Lets speculate on the confirmed Commander 18 themes
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on July 13, 2018, 4:07 p.m. by RedUndead40
In case you missed it the decks are
-Izzet artificer
-Bant Enchanter
-Jund Lands Matter
-Esper "Top Deck Matters"
What could each of these decks bring to the table? What are some Izzet themes that can translate to this deck? How could it work? Who would the reprint commander be since this color isn't properly represented in artifact legends? Seems too early to reprint the only option I could think of, Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain.
Bant enchantress could be a pillow fort-y deck. Lot of directions they could go with this one.
Jund Lands Matter could obviously just be a landfall-y deck but I hope they make lands matter in a different way here. Perhaps some variation of The Gitrog Monster type effects since Jund is fond of sacrificing?
Esper top deck... this is the one I am most curious to see how it could work. Your top deck matters? Opponents top deck? Casting spells from top deck? Lantern control type shenanigans?
Let me know what you think!
shake shake adds salt...
Seriously though... I'm pretty disappointed - looks like I'll pick up $40 of singles from this set then!
July 27, 2018 11:02 a.m.
LittleBlueHero says... #3
Do we know if any of the reprints have new art or are the arts shown on the page what we are getting?
I like new art reprints.
July 27, 2018 11:08 a.m.
RedUndead40 says... #4
Hm. Not really seeing any particularly awesome reprints here but I don't know all the prices off the top of my head.
Out of the box the Bant deck seems strongest at first glance.
Is anything in that Esper deck a valuable reprint?
July 27, 2018 11:08 a.m.
Here are my thoughts:
Bant: I kind of knew they were going to do auras. It sucks, but it's a nice starting point for me as I plan to use Kestia.
Esper: ...so what is this deck trying to do? Too few zombos to work with Varina, and the "top-card" reprints aren't stellar. Kudos on them on slipping most of the best Miracle spells though. Temporal Mastery is the only one, I think.
Jund: The literal WTF of the 4. I think whoever built this deck confused Lands-matter with Ramp decks. You don't ramp into giant spells, gdi. major facepalm
Izzet: Imo, this is the best of the bunch. Duplicant? Unwinding Clock? Those are solid. For a beginner, this is a good place to begin. I like this stock list the best, and it works with what plans I have for the 3 legendary artificers anyway.
July 27, 2018 11:08 a.m.
I'm going to get the UR deck only for the new cards, and I'm going to trade a bunch of bulk I don't need. So I don't feel as ripped off. My LGS better price all decks at MSRP or less.
What's the deal with the shitty dual lands in the UR Commander deck. I got better duals from the Inventors deck!
July 27, 2018 11:09 a.m.
RedUndead40 says... #8
Yeah pretty much all of the land reprints outside of those old Jund fetches are meh and even those are pretty meh
July 27, 2018 11:31 a.m.
Never, in all my years as a Magic player (let alone an EDH player), had I went out of my way to build a budget deck just to spite Wizards for doing a terrible job with a precon. In this case, it's Nature's Vengeance.
July 27, 2018 12:08 p.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor says... #10
Wow, that is a rather uninspiring bunch of decks with not a lot of great reprints. U/R looks the best I guess? Esper looks the most fun out of sheer uniqueness. There are a few really exciting new cards, but a whole lot of chaff also. Looks like I'll just be picking up a few singles.
Incoming rant:
I think Wizards needs to be careful moving forward with their commander products. They have fallen into a pattern of trying to appease Commander players in every new set which I think hurts Limited, Standard and EDH alike. As a result, the actual Commander product seems to suffer because: a) better, new Commander focused cards are being made in other sets (i.e. Battlebond), and b) needed/synergistic reprints for deck themes are not happening in the Commander product themselves (just imagine if the lands deck had either Crucible of Worlds or Scapeshift from M19, or the U/R deck got Mycosynth Lattice or Mind's Eye from Battlebond). Don't even get me started on Nexus of Fate or Firesong and Sunspeaker.
Now, I get as excited as anyone when I see a cool new Commander card or a needed reprint show up in a regular set, but unless these cards fit a Limited archetype/theme of the new set (i.e. Zacama, Primal Calamity or Doubling Season), or they have a role in the story (i.e. Arcades, the Strategist or Hour of Revelation), why even include them in the first place? Instead of feeling disappointed by opening up a clearly Commander tilted card like Sunbird's Invocation, you could open up a cool dinosaur or merfolk that will work in a Limited/Standard deck. Then you could put the Commander focused cards/reprints into the yearly Commander product. This would be a win-win for everyone. Standard and Limited players alike will get more playable cards and Commander players will get a much more complete product. They'd probably sell more Commander product as well since hunger for more EDH cards would grow over the course of a year and hype surrounding the release would be sky high. Sorry for rambling, but it is just a trend that I have been noticing over the past three commander sets.
end rant
July 27, 2018 12:23 p.m.
RedUndead40 says... #11
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor, couple of reasons-
A) Wizards wants commander players to buy booster packs as well, rather than just waiting around to spend money once a year.
B) Commander products that produce commander staples get overpriced very quickly. By including Sunbird's Invocation in a standard set rather than a commander set makes the card itself much more affordable to commander players.
So yeah, double edged sword and all that.
July 27, 2018 12:43 p.m.
I saw this on the Reddit thread:
"I'm pretty sure the intention is to push people back towards Standard product. Just look at what they did this year with Dominaria and introducing Brawl."
...please for the love of Heliod don't let this be true. This will end so poorly for them, and it'll make the game into Yugioh, only with more flavor and different rules.
July 27, 2018 4:45 p.m.
theemptyquiver says... #13
Of course they want that as a company. Standard is a rotating format and people have to continually buy the new best stuff to compete.
As far as I'm concerned I got more than enough EDH value out of dominaria and as far as brawl is concerned: it's niche still. WotC will need to nurture the format and give it time to grow and settle in.
I'm not into knee jerk reactions. Mtg has been around a long time! It's not like 1 business year for wizards is really going to change much big picture.
July 27, 2018 4:50 p.m.
RedUndead40 says... #14
On the topic of Yuriko:
I'm liking her a lot. I've been pairing all of the ninjas with creatures that have both evasion and ETB effects. This makes Ninjutsu both very easy to trigger and also rewards me for bouncing the non-Ninjas to my hand.
This may actually be a good deck... still needs more ninjas but it's not half bad right now.
Very very rough draft here but here's a link in case anyone has other good suggestions. I still need to cut out some of the random black and blue creatures that I added just for filler now that I found out the ETB Evasion theme works pretty well.
July 27, 2018 5:29 p.m.
RomanNumeroDos says... #15
Phaetion I mean, Tuvasa is a good enchantment based commander. I already have a deck built in paper that I'll upload later on here. For the most part Tuvasa, the Sunlit seems decent going forward, part Yavimaya Enchantress part card draw. Besides, I only have the a few good auras in there, the deck consists of about 30 non aura enchantments.
July 27, 2018 7:58 p.m.
RomanNumeroDos: I tested the Bant deck. It's better than people are giving it credit for. I'll probably keep the stocklist and run both Auras and non-auras. How I'll distribute that is unknown at this time.
Speaking of lists, I tested them.
Esper...Barf. Easily the worst list, imo.
Izzet...It's slow, but when it gets going, it's interesting.
Jund...This deck is actually quite god, but it's just SO BORING.
Bant...Best of the lot.
Did anyone else who tested the lists find the same way, or were they different? I'm curious about any different experiences.
July 27, 2018 9:06 p.m.
RomanNumeroDos says... #17
Phaetion It's intresing to the see the Hydra Omnivore in there. Made a decklist with Tuvasa, the Sunlit and got a little creedy with things. Tuvasa is too lit
July 27, 2018 9:23 p.m.
RomanNumeroDos: It is. It's probably better in the Jund deck, but Estrid protects if from the kill-on-sight nature of the card.
This is my latest take on the deck. This time, I'm using all three of the options, not resorting to any one in particular. The problem is, merging Auras with non-auras is more daunting than I thought it to be.
July 27, 2018 10:19 p.m.
RomanNumeroDos says... #19
Phaetion That's the same problem I had when I had Karametra, God of Harvests,Krond the Dawn-Clad,Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist enchantress deck.
Krond was the first cmdr in the spot, losely half auras half enchantments. I got frustrated on how greedy Krond is with her CMC color cost so I decided to switch.
Mirri was the second cmdr of the deck, mostly auras without vigilince. If I had a vigilence card, I would wait for Predatory Urge so I can use her as removal & tap her so I can use her effectively. As I played her more I lost alot of power without having any creature left ot enchant.
Karametra was the 3rd & final cmdr of the deck, mostly enchantment permanents on the board(hardly any auras), I cast as many enchantments as I could while protecting myself with Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Sigarda, Host of Herons and Shalai, Voice of Plenty. It usually came down to me top decking a Starfield of Nyx to win.
Tuvasa, the Sunlit gave me what I wanted in a enchantress commander. It beefs itself up with the amount of enchantments I have out on the field as well as giving me that extra card once a turn. Let's also not forget how big she/he gets with Enchanted Evening. He/she also let's me use the color blue to put in powerful blue enchantments in the deck without sacrificing the powerlevel of my previous deck. I also trough in some decent auras that let me swing in without him/her getting chump blocked. I have to test her/him out more but for the most part, Estrid is in there to protect cards like Serra's Sanctum, My cmdr & any other enchantment that valuable to the win con.
Last but not least, let's talk about the lockdown I improved upon. Sterling Grove + Privileged Position = Can't target my stuff + Aegis of the Gods = Can't target me or my jank + Avacyn, Angel of Hope = Rift me or Exile my entire board + Enchanted Evening = Rift, Exile the entire board or concede.
Sounds cocky but it wins games if people let my board get that dumb.
July 27, 2018 10:48 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #20
Why does Varina's ability read "whenever you attack with one or more zombies, draw that many cards, then discard that many cards. You gain that much life."? Would it not be easier to say "whenever you attack with a zombie, draw a card, then discard a card. You gain 1 life."? Would that not have the same effect, but be easier to comprehend?
July 30, 2018 8:17 p.m.
RedUndead40 says... #21
DemonDragonJ that is the way they word cards for Digital play. The way you worded it creates sometimes dozens of triggers that are tiresome to go through in digital play.
July 30, 2018 10:16 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #22
RedUndead40, why does WotC care about that? Should not the physical game take precedence over the digital game?
July 30, 2018 10:41 p.m.
DemonDragonJ Nope!
They support both mediums about the same, so if they have 2 ways of templating something, they will now do it they more digital-friendly way. This is a fairly recent change, as Raiders' Spoils from Khans was templated in the way you had.
An interesting side note is that now these abilities are more susceptible to Stifle and Voidslime and the like
July 30, 2018 10:46 p.m.
Not sure why this matters as much for EDH, because as far as I can tell without having used MTGO, commander isn’t super popular, and most commander-product stuff is added though other means
July 30, 2018 10:48 p.m.
Actually digital play and paper play are exactly the same. It's just that we tend to take shortcuts in paper.
The reason Wizards worded it like they did is because "whenever you attack with a zombie, draw a card, then discard a card. You gain 1 life" is a different effect. Unless you have multiple combat pahses for some reason, there's only one attack phase, so only only one trigger. So if you attack with 10 zombies you only draw/discard a single card and lose a single life.
July 30, 2018 10:54 p.m.
theemptyquiver says... #26
My buddy plays EDH constantly on MTGO. He even own electronic versions of all his paper versions so he can play the same decks.
It's popular enough that he can always find a 4 person pod.
July 30, 2018 10:57 p.m.
Tyrant-Thanatos says... #27
"whenever you attack with a zombie, draw a card, then discard a card. You gain 1 life." would play out extremely differently than "whenever you attack with one or more zombies, draw that many cards, then discard that many cards. You gain that much life." does.
Under the former, proposed wording, attacking with 7 zombies would cause you to do the following: Draw 1 card, Discard 1 card, gain 1 life, Draw 1 card, Discard 1 card, gain 1 life, Draw 1 card, Discard 1 card, gain 1 life, Draw 1 card, Discard 1 card, gain 1 life, Draw 1 card, Discard 1 card, gain 1 life, Draw 1 card, Discard 1 card, gain 1 life, Draw 1 card, Discard 1 card, gain 1 life. In that specific order.
Under the later, printed wording, attacking with 7 zombies would cause you to do the following: Draw 7 cards, Discard 7 cards, gain 7 life.
See the difference? You're drawing all the cards before you start discarding, and there's only one instance on the stack, not 7.
July 31, 2018 12:07 a.m. Edited.
DemonDragonJ says... #28
Tyrant-Thanatos, that does make sense, and I would much rather have a single trigger than multiple separate triggers, although abilities that trigger from life being gained or cards being drawn would prefer separate triggers.
July 31, 2018 9:08 p.m.
It's also good for things that matter for "one or more" effects.
July 31, 2018 11:04 p.m.
Tyrant-Thanatos says... #31
User:DemonDragonJ most card draw triggers wouldn't care. It's true though that effects like Oloro, Ageless Ascetic would benefit from separate triggers. However, I still feel like the template we got is overall a better choice, it's far more beneficial in the majority of circumstances than it is harmful in niche instances of specific interactions.
But yeah, cards like Psychic Corrosion, Chasm Skulker, etc will still trigger for each card you drew.
July 31, 2018 11:34 p.m.
I for one am quite surprised there's been not that much excitement over an Esper Zombie commander and a Bant Merfolk commander. I thought I may pick up the singles for around £4 each but with seemingly little interest I doubt I'll have trouble picking them up down the line.
I am going to get Xantcha, Sleeper Agent for £3.50 though, I have something in mind for a deck soon. And I've taken the plunge on pre-ordering the Izzet deck simply because there are some useful 'nuts and bolts' for that style of deck outside the commanders and the pre-order price provides OK value to get it all in one package. Even though I already have the best 'money' reprints in there namely Unwinding Clock and Soul of New Phyrexia.
What is everyone else up to, going for singles, speculating on anything?
August 1, 2018 9:11 a.m.
RedUndead40 says... #33
Eh honestly Derevi, Empyrial Tactician is a better Bantfolk commander than the new Enchanter. At least in my eyes. Merfolk have a lot more tap synergy than enchantment synergy, unless you really need a Merfolk in the command zone.
August 1, 2018 10:28 a.m.
BS-T: I already preordered all 4 decks about a month ago at least. I definitely have plans for Enchantress (using all 3), idk about Izzet, Esper I might break apart for pieces (or build Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow complete with both Ninjas and Pirates).
Jund...that's starting to become a problem. I have Vaevictus 2.0 and Windgrace competing against one another, and I can't choose both. It's going to be hard. :/
August 1, 2018 10:35 a.m.
RedUndead40 says... #35
I pre-ordered the Esper deck but am definitely taking it apart to build Yuriko. I just finished my list for her today and ordered the cards before they jump in price (Yuriko is way more popular than I expected).
List if interested-
August 1, 2018 11:13 a.m.
I'm getting the Esper deck because I want Yuriko as my commander for my UB deck and I have a plan for a few of the cards.
I'm a little disappointed though that no one has noticed a combo with Sower of Discord and Exquisite Blood.
August 1, 2018 12:54 p.m.
theemptyquiver says... #37
I'll personally take Tuvasa over Derevi.
My current g/w enchantress deck is going to become bant and Tuvasa gives me more draw power. That tuvasa is a Merfolk won't even be relevant for me.
The potential size of power/toughness also comes into play because my current build is almost all defense and tuvasa could potentially give me some aggressive plays that I don't have available in my current g/w build.
I also like Estrid too and will give her a slot but it's possible so does not make my final cut.
August 1, 2018 12:59 p.m.
RedUndead40 says... #38
Well yeah if you are playing enchanter then Tuvasa is the obvious choice. I was talking about Merfolk tribal in particular where Derevi seems a bit stronger.
August 1, 2018 1:11 p.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor says... #39
Yuriko is pre-ordering around $20...I think my Sygg deck can wait for its inevitable drop in price
August 1, 2018 1:44 p.m.
RedUndead40 says... #40
Holy crap I didn't realize that... is Yuriko the most expensive card from this set? Glad I preordered the Esper deck.
Also commander specific cards aren't exactly well known for going down in value... look at the most popular cards from past sets like True-Name Nemesis, Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, etc
August 1, 2018 1:47 p.m. Edited.
I wonder if it's possible to do an enchantress build with both Auras and non-auras. Have the utility of all the enchantments while Aura provide the win conditions. Like this.
August 1, 2018 1:48 p.m.
LittleBlueHero says... #42
I preordered Esper and Bant along with singles of the other commanders. Reason being there wasn't much I could use from the Jund deck or the Izzet deck, but I did really like the commanders.
I tend to preorder all the legendaries from the commander products simply because things like Vial Smasher the Fierce and others went up a lot and I missed my chance to get them cheap.
I fully expect them to release a foil version of Yuriko, Varchild, Xantcha and The Land thing at some point (if they aren't foiled in the set).
When that happens the non-foils will drop for sure. But unless they are release more than normal quantities of this set the prices won't fluctuate much. I do think Yuriko is high but if shes decent and not just flavorful you can expect her to stay around 15 to 20 bucks.
August 1, 2018 1:59 p.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor says... #43
Naa she will drop. My guess is she will settle in around $5. She isn't nearly as good as a card like Vial Smasher the Fierce or Atraxa, Praetors' Voice. And she won't see play in other eternal formats like True-Name Nemesis does. It is simply ninja tribal hype that has her so high right now.
August 1, 2018 11:26 p.m.
RedUndead40 says... #44
Honestly she is a lot better than you may expect... I have been doing a lot of testing with her and it is not uncommon to have drained opponents for 30+ damage by turn 6 or 7. That is pretty strong. I just had a test hand that triggered for 21 life loss on turn 4.
And don't discount her in eternal formats either. When your opponents have 20 life and you can stack your library with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and get that trigger on turn 2 or 3? That could easily be a real deck. I would not be surprised if she at least hovered around Vial Smasher the Fierce range
August 2, 2018 1:35 a.m. Edited.
I'm going to FNM with Jhoira's Vehicular Travels tomorrow. Might pick up some vehicles from the Ixalan block.
August 2, 2018 4:01 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #46
Why is it that Sol Ring's price has not decreased very much despite all of its printings? Is it simple because it is such an awesome and powerful card?
August 2, 2018 8:29 p.m.
DemonDragonJ DJ Johnson has an article a couple weeks back discussing this very topic on TCGPlayer.com. The basic principle is its perpetual demand coupled with the nature of the products it can be reprinted in.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=14590&writer=DJ+Johnson&articledate=4-24-2018
HARDsofty says... #1
Ah shit, I was typing.
Going to look at the lists!
July 27, 2018 10:49 a.m.