Commander 2019...
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on Aug. 1, 2019, 9:32 p.m. by ZendikariWol
I know this is weird to say but do these new commanders come off as unabusable to any of the rest of you folks? The most breakable (in a good way) looks to be Anje Falkenrath but even she doesn’t have a high margin of breakability.
It just feels like these commanders tell you very bluntly how to use them. There aren’t many subtle interactions, and none of them have an ability that can trigger 2+ times per turn. Sevinne, the Chronoclasm can do something on everyone else’s turn and that’s cool but...
Idk. Anybody with me here? Anybody else, who could perhaps make me more optimistic? I’m good with either.
ZendikariWol says... #3
I’m not talking infinite combos, davidsays1, I’m talking consistent value engines.
But yes, that is a clever one.
August 1, 2019 10:01 p.m.
I do not think that works because it is a cost not an effect
August 1, 2019 10:02 p.m.
It is a cheaper Mad Prophet and of course better if you are running a madness theme
August 1, 2019 10:12 p.m.
Honestly these new commanders are super boring to me. Animar feels like a better morph commander than kadena. naya tokens? Cool...I guess, another jeskai spellslinger commander, and what seems like a jank madness commander. Hopefully the decklists are better but these first four commanders are kind of...meh, to me.
August 1, 2019 10:14 p.m.
ZendikariWol says... #7
Thank you, Grixis776! I agree that they’re pretty meh. That being said, I host a group of new players and they’re pretty hype about... the two interesting ones.
The new Naya Token guy seems good (bound to be a more affordable option than Hazezon Tamar ) and I am fascinated by where we might be able to find him in the lore.
And Anje Falkenrath is a fun Madness commander- something we’ve never gotten from a commander before.
The others? ... nah man. Nah. Not interesting, not abusable.
August 1, 2019 11:04 p.m.
Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer procs off manifest and is a source of card draw, animar can often run dry. also trading 2nd worse color for one of the best is quite the boon.
August 1, 2019 11:48 p.m.
Honestly they don't seem bad, but they don't seem great either. Or even super interesting tbh. But I also feel like they've been announced today and haven't come fully onto their own. We haven't had even 24 hours to think about how to abuse them yet.
August 2, 2019 12:32 a.m.
If you ignore the madness effect, Anje Falkenrath could make an ok Rakdos reanimator deck as she provides dig and a discard outlet. And by ok I mean ok, not good.
August 2, 2019 1:18 a.m.
ZendikariWol says... #11
I mean how much better than ok can you get in a reanimator deck with no access to green or white?
August 2, 2019 1:28 a.m.
Black has a good enough suite of reanimation effects ( Reanimate , Necromancy , Dance of the Dead , Animate Dead , Phyrexian Delver , Body Snatcher , etc.) however lossing access to white for Karmic Guide / Reveillark / Sun Titan is a bit annoying. Honestly though, you don't need green for much other than ramp.
August 2, 2019 1:35 a.m.
ZendikariWol says... #13
Meren of Clan Nel Toth , Journey to Eternity Flip, Vigor Mortis - yeah you’re right, green doesn’t have as much as I remember.
August 2, 2019 1:40 a.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #14
I like Anje. It's a shame her name isn't Antje, but the card is cool. Lets play a looter from the comman zone, why not. She seems pretty cool with Shadow of the Grave and Garna, the Bloodflame , you just need some madness creatures. Oh, by the way: Falkenrath Gorger ?
Gherid obviously is a Selesnyan who turned away from them and joined the Gruul. The ability is pretty powerful if you can protect him.
I guess it's gonna be one of these two for me.
August 2, 2019 1:40 a.m.
Davidsays1:
Library of Leng doesn't work on costs, only effects.
This combo wouldn't work.
August 2, 2019 1:53 a.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #16
I'm more concerned about the consistency of the decks than the commanders themself. I like the idea of plyaing the pre cons like they are since they should be supposed to have their own strategy and maybe upgrade them with 10 cards or so but without changing the main idea around the deck. However they are not that bad. It all depends on how they are supported. They are of course not op either but that is understandable.. I mean i expected this commander level overall at best.
August 2, 2019 3:54 a.m.
I mean, I am not impressed with any of the 4. These are so incredibly narrow in terms of deckbuilding and overcosted (both in $$$ and mana cost, they just raised the prices 15% here).
Honestly, Ghired, Conclave Exile is the only one that piqued my interest. It gives naya some interesting options and is a good card with their chief Naya Godbeast Godsire .
August 2, 2019 4:45 a.m.
The new commanders seem very narrow and too timid for my taste. So far nothing screams "Build a deck with me!".
I'm also somewhat worried about the reprints. On the panel they said the pre-cons will include commander staples and reprinted planeswalker in each deck, but Seedborn Muse , while a good card doesn't strike me as that big of a staple and value reprint but maybe I'm biased as I never play green so that affects my hype levels for the card :D.
August 2, 2019 6:16 a.m.
You need the re prints to fit in the deck as while and Seedborn Muse does. I am not sure why people are upset about her she is a solid reprint.
August 2, 2019 7:47 a.m.
Muse is strong for commanders with mana cost only value engines, but if they really said planeswalkers how many are actually staples that isn't just reprinting war of the spark?
Now provided we just rule out fetch lands in these (lets face it if they were none of these would be used as precons and nearly everything else in it would be valued together about $5) Just by skimming over the commander staples I'm going to guess these cards could be reprinted.
Master of Cruelties , even with kaalia printed in m20 it's price has lowered.
Fire Covenant , old removal that I'm sure they have interest in reprinting
The Kaladesh gearhulks they each do something, and some do something kinda in theme with the mechanics.
Though honestly to actually get us to readily buy them without just tearing them apart it'd be cards like the various Vampiric Tutor cycle, but they're likely just going to give us Heroic Intervention level reprints.
August 2, 2019 8:16 a.m.
SynergyBuild says... #21
ZendikariWol, I think Sevinne, the Chronoclasm is actually really fun.
To start, it combos with one of my favorite cards from last year's set, Reality Scramble , IDK how good that is, but it'd be a blast.
For real value, I think the deck looks to be a graveyard value control deck. Maybe a bit of prison, considering how you can become 'immortal' by enchanting Sevinne, the Chronoclasm with a Pariah , or equipping it with a Pariah's Shield .
Swiftfoot Boots , Champion's Helm , etc. to protect it, then abuse it's ability to combo with Flashback, like Deep Analysis , jumpstart like Chemister's Insight , retrace like Oona's Grace , and aftermath like Refuse / Cooperate
Total, there are a lot of good spells to abuse with it:
Flashback -
Jump-Start -
Retrace -
Aftermath -
Support:
That's all I can think of right now, if I remember any more sweet cards with Sevinne, I'll tell you!
August 2, 2019 8:24 a.m.
This thread was moved to a more appropriate forum (auto-generated comment)
August 2, 2019 8:49 a.m.
Sevinne and Ghired seem like they'll be fine cards for casual metas. As SynergyBuild pointed out, there's plenty of instant and sorcery cards that can easily be cast from the graveyard; and a commander with populate can easily helm tokens, a fairly popular casual archetype.
Kadena and Anje, on the other hand, I have some concerns about given both seem fairly focused on their mechanics. Personally, I like Morph as a concept--the shell game aspect of it seems fun--but Wizards has consistently failed in its repeated quests to make Morph viable. Madness is another ability I find fun--you're turning a bad thing into a good thing--but it is also fairly limited in terms of your options to run.
That said, there's still the secondary commanders and supporting cards up in the air. I'll reserve judgement for the time being, and tentatively hope Wizards surprises me.
August 2, 2019 9:13 a.m.
davidsays1 says... #24
Yes i noticed my mistake in not noticing the semi colon at first after the discard cost. Anje Falkenrath + Final Parting tutoring for Animate Dead dumping Worldgorger Dragon , animating the dragon would give you infinite mana + draw
August 2, 2019 9:57 a.m.
ZendikariWol says... #25
SynergyBuild, I like that a lot, actually. Them’s some really cool cards. If no one in the group is interested in Sevinne, I might have to give her a go (I found a pretty good deal for all 4 decks).
August 2, 2019 11:37 a.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor says... #26
I love the fact that each of the decks have a narrow focus and I'd like to see this trend continue in the future. We already have a lot of good general/flexible options, but we have very few narrow options that help specific strategies.
That being said, I am only really interested in Morph deck. Unfortunately Kadena is a major disappointment. She is just another Sultai value commander that brings nothing new to the morph mechanic. We already have a decent amount of cards which interact with Morph in a similar fashion. I'd still probably play Animar, Kruphix, or Muldrotha over her as a commander for a morph deck. I am still hoping that one of the secondary commanders will actually help address the mechanic's inherent clunkiness (e.g. activated ability to turn unmorphed creatures face down, or a Conjurer's Closet effect that lets the card come back in face down).
August 2, 2019 11:38 a.m.
UpperDeckerTaco says... #27
I think you could definitely abuse Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer ...use creature cost reducing effects, and proceed to draw your whole deck...seems like a winning strategy to me that can be pretty busted if built around the entire morph/megamorph mechanic. And there are several tricks you can do with "blink" effects and such to reduce the "cost" of flipping 1 or multiple permanents.
August 2, 2019 11:43 a.m.
CrimsonChaos says... #28
I myself am actually pretty interested in Sevinne. I can't wait to try him out. I'm also curious to see what the secondary commanders will be like.
August 2, 2019 11:58 a.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #29
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor i totally agree with you. Better having them being good/decent at just one thing rather than having them suck at many. I don't buy pre cons for a couple of cards so i hope their decks are build around a solid strategy (unlike their 2018 predecessors). Before judging them i need to see the entire decks.
August 2, 2019 12:04 p.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor says... #30
UpperDeckerTaco - You can already do that with Beast Whisperer , Guardian Project , or Soul of the Harvest and you would still need to use the same collection of cost reducers (note that her ability only reduces the cost of the first creature). Better yet, just run Animar.
August 2, 2019 12:42 p.m.
Guardian Project in the morph deck would be double draw every turn with the commander on the field. I am kind of lost so pairing up the commander with cards like Guardian Project suck because the card can do the same thing instead of looking at it like oh guess what i can pair the two put a creature down for free and draw two cards. Sounds like a way to get great synergy out of the deck.
August 2, 2019 1:01 p.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor says... #32
hejtmane - If I understand your comment correctly, no, that combo doesn't suck, it's just not new. Any morph deck can already run the combo that Taco suggested without the need to use Kadena. In fact, Animar just does it better with less cards. That is my main gripe with Kadena. It's not that she can't be powerful, it's that she literally doesn't give morph any new tools. Instead of strengthening the mechanic or at least taking it in another direction (like the other 3 commanders do), she falls into the same play patterns that already exist.
Now, with all of my griping comes a couple things that need to be mentioned: 1) Usurping Animar as the go-to morph general is extremely difficult because Animar is broken, and 2) There are still A LOT of cards to be spoiled. I fully expect more support to show up in the following days. However, I think WotC really missed the mark with the flagship commander of the deck.
August 2, 2019 2:01 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #33
The new cards that have been revealed do intrigue me somewhat, but not sufficiently for me to wish to immediately build new decks with them.
I dislike morph, so I have little interest in Kadena’s deck, and, while I do like madness, herself is not sufficiently exciting for me to care about her, either.
However, both Sevinne and Ghired do look very interesting, to me, so I shall be very interested to see what cards that they have in their decks. Ghired’s belligerence, however, really should have been an instant, because it being a sorcery severely hinders how useful it shall be.
I personally feel that WotC should have waited until later to reveal the face cards of each set, so that revealing them would be more dramatic, as it is definitely anti-climactic that they revealed the face cards as the first cards of the set. However, each deck in each Commander sets always has three generals, so I do hope that WotC does not reveal those cards immediately and that they have some great reprints. I am disappointed that Dromar still shall not be reprinted, but I would like to see reprints of Numot and Uril, with the new card frame style.
The reprint of Seedborn Muse is very nice; I know that it was recently reprinted in Battlebond, but it is such a good card that any further reprints of it are highly welcome. I wonder if WotC shall reprint any of the other muses in this set, since they have not been reprinted in some time? New artwork would have been nice, as well.
Three of the four commanders are clearly from existing planes: Anje is from Innistrad, Ghired is from Ravnica (formerly of the Selesnya guild), Kadena is from Tarkir (the Sultai clan, to be specific), with only Sevinne’s home plane being unknown; does anyone have any guesses as to where he is from, or is there simply not sufficient information?
August 2, 2019 5:55 p.m.
DrukenReaps says... #34
I think they want the face commanders to have a little more of a causal feel to them. K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth certainly seems pretty breakable.
August 2, 2019 8:05 p.m.
CrimsonChaos says... #35
K’rrik looks really awesome! Definitely a mono-black commander I would consider building around. Glad to see that the secondary commanders show some promise!
August 2, 2019 8:13 p.m.
multimedia says... #36
How about Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer and Whisperwood Elemental for casual fun :)
It's great that Seedborn Muse is being reprinted in the Sultai Morph precon. Seedborn, Sol Ring and Command Tower is already close to $20 worth of value in that precon. So far I'm liking Kadena.
Interesting change is each precon will have a reprinted Planeswalker. Not sure if this is a good change or not because each Planeswalker will most likely take a mythic spot from another potential legendary creature.
August 3, 2019 12:38 a.m.
ZendikariWol says... #37
Dammit!! multimedia I was hoping Seedborn Muse was in Naya so that Sultai could have Training Grounds ! And we all know Wizards won’t let these have more than one good card and a walker.
August 3, 2019 12:45 a.m.
Nasser_inside1 says... #38
The only exciting commander imo is Ghired, Conclave Exile I like token decks, and he seems like the best/most competitive.
August 3, 2019 2:10 a.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor says... #39
Whoah...K'rrk is extremely powerful....like potentially seeing cEDH and legacy play powerful. I am definitely going to need to find a place for him in my Chainer deck which already runs Vilis, Broker of Blood and Font of Agonies .
Also, ZendikariWol, not to dash your dreams, but I wouldn't expect Training Grounds to be in the morph (sultai) deck. Morph isn't an activated ability.
August 3, 2019 2:29 a.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor says... #41
It's a special action. It's the same reason why morph doesn't use the stack.
Here is the relevant rules text:
702.34d If you have priority, you may turn a face-down permanent you control face up. This is a special action; it doesn’t use the stack (see rule 115).....
August 3, 2019 3:17 a.m.
DemonDragonJ Quick note - They said on stream that Sevinne was from Dominaria and by his looks, probably from Zhalfir, either before Teferi's Protection or maybe him being time mage, managed to phase himself out of it.
August 3, 2019 4:03 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #43
I find it to be very ironic that Yawgmoth's "son" has Phyrexian mana in his mana cost when Yawgmoth himself does not.
August 3, 2019 2:14 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #44
Does anyone else here think that it is weird that Urza and Yawgmoth were printed in a modern-legal set, whereas the new Gerrard was printed in an eternal-only set? Considering how powerful Urza and Yawgmoth are, and their role in the early story, I feel that they definitely should have been printed in an eternal-only set.
August 4, 2019 12:12 p.m.
PepsiAddicted says... #45
DemonDragonJ early yawgmoth with phyrexian mana symbols would make no sense. the guy on the card hasnt even thought of phyrexia yet. and its still many many eons till new phyrexia rises, where phyrexian mana technology will evolve.
August 4, 2019 12:41 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #46
PepsiAddicted, yes, that does make sense; I imagine that, if there are cards that depict him later in his life, they shall have Phyrexian mana symbols.
August 4, 2019 1:48 p.m.
Coward_Token says... #47
https://scryfall.com/card/c19/34/lets-take-the-shortcut
Haakon & Phage: Are we a joke to you?
August 5, 2019 4:02 p.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor says... #48
Well, the morph deck is a total bust. Other than Scroll of Fate, none of the new cards make morph any better. They didn't even include many of the good morph reprints or enablers. Glad they got this disappointment out of the way early in the week.
August 5, 2019 7:10 p.m.
Did you look at the same list I did?
An artifact that manifests everything from your hand, a morph enchantment, vesuvan shapeshifter, theiving amalgam lets you steal from your opponent's library and aristocrat them at the same time. Band of the living is a morph toxic deluge. Trail of mystery lets you dig for lands with morph, making sure you hit land drops. Kheru Spellsnatcher is a counter AND copy the spell.
It seems to me you just don't like anything and will never be satisfied unless WotC listens to YOU specifically.
August 6, 2019 1:49 a.m.
ZendikariWol says... #50
Staizer that’s pretty aggro there, chill out a bit...
But you’re a little right. I think Hi_diddly deeply underestimated the strength of the reprints, of the deck, and honestly of... like, maybe three or four of the new cards?
Imo it did feel like WotC wasn’t super committed to the morph theme of this deck. But they did include some pretty h_ckin good morph cards- including a vast majority of the creatures in the deck.
davidsays1 says... #2
Anje Falkenrath + Library of Leng + Psychosis Crawler or some other win con. As long as you are discarding a card with madness on top of your deck you are untapping her then drawing the card with madness repeatedly and pinging nonstop.
August 1, 2019 9:55 p.m. Edited.