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’m taking a look at the Elven Council preconstructed Commander deck from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set. It’s chock full of characters you know and love.
Let’s take a look at five cards to put in and five cards to take out in this new A Seat at the Table sub-series. If you like this, please let me know and I’ll do the other precons too!
Let’s begin with the decklists. All the precons can be found here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/the-lord-of-the-rings-tales-of-middle-earth-commander-decklists
I don’t want to bloat the article too much, but here are some dope reprints in this one: Elvish Piper, Swan Song, Heroic Intervention, Beast Within, Overwhelming Stampede, Lightning Greaves, Whispersilk Cloak, Asceticism, Flooded Grove, Hinterland Harbor, and Rejuvenating Springs! Springs is huge because it’s the Battlebond lands in a precon!
For this precon, there are six eligible commanders for this deck! That’s nuts! Which one will we build around? Radagast, Wizard of Wilds and Gandalf, Westward Voyager both want five or more mana value spells. Cordon the Shipwright is the wildest of the bunch and Elrond of the White Council is right behind it. That said, Galadriel, Elven-Queen is the more Elf focused of the bunch and this precon has a ton of Elves. This deck oddly also has a lot of noncreature spells. It’s such a strange precon! That said, there are multiple instances of voting and that makes Erestor of the Council very enticing.
I think for the sake of five cards in and five out, Galadriel, Elven-Queen is my choice to lead the deck. Let’s see what she can do. For 2GU, Galadriel is a 4/5 Legendary Elf Noble which is a great start. Let’s see that textbox!
“Will of the council – At the beginning of combat on your turn, if another Elf entered the battlefield under your control this turn, starting with you, each player votes for dominion or guidance. If dominion gets more votes, the Ring tempts you, then you put a +1/+1 counter on your Ring-bearer. If guidance gets more votes or the vote is tied, draw a card.”
Let’s face it, you’ll probably be drawing cards more often than not. I doubt your opponents will want you to climb that Ring temptation list.
(Here’s what happens when the Ring tempts you: https://scryfall.com/card/tltr/H13/the-ring-the-ring-tempts-you)
This deck is going to be a Simic Elf typal deck with a voting subtheme. Let’s make some cuts.
Time to pick five cards to put in and five to remove. When it comes to precon deck upgrades, there are quite a few cards you can remove without worrying. I’ll cut five and give brief reasons, then talk about what to add.
Cuts
Bonus: Lord of the Rings cards to include!
I won’t get into them individually, but these are some solid inclusions from the deck that are in the LOTR main set to check out.
That does it for this edition of A Seat at the Table. Let me know what you think @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’m taking a look at The Hosts of Mordor preconstructed Commander deck from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set. It’s helmed by the big bad villain of the story, Sauron, Lord of the Rings.
Let’s take a look at five cards to put in and five cards to take out of the deck in this new A Seat at the Table sub-series. If you like this, please let me know and I’ll do the other precons, too!
Let’s begin with the decklists. All the precons can be found here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/the-lord-of-the-rings-tales-of-middle-earth-commander-decklists
I don’t want to bloat the article too much so I won’t copy it here but I will say here are some dope reprints in this one: Treasure Nabber, Anger, Scourge of the Throne, Consider, Reanimate, Living Death, Blasphemous Act, Dragonskull Summit, Drowned Catacomb, and Underground River.
For this precon, we have two potential commanders: Sauron, Lord of the Rings and Saruman, the White Hand. Let’s see what they do and determine which is going to be our commander for this quick precon upgrade.
Sauron is a Legendary Avatar Horror 9/9 for a whopping 5UBR with a truly nutty textbox:
“When you cast this spell, amass Orcs 5, mill five cards, then return a creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Trample
Whenever a commander an opponent controls dies, the Ring tempts you.”
Saruman, the White Hand costs much less at 1UBR for a Legendary Avatar Wizard 2/5 with:
“Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, amass Orcs X, where X is that spell’s mana value. (Put X +1/+1 counters on an Army you control. It’s also an Orc. If you don’t control an Army, create a 0/0 black Orc Army creature token first.)
Goblins and Orcs you control have ward 2.”
With the deck favouring noncreature spells in both quantity and construction (like Lord of the Nazgul, Fiery Inscription, Goblin Dark-Dwellers, and Guttersnipe), I think Saruman, the White Hand might be better to include, unless we chop a bunch of noncreature spells for creature spells. I think to make that better, we’d need to take ten cards out and put ten in, which I’m not going to be doing today.
This deck is pulled in two different directions and that makes it really difficult to overhaul in one little article. There are reanimation spells and Sauron reanimates on cast, there are big creatures that get themselves into your graveyard, but there are also a bunch of noncreature spell focused stuff that I think is more interesting.
Let’s pick five cards to put in and five to remove. When it comes to precon deck upgrades, there are quite a few cards you can remove without worrying. I’ll cut five and give brief reasons and then talk about what to add.
Cuts
New Additions
You’re playing a lot of instants and sorceries in this deck, and so why not get a double dip. Past in Flames allows you to replay a few spells from your graveyard and if you’ve got Dark Ritual and Seething Song type of cards, they’ll get you a beefy Orc Army and then some. Mizzix’s Mastery lets you cast all of the instants and sorceries from your graveyard if you overload it. I think getting to double dip is important in this deck. Run these with Mesmeric Orb and self-mill cards to let you cruise through your deck.
So important in fact that Kess, Dissident Mage is a solid include in this deck. A flying 3/4 that lets you cast an instant or sorcery from your graveyard on each of your turns – there’s a reason this was one of the breakout star commanders from Commander 2017 precon decks.
I mentioned rituals when talking about Past in Flames. I think they’re important to run in a deck like this. Mana Geyser and Jeska’s Will are top notch rituals that supercharge a turn. Dockside Extortionist is the only one I can think of besides these two that I think could rival the ceiling on these.
Who needs Shiny Impetus when Bothersome Quasit cares about noncreature spells and helps push through an attack? Quasit goads whenever you case a noncreature and goaded creatures can’t block. Turn your Disrupt Decorum into an unblockable swing and decimate some life totals with a cute little guy.
These are high mana value cards that you never cast for their mana cost, really. Get an 8/8 for drawing three cards. Get a 8/8 for choosing the best two from the top seven. Continue with this trend and Saruman will keep making bigger and bigger Army tokens. Vial Smasher the Fierce would be proud.
That does it for this edition of A Seat at the Table. Let me know what you think @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’m taking a look at the Food and Fellowship preconstructed Commander deck from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth set. It’s helmed by two beloved heroes of the series and it’s an Abzan good time. Let’s take a look at five cards to put in and five cards to take out in this new A Seat at the Table experiment. If you like this, please let me know and I’ll do the other precons, too!
Let’s begin with the decklists. All the precons can be found here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/the-lord-of-the-rings-tales-of-middle-earth-commander-decklists
I don’t want to bloat the article too much so I won’t copy it here but I will say here are some dope reprints in this one: Birds of Paradise, Essence Warden, Path to Exile, Toxic Deluge, Farseek, Anguished Unmaking, Chromatic Lantern, Sanguine Bond, Isolated Chapel, Sunpetal Grove, and Woodland Cemetery.
For this precon, I’ll be focusing on the face commanders – Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit and Sam, Loyal Attendant. These two partner with each other to make an Abzan dream team.
Frodo is a 1/3 Halfling Scout for WB with Vigilance and the following textbox:
“Whenever Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit attacks, if you gained 3 or more life this turn, the Ring tempts you. Then if Frodo is your Ring-bearer and the Ring has tempted you two or more times this game, draw a card.”
Here’s what happens when the Ring tempts you: https://scryfall.com/card/tltr/H13/the-ring-the-ring-tempts-you
Sam, Loyal Attendant is a 2/4 Halfling Peasant for 1GW that says:
“At the beginning of combat on your turn, create a Food token. (It’s an artifact with 2, T, sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.)
Activated abilities of Foods you control cost 1 less to activate.”
So as a combo, with both of the boys in play, you go to combat, Sam makes a Food, you can pay 1 to sacrifice the Food to gain three life. Then when you attack with Frodo, you will have gained three life so you get tempted by the Ring and make Frodo your Ring-bearer. Note that this only triggers when Frodo attacks and the second part only triggers if he’s your Ring-bearer and you’ve been tempted twice.
Sam on the other hand just always makes a Food at combat and reduces abilities by one.
Let’s pick five cards to put in and five to remove. When it comes to precon deck upgrades, there are quite a few cards you can remove without worrying. I’ll cut five and give brief reasons and then talk about what to add.
I’ve always disliked this one in the Offering cycle. There’s one real payoff card that cares about Treefolk and it’s probably better on its own and Farmer Cotton gives you better more relevant tokens than Elves.
Jump effects are fine in low powered decks but this is five mana and requires you to attack with two creatures per player to get a flying bonus. It’s not great. It’s really not for me.
You’ll be making a ton of Food in this deck and then Butterbur is just a Hill Giant. Next!
You’re in green, you don’t need this. You can ramp better than this.
5. Harmonize
You’re in black (and honestly, white has come a long way). You’ve got more options available to you.
Let’s be real, any deck that wants to make mass amounts of Treasures, Clues, or Foods will find utility in the rest of the tokens created by Manufactor. Making a Food, a Treasure and a Clue every combat with Sam is reason enough for this. But you have plenty of cards to include in this deck that put one of these tokens into play already. It’s incredible.
For four mana, you have another sacrifice outlet for your Food tokens that will protect your creatures or get blockers out of the way. He also makes Foods for nontoken creatures entering under your control. Killer inclusion.
Jaheira is like a Cryptolith Rite for your tokens. She’s so strong and a highly overlooked creature from the fantastic but maligned Battle for Baldur’s Gate set. She turns all our tokens into Moss Diamonds. Creature tokens and artifact tokens. Your Food tokens can tap to pay to sacrifice another one. Overall, wicked inclusion in the deck.
Yes, six mana is steep cost for a 1/3 creature but this is an all-star in Prosper, Tome-Bound for a reason. ETBs with three +1/+1 counters and nugs an opponent equal to its power every time an artifact you control hits the graveyard. All your Food tokens qualify. Six mana doesn’t seem like a lot for a finisher anymore, does it?
Your commanders and a solid amount of your utility creatures cost three or less mana. If you upgrade your mana base, you can rebuy fetch lands from your graveyard. Commander’s Sphere is also a fantastic card to bring back every turn if you’ve got nothing else in your yard to threaten your opponents with.
Krark-Clan Ironworks is a pricey card, but pop that sucker into your deck as an artifact Ashnod’s Altar. Sacrifice a Food to pay for another Food or a Clue. All of these will make Rapacious Guest huge and threaten to crush an opponent on attack on when a board wipe hits.
This set has a lot of great cards that fit Prosper, Tome-Bound into this deck, so if you were hoping to keep the deck on theme?
Altogether, this is the precon I’m most excited by.
Let me know what you think @mikecarrozza!
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Welcome to my set review of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth Commander!
Given that the set also comes out with a set of preconstructed Commander decks, we get a whole bunch of new cards to talk about. This set is very heavy on the legendary theme and adds a ton of new legends eligible to be a commander. I’ve already covered those. Now it’s time to get into to the non-legendary-creature cards introduced in the Commander set. There’s a lot of them but because they’re made specifically for the format I cover, I’m going through all of them! There are 80 non-reprint cards in the precons so I appreciate your continued reading!
Here are my favourites!
The consensus online is this is the “Dockside Extortionist at home” of the set. Make no mistake, this is definitely not Dockside Extortionist, but it is still pretty freaking sweet. It won’t always come down for two mana unless there’s an artifact deck at the table, but when it does it can do an impression of Dockside come combat step.
That’s right, it’s not an enters the battlefield ability. It’s a combat damage to a player ability that gives you Treasures for each of their artifacts effectively saying that most of the time, you’ll play this, get your mana back and smack a player for six in the process. Do you like double strike? I hope you like money because you’re about to make it rain if you give the dragon two swings. Use all your mana for extra combat spells! The effectiveness of this relies entirely on a single player having many artifacts and getting through to them. It’s not like Dockside at all, but it is very cool and pretty strong.
This is pretty solid! It’s a life gain payoff that can lead to more life gain if you’ve got a lifelinker for it. Give that sucker double strike and you’ll quickly put yourself out of reach! Even in an aristocrats deck filled with drain effects you can make this work well. I love it with Extort especially. Karlov of the Ghost Council decks get a bit of a turbo boost with the right set up.
I’m surprised at how much I like this card. Evra, Halcyon Witness is another case of Voltron with this, but really this is flexible given how much white has in terms of instant life gain and mass life gain. You can pump before combat, forcing some blocks. You can do it after sneaking past. All while gaining life which in itself is already a good thing!
There’s something about Prize Pig that feels like it can be broken and that’s exciting. The obvious synergy seeded in the preconstructed deck it’s in is that Sam, Loyal Attendant makes food cost one mana to use, so when you sacrifice a Food token, you can untap the Pig and sacrifice another, and so on and so forth.
However, cards like Balefire Liege exist and cards that let you gain “that much life plus one” stack with one another to turn your single life gain into three life. It’s a bit of a puzzle at the moment but Prize Pig feels like an accelerator with sneaky upside in the right deck and that’s super fun.
Monarch is one of the most fun mechanics in multiplayer Magic. Getting more and more Monarch cards is a good thing. Having one as strong as this was bound to happen. Champions of Minas Tirith turns your opponents’ hand size into a drawback if they want to come take the crown from you, making them choose between spells or attacking you. Then, if their hands are full, they just can’t attack you or their shields are down if they manage to pay and that’s when you get to play your shenanigans worry-free!
All this for six mana, yes. But five of that mana is colourless and can be reduced! Let’s say… Heliod, the Warped Eclipse? The commander that wants your opponents to have a ton of cards and can play at instant speed? I am so into this!
This is going to be short and sweet. I picked it because it’s strong. It’s no Cyclonic Rift and won’t be great in creature type decks around popular types like Humans since lots of creatures incidentally are Human, but in a deck that wants to get through for a ton of damage or get rid of problematic creatures, five mana is a great rate for a creature type mass bounce. I assume Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver will be looking at this serious along with all the Kraken, Leviathan, and Octopus decks out there.
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Hello! Welcome to my set review of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth Commander!
Given that the set also comes out with a set of preconstructed Commander decks, we get a whole bunch of new cards to talk about. This set is very heavy on the legendary theme and adds 36 new legends eligible to be a commander, so I’ll be tackling those in this article and the non-legendary creature cards in another.
I had a hard time narrowing it down so trust me when I say, the top five is real loose!
Without further ado, here are my favourite legendary creature Commander precon exclusive cards from this set.
If there’s ever been an aggro combat commander in these colours, it’s Aragorn, King of Gondor. What an absolute tank. Vigilance and lifelink on a 4/4 for four is great but factor in it ETBs with the monarch and when he attacks, he stops a blocker. If you’re the monarch, NOBODY CAN BLOCK INSTEAD?! With red to grant haste or even just Lightning Greaves to protect and get him in quick, the clock ticks down so fast with Aragorn in play. You just want to play a ton of anthems, every card that gives you the monarch possible, and make a ton of tokens. Just swing, swing, swing. Game over!
Somebody tell Talrand, Sky Summoner his services are now only required in the 99. Lord of the Nazgul is the perfect commander for a creatureless deck. Play a ton of instants and sorceries and turn your army of 3/3s into 9/9s to take the game. The Lord becomes a 9/9 as well, by the way. Your flying commander becomes a 9/9 when you have enough Wraiths to trigger the instant or sorcery ability on them. This will be one of the most popular commanders and they will frustrate tables far and wide. But I can’t blame them. It must be fun to finally be seen! Enjoy, Dimir spellslingers who’ve always wanted a wincon ready and available.
I love a commander that gives you a little mini game to it. Bilbo wants you to have 111 or more life before he brings all his friends to the party and he helps you get there very, very slowly.
That said, I will want to see this happen at least once. I love the shenanigans this allows for. I have nothing else to say other than it’s a feel good card! I enjoy Bilbo quite a bit.
This card is ridiculous. Upon its entrance to the battlefield and when it attacks, you get to trigger a vote wherein you might get cards or get to put a permanent into play free. That’s great, but you also want to prevent an opponent from putting anything in and because it’s secret, everybody’s trying to guess some votes. The rock-paper-scissors-esque strategy to this is fantastic and I can’t wait to see what happens when I play against this – I can’t build this, I don’t know what to do!
I like both version of Lobelia and this one takes the cake for me. A payoff for all those Food tokens you can make now. A new Gonti-esque ability that can turn a Treasure into the ramp spell or the cheapest bomb spell. Or, if you didn’t get anything good, you can drain two across the board.
That does it for the Commander cards that can lead a deck for Lord of the Rings! Stay tuned for the rest of the Commander set!
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Hello! Welcome to my set review of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth, where I will pick five cards of each colour and discuss my favourite cards from them.
Given that the set also comes out with a set of preconstructed Commander decks, I’ll also be covering my favourite new cards from there in another article.
Aragorn, the Uniter, Bilbo, Retired Burglar, and Gandalf the Grey are all great cards, but will not make my top 5 because I’ve already covered them in their own articles for A Seat at the Table at The Bag of Loot, but I do have a little blurb to say about them. If you’re interested in reading more, check out those articles.
Without further ado, here are my favourite enemy multicoloured cards!
Sméagol, Helpful Guide has made me want to revisit Golgari for the first time since Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons. Every Ring temptation is ramp from an opponent’s deck while milling them on the way to it. Not to mention, Sméagol can trigger a Ring temptation on his own if a creature died on your turn.
Sméagol is also part of my favourite infinite combo from this set with some help from the incredible Ratadrabik of Urborg and newcomer Boromir, Warden of the Tower. Mill all your opponents and take their lands along the way. Let’s party!
A two mana creature that ramps you for every second spell any play casts per turn. This is going into every deck I can fit Lotho into.
Mana curves are getting lower and lower. Double spell casting on turns and even turns that aren’t a players’ own are more and more common. This means that either opponents will slow roll their plays or they’ll play right into Lotho, giving you a Treasure to work with. Or, they’ll have to spend a removal spell on a 2/1 creature that comes back thanks to Sun Titan, Sevinne’s Reclamation, or Renegade Rallier. One of my favourite cards in the set, easily!
Incredible. I expect Sauron, the Dark Lord to top the list of most popular Grixis commanders in a few months.
Sauron requires a legendary sacrifice to target him, builds an Army whenever your opponents cast any spells, has built in Ring temptation when that Army deals combat damage to a player and to top it off, Sauron cycle through your deck by wheeling you to four new cards. All on a 7/6 but only for six mana! Sauron is so strong and we’re going to be seeing a bunch of decks crop up.
Eowyn, Fearless Knight is interesting in that you actually might build the deck to pump your opponents’ creatures so that you can exile them with Eowyn and charge through for commander damage since she gets protection from their colours. Blink and Flicker shenanigans like Nahiri’s Resolve can get Eowyn to mow down your opponents’ boards until they’re hopeless. Your Human decks have a sure shot hit to add to it.
This is the best of the scry matters commanders in my opinion. A Ring temptation nets you a scry 3 if you’ve got another creature to pick to hang onto the Ring and then, if you can set it up, that’s ramp! Thassa, God of the Sea can just be an extra land every turn. If you flip a Temple of Mystery into play on a scry then you can maybe keep it going. Path of Ancestry, Preordain, Opt, Lifecrafter’s Bestiary, Serum Visions, all of them turn into ramp spells. But the real star is Retreat to Coralheim. What a treat. Simic scrying isn’t messing around!
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Hello! Welcome to my set review of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth, where I will pick five cards of each colour and discuss my favourite cards from them.
Given that the set also comes out with a set of preconstructed Commander decks, I’ll also be covering my favourite new cards from there in another article.
Tom Bombadil and Sauron, the Lidless Eye are both great cards, but will not make my top 5 because I’ve already covered them in their own articles for A Seat at the Table at The Bag of Loot, but I do have a little blurb to say about them. If you’re interested in reading more, check out those articles.
Without further ado, here are my favourite allied multicoloured cards!
A five mana legendary artifact in colours whose usual game plan involves attacking that rewards you for attacking. What a reward at that!
Scry two to set up your subsequent revelation and sneak in a beater or a creature with a solid ETB. That’s as Gruul as it gets.
What about Jund? Haunted Crossroads your Avenger of Zendikar or Inferno Titan back on top of your library and get them out and attacking again. Henzie “Toolbox” Torre decks and Ziatora, the Incinerator decks are going to test this card for sure, but I think Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire is where this is going to see the most play.
I love the excitement of the gamble of the top deck, the anticipation around the table as you turn your creature(s) sideways… exquisite. I hope to see this a lot, but it will need to be the only artifact in a deck with 50 creatures.
Two mana is a low, low cost to grant every one of your nontoken creatures into an additional line of text that says “When this enters the battlefield, create a Food token.”
Living Death? You’ve got a whole bunch of Food which can be used to gain life or enable artifact sacrifice strategies. Blink strategies turn into Food generators.
The hot ticket for Kethis, the Hidden Hand and Jodah, the Unifier decks is the sacrifice ability which turns three of your Food tokens into a Regrowth for Historic cards in your graveyard. Unbelievable flexibility! Samwise at the head of his own deck can be a legendary or artifact deck leader in colours that don’t see that so often. I really like how much value is packed in such a small package and cost.
Faramir, Prince of Ithilien isn’t raising a ton of eyebrows, but it is getting my attention.
The trigger is delayed and allows you to draw a card or create three tokens, but to predict what you’ll get, you’ll have to be attentive to the rest of the table. Really being able to read your opponents and maybe even make some deals is interesting to me and many other players who are into table politics.
But if you’re looking for card draw every time? It’s stax time. If you want tokens? Forced combat and incentivizing your opponents to attack you are a new way to go. THIS last description is what I’m hoping to brew. Make an interesting deck with a little weirdo commander.
Shagrat, Loot Bearer is the only Rakdos commander to ever mention Equipment in its textbox. Think on that for a second. This is entirely new space being explored here.
Shagrat can attach Equipment you control or your opponents control. Play this with a Collector Ouphe type of effect so your opponents can’t re-equip their own equipment. Multiple extra combats make Shaggy a new option for Voltron that also leaves behind a block that keeps coming back or getting bigger. These are exciting times for Equipment fans who’ve always wanted a Rakdos deck.
Pippin, Guard of the Citadel is the first creature with an activated ability that grants protection from a card type. All other cards like Serra’s Emissary are static effects that grant card type protection. Pippin being able to protect a creature you control from card types means that you’ve essentially got a Mother of Runes in the command zone or on theme for your legends matter decks. Not to mention he’s also got vigilance and ward and could effectively give himself unblockable – Pippin is a low to the ground protection piece or battering ram. His design stands out to me and I think we’ll be seeing him creep up more and more.
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Hello! Welcome to my set review of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth, where I will pick five cards of each colour and discuss my favourite cards from them.
Given that the set also comes out with a set 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 Artifact/Land cards!
I really love cards that add mini-games to games of Commander.
Being able to scry two and set up the top of your deck before turning to an opponent and offering them a choice puts you in a little more control than you think.
Over the course of the game, you get to know your opponent. Who is going to risk the mill life loss equal to total mana value? You’ll either be paying three to draw a card every end step with a little selection or you’ll be cracking at an opponent. Either way, it’s progress!
I live for this in a self-mill strategy. Either you’re drawing a card or you’re playing into your strategy while probably crushing an opponent’s life total. Excellent card. So strange. So fun. Powerful, but entertaining.
I’ll keep this one short and sweet:
Run this in a token deck. Send two creatures to each opponent and for each of them, you look at five cards and keep a creature card. That’s right. You get to dig 15 cards deep and keep three creatures. That’s SO MUCH for two mana. Even if this were just to trigger once instead of per opponent you’re attacking, it’s a solid amount of value for a two mana artifact.
Untapping every single combat means that the equipped creature gets pseudo-vigilance, but it also means if you’ve got extra combat steps going on, you can keep a creature with an activated tap ability behind to generate value.
Krenko, Mob Boss is the first one to come to mind. But Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker with a Combat Celebrant is almost assuredly game over time. Equip this to Arcanis the Omnipotent and you’ll be up 12 cards a turn cycle! Giver of Runes and Mother of Runes deserve to keep caring for their fellow creatures! Get Goblin Welder to dance artifacts in and out of the graveyard. There’s a lot to be done with untapping a creature. Yes, a lot of it is mana production, but there are lots of things to be done with mana at instant speed!
I love cards that feel like they’re free inclusions in your deck. In most white decks, you’ll be doing some amount of attacking with two or more creatures. Being able to repeatedly draw a card for essentially three mana with the condition of doing something you’re probably already doing is something white gets to do now. Requiring this means that you cannot hold up your mana and draw on your opponents’ turns but this makes sure you’re ready to commit.
Tapping and untapping The One Ring means you’re probably going to get into a big chunk of your deck. Getting protection from everything for a whole turn cycle is great on cast, but the big ability is drawing your cards and having to pay the price. Luckily, The One Ring only takes your lift away at your upkeep. Clock of Omens and Unwinding Clock will get you tons of cards, but make sure to pad your life total. We’re no strangers to trading life for resources with Sylvan Library and Black Market Connections. This is going to require some building around.
That’s it for Artifacts/Lands. Gold cards are next! Then I’ve got the whole Commander set to talk about.
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