Commander Masters is Totally Worth Pre-Ordering

“Magictating” is defined as getting into the zone with your Magic the Gathering collection--thinking, planning, organizing, reminiscing about past games, and imagining future games. It is a combination of hard thinking about the game and calm meditation, reveling in the joy it brings you.

What will Commander Masters offer us? In short, the answers to all of our questions about what a premier Commander set should offer. This is going to be an absolutely amazing set. I can’t think of a set I’ve been as excited about since the original Commander Legends set was being promoted. This Commander Masters set is going to offer a large variety of products, and the price tag is actually worth it. I haven’t been able to say that to myself for a long time with all of those previous Masters sets. This time is different, and I’d like to outline for you just how different.

For starters, whenever a new product shows up it’s usually worth it to get in on the ground floor. Now, before you try and cite what “failure” March of the Machines: Aftermath was, please let me inform you it was absolutely a success for the Commander community. Seriously, those cards are so full of flavor it is absolutely ridiculous. There’s special treatments of all sorts in Aftermath. Oh, and it’s incredibly affordable to pick up singles from the set from any local game store, so what exactly is the problem? Oh, the problem is being able to get special treatments of new cards for an incredibly affordable price, and that cracking packs of this non-draftable set isn’t really worth it. Yeah, I’m not seeing any issues with how that all plays out for the common Commander player. This Commander Masters set is coming off a previous set of Commander focused/draftable action that Commander Legends Baldur’s Gate offered up. This positions Commander Masters in a special place.

Commander Masters is poised to be a fix to the disappointments or woes of Baldur’s Gate. Apparently, not everyone enjoyed the set as much as I did. I mean, I guess I get it…it was affordable and fun to draft, and felt like a solid limited environment. There were some very flavorful cards, and as a set it felt really great to play with it. The downside is that it was more of a powered down set. Likewise, Commander Legends was similarly powered as well. While Commander Legends offered up the coveted Jeweled Lotus among some very tantalizing reprints—looking at you, Vampiric Tutor—Baldur’s Gate lacked pricey chase reprints of that caliber. Commander Masters, by nature of being a masters set, will be able to reprint all the goodness. Heck, they’ve already spoiled that Jeweled Lotus and Capture of Jingzhou! Those are two super exciting reprints, and I’ve no doubt it won’t stop there. This is going to be a homerun of a set.

Now, when you take a look into the pre-sale deals going on from many local game stores, then you can’t help but get even more excited. It is totally worth buying into this set early on. This is not going to be like Aftermath, and those that think it will be are seriously misguided in their evaluations. This set has already previewed five amazing commanders, and four of them are new. I’m going to dive into each of these five in just a moment, because each one deserves a bit for you to appreciate all that’s on offer. Let me just say, on record, that these preconstructed decks and the set itself will be more than worth buying sealed product, drafting, and then playing repeatedly. Yes, even at the full MSRP (which doesn’t technically exist anymore, I know). This set is going to be the best set of the year, and that’s including the insanity we’re seeing for Lord of the Rings as well. I really believe this set will offer up everything Commander players want…yes, even value.

When we look into the few commanders that have already been spoiled we can’t help but be in an excited state; have you seen that distinguished profile treatment for the Ur-Dragon? Nailed it! Speaking of the Ur-Dragon, we’re going to have more commander dragon cards! There’s never too many dragons, and I’m more than willing to be that since Ur-Dragon is being reprinted, we’re going to see some new and exciting dragon support cards printed as well. This is going to a veritable storm of dragon goodness.

Now, while dragons are popular, so are superfriends decks that focus on planeswalkers. The new card spoiled for planeswalkers is fantastic. Commodore Guff helps you flood your board with powerful planeswalkers, protects itself, and grants us access to three of the most powerful colors for making controlling superfriends decks with red, blue, and white. Jeskai superfriends has a big bad new legend to get major card advantage with. Feel free to run Jokulhaups for additional friendship points.

Meanwhile, Anikthea, Hand of Erebos gives us a fantastically powerful and rather fun effect for building non-aura based enchantment decks. This is going to be something that people absolutely love to play with. While I might have guessed it to be a bit similar to Myrkul, Lord of Bones—that’s not a bad thing. They actually share the same colors, so I anticipate people getting up to some pretty interesting shenanigans with these two cards. Static abilities on creatures and enchantments allow you to build up a ridiculous combination of powerful effects. Additionally, don’t forget that creatures with tap abilities can still be tapped as enchantments and that sometimes having a creature that’s also a Worship seems pretty fair.

The best artifact and eldrazi commander is coming soon in the form of Zhulodok, Void Gorger. Yes, I said artifact, because those are also colorless, and they’ll also have double cascade from Zhulodok’s static ability. That’s absolutely a battle-cruiser deck’s dream card. This is going to be at the helm of so many brews. Yes, people might still just play with Urza, and maybe just toss this card into the 99, but where is the fun in that? Hey, that’s the reason so many people are going to be snagging this card as well—it works wonders in so many artifact heavy decks, and will also become a default option for building big beefy colorless decks. The value is strong with this card.

At this point you know I’ve been saving that tempestuous sliver for last—Sliver Gravemother. While this is no Sliver Queen or even Sliver Overlord, it’s still a very exciting development. Slivers have long been the bane of many players existence, but they’ve also been the reason for so many people’s ecstatic grins and giggles as they slap down the last sliver or two to reach the point of overwhelming force before winning the game. This is going to be a very popular choice with so many people. Heck, you might want to pick up your copies of Morophon, the Boundless now, so you can be a really dirty individual and run slivers for basically free… No, seriously, if you haven’t played that style of deck yet, then you should check it out. Playing out an entire hand after resolving Morophon is beyond gross. It also could lead to you winning massive friendship points—or baleful stares. Either way, that’s a win, right?

These few cards we’ve had spoiled so far are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg my friends. This set is going to be an absolute master class in how to offer up a product that makes all of us Commander Aficionados happy. I hope your pre-orders and the cards remain ever in your favors!