#ineffable dragons added to my very long “to draw” list

[golswia]

...hear me out... fantasy dragon husbands

i hear you. loud and clear ✍️✍️✍️

[housebeleren]

Commander 2019 New Commanders

Yeehaw new Commander cards! This is one of my favorite times of the year! For today, I’m going to review my thoughts on each of the new Legendary Creatures printed in this crop of Commander decks, and how good I think each of them are. Later, I’ll go through all the other new cards to see which ones have decent applications and which ones are flops. But for now, let’s get started.

I’ll start with Kadena, since this was the first deck previewed. Sultai morphs is a super interesting deck concept, and I love that we get a Tarkir Naga to be the headliner for it. I like the abilities here, though the abilities are such that it’s a pretty obvious build. Which is good, honestly. It’s good to have some generals like this that are easy starting points for new players. The first major upgrades you’re going to want in this deck are cards like Leyline of Anticipation, to make sure you can cast a morph every turn with flash and keep drawing into more gas. It’s a good thing the deck comes with Seedborn Muse, since that’s also going to be a must in the Flash-Morph build for this. This is also probably the best home that Primordial Mist and Whisperwood Elemental will ever find, though it’s a shame Ugin, the Ineffable doesn’t work here. 

As a commander, I like Kadena quite a bit. It’s great that (assuming you have a Morph card in hand already), you can play Kadena and immediately put your first Morph down and draw a card, so even if she gets removed, there’s some value already. I doubt she’s competitive, but great for 75% players. I’ll ding her a bit for obviousness, but she’s probably my favorite of the face Commanders.

Jeskai Flashback was not exactly what I was expecting (I was anticipating Grixis), but it does make me happy for a few reasons. First, we need more Jeskai commanders. Second, Jeskai Spellslinger is an archetype that has been woefully underrepresented, despite having so many amazing cards to contribute. Sevinne is pretty cool design space, and there are a few directions to go here. Obviously, the value from his Graveyard ability is awesome, so casting as many spells as possible from the Grave is a necessity. Note that it doesn’t specify Flashback, so Retrace spells work also. 

Given that his ability only triggers off the first spell cast from the Graveyard each turn, I don’t think there’s a truly competitive build here, which is a shame. The  75% build that is possible is Flashback/Retrace tribal, and will come together just by upping the quality of cards from the precon. One more off the wall idea is to also make use of his first ability to create some sort of Pariah lock. You’re in the colors to back it up with counters, so it’s not completely unreasonable to consider, though it’s definitely not competitive. All told, I like Sevinne, but he’s not my favorite, of the set or even of his deck. He doesn’t have immediate impact, and only sort of has protection, which keeps him from being amazing. But overall pretty good.

I really like the idea of a Populate deck, and I really like Ghired. Adding Red to the typically Selesnya mechanic makes this a lot more aggro, which is very needed. Ghired himself is pretty cool, because he comes in with a pile of stats. You’ve gotta wait until he can attack to get any real value out of him, though, so I suspect Boots & Greaves will be must-haves for players of this deck. The real reason I like Ghired, though, is because of his hidden potential. 

Sure, there are some obvious things you can do like run Advent of the Wurm and go big & stompy. But there are some sneaky combos here as well. First up is Helm of the Host, which is absolutely insane, because the token it makes is non-Legendary, so it can be Populated and not die. So it goes: Create a copy of Ghired, which comes in with a 4/4 Rhino, then swing with both Ghireds to make two more copies of Ghired, each of which comes in with an additional Rhino. It shouldn’t be hard to get an out of control board state pretty quickly at that point. The second combo worth mentioning is to use Heat Shimmer or Twinflame (or similar) to make copies of either Combat Celebrant or Scourge of the Throne, then attack with the copy and Ghired, & Populate for infinite combat steps. So basically, there are options here. And that makes me like this guy.

B/R Madness is a pretty straightforward theme, but there honestly aren’t enough good Madness cards to “win” with. So Anje is very cleverly designed in that she can enable multiple different decks, and as such, she is probably one of the most competitive-viable Commanders of the set. First step, if you do want to go all-in on the Madness build, is to fill your deck with Madness creatures (or build your own with a bunch of Vampires and Falkenrath Gorger), then use Anje & as many wheel effects as you can get your hands on to dump most of your deck into your Graveyard. From there, there are a number of ways to win, with my favorite being a giant Living Death for whatever combo you want. 

The other option is to go even faster reanimator, and use tutors to get your hands a Worldgorger Dragon in your grave, plus an Animate Dead or Dance of the Dead and combo off from there. Anje can rummage every time she reenters the Battlefield, so you’ll draw your deck and get infinite mana, which you can use to win with a giant Comet Storm or Torment of Hailfire or whatever your spell of choice is. Overall a very elegant design, but lacking a good 75% build. She will also see play in other decks looking for looters, Vampires, or (gasp!) both.

Now we get to the secondary commanders. Volrath is interesting, and really has nothing to do with the “Morph” theme of the deck, but that’s a pretty narrow theme to begin with. I do like that this new version of Volrath pays homage to his character, with a mechanical link to Phyrexia in his first ability, and his shapeshifting in his second. It’s smart of them to make it usable off any counter, so the range of cards usable in this deck is much greater. 

That said, I don’t know exactly what you would do with this. 7 power seems like they want Commander damage to be a thing, so I suppose there’s some options to make him unblockable (Blighted Agent or Invisible Stalker maybe?) and win that way. My personal favorite idea is to make him a copy of Insidious Mist, at which point good luck dealing with him, since he keeps his P/T. There’s a build here somewhere, but unlike some of the others on this list, I don’t see much way to get it beyond 75%, unless you go full Sultai combo shenanigans, in which case why bother with Volrath at all? So, I guess... I kinda like him.

I... really don’t understand Rayami. First, just from the flavor perspective, what is even going on here? He’s a Zendikari Vampire who... has picked up Green and Blue for... reasons? Even though no Zendikari Vampire has ever dabbled in any colors besides Black ever before? So in my head, there’s maybe some connection here to Yarok the Desecrated representing the fate of Bala Ged. Maybe? I’ll just tell myself that’s it and that Rayami is a super in-tune Vampire who’s totally one with the land. Yeah. That’s what I’ll tell myself to make me less angry with this.

Mechanically... I also don’t understand what’s going on here. So, this ability-sharing schtick has been on White (Odric & Concerted Effort), Green (Majestic Myriarch & Animus of Predation), and Black (Soulflayer & Cairn Wanderer). White tends to give it to other creatures, whereas Green & Black add it to themselves. Black also has the Graveyard/Exile element. Aaand Blue has general shapeshifting, so we’ll go with that? But that said, I don’t tend to like Commanders that feel like they have more colors than they really need. This could have been a mono Black card and it would function exactly the same. Also, the fact that its first ability isn’t a “may” trigger makes me a lot less excited, since it shuts down Sultai Graveyard shenanigans, which undermines a huge strength of the wedge. Sure, making a 5/4 Flying Hexproof Indestructible Double Strike Lifelink Vigilance Protection from Everything general sounds fun, but is that really going to happen very often? Probably not. Altogether, I think Rayami is one of the flops of the set, both flavorfully and mechanically. So basically, both my Vorthos & Mel sides are disappointed in this one.

And just like that, they’re better. Elsha is fantastic, across the board. I said I wanted more Jeskai spellslinger support, and Elsha is here to serve that on a fabulous platter. First, just for flavor, I love that we get another Tarkir Djinn, since they’re one of my favorite creature designs of recent years. And that she’s practicing in front of the Mystic Monastery just makes this art perfection.

Mechanically, I love the inclusion of Prowess, hearkening back to the original Khans set mechanic. And adding a Future Sight + Leyline of Anticipation combo for Noncreatures is exactly the type of text I wanted to see here, and perfectly encapsulates the 3 colors. There are tons of builds possible with Elsha, including some that could very well be competitive. It also bears mentioning that Elsha and Kykar both play in the same space, and they each belong in the 99 of the other’s deck. 

Anyway, Elsha scales really well as a commander, from super casual to pretty damn powerful, and on top of the perfect flavor that makes her one of my very favorites from the set.

My response to this is summed up in this one GIF:

In all seriousness, now that we’ve done a Legendary Wall, can we just... not do it again for a while? Yes, I’m well aware that with this and Spark Double you can stop all combat. And doesn’t that sound like fun? Pramikon is pillowfort.dec, and that’s about the long and the short of it. Knock yourselves out, but this sounds incredibly un-fun to play against OR pilot, in which case what’s even the point? It’s trolling in deck form. Literally annoyance without substance.

On top of that, it’s basically a Legend with a complete and utter lack of sense of place, or flavor at all for that matter. If you want to build a Walls deck, just run Arcades the Strategist. I promise it’ll be more fun.

I’m going to have such a hard time not calling her Atla Panini, because I am preoccupied with food. I really enjoy this design. She’s flavorful, has a sense of place and purpose that I understand, and is gorgeously illustrated. Mechanically, she functions something like a variant on Mayael of the Anima, but with fewer restrictions on what creature she can hit. Obviously, the flavor jackpot is to run a deck that’s all Dinosaurs, or at least things that can hatch from eggs, I suppose. She’s fun, she’s 75%, all she needs is a sac outlet to get the ball (egg?) rolling towards good times for all.

Can I just say, I love that for the three Wedge/Shard decks, they included at least one character from the namesake? We don’t get enough Alara in our lives, so having an actual Naya Leonin makes me happy. Not quite as happy as having another Jeskai Djinn, but there you go.

Anyhoo, Marisi is designed to own combat and speed the game up while he’s at it. And what’s crazy is you don’t even have to hit with him to get the ball rolling. Any of your creatures will trigger the Goad, and that just seems like crazy fun. He definitely doesn’t seem competitive, but could be fun at casual tables.

Ooooo baby. This is pretty sexy. It’s basically having Tortured Existence (One of the format’s most underrated cards, IMHO) in the Command Zone, and that is pretty sweet. Sure, it doesn’t help you cheat on costs, which would push this to competitive levels, but it allows for some pretty insane value loops. Chainer is a perfectly designed 75% Commander, and I love him for that.

I’ve gotta say, the Madness deck might be the winner, when it comes to new cards. I like all three of the new R/B Commanders in this deck. Greven is clearly designed for Voltron-style Commander Damage wins, but with a unique method of getting there. He swings with literal Hatred, which is beyond fucking cute, so for this deck you’re going to want lots of sacrifice fodder and easy ways to pay life. In a tight build, it should be trivial to take out opponents with one hit, though you’re going to want to make sure you have ways to regain your lost life if you’re going that route. Building this deck seems like a fun puzzle, and I love cards that encourage that.

So that’s it for the primary & secondary Commanders. Next up are the tertiary extra new Commanders printed in each deck, and where better to start than here:

Making new versions of both Greven and Gerrard was already a great idea, but whoever decided they should have the same beautiful stylized art was majorly inspired. Seriously, how fucking gorgeous is that? (And I’m not just talking about Gerrard himself, though full transparency... 100% would do. Also would do Sevinne while we’re on the topic, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Aaaaannnyhooo. This new design for Gerrard is phenomenal. It’s expanding the design space for Red/White, along the same lines as Tiana did from Dominaria, and I am here for it. What’s great about this is that it allows for card advantage, but is still solidly within Red/White, so it doesn’t feel like they’re just adding card draw or something that the colors shouldn’t do. This particular design rewards lots of board wipes, since it allows you to break parity on the otherwise symmetric effects. I’d look to build this deck with lots of board wipes, and lots of value creatures that have good ETB effects, since they’ll all trigger again on re-entry. I doubt there’s a super-competitive build here, but there should be lots of options for both casual and semi-tuned levels, and that makes me very happy.

Okay, if Grismold isn’t from Eldraine, then I’m going to make like Miranda Priestly and be verrrry disappointed. Mechanically, he’s cute. He’s in the general sphere of existing Commanders like Ghave and Slimefoot, but with his own twist. Best bet here is to run lots of token producers and sacrifice outlets, and try to get Grismold up to big/big stats and start haymaking with him. Good news is that these colors have plenty of ways to loop & recur creatures for value, so you will also be able to throw in some typical Golgari shenanigans for alternate paths to victory. Seems great for casual & 75% builders.

Whew, they really went hard on Weatherlight Saga characters didn’t they? Next year, I want new Orim, Hanna, Starke, and Rofellos cards, k?

Tahngarth is pretty sweet. You can have him join in any combat your opponents decide to initiate. I don’t like that he has to be tapped in order for his ability to trigger, but I do like that it’s optional, so you don’t have to send him to his doom if you don’t want to. It does encourage attacks, so that’s good. If I were building a Tahngarth deck, I’d want plenty of ways to Goad in it, since that seems like it would be necessary if your opponents end up being reluctant to attack. I’d also want some good equipment on him, since as-is, it takes him 5 hits to kill someone, so ideally you’d get that power up to 7. The Swords cycle seems really good here, as they’ll power him up and offer some protection, plus make him unblockable for certain opponents. It’s possible he ends up better than I expect, but my guess is he’ll end up on the casual side of 75%. Which is totally fine.

And last, but certainly not least, we come to probably the single most impactful card from the entire set. K’rrik has competitive written all over him, and I expect he’ll be a go-to for Big Black decks going forward. Seriously, he comes down for 4 mana and 6 life, which is easy to accomplish on turn 2 or 3, and then he is crazy cost reduction for all your Black spells from then on. His Lifelink helps recup the loss, and he’ll get big enough to become really threatening pretty quick. 

Honestly, I think K’rrik is possibly the best mono-Black commander we’ve seen in years, and he’s also going to be a must-have for any heavy Black deck, and I can definitely see him making waves in even the competitive community.

So that’s that! All the new commanders from Commander 2019. Overall I’m pretty happy with this. There’s a variety of power levels and deck styles to build, and only a few that I actively dislike. Next up, I’ll go over the other new cards from the set, and see which ones might have an impact.

Oh, and if you didn’t get the Miranda Priestly reference earlier, A) Shame on you and B) Here: