Hello! Welcome to my set review where I will pick five cards of each colour and discuss my favourite cards from them.
Given that Phyrexia:All Will Be One (aka ONE) also comes out with a pair of preconstructed Commander decks, I’ll also be covering my favourite new cards from there in another article.
Without further ado, here are my favourite Blue cards!
Blade of Shared Souls is one of the strangest and coolest clone effects I’ve seen in a while. For three mana, you essentially get a Glasspool Mimic or a 2/2 Rebel, so even if your board is empty, your clone isn’t dead (although, Mimic is also a land, so there’s that).
But the real charm is in the ability triggering when you equip the Blade to a creature you control for only two mana! If that Rebel dies or you need to reset the clone, it’s that easy. Care to suit up that 2/2 Zombie with the Blade in your Wilhelt deck and get a second Undead Augur? Why not! Does your commander have an ETB and not much else going for it? Turn it into a Sun Titan, baby, let’s go! Uh oh, I’m being attacked but I have a Puresteel Paladin and metalcraft? Time to turn my 0/1 Plant token into that big Etali, Primal Storm I swung with last turn.
Blade of Shared Souls feels like the kind of card that will create game moments people will talk about for a while. I am going to jam it in all my blue deck and see what I can do with it!
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Ichormoon Gauntlet
This is one of the most disgusting card designs I’ve ever seen, and I mean disgusting in the same way I call ‘a brutal breakdown in a deathcore song’ disgusting.
Giving all your planeswalkers the ability to plus one all your other planeswalkers, and then give them the ability to Time Walk is absurd. I have an Aminatou, the Fateshifter Superfriends deck, so of course I am going to run this. The question is whether or not this will be a fun experience for everyone, and I think the answer might be no. This is going to be a lightning rod no matter what your set up is.
Having that second ability listed after something so explosive in the first ability is also pretty sneaky. While it’s not quite proliferate because it limits it to one counter and one permanent, it still basically says “cast an noncreature spell and get an extra counter wherever you want.” There are lots of strategies that love counters and this will slot in, but I think this second line of text is going to go under the radar for a little while.
A card that, as of writing, I’m not absolutely certain is real. Unctus, Grand Metatect made me crane my neck when I read it the first time. This reminds me of Grand Architect in a few ways and works with it quite nicely. Being able to turn your creatures into blue artifact creatures and then giving them a looting ability when they tap means that a Pili-Pala infinite is likely going to get you to a Thassa’s Oracle or Laboratory Maniac win.
That said, I like Unctus as a commander in a mono-blue aggro deck. Just swing and get to your cards fast then run stuff like the shuffle Eldrazi or Elixir of Immortality to keep the party going.
I personally think that I will be giving this a go in my Oona, Queen of the Fae “mono-blue” mill deck.
First, it was Mycosynth Lattice. Next, we saw a creature version in black with Biotransference. Finally, we have a one-sided land-excluding non-mana-fixing version of Lattice.
Turning all your nonland permanents into artifacts – whether they are in play or not – is bound to lead to shenanigans. Saheeli, the Gifted is a great example of a commander who will love to see this. Sharuum the Hegemon decks that are still kicking around no longer have to only pick from the artifacts in the graveyard, but any nonland permanent card, as they are now artifacts, too.
Playing this in Urza, Prince of Kroog means you get to pick any of your permanents to turn into a 1/1 token. A weird build of Ashnod the Uncaring might want this to sacrifice enchantments to double. I think these cards tend to be combo pieces and it’s exciting for some players.
There are a lot of artifact tokens that get created very easily. With Transplant Theorist, you may draw and discard for each other, or as many as you want. You aren’t forced to. You get to loot when the theorist lands too!
The second ability says, “hey, I know it was a hard decision to discard that card. Do you want it back in your deck? Put it at the bottom, I know you were saving that fetch land for a good reason.” I think this card will be a powerful uncommon we see more often than you’d think.
Honorable Mentions:
- Blue Sun’s Twilight – I have an Azorius clones deck and at seven mana, taking away a threat and making my own makes me feel powerful.
- Experimental Augury – Anticipate got power crept. Not my thing, but worth keeping track of. This is Anticipate + Proliferate.
- Jace, the Perfected Mind – Jace is compleated and this mirror image of Jace, the Mind Sculptor is a fun mill card that can fuel your graveyard or an opponent’s. Visions of Beyond on the -2 is very sweet.
- Mindsplice Apparatus – This isn’t crazy but it beats out Jace’s Sanctum in my Zaffai, Thunder Conductor spellslinger deck. Keep your mana up in case you need it to cast an instant and when you don’t, slap this bad boy down at your opponent’s end step to start reaping the discounts. Getting this up to three could just flat out set you up to win the game. Fun card!
- Mercurial Spelldancer – This feels like an easy include in a spellslinger deck that runs stuff like Efreet Flamepainter already. It can’t be blocked, you’re already casting noncreature spells, feels like a slam dunk.
- Minor Misstep – Mentioning for cEDH people because that’s where I’ve heard the buzz. Mental Misstep this isn’t. But it is interesting enough to keep an eye on.
- Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus– The blue Dominus is wicked specific but any deck that’s proliferating hard is going to want to slam this bad boy in their deck.
That does it for Blue! Catch you next time for Black!
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