Welcome to my set review where I will pick my five favourite cards of each colour from The Brothers’ War booster set!
Given that The Brothers’ War also comes out with a pair of preconstructed Commander decks, I’ll also be covering my favourite new cards from there in another article. I also won’t be touching on reprints in either review.
Without further ado, here are my favourite Blue cards from the set and the accompanying Commander set.
Drafna is one of my favourite new legends from The Brothers’ War. That creature type line is hilariously long and it makes me happy. However, it’s the cards power that excites me most. For 1U, you can bounce an artifact back you your hand. When you cast it next, if you tack three extra mana on it and tap Drafna, you’ve got two copies.
Mycosynth Wellspring and Ichor Wellspring will be amazing inclusions in the 99 of a Drafna deck. Add Krark-Clan Ironworks to the mix and a Training Grounds, you’ve got an engine humming.
In the 99, Drafna will thrive in Breya, Etherium Shaper and Saheeli, the Gifted decks. Any deck casting artifacts they wouldn’t mind copying at least once will give this guy a look. In a pinch, if you need to save a permanent, you can Liquimetal Torque it to make it an artifact, and then use Drafna, Founder of Lat-Nam to bounce it back to hand. I promise this card will surprise you.
I am adding this card to the list because players who love Cyclonic Rift will want this card too. Of course, to use on another player’s turn, it costs 10 and it bounces your own stuff, but there are times where you just need to reset the board. This also ends the turn, and if it’s not your turn, you’re going to be forcing somebody to discard and neglect the rest of the turn they’re planning for. I think the ending of the turn is going be the most feather ruffling part of this.
Any deck you play Omniscience in will be perfect for this. End your opponent’s turn, untap, play Omniscience (we know you have the mana!) and then play everything out again.
Another thing to note is that this is not, nor will it likely be, a $30-50 card like Rift is. If this floats your boat, you might want to get your copies when this hits under a dollar.
For a six mana artifact, you have to have something crazy like Bolas’s Citadel. Luckily, The Temporal Anchor is pretty nuts. Is it as powerful as Citadel? No. But it is really, really cool.
This card cares about scrying, which surprisingly, few Blue commanders do. Elminster, The Scarab God, Zaffai, Thunder Conductor, Thrasios, Triton Hero, Thassa, God of the Sea, Siani, Eye of the Storm, Oji, the Exquisite Blade, and Gnostro, Voice of the Crags are the only eligible commanders who have scry in their textbox.
Luckily, scrying is evergreen and there’s plenty of it out there. Being able to play cards exiled with The Temporal Anchor on your turns without being limited by how many you can play is pretty satisfying. You can store some land drops under The Temporal Anchor if you’ve already got land in hand or vice versa – use your exiled lands to keep the hand stacked. It allows you to move cards around to sequence your advantage. It’s oddly reminiscent of Sylvan Library. It’s not two mana, but it is fun.
Of course, if it gets blown up or blinked, you lose those cards, but that’s the risk. I’m really excited to see how this plays. I think it’s going to make or break some games.
Three mana 2/4 with a textbox so long it requires multiple read-throughs. Hot damn! Hurkyl wants you to play on your turn, that much is clear, but she also wants you to specialize or spread the love among your card types: sorceries, instants, artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers to be specific.
You can build a Hurkyl deck to be a spellslinger (instant and sorcery) or artifact or enchantment or planeswalker deck, but if she’s leading the deck, I’d be surprised to see non-spellslinger versions of her.
Something to note – if you have a turn where you play an artifact, and in your end step you reveal a Solemn Simulacrum or Baleful Strix, you can put that card into your hand because it’s an artifact. Similarly, if you play a Bident of Thassa, you’ve cast an artifact and an enchantment, so you can reveal five cards and if you have an enchantment and artifact among them, congratulations, you’re up two cards!
In the 99, I could see this slot into Muldrotha, the Gravetide smoothly. I am considering it for my Aminatou, the Fateshifter Superfriends deck because I have a healthy amount of artifacts, enchantments, and or course, planeswalkers.
Speaking of my Aminatou Superfriends deck… it draws lots of cards.
This new Teferi gains loyalty counters when you draw cards and for 0 loyalty, he can draw you a card. Needless to say, this Teferi can get out of hand quickly, especially in decks like The Council of Four for which card draw begets more card draw.
In decks that draw a lot, Teferi will be nearly unbeatable. Twelve loyalty is nothing when your opponents keep having to rebuild over and over because you’re drawing three or four cards a turn.
The turn Teferi comes down, use his draw ability to bring him to five. Even if you don’t have a way to draw that turn, the next turn, you draw, then you use his ability – that’s two loyalty. He’s up to seven. Brainstorm for one mana, that’s another three loyalty. Before you know it, Teferi is up to ten loyalty uninterrupted for just one extra mana (and of course protecting him). Kami of the Crescent Moon, Howling Mine, Font of Mythos – they all get much scarier when you’re threatening to pop opponents’ resources back to their hands.
Honorable Mentions:
- Arcane Proxy – Three mana to flashback a two drop spell that doesn’t exile is solid. You can play this in a deck with anthems to get a bigger spell, but often.
- One with the Multiverse – Omniscience lite for eight mana instead of 10. You get to Future Sight, and once each of your turns you get a free spell? Sign me up.
- Geology Enthusiast – I’m coming around on Powerstones now that I’m seeing the kind of activated abilities that are being supported here. You getting these on your end step can add up quickly and you can do a lot with those.
- Skystrike Officer – This wants soldiers, but I see this more for the Tribal decks. Tapping three creatures to draw a card is solid. Getting one of those creatures when you poke in the air with this? Solid card.
- Terisian Mindbreaker – I love my mill deck. I’ll probably be replacing Fleet Swallower in it. Unearth is great with this!
- Urza’s Command – Getting to dampen an attack is more useful than you think it’s going to be. So is a surprise blocker, ramping, and Opt being tacked on is really nice if none of the other options speak to you. Ultimately, Opt plus a body or Powerstone? What’s not to like? This was very close to being in my top five, but I was talked into having Hurkyl’s Final Meditation take a spot instead.
- Flow of Knowledge – Incredible late game draw for mono-blue decks running lots of basic lands.
- Hulking Metamorph – Phyrexian Metamorph lite that can only target your stuff and has extra utility in some decks – see the shenanigans a Volrath, the Shapestealer deck can get up to.
- Urza, Powerstone Prodigy – You don’t realize how often you’re discarding cards in a game. If you discard an artifact, you get a Powerstone and Urza’s ability is paid for from now on. Giving him Vigilance means you can swing freely. I’m impressed with all of the young versions of legends in this set!
That does it! Check back soon for the next colour!
