLY! Like..it’s hard to put it but Disallow is literally the blue Voidslime. Heck, it’s an even better Voidslime for the ability to splash with colors outside of Green. It’s the same mana as Cancel but strictly, no I mean really - many blue players have wanted a Voidslime outside of Simic colors, and we finally got one! *Fist pumps like crazy* 

Trophy Mage

Is that you Trinket Mage? Oh no? Oh but you do have better stats! Yes, it is Trophy Mage whom supposedly is the cousin of Trinket Mage except she is from Kaladesh. Anyways, Trophy Mage is just like Trinket Mage except she searches for only cmc of 3. But in Commander, cmc 3 often means Chromatic Lantern, Static Orb, Phyrexian Altar, Thousand-Year Elxir....the list is endless and you can see why this card makes it to this list.

Baral, Chief of Compliance

Well well well, I spy with my little eye a new addition to my Melek spellslingers deck as well as a potential powerful general. Yes, Baral is probably the card Goblin Electromancer should be. He is just strictly better than Electromancer, they both have the same effect, but he has looting and he’s not restricted to Izzet colors. I see him being a powerful addition to any spellslingers deck and he would make a good rival to the next mono-blue spellslingers general: Talrand.

Black

Herald of Anguish

This is probably one of the best demons I’ve seen printed in a Standard set in a long time, don’t get me wrong, Demon of the Dark Schemes back in Kaladesh was an all round solid card. But Herald of Anguish is a really powerful card. Improvise makes this potentially an unexpected early drop for your opponents, the discard ability is very relevant in black and it also has reliable removal that require some artifact synergy. I would love to see how artifact decks play around this card as it simply is a value-bomb.

Yahenni, Undying Partisan

Yahenni is pretty much what everyone is hyping about right now. She works too well with reanimation/sacrifice synergies in Commander. The fact she is almost a nightmare to deal with when combined with Grave Pact/Dictate of Erebos, she can buff herself and she can make herself immune to boardwipes is ridiculous. She is pretty solid in the 99 but I feel even more powerful as a Voltron general. Overall the best legendary in this set so far!

Yahenni’s Expertise

One of my personal favorite cards in this set that i expect to see Modern play, Yahenni’s Expertise is still quite strong in Commander. It does set itself up as an early boardwipe in Black following up with a creature or..Demonic Tutor :P it also gets rid of pesky, small hexproof/indestructible creatures. And for it’s cost, it’s normally alot of creatures and a free spell for 1. 

Gonti’s Machinations

This is actually a very unique card in a unique spot. For just 1 mana, Gonti’s Machinations can be quite the trouble for opponents from the very moment it’s been cast. Black does have ways to lose life easily, 2 simple examples include Phyrexian Arena and Necropotence. Also it is easy to regain back the life lost since Commander is a multiplayer format, a simple activation of this in a 4 player game means you gaining back 9 life with just this cheap and simple enchantment. Overall, its a very unique and cool card I want to see being played.

Battle at the Bridge

I honestly wasn’t really excited for this card when it was spoiled, but then again I realized that again artifact decks in EDH can simply pay 1 Black to kill a fatty if they had enough artifacts. Sure it’s a sorcery but the life gain here is quite the bonus. Imagine over-tapping your artifacts to help cast this card help you stay in the game. This card is pretty underlooked but I’m sure it’ll have a few decks running it.

RED

Indomitable Creativity

Now, it is not the first time seeing a red “poly-morph” effect but this card can be used to yourself. You could basically set your deck up with Selective Memory/Doomsday, this card could basically be a card to set up the win with lesser mana than required. It could also mean a “Chaos Warp”-ish boardwipe for your opponent. Overall Vandalblast would be better but this is here for it’s combo potential.

Release the Gremlins

Despite it’s funny name, this card is actually pretty funny when played against your opponents. It is especially more hilarious when you already have some form of infinite mana combo together with Myconsyth Lattice and you basically wipe out your opponent’s board and leaving you a massive amount of Gremlins. +1 for flavor and name!

Pia’s Revolution

Now again for all the artifact lovers, I can imagine this card being in a mono-red artifact deck like...Daretti of all generals. Where he doesn’t really cares where the cards go to and opponents would definitely not want certain artifacts to be in the graveyard, in this case they would normally take the 3 damage. Another one worth mentioning is when Breya starts activating her ability for damage, this might actually push 4 damage to 10 out of nowhere.

Freejam Regent

Again, another solid bomb for artifact decks imo, a less than 6 cmc for 4/4 with flying and fire-breathing makes it a solid finisher. Other than that, this card is quite the value it speaks err as it breathes I suppose. Although many might disagree this card getting this spot as it is competing with other red dragons such as Hoard-Smelter Dragon, Hellkite Igniter and the biggest daddy of them all Hellkite Tyrant. But I still feel this card has a certain place for some decks in Commander.

Lightning Runner

A potential combo breaking card that could basically mean the win for you. Lightning runner does require a steep energy cost, but this might be the card that could break energy into Commander. 8 energy might be slightly hard to pull off whenever this attacks but some builds have started to show up building around generating massive/infinite energy. We will have to wait and see how strong energy will perform now with the addition of this sweet thing.

Green

Aetherwind Basker

And now as you can see, Elfball decks have a new toy to meddle around with. Aetherwind Basker can be quite a terrifying creature to drop earlier than usual due to ramp in Green. This gigantic lizard is a close mimic to other big finishers such as Craterhoof Behemoth as well as Decimator of Provinces, though not as powerful as the latter two,Basker does work terrifyingly well when either is cast. Basker does reward players when casting him on a board full of your creatures. Add in a Lightning Greaves/Concordant Crossroads and he is guaranteed to get in there for a lot of damage.

Rishkar’s Expertise 

Rishkar’s Expertise does feel a lot like Soul’s Majesty, Momentous Fall or Regal Force. However, almost any green card with the ability like this all suffer the same weakness. Which is the case after you draw, you would normally not have the mana to play almost anything you drawn. Rishkar’s Expertise however allows you to play a reasonably “big” card at 5 cmc! And while you compare Rishkar’s Expertise to other Green cards that draw a massive amount of cards, Rishka Expertise is probably the best for it’s cost. That free cast for a cmc 5 card is just too good. I personally feel this has a slight edge over my other favorite Expertise, Yahenni’s.

Heroic Intervention

Everything about this card is awesome, the art, the fact Ajani is in it, the cost and most importantly the ability to basically counter a boardwipe/mass targeted removal. More importantly for 2 cmc and at instant speed? That is just absolutely bonkers when you think about it. Definitely will see play with the high amount of threats to permanents in Commander.

 Rishkar, Peema Renegade

Rishkar is rounding out the last of the best Legendary Creatures in the set (Sorry Kari Zev :/). Rishkar does bring an interesting inclusion to generals playing around the +1/+1 counters mechanic. He does come in helping out 2 other creaures, for a 3 cmc 2/2, that is already quite good. But the real fun begins when most of your creatures with counters get to produce mana on their own. He is a great boost to many existing builds but also quite independent and strong on his own as a general.

Lifecrafter’s Bestiary

Now I know this isn’t an entirely Mono-Green card but we’re still in Mono Green and all of the cards mentioned here are still splashable in Gx colored decks. Anyways Lifecrafter’s Bestiary does look like a card many creature based decks would want to put in. A low costed artifact with a free scry every upkeep does sound interesting, but it acts as a earlier game Zendikar Resurgent that requires 1 green mana per draw activation. Overall, it’s low costed, packed full with value. Solid card just for Commander play.

Multicolored

Ajani Unyielding

Though Ajani has received some criticism around his speed and playability, I personally feel that he is actually good enough for Commander. He has the ability to get multiple cards into your hand fast, get rid of annoying creatures and his ultimate if you do get to a stage to use it, is literally a steroid pump to both your creatures and planeswalkers. All round very solid and I feel his abilities go very well along with his colors. Especially for the super-friends builds like Atraxa.

Tezzeret, Master of Metal and Tezzeret the Schemer

Now, I actually had a hard time choosing which of these 2 were going to take this spot, but I figured out that both were very powerful. Even if they aren’t as good as the original Agent of Bolas, both are still very solid in Commander. Let’s start off with the “heavy metal” version of Tezzeret, it does have a strong digging ability which is quite relevant in Commander, his 2nd skill can act as a way to ward off opponents or host a major lethal damage threat late game. Whereas his ultimate is very devastating, being able to take someone’s best creatures and artifacts is no laughing matter at all. Now onwards to the “scheming” version of Tezzeret, he does not provide any form of digging but he does produce an extra artifact that acts like a Lotus Petal. He has strong, solid and reliable creature removal while his ultimate though not as terrifying as the heavy metal version, does quicken your clock fast by turning any artifact you control during combat on your turn into a 5/5 creature. A time bomb ticking for your opponents if you will, sweet effect nonetheless. Tezzeret does have a thing for turning artifacts into 5/5s...why doesn’t he just make them slightly bigger?

Dark Imitations

A tuned-down version of Cruel-Ultimatum that targets each opponent, but does come with the added ability of returning either a creature or Planeswalker from your graveyard to your hand. What’s interesting is the synergy with the “Bolas” Planeswalker spell, this not only helps decks that already run the Nicol Bolas Planeswalker card but it also does give clues to the next set Amonkhet, the home plane of Nicol Bolas whom might have recruited other Planewalkers for his evil plans. All these hinting at more Planeswalkers printed with the “Bolas” keyword in their Planeswalker type. Overall, this card might be bound to seeing more improvements and playability.

Oath of Ajani

Well if Wizards was trying to push Planeswalkers in Standard, they forgotten that Atraxa Super-friends IS a very powerful deck in Commander. But outside of that particular topic, Oath of Ajani is the dream card for many Super-friends decks. It’s low costed, gives early buffs to a few creatures, reasonable when played mid-game. Again another solid card in this set overall.

Winding Constrictor

If you thought the invasion of cards having synergy with counters wasn’t enough in Aether Revolt, this little angry noodle does stand out a slight bit from it’s other counterparts in the set. The fact that it does give extra counters on both creatures and artifacts alike is very unique, it also has a 2nd ability which allows you as the controller to receive an extra counter of any type. I can certainly see this being placed in a very wide variety of decks. From +1/+1 counters to charge counters and loyalty points on Planeswalkers. This danger noodle will be guaranteed to be seen in decks far and wide.

Colorless

Metallic Mimic

Ah finally! I have no idea how long it has been where Wizards finally print a form of global tribe support. Metallic Mimic does seem to to be the new kid on the block, matching Adaptive Automaton’s popularity. Mimic does have a few differences from Automaton, it cost 1 less than its fellow robotic cousin and it also buffs your chosen creature type with counters. This means even if your Mimic dies, your creatures are sure to remain buffed with a counter.

Crackdown Construct

Ah.every once in a while a new awesome combo piece Wizards prints comes out of literally nowhere. While this awesome robot won’t be seeing much play in Standard. It will see immense amount of play in Commander. If you were wondering why this card is so hyped up for do take note. The equip rule states you can use an equipment to equip to the same creature as many times as possible so long as you can pay it’s equip cost. This means if u equip Lightning Greaves to Crackdown Construct, and naming an infinite amount of times equipping to it, you’ll have an infinite power and toughness robot flying at your opponent.

Inspiring Statuary 

Well another interesting and potentially powerful piece of artifact that could bust Commander. Inspiring Statuary basically makes artifact decks have the confidence to run a bit more non-artifact cards. Simply because it would be much easier casting them with this card on the field with full of artifacts. It’s reasonably costed and I can see this card enjoying a good amount of play in Commander.

Paradox Engine

Probably the most ground-breaking, nerve-wrecking card in the entire set *hands down*, many are already comparing this to staples in Commander like Doubling Season, Seedborn Muse and somewhat a close resemblance to Prophet of Kruphix. I can guarantee almost any decks playing a untap/tap synergy such as Phenax,Ezuri Elves and Azami would go bonkers with this card. Sitting at 5 cmc which I feel is very low for a card with such a high power level. This card will change Commander as a whole, it’s effect is really too significant to ignore and when I mean too significant. When this hits the table...

Like literally man!

Land

As for lands goes, unfortunately only one card makes this list and that’s the new rainbow land in the entire set 

Spire of Industry 

Another card for artifact decks yet again! They finally have a City of Brass/Mana Confluence just for themselves. Spire does remind many of a less harsh Glimmervoid. But even though there are many rainbow lands available for artifact synergies in Commander. This is one good inclusion for many of them alike.

Conclusion

Aether Revolt is one of the most exciting sets we’ve stumbled across in a very long time! With powerful and unique “build-around-me” cards popping up, it is no surprise quite a number have made it into this list. The power level of Commander is certain to be on the rise as the player-base brews new strategies for each individual card in different decks or will we see a new archetype coming out on it’s own? It is still unknown but just look at the set so far! Despite the overwhelming amount of Artifact/Planes-walker/Counters support, many cards have been printed in good measure to bring new toys for a wide variety to play with.

If so, that’s all of the time I have for you today, be sure to follow the blog for more updates and such. And stay tuned for the next article as well, I’m hoping to see you there!