Checking in on our Ravnica Allegiance Commander Predictions

Ravnica is still here! No super evil dragon has destroyed the plane (unless you are reading this is the future then I make no promises) and the release of the second set in the Return to Return to Ravnica block is right around the corner. In September I wrote about my wishlist for Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance for the Commander format and it is time to see how I did with the Ravnica Allegiance part of my predictions. If you are interested you can check out my Guilds of Ravnica article to see those predictions went.

As with that article I will be breaking down my prediction into three categories:

Right: One of the legendary cards for that guild is what I predicted

Wrong: Neither of the legendary cards for that guild has this prediction

Meh: A card legendary card for that guild is close to what I meant but not quite in the spirit of my prediction

After talking about my predictions I am going to briefly touch on the guild mechanic and then take take a look at the legendary creature(s) and Planeswalker for the guild. When I first put my predictions down I thought we would be getting Planeswalkers in addition to two legendary creatures but since that didn’t happen the 3 Planeswalkers in the set really threw me for a loop.

Let’s makes some laws with the Azorius Senate, put on a show with the Cult of Rakdos, riot with the Gruul Clans, take some tithes with the Orzhov Syndicate, and mutate some willing test subjects with the Simic Combine.

Azorius Senate

Predictions Checklist:

A legendary with some sort of card advantage: Right

No legendary has “Flying Tribal” based abilities: Meh

A legendary lets you deal damage to tutor for a White or Blue card: Meh

A legendary protects Planeswalkers: Meh

I knew I wouldn’t do well in my Azorius predictions as soon as Assassin’s Trophy was spoiled and we found out that we wouldn’t be seeing Isperia again. I didn’t get any predictions ”Wrong” but I also only got 1 completely “Right”. Dovin, Grand Arbiter rewards us for attacking with a bunch of creatures, and is better if our creatures have evasion. His ultimate gives us card advantage by letting us dig for cards and is kind of based on damage, even though it isn’t technically tutoring or specifically for W/U cards. Lavinia, Azorius Renegade can make it harder for our opponents to cast spells to destroy our Planeswalkers though she isn’t a like Sphere of Safety.

Addendum is a very interesting mechanic; I like Wizard’s creating a tension between casting an instant at the last moment, like we are often taught to do, versus getting an upside for essentially casting the spell as a sorcery. One of the reasons I think Addendum may have a better home in Commander than Standard is because we typically have more mana to work with; Precognitive Perception is a prime example of this. In Standard when we only have 5 mana and are staring down a board full of creatures casting this in our main phase is a big price to pay and is rough for anything that isn’t a control deck that has already stabilized. In Commander though it isn’t uncommon to get to 9-11 lands. I could see my Dragonlord Ojutai deck casting this, scrying for a board wipe, and then clearing the board.

Like I said above I knew I would get hit hard in my predictions when Assassin’s Trophy was spoiled but that doesn’t mean I am unhappy with these cards. I really like that Dovin is a White/Blue Planeswalker that rewards different gameplay than Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. While Planeswalkers can be rough in Commander I can see Dovin in the 99 of more aggro White/Blue decks and Bant decks like Roon, Derevi, and Arcades. Lavinia, Azorius Renegade feels like a much less oppressive version of Grand Arbiter Augustin IV where we are making our opponents play fair Magic instead of a straight Stax style deck, and I feel like she fits well into the 99 of most White/Blue decks. Lavinia does synergize very well with land destruction, since all of our opponents can’t use their mana rocks to cast spells, so there could we a sort of Armageddon/Fall of the Thran + Crucible of Worlds lock with her which of course will upset people.    

Cult of Rakdos

Predictions Checklist:

A legendary is demon tribal: Right

A legendary is has “burn and card draw”: Wrong

A legendary is sacrifice based: Right

A legendary sacrifices creatures to create tokens: Wrong

A legendary sacrifices creatures to destroy creatures: Meh

I am really liking where Rakdos is going as a guild in this set. While neither legendary draws cards or create tokens I really like their overall feel (as I will talk about more below). Rakdos, half the time, will destroys creatures that aren’t demons, devils, or imps while Judith has good synergies with sacrifice abilities and can destroy creatures if you have enough non-tokens die.

I think Spectacle is a “wait and see” mechanic for Commander. It seems like it could fit very well into Group Slug style decks like Nekusar or Mogis but my biggest fear with this mechanic is that it will have too small of an effect on the game to be worth the alternate cost, especially for the cards with Spectacle costs higher than their converted mana cost like Rafter Demon.

I am a huge fan of both of these legendaries for complete opposite reasons. Rakdos, the Showstopper can have a devastating effect when he enters play but, at the same time, can completely miss or leave the main threats alone and I like that randomness. I feel Rakdos is great in the Command Zone where you can try reuse his effect over and over. Rakdos goes well with the classic Panharmonicon and of course is a demon for Liliana’s Contract. Rakdos, the Showstopper is probably the best commander for a Demon Tribal deck unless you run a Shadowborn Apostle deck. As a counter to Rakdos I think Judith, the Scourge Diva is better in the 99 rather than the Command Zone since she doesn’t have a sacrifice outlet built in. With that being said Judith seems like a very natural fit is more aggro focused decks for the added value of pinging your opponents when they wipe the board. Judith seems like a natural fit for my Marchesa, the Black Rose deck and I can see her also fitting into decks like Kresh the Bloodbraided.

Gruul Clans

Predictions Checklist:

A legendary that hates on Planeswalkers: Wrong

A legendary punished noncreature activated abilities: Wrong

A legendary lets you discard cards to deal damage to opponents and creatures you don’t control: Wrong

A legendary is “huge” and has a trigger when an opponent cast a noncreature spell: Wrong

Well fine Wizards prove me wrong on all fronts… Domri took up some valuable space and Nikya came out of nowhere to change up Gruul’s noncreature hate. With Domri “working” for Nicol Bolas what could have been one of the best allies for the Gatewatch is instead playing for the bad guys.    

Riot has grown on me as a mechanic. I think cards like Gruul Spellbreaker may see play for its non-Riot ability, and are an example of a good card made better by the mechanic, then there is Rhythm of the Wild which could make a huge impact in Commander. The ability to give our creatures haste and deal damage right away is a huge plus in most Red/Green decks.  

Domri, Chaos Bringer seems like a decent Planeswalker for the Commander format. I think the real test for playing Domri is if you can consistently hit 2 creatures with his -3. Xenagos, God of Revels and Ruric Thar, the Unbowed are established R/G Decks that play a ton of creatures . Domri’s +1 and -8 both seem like okay abilities that will do work in the situations where they are good but overall aren’t the best. I like that Domri’s ultimate triggers on every upkeep so if you still have 3 opponents you will have 16 power attacking the next turn.  Nikya of the Old Ways is a strong commander for a creature deck and her mana doubling ability is really strong when you can count on having it every game. There are a lot of really strong creatures you can cast with 12 mana on turn 6 and is gross in all the best ways.

Orzhov Syndicate

Predictions Checklist:

Enters the battlefield drain on Obzedaddy: Wrong

Flicker effect as an activated ability: Wrong

A legendary creates spirits: Wrong

A legendary destroys creatures or has deathtouch: Meh

A legendary has some sort of protection: Meh

Who would have guessed that I would struggle with my predictions when I only had one legendary creature instead of two… Kaya can kind of remove threats which is a thing I guess and giving tokens vigilance is technically a way to protect yourself but that wasn’t really what I was meaning with that last prediction.

Afterlife seems like a mechanic that will do great in Commander. Ghave, Guru of Spores already combos with everything so more tokens are great for that deck let alone Aristocrat decks that want to be using creatures to control the board. Any deck that uses Blood Artist as a win condition will probably want to add some amount of Afterlife to the deck.

We had a pretty brief but telling conversation about Kaya, Orzhov Usurper on the Flipside Gaming Facebook when she was first spoiled and I will echo some of what I said there. At the moment EDHREC has 3096 graveyard decks which Kaya is useful against not to mention the other decks that have strategies that use the graveyard (like the 2018 Discard decks, the 4006 Sacrifice decks, and the 5893 Wheel decks) so we can probably count on her being useful in most games. With that out of the way the fact that Kaya is not an auto-include is very telling of her power. I could see Kaya being a powerful political tool for games where someone is the archenemy and the table rallies arounds getting her to ult. Teysa’s first ability interacts very well with the Aristocrat/Blood Artist deck I mentioned above. She also has great interactions with Athreos, Ayli, Vish Kal,  Elenda, and OG Teysa. It is possible that you could see all 6 in one deck and just change the commander around as you choose. From the Tokens perspective I think Teysa will struggle some with the same problems as Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice where she wants tokens in play but makes you jump through an additional hoop to get them (Unlike Brudiclad or the new Trostani).

Simic Combine

Predictions Checklist:

All legendaries interacts with counters or draw cards:  Right

+1/+1 Counters for something like creature types: Wrong

No legendary interacts with Loyalty counters: Right

Legendary Chasm Skulker: Wrong

Simic is a bit different than I was expecting. Prime Speaker Vannifar is even better than card draw, and works great with undying, while Zagana, Utopian Speaker rewards having other creatures that have +1/+1 counters on them and can get big. I do wish we could have seen a legendary interact with Loyalty counters but I didn’t really think that was a possibility. I think I also forgot about Toothy, Imaginary Friend when I made my prediction of a legendary Chasm Skulker...

Adapt is my least favorite mechanic in this block. I really feel like Adapt took the mechanic of Monstrosity but removed all the interesting flavor. I understand that Set Design wasn’t a huge fan of Proliferate, and maybe it is because the grass is greener on the other side, but wow Adapt feels boring to me.

Why hello there Prime Speaker Vannifar… How you doing? Simic’s new Prime Speaker probably the most competitive commander in recent Standard sets with some infinite chains already a possibility and I feel that people playing a more casual Vannifar deck will suffer from it being that spiky. Value cards for Vannifar, like Kiora’s Follower and Thousand-Year Elixir, center on the ability to untap her multiple times so that we can continue to tutor for more creatures. I would put Zagana, Utopian Speaker as a solid meh of the playable in Commander scale. I don’t think she really brings much to Commander and I think she brings even less in the Command Zone. In a dedicated +1/+1 counter deck she could possibly do some work but overall I am not impressed and there are probably better commanders for that deck.    

Final Thought

Right 5 Wrong 11 Meh 6

Wow I did much worse on my prediction for this set but I will blame that on there being 3 guilds with Planeswalkers, especially Gruul which could have been one of the biggest guilds to hate on noncreature spells. If you take the predictions together I finished with a result of

Right 18 Wrong 23 Meh 10  which makes me feel a lot better.

Overall I like the legendary creatures in this set a lot more than Guilds of Ravnica. Vannifar, Teysa, and Nikya are all interesting addition to the format. Nikya and Vannifar both bring interesting effects to the Command Zone and Teysa introduces a really interesting new build around with her reverse Panharmonicon.

What are you favorite cards from Ravnica Allegiance? What decks are you planning to build? What are some cards you are planning to add into the 99 of your decks? Let me know in the comments below!