#also it was running 3 pure lifegain cards

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than Floor Time

I just had a game day with group of old friends I haven't seen in years and it was awesome! We played mtg for 3 hours!

[housebeleren]

Throne of Eldraine Draft Format Review

Theros Beyond Death is fully upon us, and players are starting to discover the ins and outs of this new Limited season. But before I dive fully into that, it’s time for one final goodbye to the previous set, with my Throne of Eldraine draft format review. Here are the criteria I evaluate:

Speed - Consisting of its Tempo, Aggression, and Explosiveness

Variety - Consisting of its balance between the Colors/Archetypes, Threats to Removal, & Deck Strategies

Depth - Consisting of the depth within individual cards, within archetypes, and within the metagame as the whole

Fun - Consisting of the Flavor & Theme, the Gameplay itself, and the amorphous “X-Factor”

I’ll also go through my thoughts on the themes & mechanics, any noteworthy decks, notes on draft strategy, and give it a final grade.

Art: Jana Schirmer

Seriously, this picture is so much a mood.

Speed

Tempo - Decks in Throne of Eldraine varied wildly, with some hyper aggressive decks getting blazing fast starts, and some slower control decks spending the first few turns just responding. That said, the risk of not having any low curve is very real, even if just to stall, so I’d say the tempo of this format is actually fairly fast, as the games start off quite quickly. You want your curve to start around turn 2.5 on average, to avoid being left in the dust.

Aggression - Despite the presence of some archetypes that lean aggressive, most of the mechanics actually push the opposite direction. Adventures incentivize getting maximum value out of your creatures, so most of them won’t get played on curve. That said, many of them are combat tricks, so combat matters more in this format than usual. Adamant had little effect. But the real story here is Food. Food, with its persistent ability to regain 3 life a pop, extended games, and gave slower decks plenty of time to make up for slow starts. That, combined with some really good defensive creatures and strong removal, skewed the overall feel of the format much slower than I think anyone anticipated.

Explosiveness - If anything, this format is defined by overly slow, grindy games. So much so that it was completely possible for games to come to a complete standstill and eventually end by one deck naturally milling itself out. (Which is a miserable way to go.) Some decks were capable of explosive quick wins, and there were a few near-unbeatable bombs (all three Planeswalkers come to mind). But overall, this was a format lacking in game-ending power.

Variety

Balanced Colors/Archetypes - As a whole, all colors feel playable. Green/Black as an archetype is slightly stronger than the others on balance, and Blue could come up with ridiculous control decks at times. But no color pair felt unplayable, even Red/White, which has been consistently the weakest in recent sets. You had to get deep into Knights (giggity?) for it to work, but if you did, the payoffs were there.

Balanced Threats to Removal - The removal in this set was strong. Every color got cheap, effective removal, though White/Blue struggled to deal with certain types of threats, namely those with passive abilities like Irencrag Pyromancer and Mad Ratter, of which there were a lot in the set. But it wasn’t a huge issue overall. The removal felt very strong in general. Even “expensive” removal like Bake Into a Pie was well-worth the mana, given the added bonus.

Balanced Deck Types - Between aggro, midrange, and control, I am happy to report that all major deck types had a presence in the format. I found midrange and control to be slightly more effective than pure aggro, since board stalls were fairly regular occurrences and you need something to push through. Blue-based mill decks were heavily overrepresented in Arena draft, and the resulting digital format was markedly worse than in paper.

Depth

Individual Card Depth - Throne of Eldraine felt a little more linear than most previous sets, with most cards having a clear best deck. Where it did well was on creature typing, with cards like Weaselback Redcap able to fit into both the Knights deck and the non-Humans deck. Similarly, some creatures with effects made use of their typing to work in multiple ways, like how Tome Raider combines with Draw 2 synergies and non-Human synergies. Witching Well was an all-star in this regard, fueling the Artifact deck and the Draw 2 deck effectively, making it much better than it appeared at first blush. But these examples were more the exception than the rule, with most cards either being just generically good so you’d always run them regardless or being specific to one deck.

Depth Within Archetypes - Most archetypes had a little wiggle to them. The strictest build was Red/Blue Draw 2, which really needed at least 2 good payoffs (like Mad Ratter or Improbable Alliance) to work, and Blue/Black control really wanted a Merfolk Secretkeeper or two (or three or four) to activate some of its pieces early and enable the mill win. I’d say the format was pretty average on this front, with some archetypes feeling a little narrow, while others felt pretty open.

Metagame Depth - Other than the occasional monocolored build, it was pretty easy to feel out what deck you were going against pretty quickly, and the metagame stabilized very fast. My feeling is that matchups were pretty consistent, but it’s unclear if that’s backed up by any actual fact. But in my head, for example, White/Blue generally beat Green/Black, but lost to Red/Blue. Etc. Don’t know if that’s actually true, but even if it isn’t, the metagame didn’t feel particularly deep, compared with some of the formats over the last year.

Fun

Flavor & Theme - Surprise surprise, this is the one place where Throne of Eldraine knocked it out of the park. The flavor and theme was spot-on, and it was enormously fun to mix and match various adventure & fairy tale tropes. In fact, I’d argue that the flavor and theme was a huge part of what made this format fun to play at all. The imaginative and whimsical flavor is the clear high point of the set, no question.

Gameplay - As hinted at above, the gameplay was not the high point of the set. Adventures played really well, and I’d love to see those return again, and I actually enjoyed the mono-color draft, which gave it a slightly different feeling than most other sets. But the games stalled out with regularity, and the omnipresent lifegain of Food could make it incredibly difficult to close out. Any format where naturally drawing your deck is a real thing that happens has a problem.

The X-Factor - Combining the flavor & gameplay, let’s just say this set was really variable. Some games & some matchups felt really fun and dynamic, while others were a miserable slog. This was particularly true on Arena, where it was too easy to force a Blue mill deck or a good Black/Green food deck, which were the two most problematic archetypes from a gameplay perspective. The paper metagame had a little more aggro to balance it out.

Themes & Mechanics

Adventures - Adventures were the highlight of the set, as far as I’m concerned. They were fun and flavorful designs, but were also incredibly powerful, on average. The cards were highly flexible, adding up to more than the sum of their parts, and were an incredible way to make sure you had a good mix of spells & creatures in your deck. I’d love to see Adventures return in a future set, though I’m curious how much design space they actually have. On the one hand, it seems like it should be enormous, because you can combine spells & creatures in basically infinite ways. On the other hand, it could be difficult to design cards where the spell half and the creature half complement each other to form good play patterns. Either way, these were a hit.

Food - I may be alone in this, but I sincerely hope Food never returns, at least as a major mechanic. (I’d be okay with an occasional Food card in supplemental sets, or something.) But this mechanic was honestly not as interesting as it seemed at first. Unlike Clues or Treasures, which both played well, Food ended up mostly serving to prolong games unnecessarily. In a format prone to board stalls to begin with, this was not a good thing in my book. It’s possible that it will work better in a faster format, but honestly, I’m okay if we don’t get Food again.

Adamant - I really liked the play of Adamant. It’s the non-flashy “workhorse” mechanic of the set, but those are such an important part of what makes a set work. Adamant served a useful purpose, encouraging decks to lean on one color more than another, and made for interesting decisions during draft. It requires a mono-color focus to work, but I’d be happy to see Adamant come back in the right set.

Knights - Knights have always been a fringe tribe, which is strange given that Magic is a fantasy property. I really enjoyed the way the Eldraine world was constructed with its knights in each color, along with their corresponding virtues and styles, but it was smart to consolidate them in just 3 colors for Limited play. The one issue I had here was that the Knights lacked a particular mechanical cohesiveness, generally just being the “aggro” tribe and having some one-off synergies here and there. I’d love to see Knights return sometime to get a little more direct focus.

Non-Humans - Like Knights, the non-Humans theme lacked a strong mechanical identity, and served mostly as a catch-all term to form Limited archetypes around. It seemed like a “this set” need to have an opposing tribe to counterbalance Knights. I would be surprised to see this again soon.

Monocolor - I sorta covered this with Adamant, but Monocolor was a theme independent of that one mechanic, with heavy mana requirements, lands that rewarded going deep on a color, and lots of Artifacts to ensure there was plenty to go around. This was one of the first sets where I’ve been able to successfully draft mono-color decks, and it was really enjoyable to be able to do so. They’d be wise to revisit the same tricks the next time they want to do a mono-color focus.

Noteworthy Decks

Blue Mill - Oh, the bane of my Arena drafting experience the past 3 months. How you taunt me. I mean, what is there to say here? In Arena, the strategy is just grab every single Merfolk Secretkeeper that came your way (it was relatively trivial to get 3-5 of them), and have the rest just be removal & other defensive creatures to gum up the board until your opponent decked. In paper, it was a little harder to pull off, but it would still happen with an early Folio of Fancies or just some good luck. Sometimes mono-Blue, sometimes paired with Black for cards like Drown in the Loch and other removal. This was a truly miserable deck to play against, to the point that people were reportedly running more than 40 cards in their decks just to preempt it. I’m happy when a milling deck is possible. But this was just too easy to spam. Hopefully Wizards learned their lesson and also is fixing their draft bots.

Seven Dwarves - Just as the name implies, this deck is entirely centered around the card Seven Dwarves. Grab as many copies as you can, and go to stomping town. Most often paired with Green to find some non-Human synergies, plus that’s the best other color for aggro, and this truly is an aggro deck. It comes together more than you’d expect, since the dwarves are a low pick if you’re not looking for them.

Glitter Princess - This deck was typically a variant of White/Blue Artifacts & Enchantments, except this build centers on getting a Beloved Princess on the field and enchanting it with All That Glitters. With just a few more pieces, the princess becomes a near unblockable threat that completely outscales both Red & Green removal in short order. The other colors all have good answers, so having Blue mana open to counter their attempts is a crucial component to this deck, and part of why I rarely saw it in other color combinations. There is a White/Green version with Tall As a Beanstalk, but usually that deck wanted to center on Adventures, and didn’t have room for the Princess or Auras.

Strategy Notes

Throne of Eldraine drafts start off pretty straightforward. If you’re not going to try to spam one of the obnoxious decks above (I kid, mostly), the usual pick order of bombs - removal - evasive creatures usually is the way to start. Once you have a sense of what’s open and where your color pair is leading you, however, things change dramatically. Finding the needed payoff cards becomes top priority, as they are few and far between. 

For example, once I’m feeling Red/Blue (I don’t even have to be committed, just considering it), I will take a Mad Ratter over just about anything but the most absurd of bombs. Even over removal like Slaying Fire. In the same vein, if I’m in pack two and have drafted a decent White/Green Adventures deck, I will take a Wandermare over basically all removal, because there is likely to be more removal, but that may be my only really great payoff I’ll see. And the games where that card singlehandedly wins will be worth it. The trick is not to speculate on payoffs too early, because it’s easy to get attached to them if you pick them right away. But once you’re thinking the archetype is available, the payoffs become an enormous priority. That small pool of cards will often be the deciding factor against board stalls.

Monocolor decks are possible, but you’re still most likely to need to draft a second color to ensure you have enough playables. Don’t take bad Artifacts just to force monocolor. If you have strong one-color payoffs, consider trying to draft with that as a primary and “splash” your second color. It’s often correct for your deck to lean ⅔ or so towards the main color, rather than a more even split. The mana base should reflect this, leaning 10-7 or 11-6, though I usually wouldn’t skew much more than that unless my second color was truly just a splash. On the flipside, two color decks with a third color splash are also possible, but a little less common than usual.

Final strategy note: Adventures are good. Nearly all of them are better than they look at first glance. If you’re comparing two cards that seem evenly matched, but only one of them is an Adventure, picking the Adventure will be right more than half the time. The flexibility and inherent card advantage is just too good a deal, and it’s worth more than it seems.

Final Thoughts

I think I’ve pretty well made my thoughts clear. Throne of Eldraine is a flavor home run, and that’s honestly the most fun part about it as a format. It’s insanely enjoyable locking people up in a tower, having your knights joust, and baking your foes into a pie. (That said, baking a pie takes forever, and is a flavor fail as an Instant. Just saying.) On top of that, Adventures are fantastic, and easily the mechanical highlight of the set. 

On the other hand, Food proved to be more frustrating than it seemed at first blush, and the format’s tendency to get frozen in the midgame with no profitable attacks on any side led to a lot of slow, aggravating losses. Combined with the generally linear archetypes and mostly static metagame, and this was a format I think most people are ready to leave behind. And it probably won’t be a particularly popular one to revisit in the future. (Though I bet these would be really fun inclusions in a chaos draft!) It’s not awful, but it’s not great either. 

Overall Grade: C

[edh-a-to-z]

WAR - Best of White

Not every card is EDH worthy. 

Sure, I’ve played with plenty of Draft chaff for fun, or when I had no other option, but the cards below will be ones you’re happy to get in trades, and add value to your decks and collections.

Finale of Glory

Grade: B+

Home: Token Decks, Soldier Tribal, Angel Tribal, Ramp Decks

Range: Very Wide

The finale Cycle is a love letter to EDH.

At 4 mana, you’re getting 4/4 of stats, and it get’s more and more efficient as you pour mana in. At 10 mana, it also makes that many Angels. It also doesn’t stop making them if you keep pouring mana in. It’s good early game to stabilize, it can offer tremendous value later, and becomes a “deal with it or die” quickly.

For everyone else...bring your board wipes.

Gideon Backblade

Grade: C

Home:

Range:

Almost impossible to kill on your turn, and also hard to deal with on other turns, Blackblade is a solid, and cheap, addition to any combat heavy deck, or the every meme-worthy Gideon tribal.

Making a creature Indestructible, like your commander, to end of turn is a great +1, and permanent removal is a nice Ult for a 3 CMC walker.

God-Eternal Oketra

Grade: A

Home: Weenie Deck

Range: Wide

I find it kind of unfair to the original Oketra that this, at W more, is a massive upgrade over the original. Less vulnerable to exile effects, better tokens, no drawbacks.

Spam X or 0 or 1 cost minions to get cheap 4/4 Tokens, which are pretty impressive, even for EDH. Really goes well with any deck, as it’s hard to get rid of for good, and it’s a great resurrection target.

Grateful Apparition

Grade: C

Home: SuperFriends Deck, Proliferate Deck, Counter Deck, Infect

Range: Custom Niche

A nice color shift on Thrummingbird which works well in any deck where the bird fits. Not much to say, just a nice small creature.

Ignite the Beacon

Grade: C-

Home: Superfriends, Legendary Deck

Range: Narrow

White just gets the best superfriends deck toys. 

Outside of the superfriends deck, if you have ‘walkers that function as combo pieces, win-cons, or removal, it may be worthwhile to run this in a deck with 4+ PWs.

Grab this while it’s a penny rare.

Parhelion II

Grade: D+

Home: Angel Tokens, Vehicles

Range: Narrow

I’m a little prejudiced thanks to my love of angels, and this card is such Battlecruiser MTG, it deserved a mention. 

You crew it with an Angel (traditionally 4 power), it has angel abilities, it makes two angels a swing, it can play defense, it dodges some Sorcery speed removal. 

It’s also 8 mana, and without some Haste, it takes forever to take off - and you need value fast. It’s more for casual, big-spell magic, but I really love how big it is, and how big it gets.

Prison Realm

Grade: C

Home: Anywhere where O Ring works

Range: Very Wide

We lose some of the versatility of Oblivion Ring, but creatures and planeswalkers make up 90% of what we want to remove anyway. Tacking a Scry 1 is like half a card draw, so nice for white heavy decks.

Ravnica at War

Grade: D+

Home: MonoColor Board wipes

Range: Narrow

I view this as “kill most commanders/legendaries” than anything else. Most commanders are multicolor, and a lot of great creatures are too, so if you want to gamble or play casually, this has some merit. Exiling is also a nice touch, especially for indestructible creatures that often feature in commander.

Otherwise, it whiffs too often for my taste - it’s inability to be an actual board wipe hurts.

Tomik, Distinguished Advokist

Grade: A

Home: Land Tech, Hatebears

Range: Very Narrow

Solid body, and he’s amazing at what he does, but it’s very narrow. Unless Gitrog, Titania, and Omnath are trampling through your meta, leave it in the binder.

The D section - Just Meh

Ajani’s Pridmate - fine card for the lifegain deck, but only that

Bonds of Discipline - 5 Mana is a lot, but hitting every opponent is nice, especially if you want everyone to hit the player that just passed turn to you.

Defiant Strike - Solid combat trick for the Feather deck

Gideon’s Sacrifice - I know there’s some fun here with a tapped Boros Reckoner and blocking stuff, or other interesting damage plays. 

Law-Rune Enforcer - Decent, but limitations plus small body (and not scaling well to EDH) prevents this from being useful

Martyr for the Cause - Might find a home in a Proliferate deck, but it’s just a bear with upside.

Single Combat - feels better than Divine Reckoning, as it uses sacrifice over destroy, but I hate giving other players reasonable choices.

Sunblade Angel - A ton of fun abilities - that fails to pass the Lightning Bolt test.

Teyo - Planeswalkers will always have niche usage, especially with all the existing superfriends and proliferate support, but Teyo is so purely defensive, I find it hard to recommend him

The Wanderer - Nice abilities, but it’s a narrow use case, and limitations on removal hurt it.

Everything else is an F, and here’s why:

Battlefield Promotion - I always rate Combat tricks low - they don’t scale well to EDH. This does a lot of things, but winning one battle in EDH doesn’t justify this card

Bulwark Giant - I love giant GF, but she doesn’t make the cut. Giant tribal is pretty bad, so this doesn’t have much support.

Charmed Stray - Bad in Limited, bad here

Divine Arrow - Limited level removal, leave it in the bulk bin

Enforcer Griffin - Griffin tribal is nonexistent, vanilla flyer that could be replace by a Serra Angel or Baneslayer

Gideon’s Triumph - F- for the creepy art, and for the weak functionality 

Ironclad Krovod - Trash vanilla

Loxodon Sergeant - Vanilla with ETB

Makeshift Battalion - Battalion was a fun ability, but it didn’t work well for EDH in the past (small number of cards, required to rely on board, very aggressive in Multiplayer), and this isn’t special

Pouncing Lynx - Trash Vanilla

Rally of Wings - Trashy combat trick

Rising Populace - Cute, but not impressive.

Teyo’s Lightshield - A 1/4 is not useful.

Topple the Statue - Cute. Pathetic, but cute.

Trusted Pegasus - Tribal pegasus just isn’t there yet.

Wanderer’s Strike - Exile and proliferate are nice on paper, but Sorcery speed at 5 CMC doesn’t fly

War Screecher - Low impact, even late

[edh-a-to-z]

Ravnica Allegiance - Rare

Hi Campers!

Here’s where I pick the best of the rares of Ravnica, and give them a preliminary grade for how well I think they’ll do in EDH. Let’s go!

Best of the Rares: Bedevil

The natural evolution of Dreadbore from the last Ravnica set. Dealing with 3 nasty options at instant speed is a steal for 3 mana. Only Vindicate could be more fun, and that’ll never be Standard legal again.

Absorb - If you care about lifegain, it’s good. Otherwise it’s Cancel that’s harder to cast. I prefer to pay less than 3 mana to counterspell, and 3 life isn’t enough for me to usually care about. C-

Biomancer’s Familiar - The card is good even outside of the Adapt decks, as well as making that mechanic worthwhile in EDH. A-

Blood Crypt & Co - All the shocklands are bread and butter of EDH players who stay in the format for the long run. Each reprint just makes it better. 2+ color decks love it. A-

Cindervines - I like the pings, but the removal makes it nice. Just having it hanging can act as a deterrent. Not super-powerful, but interesting. C-

Deputy of Detention - Removal is always worthwhile. Being able to knock out same-named creatures is okay, and especially effective against token strategies and counter heavy decks. C

Electrodominance - Possibly the most EDH-esque card of the set, it lets you Fireball and playing another card (even cards that have Sorc speed, or Suspend cards with no CMC) A-

End-Raze Forerunners  - A poor man’s Craterhoof Behemoth. Makes a good backup for the big beast, and a solid fatty of it’s own.

Ethereal Absolution  - A purist EDH spell - hard to play in any other formats, but splashy enough (and wonky enought) to be played here. The buff and debuff are nice, and the weak token/GY hate effect is usable, especially in some Esper control decks that like to hold mana and assemble a combo. C

Glass of the Guildpact - A pure build around - a massively undercosted buff if you just happen to run 60%+ multicolored creatures, which is easy enough in EDH where mana fixing allows 5 Color decks. Or a fail. Build around C+

Gruul Spellbreaker - A rather weak protection ability all things considered, stapled to a well-costed, but quickly irrelevant, creature. D-

Guardian Project - Compare with Colossal Majesty, against what you’re likely to play in terms of creatures. More big critters, Majesty. More small critters, Project. C-

Hero of Precinct One - Weakish payoff, but no one would ever bother removing it except with incidental damage, so it might do some value game in some multicolor decks. D-

Incubation Druid - Decent ramp, and if you play something like Battlegrowth it can pump out some mana earlier. Otherwise it’s a good elf, and has some late game utility that most dorks lack C

Kaya’s Wrath - Nice board wipe, and EDH has easy mana fixing. Good side effect of lifegain, especially if you’re killing like 8+ creatures. B

Mass Manipulation - Go big mana, and steal lots of things. A big flashy spell screams EDH to me. Infinite mana for infinite stealing. Solid B+

Mirror Match - COIN FLIP FTW

If you’ve been paying any attention to some of the MTG Arena feeds, high rolls on this card have gotten a lot of attention. If it’s fun for any format, it’s fun for EDH. That, plus more coin flip synergy available has a lot going for it. MEME

Pestilent Spirit - A lot of ping options synergize, but monoblack can’t really swing that alone. Surprisingly solid body and abilities. I think this is not as good as I think it is, and I don’t think it’s that good. Up to C-

Priest of Forgotten Gods - A lot of token decks love interesting sac outlets. Any choice of targets to Shock and Pact is nice, and getting BB and a card is phenomenal. With the means to sac and recur things, as well as something to untap the Priest with, there’s a lot of options here. B+

Rampage of the Clans - Like a Beast Within, but hits everything Naturalize hates. Knocking out an enchantment or artifact heavy players can utterly decimate them, and replacing them with underpowered (for EDH) Centaurs feels pretty ok. C

Repudiate // Replicate - Counters are nice, and token copies are great, especially in EDH. Both are extremely relevant in EDH, even in decks not devoted to exploiting those abilities. B

Revival // Revenge - Resurrection is always potent, even with limitations, and lifegain on this scale (functionally gain YOUR LIFE) is phenomenal, especially in the Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood type of deck. B (I’m biased)

Simic Ascendancy - I love alternate win-cons, and I especially like those that do something on top of just sitting around. Sure, mana dump for Counters isn’t much, but it feels more dynamic than Helix Pinnacle. And synergizing in general with a +1/+1 deck is nice. A-

Smothering Tithe Feels like Orzhov’s Rystic Study. I like taxing with Propaganda effects and Study in a Control Esper decks, and I think this fits in great. In a format where people go for drawing effect hard, it has some real utility. B

Sphinx of Foresight - I just want it cuz all the modern players want it. There’s a lot of unexplored design with the Chancellor ability, and I hope it comes back. Nice for combos. And those nuts running Unesh Sphinx Tribal. 

A beefy 4 drop for 4. C

Thrash // Threat - Feels like two mediocre cards slapped together into a tolerable one. I’m not stoked for either side, but a budget option card is still nice for Gruul. D

Tithe Taker - I love taxes, I like Afterlife. An easy to revive target for a lot of decks like Alesha. Not super impactful, but very annoying. C

Unbreakable Formation - I always come down hard on combat tricks, because they’re “once and done.” Saving your whole team in multiple scenarios is intriguing offensively and defensively. C-

Verity Circle  - There’s a lot of mana dorks and other abilities that have tapping clauses, and free cards is neat. A mana dump ability to tap down creatures, even with a restriction, is also useful. Good value for 3 mana. B-

Warrant // Warden - Unlike the Gruul split card, this makes a token worth having, and is a removal ability that feels good to use, especially against big plays. Hopefully we’ll get some more interesting Sphinx tokens, like Angels (though this could have been an Angel IMO). B+

That’s the Rares of Ravnica Allegiance! Stay tuned for the Mythics, campers!

Stay warm kids!

[housebeleren]

Dominaria New Commanders

Yeah, I know I’m way behind. I’m gonna try to blaze through the Dominaria posts super fast at this point, skip M19 pretty much altogether, so I can jump back into what’s current. 

But first Dominaria. Which means let’s look at new Commanders! Obviously there are a metric shit-ton in Dominaria, given that Legendary is a thing, so let’s just get right into it! Obviously, I’ll be looking at these from a 75% perspective, as always.

It makes sense to start with these two, since they’re the Buy-a-Box promo for the set. First of all, I’m just going to say that I hate that the Buy-a-Box promos are unique cards. This card is sitting at around $15, and that’s only because they’re... honestly not that great. Can you imagine if the card were something that were playable in Standard or Modern? They’d be over $50 easily! 

Anyway, as far as being a general is concerned, I do like them. They’re fully 75% playable, and they bring a different aspect to Boros, which is a very underutilized color combo in EDH. Them costing 6 mana to play is unfortunate, because making them a bit smaller body as a 4-drop would make them a great general. But for casual tables, they’re brilliant.

Let’s not kid ourselves, this card was made for Commander. It has nothing to do with the set or mechanics, but is just a sweet design for EDH. Enough has already been written about Muldrotha that I don’t need to get into it. I think the design is clever for Sultai, and there will be plenty of ways to break it. Nuff said.

Darigaaz has the other problem, which is that he really plays like a Limited bomb rather than an EDH general. The trouble is in these colors you have Prossh and Karthus, both of which are better Jund dragons. Even original Darigaaz is kinda a better commander. Waiting 3 turns to get him back is just not how EDH works.

Broken. Combotastic. I’ve already seen Jhoira decks that made me want to vomit. The fact of the matter is that it’s so easy to go infinite off an ability like this, given the prevalence of cheap artifacts in Magic’s history. She also slots perfectly into Breya decks, as if they needed any more reasons to be bullshit.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Verix was designed for Standard, which is unfortunate, since Lyra is currently making Verix look cute and pathetic. Verix is a Limited bomb, but honestly not Commander material.

New Multani is interesting. My first impression is that he belongs as one of the 99 in a Lands deck, like Gitrog. But there’s actually some weird Voltron potential here. Stick him in a crazy ramp build and just run over your opponents. I could see it in casual circles.

Lyra is the real shit. She’s dominating Standard, and on top of that, she’s arguably playable if you’re looking to make mono-White Angels a thing. Avacyn is still the best EDH angel, but she is an 8-drop. Lyra comes down way earlier and makes your deck threatening until you get to your bombs. So there may be something here.

If she hadn’t been restricted to spells you control, I’d have been sold on Blue Dualcaster. As it is, she seems like mediocre filler for an Inalla deck, and mediocre-er filler for a spellslinger deck. I’d even run the Uncommon Adeliz as a general over Naru Meha, and that’s saying something. Cute in Draft tho.

Aside from having a ridiculous name (seriously, say “Belzenlok” five times fast), this guy has some potential. I’m not seeing him as a general, but as an inclusion in the 99 of decks like Rakdos, Lord of Riots, or other Demon tribal, he’s pretty solid.

Jodah is another one that was built for EDH, no question. I would’ve liked to see him at 4/4 and out of Bolt range, but whatever. I’m putting him at the head of my Superfriends deck, for sure, no questions asked. Besides that, there are some really cool builds for him to cast massive threats like Eldrazi titans and such for cheap. Seems good, but not actually broken, which is where I like my buildaround generals to live.

Aryel is slow and not super impactful, but Knights tribal is jank anyway, and she’s probably the best general they’ve got at this point. I’d make a 50% version of this deck.

Radha seems pretty sweet. I could definitely see her heading up an interesting tokens build, with the ultimate goal to burn out opponents with massive mana spells. That said, I don’t think she’ll see competitive play anytime soon.

Oh, you forgot about Niambi, didn’t you? It’s the first time they’ve printed a new Legend in a Planeswalker deck, so I’m not surprised. Honestly, Niambi is a huge miss, mechanically, as many have already commented. Having her only job be to go find a dude to take care of things is pretty inexcusable. They could have at least given her an ability like: “Tap: Prevent 1 damage to any target,” as a way to protect the Planeswalker she went and found. But whatever. If Teferi, Timebender were a better card, I could actually see running this as a weird jank deck where you just keep ultimating him then bringing him back with Niambi. But he’s basically garbage without being able to abuse his ultimate, and that’s hard to do in these colors without Doubling Season. I think there’s an infinite combo here with Niambi, Teferi, Deepglow Skate, and Deadeye Navigator. That sounds definitely like a reasonable plan, right?

Shalai is the real deal. At first glance, she reminds me of Sigarda, though the fact that she doesn’t have Hexproof herself makes me think of a different build. Instead of Voltron, I’d try to create some sort of Hatebear control deck with accidental infinite mana combos. Either way, angels are always popular, and Selesnya hasn’t gotten a ton of great generals recently, so I expect some people to be excited for Shalai.

Oof. 7 mana? Really? At 6, this would still be basically unplayable. Stick with Olivia if R/B Vampires is your schtick. I mean... fine. I guess there’s some sort of weird Pestilence Voltron build here somewhere, but that seems... not great.

Evra is really an interesting design, but I would have liked it a lot more at 4 or 5 mana, since 6 is just so punishing for a general with no protection. Even so, it’s a long shot for this to see any play outside of limited. If it does, it would be some sort of odd win condition in a lifegain deck.

Josu is amazing in the 99 of a Zombies build. As a general, he’s a little underwhelming, but I suppose if you’re looking for mono black go-wide you could do worse.

Marwyn is interesting. She leans towards a go-wide Voltron direction, which is a little strange, but works for Elfball. I don’t think she’s going to supplant Freyalise or Ezuri anytime soon, but she’ll also work well in the 99 of those builds too.

Well, Inalla got a new best friend. There’s basically no reason to run him as a general, but he’s going to be great in the 99.

We all love Squee, and this version of Squee actually has some potential. I can absolutely imagine putting Squee into some builds of Purphoros, and he’ll do work in Food Chain variants of Prossh. As a general himself, he’s a little weak and seems like a poor version of Norin.

I dunno... this card intrigues me. There’s potentially some sort of strange reanimator build here, but unfortunately a lot of the targets you’d really want are larger than 3 CMC. I could definitely see this seeing use in a Captain Sisay build, getting back all the cheap legendaries you’re looking for.

Okay, hear me out, but I think Torgaar is potentially a totally viable Big Black general. With a few cheap, recurrable creatures, you can land Torgaar pretty early. But more importantly, with a Wound Reflection out, you can one-shot somebody. It’s a little jank, to be sure, but anytime there’s “one card” combos like this, it’s worth taking seriously.

This card is for limited & maybe Standard. No way is a vanillia flier seeing EDH play.

I know I just said a vanilla creature isn’t going to see EDH play, but a 7/7 artifact creature for only 4 mana is pretty intriguing. Even just as a beater in Jhoira decks, this could see something.

Alright, now that we’re in the Uncommons, I’m not going to go through all of them, since they’re mostly just limited fodder. Adeliz is one of the 10 archetype signpost cards, and she’s the real deal. And as far as a R/U Wizards general, there’s actually some potential here. I mean, Wizards will always live in Inalla’s shadow, but if you’re in the market for a more aggressive tempo version, Adeliz is your girl.

Garna is really interesting. There’s a reanimator build in here somewhere, but it does seem a little pricy to be super viable.

Hallar is also super interesting. There’s not quite enough good Green or Red Kicker cards to really turn this on, but with a few more printed, there could be a real ramp build in here.

There’s a really interesting design here. Given the dearth of Sagas, I think this is really likely to be an Artifact build. Giving all your Artifacts Flash is a good way to keep the opposition guessing, and the potential to win out of nowhere. I could definitely see this doing something.

Another super interesting design. There’s some similarity to Mairsil here, though obviously a lot more restrictive. But if I were feeling ambitious, I could try to build something around her.

Slimefoot is the real deal. This little guy is a super strong contender for best Saproling commander printed. He’s a self-fueling machine, and a great general.

Tatyova seems like a great addition to just about any Simic deck. Playing Lands and drawing cards is exactly what the colors want to do. She’s probably best in the 99, but could head up a deck herself if you’re so inclined.

Don’t get me wrong, Tiana isn’t...great. That said, I’m really excited for them to be exploring this space for R/W, since so many Boros generals are purely focused on combat. I’d love for them to keep designing cards in this vein.

Whisper is sorta a variant on Hell’s Caretaker, but with more flexible timing coming at the expense of requiring multiple creatures. That said, I don’t think Whisper is going to be great at the helm of his own deck, but definitely could be a role player in the 99 of reanimator builds.

Aaaand then there’s Yargle. Somehow, this bizarre little guy became one of the most iconic cards of the set, spawning memes left and right. And you bet your ass I went right ahead and built myself a Yargle deck. Is it good? Not a chance. Did I put in Hatred and Tainted Strike for quick one-shot dickpunch wins? Fuck yeah.

So that’s basically it. There are a few more, but not that will have any impact on the format. With that, I’m wrapping up, and I’ll wrap up Dominaria shortly here as well.