Providence

Hey, everyone! Welcome back!  So, let's address the elephant in the room (spoiler: not me). I've been dark since midwinter, and a LOT of Magic-related stuff has happened in the interim. Shadows Over Innistrad, Eternal Masters, Eldritch Moon, Comic-Con... that's a lot of ground to cover. So, let's get started on Eldritch Moon, and we'll work our way backward in the coming weeks.

White

Bruna, the Fading Light/Gisela, the Broken Blade (and Brisela, Voice of Nightmares)

"Wonder twin powers activate! Form of... an unholy abomination!

Well, this is new.  Neither Bruna nor Gisela are outstanding cards on their own, in Commander. If you were to build a deck around them, you'd probably want to build around Bruna, to abuse that cast trigger (note not cast from hand). Both have fairly unimpressive stats, even if they're "efficient" creatures.

Even with their powers combined, Brisela, a 9/10 with an impressive suite of abilities, is very vulnerable to removal. While "dies to removal" is a shitty argument when it comes to evaluating a creature card, we do have to consider that this "combo" is seven mana (at best, if you built around Bruna, which is more reliable than a Breath of Life) and two cards. Mono-white isn't strong on the whole tutoring-up-a-creature front (although improved, as we'll see, by Thalia's Lancers), so getting to seven mana, AND getting both creatures onto the battlefield, AND waiting until an end step, AND untapping with your creature still alive?

See what I'm getting at?

"But Commander," you ask, "she shuts down kill spells that cost three or less! That's all of the good ones!"

Sure, yeah. All of the good targeted ones. If an opponent won't risk the collateral damage to their board state to Wrath your 9/10 beater, then you deserve the win. She's good, in a vacuum, but after all that setup, she should be a bit more...

Inevitable?


Thalia's Lancers

Cavalry: finding legends since... now?

Yeah, it's five mana. In a colour that doesn't ramp that hard sometimes. And sure, why would cavalry be adept at finding a particular legendary thing?

But why are you looking a gift horse in the mouth??

Not only is it relatively cheap, but it offers unique utility in a colour that doesn't get it. Need a Jitte? Done. Your Nykthos? Sure. Serra's Sanctum? You got it.

On top of this, it's not even white-intensive enough to restrict its use to mono-white decks. Run it as a backup Sisay! Run it to grab Oaths, Akroma's Memorial, Legacy Weapon!

I see this being used extensively, and for a long, long time.


Deploy the Gatewatch

Apparently, the cover of the Gatewatch's first metal album.

I remain delighted that this card even exists.

I run a planeswalker deck, and this card went in before I'd finished reading it. In a deck with a decent number of planeswalkers (I run 30, and haven't whiffed yet, though I have only hit one a couple times) you won't often miss. Depending on who you get, it pays for itself. While putting the cards on the bottom of your library is arguably a drawback, White doesn't really do the self-mill thing anyway, so it's not like it defies expectations.


Sigarda's Aid

"Halt," Sigarda said, "Hammerzeit."

Damn. And Sigarda said unto Voltron, "Bust a fool's head. For great justice."

It's cheap, plays a role, and negates the drawback of certain pieces of equipment, the high equip cost. Auras that provide shroud/hexproof help against removal, and the art is just fantastic on top of everything else this card has going for it.


Blue

Imprisoned in the Moon

Surely this won't end badly.

Now Zur can stuff people into the moon!

So, this isn't quite as versatile as Song of the Dryads, due to its limitations. Functionally, it does the same thing, if enchanting something in a non-green deck, and for the same CMC. Like Song of the Dryads, it helps keep problematic Commanders on the battlefield while limiting their impact on a given game. This is arguably the best kind of removal for the late game, as certain Commanders especially become easy to recast over and over, tax be damned. If left on the battlefield with no abilities beyond tapping for mana, you've neatly solved the problem. Cards like this shouldn't be ignored when considering cards for a Commander deck (like Zur, who gets around paying for things like this anyway) given their versatility and unique way of dealing with threats.


Black

Dark Salvation

Let the bodies hit the... FLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR.

It's expensive, but this is a card that needs to be evaluated as a complete package.

If you want five Zombies, this will cost you eleven mana. Not impossible in Commander, and with black decks (especially mono-black decks) having Cabal Coffers, Magus if the Coffers, and the tutors to find them, eleven mana is attainable. On top of this, you give target creature -5/-5, at a minimum, and that's only if you control those 5 Zombies on their own.

So, it is expensive, but you get value out of it for your mana, and it scales decently well to the late game. It's a roundabout way to deal with an enemy Avacyn, Angel of Hope while leaving you a small army of Zombies, drawing a strange parallel to Martial Coup. Could be worth running, if you like the effect.


Liliana, the Last Hope

"Where my hug at?"

Liliana is tough to evaluate.

Three mana planeswalkers tend to be very good in the smaller constructed formats, due to coming down early, and offering, well, anything above and beyond the crap Tibalt brings to the table. Jace Beleren saw play (as a counter to JtMS at the time), Liliana of the Veil sees play in Modern and Legacy, and Nissa, Voice of Zendikar... well, see doesn't have a home yet, but maybe in Standard, post rotation? Anyway, the point I'm making is that they tend to be pretty strong.

In Commander, however, they tend to make less of an impact. Jace Beleren is a more vulernable Phyrexian Arena. Liliana of the Veil is a three mana removal spell that kills one opponent's weakest creature, minimizing her value in the late game. Her mass-discard could be useful in the right deck, but will attract you a lot of ire for an uncertain payoff.

Liliana, the Last Hope offers minimal protection in her +1, conditional card advantage for her -2, and an admittedly very cool -7. I make a point of evaluating every planeswalker that comes out, but in the case of Liliana here, I don't know that I can recommend her for Commander. She just doesn't do enough of the things you need a planeswalker to do. At three mana, she's fine, and she does kill off certain high-value targets (Bloom Tender, some problematic goblins, Birds, that sort of thing). So... call her a metagame call?


Oath of Liliana

"Talk to the hand!"

Three mana to get rid of each opponent's weakest creature is already a decent deal, in the right context, and on top of that, each subsequent planeswalker you play gets a free activation of Gideon, Ally of Zendikar's 0 ability (basically). It offers up an opportunity to play those sweet foil Zombie tokens from the EMN prerelease, so there's that.

Honestly, of the five planeswalker oaths, this one's somewhere in the middle of the pack. It doesn't have the same draw, for me, as Oath of Gideon (with its tokens and extra loyalty) or Oath of Nissa, with its fixing in the deck that wants it. But removal of X creatures, where X is the number of opponents? Not bad. I might give this a try.


Tree of Perdition

"You guys wanna hang out?"

I know.

I know.

But having an opponent lose up to 27 life for 4 mana.... Come on. You know you want to try it.


Red

Blood Mist

"Get it? I'm seeing red! Haha, I slay myself... if you have first strike."

I like this idea, actually. Offers the benefits of an aura, but not tied to a specific creature in the event of its death. It's a bit costly, at four mana, especially given that True Conviction is only two more mana and offers double strike and lifelink to your whole team, but it's a useful enough effect in the decks that want it that it could be worth it.


Collective Defiance

Fire at will!

Five mana to draw a new hand (or negate someone's tutor by forcing them to discard their hand and draw a new one), deal 4 damage to a creature, and bolt a player? And that's at its most expensive? Like the Command cycle in Lorwyn, this is flexible enough and offers up enough utility that this should always have some use. I'd consider this in a red deck, or a red-white deck, for sure, given that both colours are starved for card draw.


Green

Eldritch Evolution

Creationists gonna be pissed...

We've got a one-shot super Birthing Pod, for three mana. Even conditional tutors, like this one, help to enable toolbox decks so popular in this format. If you're running the usual green tutor package (Worldy Tutor, Birthing Pod, Primal Command, that sort of thing), you might as well run this, too.


Ishkanah, Grafwidow

Look what I found on the web!

Well, would you look at that. A mythic, legendary Spider. For its cost, and given that it has reach and not trample, and that it needs a lot of spiders for its activated ability to be useful, I really don't think it's ETB ability needed to be conditional. In a green-black deck, it's not like you can bounce it a bunch of times anyway, and many of the spiders that exist in the game are pretty average. At best.

For those that want to build the deck, your time has come! Otherwise, there are so, so many other, better Commanders for this colour combination.


Splendid Reclamation

Nissa, you know that's not true. Where's MH370?

There are a lot of practical applications for this card.

Fetchlands, The Gitrog Monster, Titania, and even Armageddon (floating the mana to then cast this, of course) all put lands (or encourage you to put lands) into your graveyard. Splendid Reclamation gives them all back to you, all at once. Amulet of Vigor could untap them, even, if that was the direction you were going anyway. It lets you reuse your fetchlands, trigger landfall en masse, or be the only player standing after an Armageddon (and because all of your friends ditched you for being a jerk!) This has some cool applications in a variety of decks, and I'm excited to see what people come up with.




Multicoloured

Gisa and Geralf

Kodak moment.

Hey, our favourite dysfunctional siblings have returned!

Four mana gets us a 4/4 with two upsides (self-mill is an upside in UB). While creatures across the five colours (and colourless) have become increasingly efficient over the last ten years or so, an efficient creature in this colour combination always feels refreshing. Combine the efficiency of the Cecani siblings with their popularity as characters, and their ability to cast a creature from your graveyard suggests to me that they'll be a popular Commander.


Tamiyo, Field Researcher

"Book 'em, Tammy!"
"You are such a knob, Jace."

And now we come to my favourite card in the set.

Tamiyo was on Innistrad when we last visited, standing out because, well, she was a Moonfolk on a plane without them. She was there, if memory serves, to highlight that planeswalkers are sometimes meant to stand out. So this trip served to flesh out her character, and brings us to her second incarnation.

Her +1 is pretty powerful, as it doesn't specify what the target creatures have to damage, just that they have to deal it. It pairs nicely with double strike (and she shares colours with Rafiq...), and she's pretty good alongside Edric, Spymaster of Trest. If that deterrent isn't enough, she can straight up lock two nonland permanents down, and prevent them from untapping during that player's next turn.

And while it's hardly worth mentioning her -7, as it's not that attainable, you do get a free Concentrate (Ancestral Recall is an instant) and an Omniscience emblem. It doesn't help you cast your Commander, true, as it specifies that cards cast from your hand become free. But it'd be fairly difficult to lose with her -7 active. Free Ugin, free Eldrazi (with bonus irony!), free Omniscience (with even more bonus irony!)... the possibilities are endless, in a well constructed deck.

Awesome.


Ulrich of the Krallenhorde

I wonder if "Krallenhorde" is Innistrad-ese for "crippling disappointment."

Like Ishkanah, Ulrich is a Legendary Creature of a long-awaited type. Also like Ishkanah... he's kinda lame?

For the same CMC, you have access to Xenagos, who potentially offers a bigger boost, and haste on top of that. Every turn. And he's not dependent on a player casting or not casting spells. For one more mana, you have Ruric Thar, who actively punishes opponents for casting spells, as opposed to encouraging them like Ulrich does. Yes, Ulrich is a werewolf, and tribal decks can be awesome. But is Ulrich the right man/wolf for the job?

Ehhhh....


Colourless

Decimator of the Provinces

Ironically, not a boar-ing design!

Oh, hey, a budget Craterhoof Behemoth, who just happens to be a HUGE ASS PIG instead.

If you're running Craterhoof, run this guy, too. The boost isn't as big, but Pigly here lets you cast him at a discount (which will hopefully be the only time you have to cast him). Like the Behemoth, he's only really an asset if you're ahead anyway, but a pump and mass trample is what breaks stalemates.

That'll do, Pig. That'll do.


Emrakul, the Promised End

Until the sequel.

Well, it's not the original... but it's not banned, either.

With eight cards types (even if Tribal isn't common anymore), you could, theoretically, cast Emrakul for five mana, even in a colourless deck (All is Dust, Not of this World, Karn/Ugin, Eldrazi Conscription, Evolving Wilds, and an artifact creature). For the effect, even 13 mana isn't unreasonable for a 13/13 beater with flying, trample, and some protection. Add a Mindslaver (even if they do get an extra turn after you mess with their head), and you've got an efficient threat.

Will it see play? I think so. It's a solid finisher that can go into any deck, though it shines in a deck that can make use of the casting cost reduction.

EDIT: It was brought to my attention that Emrakul offers some additional value in multiplayer. Giving another play a critical extra turn after you take their next one is significant political motivation to help you. Take their turn, do what you need them to do, and then have them further your goals. An extra land drop, and extra card drawn... there are benefits.


"I am Providence"


And that's it! That brings us to the end of our overdue look at Eldritch Moon. Join me next time as we go back in time (Tarkir style?) to look at the cards you ought to be playing from Shadows over Innistrad.

Don't agree with something I've written? No problem; just leave me a comment below, and if you have suggestions, let me know that, too!

Until next time!