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Let’s Talk! Commander 2017 Precons

When Wizard first spoiled the tribal theme of this year’s decks I was very excited by the idea that tribes without a real theme in the regular expansions could now have their own cards to interact with, and Wizzy was totally not going to support something like Elves, or Goblins, or Zombies; which I personally love (thanks Gisa for the great beatings with 50 zombie tokens), but all of them would have been in the ‘already seen’ part of the format, at least for the great part of players that already is into the format, not talking about Legacy where Elves are a thing, so giving more support to the tribe could break the format.

So what could we expect from this year’s decks? At first, I thought about Dragons. We already had Atarka, World Render as a great Dragons’ commander, which could go for lethal in literally 5-6 turns, with green tutoring creatures and providing mana dorks and red enabling haste and +X/+0, but it felt more like a voltron than a tribal, just like Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury and in the same way Zirilan and Scion of the Ur-Dragon felt like a filled-with-dragons combo. The other options just wouldn’t had the flavor of a Dragon Commander, and if a tribal isn’t about flavor, what is it about?

With Dragons being an option, I just asked myself what other tribes we could expect, and I could find answers in Angels, or Demon, or my wet dream: Humans. Shapeshifters could have been a thing, but how cards could interact with them once they are on the battlefield, copying something else (probably not a Shapeshifter)? I just dropped the idea. And then someone leaked The Ur-Dragon.

A 10/10 that discounts your Dragons, draws cards for each of your attacking flying badasses and puts permanents in play: I couldn’t desire nothing better than this. With The Ur-Dragon, the 2017 key word was leaked too; Eminence. The greatness of your commander is so great that it works great even in your command zone, and gives great bonuses to his/her great tribe. And in this case, it discounts your creatures. Cats, Vampires and Wizards came after a while, and even if I was not so impressed by Inalla as a card, I had great expectations for Arahbo and Edgar as decks, given the powerful and flavorful cards. So let’s just talk about them for a moment: the Main Commanders of the decks.

The Ur-Dragon

“ALL ABOOOOOAAAAARD!!! LAST CALL FOR THE DRAGON TRAIN!!!”

I LOVE The Ur-Dragon. I’m a permanent boy so everything that puts something into play is in my heart. Add to this the draw effect of this fat ass onto the battlefield, and you have a place in my pantheon. He wants you to play Dragons, and this is exactly what a tribal commander should do: giving a reason to play his tribe. I love aggro, I love creatures, and I LOVE not paying for them. This will be my commander.

Also, if you are extremely unfunny, he’s better than Progenitus for goodstuff decks; he costs ONLY nine mana, draws you a card and helps going into pillowfort not paying your permanents’ mana costs. Still useless against Wrath effects though… 

But we’re not unfunny players right? Right.

Arahbo, Roar of the Word

“Awww how cute he is with his brand new Sword of Fire and Ice!”

Arahbo is the Cat we wanted, and it actually is the cat we needed too. Many Cats do things with artifacts, many with equipments, so why don’t we attach everything we have to a Shikari Leonid, give her +3/+3 and then doubling her strenght? Now THAT is swinging for lethal. As I said, I love beatings, and Arahbo sounds like a great commander to say “I’d like to go into combat phase”.

One more thing: I I heard many players saying that this Cat’s deck looks like Nahiri, the Lithomancer’s one, and they could be right if they were talking about how these decks work. You try to attach everything you have on one creature and then try to let it go through your opponents’ defenses to cut down their life totals. Well let me tell you something: Arahbo is not Nahiri. He’s not a token generator, he doesn’t put you an Equipment into play and he doesn’t have an ultimate to go for. He pumps up your already fat creatures, and does so only if they are Cats. He requires a totally different deckbuilding, I love the way he can swing for lethal in just few turns if left unchecked, and that’s a thing Nahiri just can’t do.

Inalla, Achmage Spiritualist

Because Haste matters even when you’re a 2/2

Inalla is something I don’t totally understand, I guess. Many wizard do Enter The Battlefield things, but few of them is worth to tap one mana to get haste and then being exiled. I think it could be worth to spend one more mana to use all’of those Wizards who needs to tap to use their abilities, or to have an extra copy of Laboratory Maniac the turn you’re going to combo off and win the game but other than that… I don’t know, some say Inalla is underpowered because of the already OP tribe she is going to command, and Mommy Wizzy perfectly knows that Wizards are a terrible tribe if played as a control/combo deck, so the nerf of Inalla can be a real thing. I’ll be happy to be proven wrong when my gf will tap 30 Wizards making me lose 42 life while she copies her Anathemancer.

Edgar Markov

Mr. I-don’t-even-need-a-nickname is in town. And he’s thirsty.

Dulcis in fundo the say: Edgar Markov. As grandfather of Sorin (daddy issues is a thing in the Multiverse), the Lord of Vampires does a great work reigning on Innistrad. Vampires always wanted to swarm, but never really did it: Edgar covers this lack giving you a 1/1 Vampire token everytime you cast one of his Ancient Race, even when he’s not aorund. He has Haste and First Strike, which make him hard to block, and lets the entire dinasty feel the taste of blood everytime he engages a fight, making his children fall into a blind rage.

He’s the guy Vampires needed to be the great tribe they wanted to since Innistrad block, and for what we know from the Ixalan leaks of these days, it’s better if we just save a couple of slots for white Vampire Clerics to join Edgar’s Army.

So, these are 2017 Preconstructed Decks’ Main Commanders, and they’re awesome. 

But the Main are not the only brand new legendary creatures in the decks: what can you say about the others? See you next time to talk about Secondary Commanders in 2017, and having a brew.

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“Tales from the Pit” #1601