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 Multicolour cards from the set and the accompanying Commander sets.
I love Rakdos decks. It should come as no surprise that Mishra, Claimed by Gix and Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa are getting my brewing gears turning. I’ve already written an A Seat at the Table for Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa for thebagofloot.com, so check that out.
Tombstone Stairwell is one of the meld creatures paired with Phyrexian Dragon Engine to make Mishra, Lost to Phyrexia. Before we get to that unbelievable card, let’s talk about Mishra on his own.
For four mana, a 3/5 who drains your opponents for one when it attacks alone is just fine. The moment you add three attacking creatures like Goblin or Zombie tokens, then you’re swinging for the combat damage, but also draining each opponent for four life. Cards like Tombstone Stairwell, Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin, Hanweir Garrison, Legion Warboss, or even Delina, Wild Mage all impact the board in their own way and put the pressure on ALL of your opponents. While Delina can make copies of Mishra, the attack trigger does not happen because the copies are already tapped and attacking, so I’d focus on copying stuff like Liliana’s Reaver or Misfortune Teller for them to get their own damage triggers. Or even Professional Face-Breaker or Grim Hireling since they don’t need to be attacking creatures to be copied, then you’ll get the treasures for the hits for each of your copies.
We haven’t even touched on all the life gain! You can use life as a resource and put it into Necropotence so you can find your Phyrexian Dragon Engine!
The moment you get to attack with Mishra and the Phyrexian Dragon Engine, you get three of Mishra, Lost to Phyrexia’s effects. Granted, you can’t pick a single ability more than once per trigger. No matter what, this makes your combat step even scarier. I can’t get over there being six choices!
- Make an opponent discard two cards
- Lightning Bolt
- Destroy target artifact or planeswalker
- Creatures you control gain menace and trample until end of turn
- Creatures you don’t control get -1/-1 until end of turn
- Create two Powerstone tokens
No matter your decision, picking any of these three is going to be massive. Protect Mishra, Lost to Phyrexia because it is absolutely going to get targeted.
I would also consider Mishra, Claimed by Gix in your Mardu Humans lists, as those go wide and go hard. Any go wide strategy in the colours is going to benefit from Mishra in the 99. That said, I can’t wait to brew a deck around him.
Young Pyromancer is a format defining card. For each instant or sorcery you cast, you get a 1/1 Elemental. Then came Monastery Mentor and instant/sorcery became noncreature, meaning artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers also triggered the Mentor, making Monks with Prowess. It’s no mistake that Third Path Iconoclast is a Monk. For UR, you get a Young Pyro/Monastery Mentor mix in that you get creatures for noncreature spells, but they don’t have Prowess.
Have you heard of eggs? Eggs is the colloquialism for artifacts that cost 0 mana. In a deck that runs a bunch of eggs and Paradoxical Outcome with Third Path Iconoclast, this is going to draw a ton of cards and make that many more 1/1s.
This will be the chase uncommon of the set. If you open any, hold onto them if you see yourself hoping to use one. That said, if they’re cheap, pick some up if this is in your colours!
Battery Bearer turns itself and all your other creatures into Powerstones without the subtype. Cryptolith Rite is an expensive and popular card because an effect like turning your whole board of creatures into potential mana generation is extremely powerful. The cherry on top is if you’ve got an artifact to cast with all of these creatures, if it’s six or more mana, you get to draw a card. Spine of Ish Sah just needs a Krark-Clan Ironworks to bring it back to your hand before you play it a bunch and draw cards for it.
Battery Bearer is a card to consider for your GUx decks that make a bunch of creatures and have activated abilities. Keep an eye open for somewhere to slot this in.
Quelle surprise, a mythic planeswalker is on the list. Saheeli, Filigree Master makes me want to keep my Saheeli, the Gifted deck together instead of using it as the base of my Mishra, Eminent One deck. All the Saheeli cards synergize well together!
Going through Saheeli, Filigree Master’s abilities in regards to the set, it’s easy to see that the “untapped artifact you control” is likely a Powerstone token for you to tap to draw a card. The original Saheeli Rai +1 was also a Scry 1 ability, but instead of allowing you to draw a card, you dealt a damage to the table. I like both! Especially if I have The Temporal Anchor!
The -2 on Saheeli is situational, but with token doublers or artifact/creature ETB synergies out there, it could be the move, but rarely will be.
The -4 ability on this three starting loyalty planeswalker with a +1 ability (paging Nissa, Vital Force) means you’ll get it in two turns if you want to cash in Saheeli. If you don’t and you have ways to get more counters on her, the -4 ability stacks! Imagine having two emblems? Your 1/1 Thopters are now 3/3s and your Arcane Signet is free! Did somebody say Deepglow Skate?
Maybe I do need to keep Saheeli, the Gifted together…
Of course I had to talk about Urza. Urza, Lord Protector (Urza, Planeswalker backside) is also great, but I think Prince of Kroog is more interesting.
As a player of Azorius clones, I love being able to copy stuff. For six mana, Urza makes a copy of one of your artifacts, but makes it a 1/1 creature which is actually a 3/3 if Urza’s still around. Powerstones make this ability easy to reach and you’re in Training Grounds colours.
That said, maybe you want to copy something that isn’t an artifact. Liquimetal Torque is one of the best cards printed in the last couple of years. It and Liquimetal Coating can turn your Smothering Tithe into an artifact and Urza can make a token of it.
I have a Sakashima of a Thousand Faces/Livio, Oathsworn Sentinel deck that clones everything and anything. If I play Urza, I can also clone Urza a few times, getting Tempered Steel anthems for every copy so my Gilded Lotus copies can tap for three or swing for 7 if I’ve got enough Urzas around.
Honorable Mentions:
- Sarinth Greatwurm – Universal landfall gives you Powerstones. Brutal. So strong. Too strong? Maybe. My Grand Warlord Radha deck is happy!
- Urza, Lord Protector (Urza, Planeswalker) – Goblin Electromancer + Foundry Inspector in one. Pair with The Mightstone and Weakstone for one of the wildest planeswalkers ever printed.
- Deathbloom Ritualist – “Hermit Druid activation, tap Ritualist for *counts*… 25, use that mana to activate…”
- Hajar, Loyal Bodyguard – Jodah, the Unifier decks are popular and will want this.
- Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa – Check out my thebagofloot.com article I wrote about him.
- Jodah, the Unifier – Her, too!
- Tawnos, the Toymaker – Him, too!
- Tocasia, Dig Site Mentor – Hers is coming. Bant graveyard strategy is novel and that activated ability screams Eggs commander. Giving your board vigilance and the ability to Surveil 1 is chef’s kiss beautiful.
- Yotian Dissident – +1/+1 counter decks that find themselves with a ton of artifacts and artifact tokens will make great use of this. Hamza, Guardian of Arashin is pleased.
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