Hello and welcome to A Seat at the Table, the column where I pick a commander and talk about what I’d include in the 99. This edition is brought to you by the stream that just revealed a bunch of new cards from The Brothers’ War.
Let’s talk about Mishra. Not that one, the other one, the newest one.
No, not the uncommon one.
Okay, so we’re getting four (technically, five) versions of Mishra and Urza in this set and its Commander set. So far, I am loving every Mishra design, and today I’m taking a look at Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa. For 3BR, you get a 4/4 Human Artificer with some spicy abilities. Let’s see that textbox:
“Permanents you control have ‘Ware – Sacrifice a permanent.’
Each artifact card in your graveyard has unearth 1BR.”
Let’s remind ourselves about Unearth.
“1BR: Return the card from your graveyard to the battlefield. It gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step or if it would leave the battlefield. Unearth only as a sorcery.”
Important things to note:
So why exactly would we want to run this over Sedris? Sedris has an extra colour. That colour is blue. How you felt about that is your answer to the question. If you like that, run Sedris. If you don’t, here’s Mishra. Sedris is one mana more than Mishra and can only unearth creatures. Mishra unearths artifacts.
Let’s have some fun with this. My first thought was Flagbearer creatures, which force opponents to target a Flagbearer if they want to cast spells or activate abilities. This then triggers Ward, which means that they have to sacrifice a permanent otherwise their spell is countered. That said, there are only two Flagbearers, and they’re White, so that’s a little extra spice for Mardu players who want Mishra to party.
Warhammer 40k precon Commander decks gave us a lot of new toys that I really like. I wasn’t particularly high on Biotransference. I liked it fine. What Biotransference can do in the right deck is sublime. For example, in this deck, it turns Mishra into a Sedris basically. All your creatures in your graveyard are artifacts and get to be Unearthed.
Let’s also say that Scrap Mastery also gets a lot better when creatures in your graveyard are artifacts too. Have a sacrifice outlet handy and you’ve got a one-sided Living Death.
This little one mana artifact is a bit of a failsafe for those who really want to try to keep things that they should make peace with losing. By playing an Unearth strategy, you have to be okay with your stuff being gone forever. Synod Sanctum lets you exile one of your Unearthed artifacts. Because it’s already being exiled, it will be exiled with Synod Sanctum and therefore can be brought back with the second ability. You can create a stack for your opponents to worry about under there. Don’t forget to pack the self mill!
One of the most busted artifacts in the game. Entomb this into your graveyard, pay 1BR, and have a hell of a turn. Use Scroll Rack or Sensei’s Divining Top to move around the top of your deck or just draw everything you want, getting rid of lands from the top of the deck with Top. Enjoy the degeneracy, gang!
Paying half mana to play these solid creatures is a great deal. I don’t know what more you need. Noxious Gearhulk kills a creature and gains you life. Combustible Gearhulk either draws you card or mills you into more artifacts to unearth. I think it’s all around win-win with both of these beefcakes who get to swing at your opponents before saying bye forever. But does it have to be forever?
No, it doesn’t. At the beginning of your end step, you can stack your triggers to make Conjurer’s Closet exile a creature (Noxious Gearhulk for example) before the Unearth delayed trigger hits and you lose it for good, thus returning it to the battlefield as a new object that no longer needs to be exiled, as this one hasn’t been Unearthed! Shout out to the Sedris, the Traitor King decks again.
You can also do this with Cold Storage for 3 mana a pop, or Endless Sands, or Safe Haven, or Tawnos’s Coffin, or Voyager Staff. Crew the Golden Argosy and get them back at end step. It’s the same trick with the Synod Sanctum, but with different stuff. Of course, this only happens to one creature per each of these cards and it’s important that they are creatures. But what if you have a crazy turn with a ton of artifacts getting Unearthed?
Worldgorger Dragon and Animate Dead are a nightmare of a combo that allows you to get infinite mana, flicker a bunch of stuff on your board, and trigger it all. If you have any Unearthed permanents, you can then keep them around if you somehow don’t win the game. Now you see why I’ve included this here.
You need a way to end the game, for sure. This is a good way to do that. Ingenious Artillerist and Reckless Fireweaver will return to play with all the artifacts coming back and ping your opponents for a win.
You need to have everything in place already though because Unearth isn’t instant speed! Remember that!
That does it for this edition of A Seat at the Table. If you have a commander you’d like me to cover, let me know on Twitter at @mikecarrozza.
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Hello and welcome to A Seat at the Table, the column where I pick a commander and talk about what I’d include in the 99. This week, I figured we’d shine a light on an Unfinity uncommon Commander – Dee Kay, Finder of the Lost.
Before talking about Dee Kay, it’s important to know how Attractions work. Here are some key facts:
Okay, with that out of the way, let’s meet Dee Kay, Finder of the Lost. For 1UB, you get a 1/4 legendary creature – Zombie Employee that has a lot of text. Here it comes:
“When Dee Kay, Finder of the Lost enters the battlefield, open an Attraction. Whenever you roll a 2, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
Whenever you roll a 4, you may tap or untap target artifact or creature.
Whenever you roll a 6, return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.”
You’ll be opening Attractions whenever Dee Kay enters and on die rolls of 2, 4, and 6 when you trigger Attractions. You’ve got a bunch of abilities. How do we balance the Dee Kay deck when it’s this unreliable? We do our best!
Of course, there are a ton of dice rolling cards, but some require a 20-sided die – who cares, if you hit a 2, 4, or 6, you still get Dee Kay’s trigger!
Here are a few cards I really want to run in the Dee Kay deck.
Dee Kay enters the battlefield and gets you to roll a die. With Streets of New Capenna in the rearview already, we take with us a lesson learned – you’ve gotta tip the scales and fix the fight. Time to rig some results. Krark’s Other Thumb isn’t legal in the format, but if there’s a card worth having a rule zero chat over with this deck, it’s this one. It’s a legendary artifact and let’s you roll two dice then pick you favourite. Pixie Guide does a fun impression of this artifact but with less of the choice – Pixie Guide favours a high roll.
Bamboozling Beeble allows you to impersonate a Krark’s Other Thumb as an activated ability. You’ll want to roll all the dice rolling cards from this set like Six-Sided Die, Attempted Murder, Boing!, Celebr-8000, Clown Car (spoiler alert), and Vedalken Squirrel-Whacker. You’ll also enjoy having Ancient Brass and Silver Dragons in the 99 because if you roll high, you get something great. If you roll low, you get a consolation prize with your commander. Ebony Fly lets you roll a d6 for four mana as much as you want! Arcane Endeavor is a hell of a draw spell and if you’ve got a bunch of instant and sorcery cards in this deck, this is the perfect inclusion.
Dee Kay, Finder of the Lost makes opening Attractions easy because when they enter the battlefield, you open an Attraction. Let’s take advantage of that ETB by playing stuff like Conjurer’s Closet. Thassa, Deep-Dwelling is an all-star in many of my decks and I’d be a fool not to include her in here. Panharmonicon doubles up on all of your ETB effects caused by creatures and artifacts.
You can use cards like Blur or Deadeye Navigator or Essence Flux or… depending on your build, and if you’ve got enough noncreature spells, Displacer Kitten is a slam dunk here. Crew Golden Argosy with Dee Kay and get an attack in as well an as ETB. Sacrifice your commander and reanimate them to get another ETB Attraction. Cast clones like Phantasmal Image, Spark Double, and Sakashima of a Thousand Faces to copy your commander. Maybe this is a Mirror Box deck and you really hope to roll a bunch of 2s! Speaking of clones…
You can clone your Attractions! Play Clever Impersonator, Phyrexian Metamorph, Sculpting Steel, and slam dunk here, Echo Storm!
You can cast Step Right Up from Unfinity – which of course you know because it straight up says open two attractions! Command Performance, also from the new Unfinity set, not only allows you to open an Attraction but also roll to visit your Attractions. I’d say this is worth putting an Archaeomancer into the deck for.
ETBs were important in the last part and they still are here! Deadbeat Attendant, Discourtesy Clerk, Draconian Gate-Bot, Monitor Monitor, Soul Swindler, and Seasoned Buttoneer all enter the battlefield and open an Attraction. Quick Fixer opens an attraction when it deals combat damage to a player. “Lifetime” Pass Holder opens an attraction when it dies and comes back to play whenever you roll a 6.
Black Hole is a creature destruction spell that can at its worst destroy one creature, but at its best a whole bunch more depending on how many Attractions you’ve visited this turn. How do you visit a bunch of Attractions? With the best Attraction card in my opinion: Line Cutter. Flicker and reanimate Line Cutter to get rolling for your Attractions way more than once a turn.
This is a simple inclusion but one worth mentioning. It’s a win condition. The plus two makes him hard to kill and drains the table equal to your artifacts. Attractions are artifacts. Your creatures and Planeswalkers have affinity for artifacts with Tezzeret out, which means if you’ve opened a few attractions, Thassa and Line Cutter and Soul Swindler come down for one mana. If you have five mana, Draconian Gate-Bot gives you a clean zero to cast it! Include Tezz in your Dee Kay decks at a 100% rate please.
Okay, this is about math. If you have Deadeye Navigator and Peregrine Drake, you can flicker the Drake for infinite mana, float it all, and then put it all into this incredible card called Clown Car. If you have Dee Kay in play and you need to drain the table for every 2 you roll, I’d say creating 4019200282992002 mana and casting Clown Car should get you there. If you have stickler friends, you’ll have to run it into an online calculator that’ll make your computer shake, but I’d bet you just closed out the game.
And that does it for this week! I’ll be building Dee Kay as my fun goof-off deck that can pack a punch.
What commanders do you want to see me write about? @mikecarrozza on Twitter for requests! Thanks for reading and until next time!
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Hello! My name is Mike Carrozza and I write a series called A Seat at the Table, where I pick a commander and discuss ideas of what to include in the 99. With the release of Warhammer 40k Commander precons, and having had a chance to play with the cards myself, I can finally pick and showcase my favourite new cards of each deck.
Let’s continue with Tyranid Swarm, the Temur (Green, Blue, Red) deck. It’s pretty heavy on the creatures, it’s got a lot of X spell scaling and lots of +1/+1 counters.
For the sake of the series, I will only be considering new cards and ignoring the face and back up commanders. Magus Lucea Kane has been talked about extensively online and I don’t need to rehash that.
Here are my top cards from this deck. I do promise to pick at least five, but seeing as there are like 40 new cards per deck, I’ll permit myself to maybe pick a few extra.
Evolve is one of those abilities that gets difficult to track, so you’d think I would hate this card. What a nightmare to keep track of the equivalent of a Simic Cathars’ Crusade.
But oh my god, is this a version of a Simic Cathars’ Crusade?!
Short answer – no. But long answer – it can definitely feel that way. If you play any non-symmetrical power/toughness creatures, you can have a real time, trying to figure out who gets what, and sometimes you run into a situation where your 2/3 and 3/2 see a 3/3 enter and they both get one!
I think where this shines most is in a Falco Spara, Pactweaver deck where you can remove a counter to play the top card of your library. What’s that? A creature with more P/T than the creature you just removed a counter from? Awesome!
Anything that needs to move counters or remove counters will have no trouble getting them back. Blink decks, graveyard decks, anything where creatures are bounding into play will consider this a possible great addition. Use this with Kurbis, Harvest Celebrant and no matter what, you’ll find a way to keep adding counters.
Clamavus on the other hand really only cares about the +1/+1 counters and essentially making them +2/+2 counters. Math isn’t super tough, but slamming this down when you’ve got a ton going on in your Hamza, Guardian of Arashin decks is going to make your opponents look like they’re trying to move things with their minds.
This is a weird one but I really like it. Anything that gets the gears turning enough to trick myself into thinking a card like Fate Transfer could be playable is interesting.
There are downsides to this card. You need to attack. You need to attack the person who controls the creature you want to replicate. You need the Patriarch to survive the swing. You need the creature with the infection counter to die while you control the Patriarch.
But if you’ve got lots of removal and ways to keep this guy safe, you’ll be snagging creatures. Not to mention if you gain control of a creature with an infection counter, you can move it with Nesting Grounds or Resourceful Defense, or even The Ozolith when it dies. You can make use of the awful card Diseased Vermin (by amazing artist Scott Kirschner – bring him back, WotC!) and kick start the Ozolith shenanigans by sacrificing what you want to double. Pack plenty of removal and snipe what you’d like from your opponents, and show off that you know how to build an engine that hums.
What needs to be said about this card besides that it is a seemingly innocuous hate piece that gives you a nice discount on the first creature you cast each turn.
Not each of your turns. Each turn.
Got a Vedalken Orrery? Myr Retriever is free as many times as you want. Your opponent loves to Brainstorm at end steps and then cast more spells on his turn? Take four damage, buddy.
People will notice this card, but only over time. Take it from me though, you need to get rid of this card when it lands under someone else’s control.
“Oh, great. Mike’s gonna talk about how much he loves when creatures die.” You’re damn right. I love when creatures die, and I love when they give you a bonus on the way out. This doesn’t allow you to sacrifice creatures, but in some cases that might be better because you can use those to pay for some other effect. Token swarm needs to cash in and Altar of Dementia somebody by sacrificing 15 creatures? Why, you can use all 15 of that mana from Haruspex or save some for next time, too. It’s clunky, it’s chunky, and it costs four mana, but I like what I see.
So, at absolute worst, you get a 2/2 for three mana. Not great. But if you have the mana to plug into this turtle-like monstrosity, you can get a 7/7 for eight mana that draws you a card and nugs other creatures and all players for five damage. I’ll be giving this a go in my Sevinne, the Chronoclasm / Brash Taunter tribal list. It’s pretty cool to have such modality on a spell like this that also leaves behind a beat stick and replaces itself when criteria are met. Even if you need a smaller damage wrath, you can pay five mana and deal two to everything with a 4/4 at your service. Good card!
I hate this card. I love utility lands, I enjoy having effects on lands that aren’t just mana abilities. I hate that this takes that away. It does fix everybody’s mana, which is a risky move, but it’s also the ultimate blocker with reach and deathtouch. At four mana, it’s gives you a lot of bang for your buck and will see play in five colour decks that are careful not to include Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Cabal Coffers or Academy Ruins or Volrath’s Stronghold or Rogue’s Passage or Maze of Ith or Maze’s End or…
People really like this guy and I understand why. Pop Pyrohemia down and you’re paying one mana to Lightning Bolt everything. This is your Tim (Prodigal Sorcerer) deck commander. This is your Cavalcade of Calamities commander. This is your Impact Tremors commander. This is going to be fun to watch go off and then hopefully people find ways to keep it fresh. The Locust God loves it and as a 99 card, this card is at home there.
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Hello! My name is Mike Carrozza. I write a series called A Seat at the Table where I pick a commander and discuss ideas of what to include in the 99. With the release of the Warhammer 40k Commander precons, and having had a chance to play with the cards myself, I can finally pick and showcase my favourite new cards of each deck.
Let’s continue with Necron Dynasties, the monoblack artifact deck.
For the sake of the series, I will only be considering new cards and ignoring the face and back up commanders. Both Szarekh and Imotekh have been talked about extensively online and I don’t need to rehash that.
Here are my top cards from this deck. I do promise to pick at least five, but seeing as there are like 40 new cards per deck, I’ll permit myself to maybe pick a few extra.
Welcome to a late-game solution to the problem of just having your board wrathed and/or being low on life. Toss this to your discard outlets, mill this into your graveyards, or just cast it from your hand, who cares! Your access to this card is boundless as long as it isn’t exiled (aside from impulse draw or Madness effects, I guess)!
Grixis spell-slinger decks, self-mill token strategies, anything that makes a lot of mana and needs to spend it, Their Number is Legion is going to be good. You don’t even need to create the tokens. If you have a board full of artifacts, this is four mana to get back into the life points game. This card has made the difference in at least two of the five or six precon deck games I’ve played against the other Warhammer 40K decks. There are ways to double this and with Treasures being so ubiquitous, I have a hard time imagining this isn’t better than a simple stabilizing spell.
I like when my stuff dies and comes back. I think I’ve made that clear in all the articles I’ve written and will continue to espouse the wonderful fun that graveyard shenanigans are. Resurrection Orb is not the best of these effects. Of course, we have Nim Deathmantle which is the best comparison because it triggers on death to auto-equip, meaning that with enough mana, you can combo off or threaten to return a creature to play. The Deathmantle also wastes no time and returns the creature immediately and buffs them by two with a little cherry on top of Intimidate.
The comparison is difficult to avoid as both equipment cost two and equip for four, return a creature equipped with it to play and grant an ability. It depends on what you want out of the card. I will be testing this alongside Deathmantle in my The Ever-Changing ‘Dane deck because I can equip one of my Kamigawa spirit dragons with this, sacrifice it to Dane, get their death trigger, and when they come back, I get another death trigger. It’s also possible with enough mana to equip the Orb to Dane again and when the dragon returns, sacrifice Dane instead, getting the death trigger and keeping the dragon around for the next turn. Ultimately, with enough mana, Deathmantle might be better, but the Orb is a lot of fun and I reckon will see some play in decks that want to protect their commanders and gain some life when they swing or deal noncombat damage. Judith, the Scourge Diva, for example, could benefit from this Orb. Boros aggro combat generals could stand to gain some life when they’re attacking and leaving you open.
Convergence of Dominion has two requirements: you need to control your commander and you need to have cards in your graveyard with activated abilities. If all goes well, you’re dropping things down to a single mana in the right deck. In this precon, Ghost Ark giving your graveyard full of artifact creatures Unearth 3, and popping this down effectively making that Unearth 1 is a big blowout when sequenced right.
It’s important to note that this is only about activated abilities. Unearth, Encore, Embalm, Eternalize, Scavenge, stuff like Cobbled Lancer, or Runehorn Hellkite, or Daring Fiendbonder – those all qualify. Flashback, Aftermath, Escape, Jumpstart, Retrace, and Disturb are casting cards and therefore are not activated abilities.
So is this just an extra mana discount for your Embalmer’s Tools as long as you have your commander? No: Embalmer’s Tools is only for creatures in your graveyard. Convergence of Dominion is for all cards in your graveyard with activated abilities. What this tells me more than anything is that this is a card to keep an eye on for the future. Or a card for those Araumi of the Dead Tide decks and Sedris, the Traitor King decks out there looking for ways to make their engine hum. Speaking of those decks…
Necron Deathmark is a less expensive Noxious Gearhulk with Flash and the ability to mill someone. I would guess that it would be most likely you’d mill yourself, but sometimes you mill the player who just Vampiric Tutored for something. You miss out on the life gain which is a pretty big deal. In my experience, I’m always happy I’ll be gaining some life with Noxious Gearhulk, but with the Deathmark being able to fill your graveyard, Sedris and Araumi get more fun to work with. Encore out the Deathmark, kill three creatures, mill nine cards, and celebrate your fun time. Shard of the Void Dragon gets a mention here for the same exact decks that would want it and because that attack trigger is messed up.
I’ll keep this brief: monocoloured decks or two coloured decks that love their basic lands are going to want to pop this bad boy in their decks if they’re already running Thran Dynamo and such. It’s not amazing, but I wanted to shout out the cards that incentivize playing less colours because that’s always an interesting space to design for.
Artifact creatures are not mind-blowing on their own. It’s with other artifacts and their synergies that enable crazy plays. Being able to turn everything into an artifact is powerful enough that the one card to do it is a six mana mythic called Mycosynth Lattice. For four mana and being in black, Biotransference allows you to turn all your creatures in your deck no matter the zone they’re in into artifact creatures and rewards you with more tokens when you cast them.
With that, you can create a line of play that takes advantage of creatures that would otherwise not benefit from synergies saved for Artifacts, like Clock of Omens. We have this on a smaller scale with Liquimetal Torque and Liquimetal Coating, but when an enchantment just stays in play and turns everything into an artifact creature, you can take advantage of Scrap Trawler or Goblin Welder or Cryptek or Ghost Ark. There will be games where synergies are accidental and discovered in the moment, and that is very exciting.
Soldevi Adnate has long been a mana dork I think does not get the credit it deserves, and with Illuminor Szeras eliminating the colour restriction and beefing up defences, I think we’ll find a lot of people making use of their ETB creatures and binning them immediately. Lifeline decks will love it, aristocrat decks like Sedris and Araumi, Meren of Clan Nel Toth decks, so many graveyard-centred decks will need to find room to at the very least test out Szeras and see if their curve allows for the plays I’m imagining.
Anrakyr the Traveller is such a cool commander. You have to attack with him, so pack your Whip of Erebos, but you get to play an artifact from your hand or graveyard by paying life? Excuse me, Mr. Busted Fun Time, but when did you show up to the party? Meteor Golem players, yes, you get to have this, but I’m thinking of the utility of being able to swing and throw down a mana rock or get that Meteor Golem back. Artifacts have a lot going on!
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Let’s continue with The Ruinous Powers, the Grixis (Red, Blue, Black) deck. For the sake of the series, I will only be considering new cards and ignoring the face and back-up commanders. Both Abaddon and Be’lakor have been talked about extensively online and I don’t need to rehash that. I even wrote about Be’lakor for The Bag of Loot!
Here are my top cards from this deck. I do promise to pick at least fve, but seeing as there are like 40 new cards per deck, I’ll permit myself to maybe pick a few extra.
We have seen an uptick in “exile-matters” decks with Prosper, Tome-Bound and Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald. Keeper of Secrets turns every card you cast from exile into pain for your opponents. Impulse draw (or “bottling” as I’ve learned it’s called in R&D at WotC) isn’t the only way to get triggers of of Keeper of Secrets. Why, just casting your commander from the command zone is enough to throw some damage around. Madness, Cascade, Flashback, Future Sight efects, theft stuff like Stolen Strategy and Etali, Chainer, Nightmare Adept’s ability – there are lots of ways to trigger Keeper of Secrets and hurt your opponents. It’s hard to kill in combat and if you give it lifelink, you’ll be pulling even more ahead.
Gravecrawler and Phyrexian Altar (with another Zombie in play) have been around a while as an aristocrats infnite combo allowing infinite death triggers and enters the battlefeld triggers. Combine this with a Zulaport Cutthroat or Cruel Celebrant and that’s game. But sometimes you don’t have those other cards that close out the game with death triggers. Poxwalkers allows you to get two bodies from the graveyard for the price of one and nets you infnite mana in the process. Of course, everything that applies to Keeper of Secrets applies here. If you have a Dark-Dweller Oracle, you can keep the draws happening with an Ashnod’s Altar and Poxwalkers as long as you can cast what you exile. As an aristocrats player who loves reanimating, Poxwalkers will be tested a bunch in a few places.
It’s no surprise that as a Prosper, Tome-Bound player, I really love this card. Of course, Stolen Strategy for one more mana gets you three spells to choose from, but The Ruinous Powers can really eat into a player’s life total. Getting lands of the top isn’t the worst either! Save your lands in hand for a rainy day unless you need specifc utility lands. Play this in a Grixis chaos shell and go nuts with copies with Clever Impersonator and Mirrormade. I really love what this can do to a game!
This would have been insane in the Temur deck. I am very ready to try this out in my spell slinger Zaffai, Thunder Conductor deck. While it doesn’t have many fetch lands – which trigger this – it does have spells that get cast from the graveyard and the top of the library. It being in Izzet colours is defnitely a limitation, but Kalamax, the Stormsire decks are going to love an extra army of of casting a Roiling Regrowth.
This may only trigger on your end step and require a creature to die, but the fact that it’s a creature and aristocrats are a very popular strategy means that you can defnitely build around this to be your very own Phyrexian Arena on a 2/3 body. If you can bin seven or more creatures, you’ll be getting a new hand for seven life which is so powerful Griselbrand is banned for being able to do it so much.
Aspiring Champion – what more can I say? Just read the card, understand that I love when things die and that’ll I’ll find a way for it to get through and also a way for it to come back. Sure, you can do a backroads reanimate with Haunted Crossroads and this, but where’s the fun in that? Live a little! Embrace the chaos. Demon or not, getting to hit someone for 3 damage and getting the next creature from your library into play is fun and solid. I’ll be trying this out!
It is difficult to quite explain this one. I will just tell you to play it. That’s it. Play Karn in a fun goofy game and watch it get even goofer.
There is a lot to love about the spellslinger sub theme in this deck. Adding a new wrinkle in the tokens matter for cost reduction in Magnus the Red akin to Vadrik, Astral Archmage and Mizzix of the Izmagnus with +1/+1 and Experience counters respectively shows us a new direction for a potential storm commander. Zaffai, Thunder Conductor will love all of these – Magnus’ reduction makes Zaffai’s Elemental tokens count for more than just being bodies.
Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch gets you back a spell at random at upkeep and pings each opponent for instants and sorceries cast. Pink Horror does the same thing, but for two damage, then pulling Mitotic Slime and making two 2/2s that ping for one for each instant and sorcery you cast. Both are necessary inclusions for any deck looking to up the ante on their Guttersnipe slots.
That does it for this edition, check back in soon for the next one!
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Hello! My name is Mike Carrozza and usually here at The Bag of Loot, I write a series called A Seat at the Table where I pick a commander and discuss ideas of what to include in the 99. With the release of the Universes Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Commander precons finally here, and having had a chance to play with the cards myself, I can finally pick and showcase my favourite new cards of each deck.
Let’s begin with Forces of the Imperium, the Esper (White, Blue, Black) deck.
Forces of the Imperium makes it very clear that you want to be making tokens, but it’s also got some surprises. For the sake of the series, I will only be considering new cards and ignoring the face and back-up commanders. We already know that Marneus Calgar is crazy and people have been talking about what can be done with Inquisitor Greyfax since the deck faces were spoiled.
Here are my top cards from this deck. I do promise to pick at least five, but seeing as there are like 40 new cards per deck, I’ll permit myself to maybe pick a few extra.
Here’s a heads up: The Golden Throne does not make my list! It’s already $30 and you know it’s good! That said…
I know this is already an expensive chase card from all of the precon decks, but Vexilus Praetor is a nutty card if you get it to stick. Giving your commanders protection from everything means that this does not go into a Voltron deck with Equipment and Auras, but it does mean it goes into decks where you want your commanders left alone. This is shroud, basically indestructible, and unblockable at flash speed. You need to protect the Praetor, sure, but the moments when this stays leads to a lot of advantage.
Note that your commanders don’t need to be creatures. Nor do they have to be your own. If you Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools ultimate into having all of the commanders in the game on your board, you will give them all protection from everything. Your planeswalker commanders can no longer be attacked! Go off, uninterrupted! Unless of course your opponent has a kill spell for a creature – or worse, a Counterspell – you’re off to the races. And if they do kill Vexilus Praetor, that’s one less resource coming for your commander and it feels like a big “oh, well, you tried!” moment.
I am also allowing myself to cheat in these lists. The Squad mechanic is seen on a handful of creatures. In a long line of keywords that boil down to being “basically Kicker”, Squad is Replicate for creatures. You cast your creature and pay the Squad cost as many times as you’d like and you get an extra token copy of that creature for each time you paid for the Squad. There are six creatures with Squad in this deck and I have a mini-top 3 in the top 5 list for you.
All of these cards have some added flexibility: they don’t cost more than a single coloured pip and can go into even five colour decks AND they make tokens. So, if you have an Anointed Procession or Parallel Lives, you’re living large and in charge! I love this mechanic and I hope they bring it back, but I can see how this can get out of hand.
What a house of a card. This 3/2 has menace and first strike meaning it’s a tough block and a tough blocker. Moreover, it absolutely loves when your opponents’ creatures die, making them lose two life per creature. It comes down for three mana – 1BW – and will draw hate from the token player or the aristocrats player, guaranteed. Throw down a Night of Souls’ Betrayal and give an opponent a Spirit with Forbidden Orchard. Whoops, they don’t get a creature they can keep and lose two life, all from you tapping a land for mana! There are many strategies like Grismold, the Dreadsower that give your opponents creatures for them to die, but unfortunately, we don’t have a very good one that involve this guy’s colours. So until then, jam this in your hard creature control decks or in your decks that love Fleshbag Marauder.
A flash clone for six mana that can destroy the creature it’s copying. I’ll take as many as I possibly can. This is a slam dunk for three of my decks: Araumi of the Dead Tide will want to Encore this out to destroy a few problematic creatures while getting their ETBs or even putting creatures I need into my graveyard so they can be Encored next. The Ever-Changing ‘Dane deck I’ve got is going to love having a way to steal opponents creatures without letting them have it anymore, then being able to sacrifice the assassin to the graveyard and reanimating it for more fun. Aminatou, the Fateshifter decks will need this to flicker and bounce to double as removal and utility.
Note that you don’t have to destroy the creature: you may destroy up to one creature it’s copying. Incredible card all around.
For four mana, you have a decent attacker at 3/4. I specify attacker because there is absolutely no way you hold this back if you can play something off of that ability. Build up your board of creatures, swing, and have some fun. I’m looking forward to playing this in my Azorius clones list because even if I swing with two creatures, maybe that means a mana rock comes down. If I swing with three, that’s a Quasiduplicate. Swing with more, maybe I’ll Clone Legion. Who knows! Let’s find out! In my test game with this card, I was able to sneak in a The Flesh is Weak into play and it was divine.
Some of these cards feel like they should be legendary with these names, but I digress. We are seeing Miracle on creatures now! What a time to be alive! Aminatou deck and Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign decks are who you jump to immediately, but I think a Teysa Karlov deck with Haunted Crossroads, Mortuary, and Mortuary Mire is going to hope to see this card a ton. Ever-Changing ‘Dane can play this for two mana and then sacrifice it for a third, becoming a 5/1 and drawing even more cards. Reanimator strategies, look out, here comes fun.
Honourable Mentions
My honourable mentions will be quick. They are all legendary creatures I think are cool as hell and deserve a second look.
That does it for the Imperium! Check back next time for another top Warhammer 40k Precon cards list.
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Hello and welcome to another edition of A Seat at the Table where I pick a commander and talk about what I’d run in the 99.
This week, thanks to the non-stop roll of preview season, I’ll talk talking about Dominara –
Un no. Wait, Warhammer 4ok?
No, that’s not it. Unfinity?
No… hmm.
Oh, yeah. The Brothers’ War, the newest set to come out in the middle of November, is the next standard set and already has a few spicy cards revealed. The Commander decks are led by Mishra and Urza, but another very spicy legend was spoiled – Urza’s wife, Jodah’s great-grandmother, Queen Kayla bin-Kroog.
For 1 and Boros (Red – White), Queen Kayla is a 2/3 Legendary Human Noble with a wild ability. Let’s see that textbox!
“{4}, {T}: Discard all the cards in your hand, then draw that many cards. You may choose an artifact or creature card with mana value 1 you discarded this way, then do the same for artifact or creature cards with mana values 2 and 3. Return those cards to the battlefield. Activate only as a sorcery.”
Hot damn. Here are my takeaways from reading through all that.
Obviously, there are some staples that sit right at the sweet spot for this commander, like Dockside Extortionist, Sol Ring, Esper Sentinel, Arcane Signet, etc. I want to focus on stuff that will be cool in this deck specifically. Let’s get to work.
You will be discarding a lot. Of course, because Queen Kayla’s ability is only at sorcery speed, you’ll need to handle business on your turn. This means that when you discard a bunch of cards, sometimes you’ll have the mana to be able to cast those as well. Currency Converter and Crucible of Worlds help you make it so you’re not discarding lands in vain while Containment Construct and Conspiracy Theorist allow you to cast anything exiled with them this turn. The Theorist allows you to only exile one card to cast, while Containment Construct lets you play lands and exile all the cards for you to play this turn. These are all automatically part of the deck if you ask me.
Four mana and tapping your commander at sorcery speed is not a small cost. Four mana in Boros? Oh, boy.
Zirda, the Dawnwaker and Heartstone both reduce the costs of activated abilities by two and by one, respectively. Both of them can be dropped in with Queen K and both of them will make you happy when you see them in your hand. Of course, if you cast a Sun Titan with these in the graveyard, you can bring them back and get the train rolling again, so there isn’t much fear in these getting destroyed… although that sounds about right for most of the deck. This is a very Sun Titan and Sevinne’s Reclamation friendly deck.
Once you have the activated ability cost reduced significantly, why not… 3.
Untap your commander! Thousand-Year Elixir offers up pseudo-haste and allows you to activate your commander again. Magewright’s Stone shaves a mana off of its mana value for the same ability, minus granting pseudo-haste.
I don’t want to run too many of these cards because they will not always come cheap for a second activation. We’re talking when you’ve got a huge burst of mana, go for it. Or if you can reduce the cost, too. Ultimately, 9 mana to run your commander’s ability twice is very powerful still if you don’t whiff. But sometimes, you will whiff. This is why you need…
A brick ton of card selection. Boros does not get Brainstorm, but it does get Brainstone, which isn’t bad when you get to activate it and put card you want to hit off your commander back on top of your library. Same goes for Sensei’s Divining Top and Scroll Rack. Top lets you reorganize your top three cards and then you can put the Top on top of your library to satisfy the 1 mana value target of Queen Kayla’s ability.
Karn, Living Legacy and The Mana Rig create Powerstone tokens for you to use on your commander’s activated ability but also on their own abilities. Pop a ton of mana into Karn’s -1 or Rig’s XXX and you’ll get to pick cards you need before dumping it into play with Queen K.
Looting, Rummaging, all of the draw spells need to be in here. If you need heavier on artifacts, Quicksmith Genius is amazing. Penance and Hidden Retreat remove a draw from the wheel of your commander’s ability but at least it keeps cards you don’t want to ditch in your hand while giving you some decent abilities.
You need to close out the game. There are so many incredible cards and ways to do that in Boros, but unique to this deck in these colours. Glint-Horn Buccaneer and Brallin, Skyshark Rider are top of the list, pinging your opponents for each card you discard. Surly Badgersaur can get big and beefy if you have a creature heavy deck, but all in all, cashing in on your discards is a strategy that we don’t see in these colours often and that’s what makes this interesting!
I hope you dug this article. I think I’ll be building this commander! Let me know which commander you’d like me to cover next @mikecarrozza on Twitter. Thanks!
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Hello and welcome to another edition of A Seat at the Table where I pick a commander and tell you what I’d jam in the 99. This time, the final backup commander for the Warhammer 40k precon decks. These are available as of October 7th and the value train keeps a-chugging along. If you haven’t already pre-ordered or purchased them, I highly recommend you get one. The decks look like so much fun and all have a ton of new cards that will be difficult to reprint… and they’re all busted!
Imotekh the Stormlord is a legendary artifact creature with a type we’ve never seen in Magic until now – Necron. For 2BB, this 3/3 Necron has some seemingly unassuming abilities. Here’s the textbox:
“Phaeron — Whenever one or more artifact cards leave your graveyard, create two 2/2 black Necron Warrior artifact creature token.
Grand Strategist — At the beginning of combat on your turn, another target artifact creature you control gets +2/+2 and gains menace until end of turn.”
What does this mean? It means you want a thick graveyard with artifacts that dance in and out to make some 2/2 tokens like a very specific Tormod, the Desecrator. Let’s see what kind of shenanigans we can brew up with Imotekh at the helm.
What’s the best way to get your artifacts to leave the graveyard? Return them to your hand. All of these cards do a great job of bringing back artifacts to your hand to redeploy later. Skeleton Shard is the most narrow, but looping a Solemn Simulacrum feels pretty good when you can sacrifice it for a card and bring it back. Looping Myr Retriever and Junk Diver with an engine like in category 2 or with reanimation strategies or even Haunted Crossroads / Phyrexian Reclamation for your artifact creatures. All of this will get Imotekh to summon a huge army of 2/2 Necrons who themselves are artifacts who can swap for a card or an artifact from your graveyard thanks to Trading Post.
Scarecrone with Imotekh out means that not only will you be bringing back something like a Meteor Golem for four mana, you’re also going to get two Necrons to do your bidding from the deal too. Then when you sacrifice your Meteor Golem, Scrap Trawler will reward you with another artifact to play and, of course, two Necrons courtesy of Imotekh. Scrap Trawler can really warp a deck and if you’ve got a ton of artifact creatures, Ashnod’s Altar and Altar of Dementia will go a long way for you.
Don’t forget to include your Lotus Petals and Lotus Blooms and Mox Ambers along for the ride. Scrap Trawler in the right deck is a kill on sight creature and you’re about to be able to prove that to your friends.
It’s an artifact deck, so Krark-Clan Ironworks will be a big deal for you to sacrifice noncreature artifacts so you can loop them in and out of the graveyard. Ichor Wellspring and Mycosynth Wellspring are amazing cards to get into the graveyard.
Given Imotekh’s ability to create token creatures at a high clip, the Altars are hugely impactful. Altar of Dementia fuels your deck further and they enable…
Oh, you thought I wasn’t going to mention any aristocrats shenanigans?
Agent of the Iron Throne requires Imotekh to be in play but nugs all of your opponents. Disciple of the Vault only hits one opponent but triggers off of any artifact going to the graveyard. Marionette Master might cost six mana but targets an opponent for four life for each artifact that hits your graveyard (as long as you choose to give it three +1/+1 counters for Fabricate).
You’ve got so many creatures being created and hitting the graveyard. If you feel like being on the meaner side of the build, time to toss in Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos, turning each creature death into an edict effect.
Spine of Ish Sah is a relic of Commander’s past. No offence to those who still use and love Spine of Ish Sah, it’s just not what it used to be. But in this deck? Oh, boy.
With Imotekh in play, throwing down Spine to destroy a problematic permanent of any kind (aka enchantment *cough* monoblack *cough* or planeswalker or land) and then sacrificing it to Krark-Clan Ironworks or Trading Post bring it right back to your hand. Boom, two Necron tokens. Add Scrap Trawler to the mix and you’re going to get any artifact you want back to your hand and that’s another Imotekh trigger.
If you have an artifact creature heavy build, Tortured Existence is a perfect way to make use of a ton of self-mill and selection while gaining more creature tokens out of the deal. Plus, it works perfectly with…
Containment Construct says that when you discard a card, you may exile it from your graveyard and if you do, you can play that card this turn. There’s no limit to how many times you can do this. Discard your artifacts and every time you exile one to play it, Imotekh makes you Necrons to swarm with. This is a great deck for Bog Witch! Key to the City and The Underworld Cookbook are cheap ways to get a discard going. Trading Post, again, a true all star of this deck, can also get you there.
There you have it, folks. Another one in the books. If there’s a commander you’d like covered, message me on Twitter @mikecarrozza!
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