Welcome back! We’ve got not a few things to cover this article, mostly some exciting new legends from THREE sets have been spoiled, with a little something for everyone. Whether you like Universes Beyond or stick to Magic lore on its own, it’s an exciting time to look at cards and learn, or remember, lore.
FINAL FANTASY
Going to come out and say that I have never played a Final Fantasy game, so this will be a purely mechanical review of the cards.
SEPHIROTH, PLANET’S HEIR
A legend with a small built in board wipe could be interesting (*cough* Maha, It’s Feathers Night *cough*) and gets larger whenever a creature your opponents control die. He also has vigilance, so defending and attacking shouldn’t be an issue.
Fairly simple card design here. Might be worth it to donate some small creatures to set him up for his wipe, or perhaps have enough mana to cast something like Sudden Spoiling or Polymorphist’s Jest. You could also keep creatures weaker permanently before he comes down as well with cards like Ascendant Evincar or Kaervek the Spiteful.
CLOUD, PLANET’S CHAMPION
Much like the other Cloud from the Commander Deck, this one cares about equipment. He also cares about surviving and hitting hard, gaining double strike and indestructible if he has a nice equipment attached to him. This should alleviate some slots in the deck for protecting him outright.
His second ability gives a discount on any equip costs when you equip a card to Cloud himself. Hello Colossal Hammer being equipped on curve.
Another simple legend, one that really just wants to tron out and break stuff.
EMET-SELCH, UNSUNDERED // HADES, SORCERER OF ELD
Self mill for the strategy, this legend loots when it attacks to help fill the graveyard in order to transform. It also has an okay body with vigilance, so getting a few attacks in here and there shouldn’t be too bad. When you do manage to get fourteen or more cards into the yard, during the beginning of your upkeep, he transforms into Hades.
The backside, featuring Hades, lets you play cards from the ones you’ve manage to store up to flip Emet-Selch over. However, any new cards or tokens that would go to the graveyard are exiled. An important distinction here is the mention of tokens. Tokens fail to exist once they hit the graveyard, but do trigger dies and other effects. Therefor, you wont get those either.
It seems playing to legend require commitment to a somewhat fragile place in the game, but rewards you with access to maybe your most powerful spells depending on the build.
CECIL, DARK KNIGHT // CECIL, REDEEMED PALADIN
I’ll mention it later for another legend, but something I’ve tried to do a few times is have a deck that weaponizes the life total. Cecil here, on the front side at least, doesn’t quite do that for me on its own. He can help you lose life to transform him by attacking, but other things that can go behind it like Vilis Broker of Blood could work and Toxic Deluge are going to be good to transform him.
The backside features the same aggressiveness, but this time more for survival by giving your other attacking creatures indestructible. Being that you HAVE to have life lower than half your life total to flip him, having a small way to get back into the game will be necessary. The back side is also White, meaning this White and Black deck should have ways of recovering once he flips over.
SIN, SPIRA’S PUNISHMENT
Another Sultai commander that benefits from a self mill strategy, for whenever it attacks you exile a permanent card at random from there. You created a tapped token of it, and if that token is a land, you do it again.
I can picture a deck where it is mostly lands, dumps them all into the yard and then just recurs them out for some landfall effect. Having Sin at 7 mana in such a deck wouldn’t be hard to summon, depending on how many land drops you can get going, or maybe a ritual or two. It only cares about permanents, so instants and sorceries wouldn’t hurt this strategy. It also triggers the effect on enter and attack, so you don’t even need to risk it in combat.
Besides that idea, it being random can make the deck harder to build unless you enjoy that kind of thing.
STILTZKIN, MOOGLE MERCHANT
It’s a rare ‘sharing’ card. Zedruu could probably always use more tech.
This seems right in White’s wheelhouse, and you get a card when you (forceable) donate a permanent you control to them. Now, there aren’t a lot of stealing effects in White. Like, at all. Adarkar Valkyrie and Debt of Loyalty come to mind (there is also Preacher but money) and that’s all I can think of.
Still, you can gain some favor for other cards like Ghostly Prison or Wedding Ring, or punish others with cards like Nines Lives or Grid Monitor. Granted, doing the punishing thing does seem more the Zedruu thing to do. I do wonder if this guy can win with Barren Glory.
GARLAND, KNIGHT OF CORNELIA // CHAOS, THE ENDLESS
Our last flip Legend, for now at least, lets you surveil one whenever you cast a noncreature spell. Nifty way to get through your library and put what you want into your graveyard.
His second ability allows you to return a dead Garland transformed from your graveyard at sorcery speed for seven mana as Chaos, the Endless.
That side of Garland is a 5/5 flying demon who, when he dies, is put onto the bottom of its owner's library.
I’m going to be honest, losing your whole library to get to him again is interesting at least, but I’m not sure what kind of deck this would helm outside of something already getting rid of a whole deck. He doesn’t seem worth it as a payoff mechanically, but maybe for flavor.
TERRA, HERALD OF HOPE (CMDR)
This card reminds me a lot of Alesha Who Smiles at Death, but it does play a bit differently. First is the self mill aspect, which can help you get targets to recur into the graveyard, especially if you have some top deck manipulation like scrying. Terra also gains flying until end of turn during your turn, giving her evasion Alesha never had.
Unlike Alesha as well, you do have to hit an opponent to be able to recur a creature. While the cost isn’t as restrictive at 2 generic mana, and the power is one greater at three, that also means less flexibility for shenanigans than Alesha, and those creatures will come into play tapped.
All that said, they are very different and comparing the cards one for one is probably unfair. Terra is going to be good at hitting opponents early with flying and there are a lot of good creatures with three or less power that can get good stuff back as well. Hitting after a Buried Alive for instance could set up a string of effects to get all three creatures back that your tutored for.
Maybe in the end they are more similar than different.
CLOUD, EX-SOLDIER (CMDR)
Naya receives another equipment centric commander in Cloud. It also comes now with the almost everpresent auto equip of equip to him and he himself has Haste, making any investment of that equipment before him a good one. Besides the ability and buffs he might get from the equipment, he also gets an attacker trigger where you draw card equal to the number of equipped attacking creatures you control. So, one at least most of the time. He then gives you two treasure tokens if his power is seven or greater. Not hard to achieve.
Overall it’s kind of a tron leaning build up front, though you can go wide and perhaps support the build with things like Danitha Capashen Paragon, Sram Senior Artificer and Chisiro the Shattered Blade.
TIDUS, YUNA’S GUARDIAN (CMDR)
Bant gets a proliferating commander and helps customize the battlefield a bit. Tidus does this by doing a good Simic Guildmage impression by allowing you to move a counter from one creature to another at the start of combat. This can give you some good swing potential for said attack since you have to deal damage to an opponent to trigger the second ability. For interesting counters to gets, start with Ikoria Lair of Behemoths and Streets of Capenna and work forward through sets because there is a lot here. Likely though you want a trample counter, perhaps flying.
If you do manage to hit an opponent, you get to draw a card and proliferate. As long as you have counters, your field is just going to get stronger. Remember shield counters to help protect your board as well as each counter can absorb a single damage or destroy effect. Of course, if you can get some indestructible counters that’s even better but extra ones of those are redundant if you don’t move them somewhere else.
Y’SHTOLA, NIGHT’S BLESSED (CMDR)
The new Esper commander coming is one that cares about non-creature spells and draining your opponents’ life totals. Doing so not only progresses the game, but also provides some card advantage for you if a player lost 4 or more life in a turn. This includes you and taking some damage from an attack, abilities or otherwise (damage causes life loss).
I think this commander is the most up front powerful of the batch (not by much though), and I can see many a brewer attempting strong builds around getting opponents down to low health and gaining the advantage in cards. The card advantage, speaking of, isn’t actually going to be too oppressive unless you can cast stuff on opponents’ turn, so this may also be a viable flash-centric deck. This is only speaking for the commander herself though. The deck behind it can easily power a situation where you stare this down and lose 12+ life waiting for your next turn.
MARVEL’S SPIDERMAN
Our first large leap into the Spiderverse starts here with these spectacular spoilers.
DOC OCK, EVIL INVENTOR
A bit expensive to cast, but at least his ability isn’t at end of turn. When you get to the beginning of combat, you get an artifact your control to become an 8/8. This is permanent.
Coming down for 7 mana before he can do this is a bit rough. You know, unless you have a bunch of mana rocks like Sol Ring or Talisman of Dominance to help get him down and then punch like a truck speeding down a highway.
There’s some other things you can do as well, like vehicles which might be a great follow up or set up for when he hits the table, or Virtue of Knowledge (the adventure Vantress Visions specifically) and Strionic Resonator type cards.
GREEN GOBLIN, NEMESIS
Green Goblin, as usual, is throwing everything he wants at a situation. It’s all for fun of course.
When you discard a nonland card, a goblin you control gets a +1/+1 counter, which includes Green Goblin here. If you discard a land card, you get some shiny treasure.
Being Black and Red, there is definitely some great stuff to do here. Surly Badgersaur, Waste Not, Bone Miser all being the first good things to come to mind. There are also cards like Archfiend of Ifnir and madness and cycling cards as well. While the Green Goblin up front doesn’t seem to do much, I’d be wary of what’s in the bag.
SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN
Getting stuck in a web is probably something that’s happened to a few of us, and being stunned by it sticking to our face (or terrified) is probably something too. All on flavor with this Spiderman. You do have to attack to add a stun counter, but those are much more common now so a deck built around this Spiderman doesn’t have to necessarily rely on the attack. The colors also give a number of great evasive enchantments or abilities.
If you want to card draw Spidey offers, then you do have to attack to get it. It’s all one ability, so swing safely to get up to three cards by removing three stun counters from permanents. These don’t have to be permanent your opponents’ control though. Perhaps you can get something of yours online quicker or recover from stun counter more quickly than before.
Another thing to keep in mind is all this happens on the attack, before blockers can be declared. Perhaps a Spirit Mantle or Aqueous Form is just a few cards away? Embrace the spidey sense.
VEMON, DEADLY DEVOURER
A decent body and abilities to cover on offense and defense. Ties a bit into Vemon itself, along with its second ability to get stronger. For the cost of three mana, you can exile a creature from A graveyard and make a target Symbiote stronger equal to the exiled card's toughness via +1/+1 counters. No tapping for Vemon to use the ability, which makes the fact that the card has Vigilance even more important.
Like the rest of these cards, the design is simple. It also may hint at other possible symbiote type cards in the future. Muraganda maybe? Edge of Infinities? Who knows, but right now it’s just for flavor reasons and more likely some other symbiote or two in the set. All conjecture on my part.
TARKIR DRAGONSTORM
I love me some wedge designs and having a bunch of new legends coming out with our return to Tarkir has me ecstatic. I eagerly await the rest of the spoilers for this set but we already have some goodies here to have our eyes water over.
SHIKO, PARAGON OF THE WAY
The legendary Jeskai dragon has a good body and flies, as one would expect from modern design and a key legendary creature. Vigilance also makes it good on offense and defense, so Shiko is also hard to get around.
The other ability allows you to exile and then copy a card of mana value three or less. You may then cast it. Just to note here, this won’t trigger things like Magecraft because it’s copying the card itself, not the spell. It will trigger things the care about the spell type however.
It’s a useful ability, but as a one time effect it’s meh for commander. Of course blinking the creature means a LOT more shenanigans, so the potential is definitely there to build a great deck around this like effects from Shiko. On the back end, if you add some cards that might care about things being in or coming from Exile, you get some extra mileage for yourself.
NARSET, JESKAI WAYFINDER
Might as well have been called ‘Way to Storm Finder”, which is something that this card might want you to do and has some lore relevance, so I really dig it. This version of Narset rewards you with a whole new hand if you can cast the cards you had previously, but it would have to be you casting everything in your hand to achieve that.
Add in some extra discard-trigger effects to get more mileage out of Narset if you aren’t going to use a tuned storm list and it’s a plenty viable commander at lower powered tables as well. I do think we might see an attempt with Narset at higher powered tables, so beware.
SARKHAN, DRAGON ASCENDANT
Sarkhan brings tribute if you have a dragon card in hand or on the battlefield in the form of a treasure token. It’s cool I suppose and the ramp is a nice way of getting to a dragon in hand, not to mention the color fixing. Flavor for it feels off though.
Otherwise, when a dragon you control enters, Sarkhan gets permanently bigger (jokes aside) with a +1/+1 counter and becomes a dragon with flying until end of turn. This is typical Sarkhan right here, and a bit more on flavor.
As a commander, I don’t think we’ll be seeing him much at the front of decks, but I’d be surprised to not see him support dragon decks in the 99.
BETOR, ANCESTOR’S VOICE (CMDR)
The new dragons for the clans this time around seem a lot more interesting than the last versions in my opinion, especially since also adds a color we can use over the other like Dromoka.
Betor here is also something I look forward to, which is away to weaponize the life total. With Betor, you get bonuses for gaining and losing life, much like Willowdusk gives, but with Betor you get something for each instead of which is greater. With life gain, you make something stronger, and with the sacrifice of life, you get something to live again.
This only happens on your turn, but it will do both as long as you gain and lose life. Those events to negate each other. They do happen in order written on the cards, so no +1/+1 counters for the newly undead on the same turn.
TEVAL, THE BALANCED SCALE (CMDR)
The new Sultai dragon is very Sultai Sidisi-esque, but with some added upside and new downside which I think will set it apart AND perhaps allow it to be added to existing Sidisi decks.
Teval mills you for three cards when it attacks and of course has flying, so attacking shouldn’t be an issue most of the time. A 4/4 body at four mana isn’t bad either. Back on track, you then get to grabbed a land from your graveyard and put it on the battlefield tapped. The incremental ramp this card gives you is going to be powerful over the course of a game, AND it says a land. Field of the Dead lives.
Not only do you get land, you also get a 2/2 zombie for your trouble. This isn’t dependent on the dragon alone though. You can get one whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard, so if you can’t attack with Teval you can still get some advantage.
Teval is much more its own engine than Betor, and I’d say slightly more powerful because of it up front. I think Betor has more potential for massive plays however, depending on how much you want to risk.
THE FUTURE IS BUSY
Wooo. There was a lot to cover, and these are only the know legends at the time of writing! Tarkir is next in line to be released, so keep a lookout for more spoilers coming. For those excited for Final Fantasy and Spiderman, you do have to wait a bit longer for spoilers to start in earnest, but maybe we’ll get some noms to chew on in the mean time.
Let me know what you excited for in the upcoming sets, or maybe what you’re hoping for.
Until next time!
