Commander Legends Preliminary Review Part V

 

Kamahl's Will 2

Interesting modal card. Pricy and situational as removal but still, green removal. Land amination is narrow but has a lot more potential. With any sort of Anthem or global pump effects it is potentially a finisher but you need so much mana to do so as it doesn't untap them. As such probably better as a way of quickly making a load of fodder to sacrifice. All told this is a bit costly, situational, and janky to get a main cube slot but I am sure it will have uses in some exotic brews.

Kamahl, Heart of Krosa 6

A kind of self contained Craterhoof Behemoth. Have a bunch of dorks in play and ready to attack? Then the Overrun probably wins there and then. If not then just untap, animate four lands and Kamahl should seal the deal solo. Not as much immediate punch as Craterhoof and so will likely see rather less play in decks like Natural Order and elves. In commander this seems mentally good for green and should dramatically speed up sessions. This has a better chance in my midrange cube than Craterhoof and certainly merits some testing. With things slowing down a bit in my cube I can see this nicely rounded top end finisher having some appeal. There are only so many Ugins to go around! This is a very green way to end the game.

Prava of the Steel Legion 5

There are nearly enough token generators in cube for this to just be good. The body is poor but at least it is durable which is what you want from your dorks that are about the effects. Token generation ability is also poor but it is certainly useful being on theme with the card and a nice mana sink. Mostly it is about giving tokens +1/+4 which is pretty nuts. How does six in the air from my army of 2/5 spirits sound? Pretty hard to handle. Even just vanilla 1/1 tokens start to be a problem at that size. Token heavy cubes should likely run this. I will be testing it for sure and even if it isn't there it will certainly appear in those Intangible Virtue builds. 

Livio, Oathsworn Knight 1

Cool looking card but too mana intense and lacking in combat potency for cube interest. I like the design such that you can get back the exiled creatures with any iteration of Livio and somewhat reducing the risk of using him to "protect" your dorks. That however is a long way off making up for this rather glorified looking Bear. 

Court of Ambition 6

This seems pretty brutal but a little risky. I can almost be a do nothing as giving away the monarch rather mitigates the upkeep effect when you are no longer the monarch. Maintain the monarch yourself and this is going to steamroll the game quickly. One turn and you have drawn two and either done six or hit them for two in the hand. That is like a quicker Demonic Pact with rather less downside! Two turns with the monarch and you have Ancestral Recalled yourself and done irreparable damage to the opponent. This might be powerful enough that you jam a deck full of removal and defensive dorks with this and tutors for it. The 1v1 play of monarch isn't wildly too my liking as it is so swingy and as such I have a slightly higher bar for entry for this card than I do for others. It probably goes directly from bad to oppressive and no fun with little to no metas or context in between in which it is interesting and appropriately powered.

Belbe, Corrupted Observer 1

A bear that gives you conditional mana. Colourless is somewhat harder to use and typically lets you play bigger rather than more. Symmetrical is potentially an issue but not so much as being a narrow, low power gold ramp card. I can think of several ramp tools I would want to play over this. It looks flashy but it is actually just fiddly. Any simple mana dork, Rampant Growth or rock at two or less cost is going to serve you more reliably than this in most settings. Even if you do get it to work for you there is always that risk the opponent goes as well which would be a little awkward for Belbe...

Archon of Coronation 6

This is fairly powerful doing several potent things all at once. A 5/5 flier is obviously pretty good to have in play on offense or defence. Drawing a card every end step is lovely. Not being able to take damage is tasty too although apparently it doesn't stop you losing the monarch which is likely to be for the best as this would make Archon a one card lock against too many decks, hard in some cases and still often long enough in the soft ones. This is probably a bit too slow to quite cut it but none the less worthy of a test. It is still going to be a chore taking the monarch away from you if you have a 5/5 flier to block with, attack back with, and all the while taking no damage. 

Jeska's Will 5

This is quite cute. A kind of Three Wishes in red, in indeed actually just Act on Impulse, with the option on a potentially scaling Seething Song. Early the ritual will be most powerful and most reliably a big mana boost. Later on you want the cards and so that mode gets more interesting. Certainly a card that will get played in decks with Seething Songs and Wheel of Fortune style cards. Less sure it will be useful enough to make it in my cube but close enough for a bit of a test. When you slap two different decent enough cards together on a modal card the value jumps quite impressively. 

Jeska, Thrice Reborn 0

Looks interesting and has cool design but sadly does nothing at all in commanderless formats. 

Dargo, the Shipwrecker 4

Salvage Titan meets Hollow One meets Delraich meets Greater Gargadon! You can use this to sac things or you can just have a very cheap threat in a deck where you are making sacrifices to other things. A lovely card to pair with treasure for sure. Probably a little narrow for drafting cubes but well worth looking into when supported. Trample makes this not just a big dork but a relevant one and thus worth playing when supported well even if a little off theme. 

Laboratory Drudge 0

Situational and overcost for a card draw engine which is all this can really be used for. 

Rograkh, Son or Rohgahh 4

It costs 0 mana, it will have uses! We shall call this the red Ornithopter. Mox Amber stock increases. Only playable when you have synergies but there are potentially loads of those, just not ones you can draft in most normal cubes. 

Eligeth, Crossroads Augur 0

This turns a wide array of cards into Ancestral Recall! Much as this looks like a massive pile of fun I can't see it ever being correct to run this in cube play. Either over ongoing draw effects like Consecrated Sphinx or just one hit fliers like Master of Winds and Cavalier of Gales. Eligeth is just too reliant on other cards and too slow to take effect. 

Commander Legends Preliminary Review Part IV

 

Averna, the Chaos Bloom 0.5

Another bad fun card that will get a glimpse of play in a bad cascade deck. This is a 3 mana 4/2 that only does anything when you then cascade. Not looking good for Averna outside of commander.

Merchant Raiders 1

A bit slow and disruptable for a removal spell but pretty darn powerful in a tribal deck if the opponent cannot deal with it. Pirates seem to be Grixis so safer removal is likely the way to go than this conditional, disruptable four drop. High ceiling at least.

Malcom, Keen-Eyed Navigator 1.5

I like treasure and this gives you a good shot at getting some. Tribal only card but an interesting one that lets you do some funky things. Pirates has quite quickly gained an array of tools to have some significant options on build directions.

Numa, Joraga Cheiftain 0

Low powered on top of very narrow. Oran Rief Ooze is wildly better in a +1/+1 counters deck even if this wasn't restricted to elves. Almost any elf is better in an elf deck... 

Port Razer 0.5

Too expensive for a card that needs to live and deal combat damage. Body needed to be a lot better with some combat and evasive abilities. First strike and menace might have got it there but probably still not quite. Haste as well and we are talking! Perhaps the raw power is enough to have it as top end in a pirates deck as they do love raid and other such attacking payoffs. Still, tribal decks tend to want synergy from lower CMC cards, top end stuff has to be really really good and Razer doesn't look to clear that Seige-Gang Commander level of bar. 

Natural Reclamation 0.5

Only play this if you have cascade perks and known targets. So basically almost never. It is a sideboard card for a bad meme deck at best. 

Gor Muldrak, Amphinologist 0

Situational and too symmetrical. Don't play this in 1v1. 

Horizon Stone 1

Looks a bit combo esque but I can't quite see how. Far too expensive, slow and do nothingy to be a good 1v1 card. 

Amphin Mutineer 2

Interesting blue removal. A Pongify on 3/3 legs if you will. Somewhat better value and an overall more self contained removal effect but it still feels a bit dodgy and a bit clunky. Exile quality gives this a bit of hope but really it needed a mono blue deck in the meta to actually want it to even be worth testing in cube. I don't hold out much hope for it even in a suitable deck and meta although the encore is quite a bit help for once on this card.  

Yurlok of Scorch Thrash 1

Mana burn is back! Woop woop. Sadly this is just a bit bad. Not the ramp card you want nor really the beater either. Does at least look like it has some good ways to build around as a commander. 

Zara, Renegade Recruiter 0

Powerful but gold, needs to attack, and needs opponents to have things worth hitting them with in hand. Obviously hilarious when you annihilate the opposition with their own Eldrazi but that is the best thing this has going for it. I suspect Air Elemental is surprisingly close to this in quality as far as cube goes. 

Metioric Mace 0.5

Not good, even if it only costs you effectively 1 to cast as you hit a five drop (you should expect closer to 2 in mana value returns). Yes, I would play this if it were one mana and drew a card but it wouldn't get equipped that often nor do all that much. As it is it costs six and will sit in your hand clogging it up for far too long. I would be unhappy about playing this in a cascade themed deck but you might have to based on how few cards with the ability there are. 

Court of Cunning 6

This seems generally very powerful. As card draw, self mill, or milling you opponents it does good work. Mill 10 is huge in cube. One hit beats some decks by itself, two hits of that beats most decks in cube, three beats them all. You always draw a card, often more. If you are milling out your opponent you are a little less bothered if you let them draw cards too. I think if you flop this out and manage to keep the monarch for one turn you probably win. You have a two for one and a really serious threat. This is a bit like a Jace, Memory Adept. As such it might just be a bit too tedious for cube. People hate mill. Ashiok taking 3 cards a turn was bad enough. This will simply be unbeatable for too many slower or non-aggressive decks. Equally it is just a suicide play against an aggro deck that is immediately becoming the monarch and killing you with the value that gives them well before you get sufficient value out of your mill. You can force this by playing cards like Fog and Darkness in constructed if you like and it will be pretty broken. Obviously it gets fairer in 60 card decks and a whole lot fairer for the 100 card ones but for cube this looks like a candidate for the ban wagon. Shame as it is versatile and interesting.

Amareth, the Lustrous 0

Surprisingly tame. This is like a bad Consecrated Sphinx. Way more colours and harder to trigger. Just a source of value on a big flier. Not at all bad but really the only reason to play this over alternatives is if you want the extra colours for commander identity. 

Commander Legends Preliminary Review Part III

 

Blim, Comedic Genius 2

A flying Donate dork. Sure, this is fine. You likely play it in decks using Demonic Pact just because there are not that many Donate effects out there. Sadly it is relatively easy to stop it triggering which can be an issue when time critical Donations of things is at stake. It is actually one of the best ways to give an Illusions of Grandur away as you can avoid having to pay any upkeep thus reducing the cost of your combo. A narrow card but a fun one with at least some homes. Don't be playing this without serious synergy though, if your just giving away your stuff this is a pretty bad card. 

Demonic Lore 3

A nice little draw 3 in black. A great card to Donate away, perhaps flicker, or to fuel sacrifice costs to the likes of Smokestack and Doom Foretold. Fine to just play as a refuel in really low to the ground decks if you like too although I feel as if you are going to have either more powerful (Necropotence) or more on theme (Midnight Reaper, Skyclave Shade) sources of value in such places. Perhaps 8 rack is more the kind of place you want this. Probably still not as this is a bit big for the level of economy of those games typically. Verdict is that it is best with Blim, and while still good in a couple of other places, probably not good enough. 

Magus of the Order 3

This is fairly powerful but really slow and clunky. It is going to get removed on sight most of the time and put you behind as a result. I suspect I would probably still play it in many decks leaning on Natural Order as there is precious little else in the way of redundancy for it but I can't imagine I will be impressed with it. Not the sort of card I really want in my cube either even if it was good enough. Either it lives and you probably win or it doesn't and it did very little. Not interesting or skilful or fun. 

Kodoma of the East Tree 1

Plenty of combos with this (any token generator on landfall plus any bounce land) but thankfully it is a 6 drop dork that doesn't even do that well as a threat so it isn't going to be a problematic, or likely even playable, card outside of commander. No bad thing from a potentially dangerous combo card in a commander set mind. 

Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa 1

This card feels like it was designed in the Mirage era in terms of power level as well as the mechanics and flavour. He is hard to block and makes a team of weenies hard to block as well but still, he is pricey, narrow, very low threat by himself, and in the present whipping boy of guilds. Likely at best in a Doran style of deck but even then I am not rushing to play this nor excited by it if I do. 

Nekusar, the Mindrazor 1

Very costly in colour and quantity of mana for a poor body and a risky ability. Really, if you want these effects play Underworld Dreams, and Howling Mine if you must. There is an outside chance I would toss this into that sort of deck as redundancy but it wouldn't be very exciting. Certainly don't just play this. You will give you opponent a free card and then they will kill your crappy 5 drop for about 2 mana and get on with their day. 

Three Visits 7

I have been giving Wizards a hard time of late for their various bad calls and disrespectful actions, and indeed I will be doing so again before this set review is done. That all being said, credit where it is due. This is a much needed reprint being a staple ramp card. It is nicely fair on the power level and nicely clean on the design making it a perfect reprint. Brining it back at uncommon where it probably should be is good of Wizards. 

Breeches, Brazen Plunderer 2

Probably fine in a pirates deck giving you a bit of value, disruption, and payoff. Pirates are generally quite cheap and evasive so support Breeches well. Don't play this outside of tribal decks though, if you can only trigger Breaches with himself it is not making the cut. It wouldn't be the bad as such, just a long way from what you can get a 4 drop doing these days. This effect does work nicely with having treasure available and so works a little better still in pirate tribal. 

Coastline Maruaders 1

This likely never to get play just being a bit of a beater. Encore is mediocre in 1v1 and it costs a lot to do here. Still, this is a pirate and it does do a good job of scaling. So much so that I am surprised not to have seen more cards with this kind of design using land count as a modifier. 

Forceful Denial 1

I like this but it is bad. Five mana counters are not ideal and cascade is a nombo with counterspells too. Either this is your only counterspell or it is one of the cheapest... Not sounding very useful either way. To be fair to this you can run things like Cryptic Command, Supreme Will and Archmage's Charm as your counters, backed up by a nice Force of Will! That could work but then why not just play Dismiss if you really want value counterspells. Safer, online quicker and with no build impositions. Forceful Denial does look real good when you flop out some good value four drop like a Master of Winds. At that point it is hard to argue the case of Dismiss over this but realistically when is that happening? Don't let the  glimmer of juicy upside blind you to the mire of downside that is this random janky five mana counter. 

Aurora Phoenix 1

This looks good but really isn't. Cascade scales up poorly and is not a common ability. You are likely to only get two or three mana back from it and you are not likely to recur the Phoenix with more later down the line. Red has multiple far more impressive six drops. Scale this down to a four drop and I would be a lot more excited. Like a mono coloured Bloodbraid with flying instead of haste sounds good to me. If I did a cascade themed deck this probably makes the cut but it sounds pretty bad, all be it a lot of fun.

Emberwild Captain 6.5

This might be good enough. Monarch in red is quite tasty, not many decks get to attack them safely, especially without getting attacked right back. The Captain probably needs removing too else he is going to be dealing lots of damage for free on top of drawing extra cards. I expect this to spiral a lot of games out of control pretty easily. It is a threat in so many ways that will be really hard to combat all at once. Feels a bit like Tectonic Giant or Chandra, Fire Artisan both of which have proved effective tools in red. That being said, red is far from short of good four drops, be they value, utility, or pure threat so Captain has a high bar to pass. Monarch is also a little swingy in 1v1 and so this card also has to manage the additional hurdle of potentially being a card that isn't positive for games as a whole. 

Commander Legends Preliminary Review Part II

OK, learning this thing slowly. Please let me know of any issues with images. It isn't the same at all at this end so I suspect that will translate to readers on any platform. 

Szat's Will 1

This is a lot of tokens but at a high price and with very little reliability. Edict backup is nice too but it is hardly cost efficient either at five. I can't see this being viable without abuses much as I love the idea of making a tonne of fodder. Obviously nice if you get both modes but that is not something you can consider in formats without commanders. I can imagine a selection of house rules that could apply to cards that reference the commander in normal cube magic such as a companion counting or a designated in-deck legend or some such thing. That would make cards like this a lot more interesting but it is hardly like we need more cards at present. This still wouldn't get that much action in my cube even if it always triggered both modes. The Eldest Reborn is generally more powerful as far as overpriced edict effects go.

Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools 5

This is a sac decks wet dream but it comes at a high price. Tevesh just makes chumps and sacs chumps to draw cards. Two loyalty and two 0/1 chumps a turn is good return when you have uses for the tokens beyond protective chumps. If you fail to have that sort of aristocrat deck Tevesh is just a relatively slow draw engine. He should net you over a card a turn but it will not be reliable or consistent. At five mana too I would like a bit more utility or threat. I like Tevesh a lot but it seems a little narrow and fair to really do all that well in cube. One worthy of some testing at least. Lacking a relevant ultimate in non-commander formats really takes the danger away from this card and makes it more of a supporting tool and not the game ender you want your five drops to be. 

Nymris, Oona's Trickster 1

This just seems like a lot of mana for a really lame body that needs further support just to then be a value engine. Too un threatening for a five drop. 

Sphinx of the Second Sun 6

Wilderness Reclamation, Paradox Haze and Coercive Portal all rolled into this 6/6 flier. This is a bit of a slow burner as far as an 8 drop goes but it will start to dominate the game pretty quickly. The power level here is pretty phenomenal. It is effectively 0 mana once cast as well making it generally pretty safe. You can get blown out with counterspells or instant removal leaving you tapped down and not getting that card back right away but other than that it is a free play once you get to 8 mana. No easy feat but still done most of the time by slower cube decks. It is as close to an EtB Time Walk as you can print without combo abuses which is impressive design and results in a refreshingly new feeling card. Certainly worth testing. Given it has a chance in cube it is going to be a total bomb in commander... 

Ghost of Ramirez DePietro 2

This needs a lot of setup and support. There are better ways to get value out of a dork than this, not to mention better dorks. It does at least have two good tribes in which it might find a home. 

Lieasa, Shroud of Dusk 4

Baneslayer Angel meets Eidolon of the Great Revel. This is good in commander and remains OK in cube play. This would be a decent top end dork for an aggro deck that pressures life totals. That however isn't really what Orzhov does in my cube at present. Just a little narrow and top heavy to quite make the cut but pretty close. 

Seraphic Greatsword 0

Awkwardly bad, do nothing much when ahead and make one Angel token with your wildly overcost Vulshock Morningstar when behind somehow in your aggro white deck. Seems unplayable in 1v1. 

Phyrexian Triniform 1

Too pricey and lacking in evasion to be that exciting of a threat. As something to Weld in and out of play or Sneak Attack in for value this has some things going for it. Probably not enough to outclass the cards already used in these ways however. The encore is a big deal in multiplayer but is extremely pricy to the point of near irrelevance in heads up play. Trample would have gone a long way here. 

Mealstrom Colossus 1

Cascade on a big and easily cast-with-colourless-mana card is interesting at least, even if it doesn't have much obvious use. With things like Metalworker and Workshop etc this is easy to flop out although it likely hits you a cheap mana rock and not the Karn you were hoping for...

Bladegriff Prototype 1

In decks with Lightning Greaves and other means to protect and give haste in a broadly colourless sort of setting this has some mild hope. Mostly it is a 5 drop you get Shocked and are sad about. 

Rebbec, Architect of Ascension 1

Mostly just a less reliable Leonin Abunas however it does help make artifact creatures unblockable so there is that going for it. In white affinity or Tempered Steel lists this has a bit of hope in that capacity. Thing is those decks don't have a huge spread of CMC cards so it is only helping against smaller dorks. Still good but pretty narrow, I'm not a fan of 4 mana non artifacts in my affinity builds either. 

Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor 2

Very nice effect but the cost to use is extreme. You really need some impressive ways to generate token chaff, probably the 0/1 kind, recursive things like Bloodghast, and artifact tokens like food. If you can make that happen then this is going to be pretty wild, if not then leave this on the shelf. It is almost never going to do more for you than a Priest of the Forgotten Gods either being slower and not affecting the board in any positive way for you. 

Profane Transfusion 1

Big and fun but situational in addition to being somewhat underwhelming. One mana cards like Death's Shadow are rather better things to do when self harming. Almost anything else is a better strategy than this for stopping a beatdown. The token is pretty random and unexciting. The 8/8 token from Crush of Tentacles has won like a single game ever despite being summoned hundreds of times in my cube. At least this Transfusion is pretty interesting and fun in EDH which is after all where it is designed for. 

Eyeblight Cullers 0

Lots of tokens but conditional and really rather too far up the curve for a support card. Weaponcraft Enthusiast is the thing to use if you are considering this.

Ikra Shidiqi, The Usurper 0

A reprint so dull I nearly forgot it existed already. Don't play this in cube. A more efficient and accurate review the second time round I suspect.

Opposition Agent 6

A very powerful effect for sure although outside of combo cubes this is mostly just stealing sac land targets. Don't get me wrong, that is game breakingly powerful, the old 3/2 for 3 Rampant Growth Stone Rain... it is just that it is a 3/2 flash most of the time. Do you sit on your card and hope they have a sac land, do you play out your low value 3/2 chump? Neither are good options and that is mostly what you will be facing. Obviously the more tutor cards you are running in cube the more playable this looks. It is sufficiently powerful that it won't take much in the way of search cards to make it good in any given cube, it will just always be quite the polar card. Either back breaking or poor. In settings where you can build around it with delights such as Scheming Symmetry and Maleren the Mornsong then you have a bomb on your hands but such things are going to be a little tricky for singleton and a little too cute and slow for legacy or vintage.