Hello and welcome back. Foundations main set is absolutely packed with cool new legends and interesting new cards, plus a large portion of reprints that needed to be like Doubling Season. I think this set has kind of what Dominaria had and that’s something for everyone in multiple formats.

Of course this article will focus on Commander, but it’s worth mentioning that Foundations is supposed to be focused on Standard for 5 years and I think that this is a good example of releasing cards that aren’t necessarily Commander focused and still giving the format the goodies we all like.

That aside, in this article I’m going to focus on the new legendary cards for older characters because the amount of cards in this set is nuts and I have to narrow it down somewhere. I do of course want to pick some honorables mentions outside of this because I’m thrilled with this set, but that will come at the end.

Since I’ll be focusing on the main set here, I’d like to point you to my previous article about the Foundations Jumpstart legends if you’re interested in my thoughts on those. Now let’s settle in and revisit some old faves with new text.

WHAT’S OLD IS NEW AGAIN

NIV-MIZZET, VISIONARY

Starting in no particular order, we have another card for the Living Guildpact of Ravnica, Niv-Mizzet. Something about every Niv card is that it always provides some kind of card advantage and this one follows in the legacy of Niv cards.

This one isn’t as straight forward as some other versions however. You need an outside source to gain that card advantage, in this case noncombat damage sources like Firebrand Archer or Electrodmoninance. I do like cards that have this design in mind, where you have a goal stated on the card but the card itself doesn’t provide everything you need.

The best thing about this card is that it also portrays Niv’s vanity in the way it combos with two previous incarnations of himself; Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind and Niv-Mizzet, Parun.

Fun facts: Fireminds flavor text when the card is tapped reads “Niv-Mizzet=1” on the original printing.

The word Parun, a combination of Parent and Run, is completely made up but refers to the founding guildmasters of the Ravnican guilds, like the sphinx Azor and the demon Rakdos.

ZIMONE, PARADOX SCULPTOR

Speaking about characters that get a lot of cards, Zimone is starting to rival Niv. This incarnation focuses firstly on just giving out some counters to creatures you control. Then you can use the second ability to double counters on up to two creatures and/or artifacts.

A simple design with some *shutters* nadu feelings, but not nearly as broken as the birb. However, this does seem like a mostly strict upgrade to Vorel of Hull Clade, and those players may want to just run both. This card gives counters to where you might get them without the outside help Vorel would need, and the effect is still very powerful. What Vorel has better than Zimone here though is the ability to target lands which can come in handy sometimes.

ALESHA, WHO LAUGHS AT FATE

Alesha returns as a Kolaghan card this time, but still cares about the dead creatures in your yard. Alesha comes down early and has first strike, so the ability to get some counters on it via attacking shouldn’t be to much of an issue.

However, you don’t have to attack with Alesha to trigger her raid ability. You can attack with another creature and still reanimate something that has a mana cost equal to or less to her power to the battlefield. Likewise, just equipping Alesha or enchanting her to get her power number higher isn’t too hard either. It’s a good renanimation card as long as you can attack.

ARAHBO, THE FIRST FANG

The very first cat in the multiverse returns! (lore wise). Arahbo loses a color from its previous incarnation to become Mono-White, but retains the ability to buff cats with a built in anthem effect for the creature type.

It continues to care about Cats with trigger to make an extra one for you whenever it or another non-token Cat card comes into play under you control. White does have a smattering of blink effects and recursion for smaller creatures, so there are ways to make a dangerous amount of felines quickly. A simple legend that isn’t to be overlooked since it essentially doubles the creature count and makes those creatures larger.

ELENDA, SAINT OF DUSK

Technical founder of the Dusk Legion on Ixalan, Elenda returns with an interesting way to buff herself by weaponizing your life total and an interesting and frustrating protection for your opponents.

First the base stats for the card are great, but it gets better with Lifelink and Protection from instants. That protection along will help keep Elenda around for a long time since it dodges Pongify and Path to Exile and Despark and Chaos Warp and Beast Within… you get the idea. While it doesn’t provide evasion like regular protection, that’s always something that can be added.

Otherwise if you can keep yourself a healthy shiny player, Elenda does GAIN evasion with Menace if your life total is greater than your starting total and a +1/+ bonus. Not hard to do with the right cards or even a few good swings with Elenda herself. If your life total is ten or more points than your starting total, she gets another bonus of +5/+5. Essentially you eventually get a 10/10 Lifelink, Menace, Protection from Instants beatstick of a commander to threaten your opponents with.

I like designs that reward you for achieving something without giving you the way to achieve it. This one doesn’t do that since she does have lifelink, but having to make her vulnerable in combat is an okay trade off. The focus solely on her also leaves the deck to be free to do just about anything as long as you gain life along the way.

KELLAN, PLANAR TRAILBLAZER

Hey, Kellan is leveling up! Well, sorta. This card’s formatting is reminiscent of the original “leveling” card Figure of Destiny. Kellan starts as a regular 2/1, but can gain the ability of exiling cards to play when you pay one and Red to “level” him up. It also changes his creature types to Human Faerie Detective.

The next “level” costs two and Red and gains the base stats 3/2 and double strike. This is in addition to his previous ability to exile cards when he hits for damage, so now that will trigger twice because of Double Strike. He would also be a Human Faerie Rogue now.

Something neat about the card is it gives a little story about his own, from Eldraine to Thunder Junction based around his creature types that he gains when leveling and the abilities, though the telling here isn’t directly reflected.

KIORA, THE RISING TIDE

Kiora returns with a card that cares about Threshold, and an older mechanic that cares about having 7 or more cards in your graveyard. The mechanic is something I really like and think that it should come back slightly more often than it does. It is also something I find funny to put on a character’s card that often cares about things that are 8/8, but that’s just me.

Getting an 8/8 when Kiora attacks is nuts. While this card is coming out in a set for Standard, in Commander this is an 8/8 turn 3-4 in a right deck. Ridiculous amount of pressure to put on a table and I look forward to doing just that in my The Ancient One deck. The token she makes is also legendary, which does have some interesting rules implications but those are pretty specific to things dying. This is because you can make a new Scion of the Deep everytime she attacks and therefore have to choose one Scion to keep and one to die.

That out of the way, when Kiora enters she helps get you to the Threshold… threshold by drawing two cards and then having you discard two. Setting up both for plays and the token makes this a very sleek design and one of my favorites of the set.

KOMA, WORLD-EATER

Koma continues its reputation of being stupid annoying to get rid of and super fun for the user. This 8/12 Serpent can’t be countered and has Ward 4. 4! Koma is inexorable on the stack and on the field, especially with trample to threaten the damage it needs to make four tokens off the damage to a player. Those tokens are all 3/3s to boot.

Dumb big cards is dumb and will in fact eat the world. Easily kill on sight but I hope you brought 4 extra mana. Or Nowhere to Run, or something to counter the Ward trigger or some removal that can’t be countered. … I’m trying to help.

Kykar, Zephyr Awakener

Ky-KaR returns as a White Blue legend that’s still a power house. Granted, this version isn’t as good as his previous incarnation, but this one is still amazing. Whenever you cast a spell that isn’t a creature, you can exile a creature you control until the end of the turn or make a bird token. Defenses galore with value added.

The real strength of the card is that it has no timing restriction outside of the slow blink, so saving your own creatures and creating those extra defenses is going to be easy to do. Unfortunately it can’t save itself, but the cards in the deck can do that I’m sure. Kykar will be a very good commander for those who want to power down their blink decks a bit without sacrificing utility.

Beyond that, the card itself has such an open design that you could run it spellslinger, planeswalker subtheme, main blink theme, tokens, etc.

LOOT, EXUBERANT EXPLORER

Loot returns with two less colors but a powerful ability. Oh, and you get a second land drop per turn.

With that second land drop, you get to fuel Loot’s second ability which lets you cheat a creature into play that costs less than or equal to the number of lands you have from the top six cards of your deck. Getting a lucky hit off of the ability, which in six cards should be more often than not, is going to put a lot of pressure on the table even with the restriction. Land focused decks are very good already. Loot is probably a remove-on-sight commander, despite whatever feelings you have towards their character design.

TINYBONES, BAUBLE BURGLAR

Tinybones returns to bag up opponent’s baubles. Literally this time, and so they can be cast later. The interesting part of the ability is the use of stash counters because they can be recognized by Tinybones if he leaves the battlefield and comes back later. This means you don’t have to worry about losing the spells and lands you “recycle” when a player discards one.

Of course Tinybones is also still about the discarding of cards himself with an ability to help people along. It does cost three and Black and a tap, but who knows what trinkets you’ll get?

HONORABLE MENTIONS

As I stated towards the beginning, I do want to include some other cards from the set outside of the legends, so here are my picks, one per color (or colorless) and one multicolored card from the set.

VALKYRIE'S CALL

Easy to include some immediate recursion here. White doesn’t have too many of these effects and this won’t let angels get out of control. However, it does allow other decks to get out of control by presenting flying inevitability and entering and leaving ability value.

HIGH FAE TRICKSTER

The easy pick would have been Omniscience, BUT the better choice I feel is the fae which is a  good inclusion into the flash granting cards we already have. Two relevant creature types also help make this my pick for Blue.

BLOODTHRISTY CONQUERER

The thing about Black’s part of the color pie is that it has clearly defined weaknesses most of the time. A good way to overcome those weaknesses is to put an effect it has on a creature type card, which is what happened here. Since Black can easily get back its creatures over something like artifacts or enchantments, you don’t have to worry about losing an important piece of your boardstate for long. In the Conquerer, we have an easily recoverable Exquisite Blood effect. Straight upgrade in my opinion and redundancy to boot.

TWINFLAME TYRANT

There were a few cards I was considering for Red, but dealing more damage is usually the winning strat. Like the Fae Trickster for Blue, this effect is already in Red but the redundancy it gives us is always nice. It being a creature is both a boon and curse, but how much of either will depend on the deck it goes in.

QUILLED GREATWURM

Again, there were a few cards I considered for Green, but again doing generic Green things wins. This card not only awards you for dealing combat damage by making your guys bigger, it feeds its own self recursion. That’s not something we see on many cards in Green, which means this can be a game winning card if you can keep the pressure on, not to mention the counter synergies this has and will have going into the future.

The rate for the body is also very good.

BOROS CHARM

This card has been printed a lot, but looking over the cards that come from Foundations that are multicolored and aren’t legendary creatures, this is probably the best generic good thing to have in hand at a given moment. The main reason is that it often saves a board state from a board wipe. While I think other cards are a bit more exciting depending on the deck, saving your setup and work to help you win the game is excellent.

SIRE OF SEVEN DEATHS

This section was the hardest because the colorless cards in this set have some bangers. I really, really wanted to put Scrawling Crawler here for its general use or Banner of Kinship for typal decks, but the momentum of defeating opponents strikes again.

The Sire is a huge timmy card that is hard to get rid of, hard to get around, and hard to not take damage from. Can’t really argue with progressing the game.

ROCK SOLID

That’s it for this review. Foundations has something for everyone and I think it’s going to be a set remembered fondly for a long time.

Let me know what you're excited for. I’ve already got my eye on some cards for decks and I think they will all be good includes.

Until next time, take that step.