Some of you may have noticed that the website went the way of the Titanic; launched, ran into some issues, and then sank. Hundreds died, Leonardo DiCaprio was there. There was totally enough room on the damn door, Rose! James Cameron will be diving on the wreck soon.
You know.
In truth, I was sold a website package that was ultimately incompatible with my vision for the site. I intend to relaunch another unsinkable ship soon, one that will scale better for mobile users, and not have to link to Blogspot. This might seem like old hat to many of you, but I'm not a web developer by trade (or by education), so...
Anyway, the thing that's most important to me is that you're here, reading the barely coherent nonsense I write. And for that, you've my gratitude.
As for today, I'd like to talk about the BRAND NEW COMMANDER SPOILERS!
White
Kalemne's Captain
Huh.
So, we've got a 5/5 for 5, which is fine, with at least one relevant tribe. The Monstrosity ability is why you'd play this guy, and its cost is roughly on par with Merciless Eviction or Austere Command. Your opponent will see it coming, unless you've got twelve mana, but you do get to threaten instant speed mass removal. Maybe fun with Mycosynth Lattice?
Too bad about the art, though. The proportions on the giant seem... off. That's a huge head for such small arms.
Black
Banshee of the Dread Choir
 |
| "Blinded by the light..." |
That's a big Spectre. This looks alright, to be honest. Spoiled to showcase the new Myriad ability, which evokes memories of Nacatl War-Pride or Hydra Omnivore. The neat thing is that you can throw the copy at a planeswalker or an opponent, offering a little flexibility if you're okay with losing, in this case, the ability to force the discard. I'm hoping Banshee is part of a cycle; the blue one drawing cards, the green one ramping... likely too strong, but a man can dream, right?
Great art, too.
Red
Fiery Confluence
Here's another one that I'm hoping exists as part of a cycle.
We haven't had a modal spell yet wherein you could choose the same thing twice, which makes this interesting. It's kind of an Into the Core that can Pyroclasm or Flame Javelin an opponent. At a fair four mana, I fully expect this to see play.
Multicoloured
Daxos the Returned
Elspeth is going to be pissed. I mean, she killed a god. Why would any of the others dick her around like this? I can just imagine Ajani/Nietzsche saying, "God is dead. And she killed him."
That aside, Daxos remains aggressively costed, at least? He's pretty efficient at making his tokens, which flavorfully don't play nice with Starfield of Nyx, but requires some commitment to enchantments to make work, if you want to keep the tokens around. At no expereince, it's three mana to trigger an ETB effect (like Purphoros) and an immediate "dies" effect. He could be valuable just for that.
Kaseto, Orochi Archmage
Kamigawa hype!
...nobody? Alright.
Kaseto is another cheap UG Commander that seems to go hand-in-hand with Edric, Spymaster of Trest. If your army of cheap creatures just happen to be snakes, any amount of ramp means an unblockable team that draws you a ton of cards. I like cards like our new friend here, in that I like cards that offer of decent utility on their own, with just a little extra mileage for being willing to jump through their hoops.
Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest
Wow.
Ravnica can be a scary place.
For example, off the top of my head, some popular sacrifice effects in Commander:
- Liliana of the Veil
- fetchlands
- Wasteland/ Strip Mine
- Sakura-Tribe Elder
- Loyal Retainers
These are just of the top of my head; there are lots more. Combine this guy with Pharika, which makes Snake tokens for exiling things from a graveyard, and there might be the core of deck here somewhere. Sacrifice a creature (Fleshbag Marauder, for instance?), and with Mazirek's trigger on the stack, exile the creature with Pharika to get the token before the counters get placed on your team? Kinda janky, but this guy might be worth looking at. Thanks to Redditor /u/Whapow for pointing out an error I made, wherein I said that Pharika nets you the token.
Mizzix of the Izmagus
I honestly wasn't sure if this was the name of a hip-hop album when I heard about this guy.
I like the ability, and it seems like it'd be a lot of fun in a Melek deck, which is to say that I don't know that I'd make this creature the Commander of such a deck, but it could be good! As with the other experience counters, that the work you put in is truly cumulative. Killing your Commander doesn't undo all of the spells you've cast to make things cheaper, and recasting it brings back all of the benefit. I really feel like they've created a balanced way of rewarding certain Commander strategies without making more Oloro-style cards. I'm interested in seeing what the other three do (we've seen the RW one).
Colourless
Blade of Selves
Here we see Myriad again, this time on whatever you want!
Pro tip: Don't use this on your Commander, unless it's a three player game, and your Commander is Brothers Yamazaki.
Or, you know. Mirror Gallery.
Honestly, this thing could make big, splashy ETB effects even more backbreaking. Imagine this on any of the titans, Grave Titan or Sun Titan in particular. Or Angel of Despair/Ashen Rider. Even small utility creatures can net you huge benefit when copied 3 times (in a five player game).; look at Eternal Witness.
The Blade is win-more, perhaps, but's relatively inexpensive, and there are ways to avoid the equip cost if you really want to.
Scytheclaw
I don't know if this will make a huge splash. I don't recall ever seeing Quietus Spike come up, and while this might not be bad value, coming down with a creature for less than the cost of playing and equipping a Quietus Spike, but it's a 1/1 that they'll block all day, everyday. If they can't, then you're ahead anyway. A Voltron deck will probably just use Grafted Exoskelton to get there faster. That's all for today! Tune in Wednesday, where I'll break down the next batch of spoilers. For those of you still with me, I thank you again.
A bientot!
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