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 Green cards from the set and the accompanying Commander sets.
Green has no shortage of mana dorks. There are even a bunch of solid commanders who are mana dorks like Gilanra, Caller of Wirewood or the popular elf ball enabler Marwyn, the Nurturer. What we see with Gwenna is slightly different. Instead of scaling with her power, she consistently gives you two mana of any colour to cast on creatures or activate their abilities.
Casting creatures with power five or greater buffs Gwenna with a +1/+1 counter and untaps it. Casting these creatures does not require you to use mana made by Gwenna, although it’s likely you will.
With a slew of cheap creatures that have power five or higher, a Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea deck might be a sneaky ramp/Voltron deck you never knew you could build. Phyrexian Dreadnought costs you one mana, untaps Gwenna and leaves you up a mana. Myr Superion can only be cast using mana from creatures and untaps Gwenna – it’s a free pump and untap essentially costing zero mana for a 5/6. Same goes for Lupine Prototype but with more restrictions. Phyrexian Soulgorger is an 8/8 that costs you three, untaps Gwenna and pumps her and with all the low costed beefy creatures you create, you’ll probably be able to keep it around for one or two turns to smack with. Rhonas the Indomitable is a cheap 5/5 that also has an activated ability that Gwenna can pay for. Wayward Swordtooth is Exploration on a 5/5 body for three mana. All those extra lands help pay for more beefy creatures while making your commander a real slap in the face.
Gwenna is first green legend in a while to make me consider building monogreen! And I really don’t like green!
Landfall decks have been super juiced and with the four colour Omnath, Locus of Creation being printed a few years back, they’re extremely popular.
This set, given that it features Titania, was bound to have land shenanigans. We even have a creature Crucible of Worlds in Perennial Behemoth this set!
The most striking of the land relevant cards from this set is of course one of its mythics in Awaken the Woods. With it being an X spell, you’re either creating early game advantage in mana dorks or you’re going big late game and getting Landfall triggers left and right.
Rampaging Baloths is scary enough. Lotus Cobra basically makes this free and don’t even get me started on Parallel Lives/Doubling Season.
This card’s bonkers good and if you have a Landfall deck, good luck finding a cut, but I know you’ll find it.
This is probably the best of the Command cycle from the set – as a Rakdos player it pains me to say that red and black had the worst.
Titania’s Command is great no matter what mode you choose. Even the two modes that require more set up are fantastic – all you need is an opponent’s graveyard to have a stack of cards and a board of creatures to pump. Otherwise, the land tutoring and Bear tokens are awesome.
Remember, they happen in the order they’re in on the card. So if you choose modes three and four, you’re actually getting two 4/4 Bear tokens. But let’s be serious, if I’m casting this at all, I’m looking at mode two and whatever mode is best for the situation, I’m in. Getting two lands – ANY TWO LANDS – from your deck into play is beautiful! Lands are super powerful! You can get Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers in one go. Or you can get Field of the Dead and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Or you can get Strip Mine and Gaea’s Cradle. Or you can get…
This is a lot like Caustic Caterpillar except it can be cast for free if you’ve got a Foundry Inspector or something out to reduce costs. The added life gain is nice if you’re looping this, but the beauty is in the exiling – that’s right, not destroying – of a noncreature artifact or noncreature enchantment. To destroy one of these with the Caterpillar costs you three mana, but Haywire Mite makes it two mana and gains you life. Of course, you are restricted to noncreature targets, but most of the time I’m cracking this to get rid of Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe. Bye bye, Sol Ring! This is a powerful uncommon that’s going to make some people pretty happy and others pretty salty.
Okay, I’m cheating with this last entry because my real pick is Titania, Gaea Incarnate. Both cards and the Melded monstrosity are fantastic for The Gitrog Monster decks and Lord Windgrace decks alike. Having your lands go to the graveyard and give you an auto-quasi Zuran Orb effect is beautiful.
Argoth, Sanctum of Nature, on its own, is very meh. You need a legendary green creature for it to come into play untapped, it only adds green, and the ability ostensibly costs five to activate and gives you… a bear token at sorcery speed. At least it mills you three cards which does forward the plan on the backside, as long as they’re lands.
The lucky part is that Titania is great and green is the colour that can tutor up any kind of land (see Titania’s Command or Hour of Promise). Of the three new Meld combinations, this one feels the easiest to assemble.
And when Argoth and Titania come together, you get a colossal avatar with keywords that say SMASH. It gets bigger because it Splendid Reclamations on ETB and has power/toughness equal to your lands. Don’t know what to do with that mana? How about turn it into an army? 3G to make a land a 4/4 is a lot of mana, but it gets out of hand quickly considering you’ll be smashing in with Titania, and you can stack four counters on the same land if you’ve got an opening. Titania, Gaea Incarnate is scary to look at and scary to read.
Happy holidays, green players. Your present came early.
Honorable Mentions:
- Perennial Behemoth – A Crucible of Worlds with a big butt that can be reanimated with Animate Dead and tutored up with Buried Alive. Nice!
- Simian Simulacrum – A fun card for counters decks that has ways to blink or bounce it.
- Alloy Animist – “Surprise, my Treasure is now a 4/4 and it kills your 3/3.”
- Bushwhack – Move over Prey Upon and Lay of the Land. This is both in one card!
- Sarinth Steelseeker – Really solid card in decks that love making Treasures just as much as people hate when people make a bunch of Treasures.
- Wasteful Harvest – This is like a three mana draw five at instant speed for graveyard decks.
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