Blue-white meme enjoyers rejoice!
Whtz, the Bibliophile’s burgled bag contains our favorite cadre of fringe and fun archetypes. We can now play Yorion alongside Hare Apparent with a draw engine in the command zone!
Whtz in the command zone. Yorion companion. One hundred and twenty Hare Apparent. Eighty lands. One plan.
Ok, ok. And maybe a Belladonna Took, and a Bard King of Dale, and an Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, and a Delney, Streetwise Lookout, and definitely another Plains… look, we don’t even have to cut cards anymore, so we don’t have to feel bad about adding any of them!
Memers rejoice!
And while we’re memeing, Battle of Wits, the one-time standard-playable powerhouse, has a commander named after it. (Whtz. Wits. Whtz. Get it?)
It is too early to see if Battle of Wits turns into a cEDH shuffler’s menace, or is relegated to the world of kitchen table memes. But, with cards like Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Spellseeker, and Academy Rector, the Battle of Whtz plan could be very, very real.
Of course, there is more to Mystery Booster Commander than everyone’s favorite one-eyed book thief. Let’s explore three new commanders and what they may mean for a kitchen table near you.
Balefang the Unslayable
What an enormous beater.
For five mana, we get a 5/5 dragon that turns off life gain synergies, and our favorite opponent gets a Baneslayer Angel that is guaranteed to spread beats around the table.
And, when the noble work of felling foes is finished, we have a plan.
If we can’t beat them, let’s take them, and have them beat themselves.
With enough threaten effects during the four-player stage of the game, we can grab the Baneslayer and send it into the red zone an extra time during each turn cycle. As a sacrifice outlet, Helm of Possession is our best version of this.
To push the theme further, we will add classic steal-and-sac outlets to make sure our Insurrections are as demoralizing as possible.
We take. We beat. We sacrifice. We take again.
Will we get demolished at a high-power table? Yes, yes we will.
Will we pilot a fun and interactable strategy for the kitchen table? Yes, yes we will.
Sprinkle in some rituals, strong red value cards, and interaction to make Balefang a strong contender for big, fun commander game nights.
Gustha Ebbasdotter
Once upon a time in Alpha, Richard Garfield made Blue Elemental Blast. Two years later, Ice Age released Blue Elemental Blast’s near-identical twin, Hydroblast, heralding the first depiction of Gustha Ebbasdotter.
Happily ever after today, Gustha casts Ice Age’s most popular card, Brainstorm, for us every turn. As Gustha said back then, “suddenly, I knew exactly what to do. Within moments, victory was mine.”
Suddenly, we know to start by adding all of the cards that include Gustha in the flavor text: Binding Grasp, Brainstorm, Counterspell, Enervate, Force Void, Hydroblast, Infuse, and Soul Barrier. Not the worst list for a flavor pile.
And lucky for us, Gustha’s free Brainstorms will help us put Soul Barrier back into the deck so we can admire it without ever actually having to play it.
Then we move on to the victory part. Blue has a host of win conditions that key off of drawing cards. Exactly which flavor of win we are aiming for will depend on our interests and playgroup, but we can start with these eight.
Assuming everything goes well, we are looking at drawing ten cards per turn cycle. (When drawing ten cards per cycle, it is easy to assume things are going well.) This means after one turn cycle, Homunculus Horde will have become eight hordes, Ominous Seas will have made one kraken, Teferi will ultimate and still be on the battlefield, and Psychic corrosion will have milled the table for a clean twenty. Or more if we invite clunky, cranky old Krang to the party.
To keep things going, we will need protection and free spells.
Luckily again, blue has access to the best of the best in this category, and, as long as the budget gloves are off, we can Subtlety, Foil, Daze, and Force our opponents turn after turn. Usually, the card disadvantage would catch up with us, but with a free Brainstorm attached to each pitch spell, we will be smooth sailing as our table considers adding Island to the rule 0 banned list.
As a final element to add before fleshing the deck out with good cards, we will need ways to clear the top of our library to keep our Brainstorms full of action.
Tutoring to the top with Mystical Tutor and Long-Term Plans is the best of the best for us. We cast the tutor. Gustha Brainstorms. We put back two cards we don’t want and shuffle them away. We put a card we do want from our library on (or near the) top.
Even just milling out the cards we aren’t as interested in with Perpetual Timepiece or Thought Scour or shuffling with fetch lands will get the job done for us. When we are seeing so many cards, it’s hard to imagine things could go too poorly.
And while we’re tutoring, let’s just leave Archmage Ascension here as a triple Demonic Tutor on each player’s turn.
Chief Magistrate of Mercadia
We are told, “The throne was his in appearance only,” and are meant to assume that we should dust off our Goblin Trenches and Rise of the Hobgoblins.
But, behind the curtain is a bevy of planeswalkers ready to be defended by the human noble and his goblin gang. Goblins are often sacrificed, and those 2/1s will make for disposable blockers as we defend our planeswalkers and the monarch.
Behind the curtain are token makers…
First things first, we want to make the most of the Magistrate’s ability to double our tokens on upkeep. Worzel and Teyo are the real dream team here for us.
Worzel gives us possibly the best super friends token generator we have ever seen, a 1/1 cat token with “tap: Put a loyalty counter on each planeswalker you control.” A few turns of these cats doubled with Chief Magistrate, and our opponents might just give up attacking our planeswalkers as we begin raining ultimates on the kitchen table.
Teyo is a little more subtly deliberate than Worzel. Starting off with a 0/4 flying wall, Teyo allows us to choose if the player to our right or to our left is allowed to attack us next turn and shuts off attacks from any other player. As a defender of the monarch, Teyo is top notch.
Dragons, cats, squirrels, soldiers. Any and all tokens are welcome to come barreling from behind the Magistrate’s curtain of good beats.
Behind the curtain are team players…
Ajani and Chandra are here to improve the loyalty of (and protect) all of our other planeswalkers. This classic pair is able to put loyalty counters on other planeswalkers on the team and, if Worzel improves morale, Ajani provides an emblem that prevents all but one damage to our team.
On theme, have a Volt Charge for Chandra to pick up to pick off opposing threats while proliferating loyalty.
Behind the curtain are mana makers…
Oh Chandra. She is always making red mana. We are starting with the lowest mana value Chandras here, but as the deck is fleshed out, there will be room for the six- and seven-cost mana makers, and even Ugin, Eye of the Storms if we’re looking to get really big. (Hint, we are.)
Gatewatch Beacon is an excellent mana rock for us as well. We are piloting a beefy deck looking for as much mana and loyalty as possible.
Behind the curtain is a pioneer combo recruiter…
In a deck with lots of tokens, lots of planeswalkers, and a small suite of creatures that we are really, really excited to see hit the table, we would be remiss not to include and talk about how good Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast is for us.
When Lukka comes down, we will use his -2 ability to exile one of our tokens then reveal cards from the top of our library until we find a creature to put directly into play.
We could say “Oh, and there are Eldrazi behind the curtain, too” and lean into mana ramp and abusing Lukka’s ability, but for today, let’s plan on playing fair, clean, kitchen table Magic.
Nothing too, too fancy for us to hit here. But they are all creatures we would love to see hit the table to help defend, find, or improve our Planeswalkers. We will just have to remember that each time we add a creature, we ask, “Is this something we want Lukka to find for us?”
Behind the curtain are loyalty activation doublers…
Slow for sure, but when the time is right, we will be looking for ten-minute turns of loyalty activations to either bore or bury the table into submission. (Ok, and then I’ll activate Chandra’s 0, adding one loyalty to all my red Planeswalkers, then other Chandra’s +1 to add five mana, activate The Chain Veil, 0 Chandra, +1 Chandra, and let’s see here, wait I need to attack with Jaya’s Pheonix first. Can I take that back?)
Behind the curtain are gamblers…
Time to get a little spicy with this build. Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded is famously the game’s worst planeswalker ever printed. When he was first released, players asked each other why they had drink coasters in their trade binders. The drink coasters were copies of Tibalt.
Let’s try to make amends here. Ascend from Avernus and Triumphant Reckoning can both return all of our planeswalkers from our graveyard to the battlefield, which sounds amazing.
It’s a gamble, but Tibalt could discard planeswalkers for us to set up a huge mass reanimation. Alongside the worst-of-all-time, we will add Gamble, Faithless Looting, and Neheb as ways to get more cards into our graveyard. Neheb also beautifully smooths our hand and generates a lot of mana to enact or mass reanimation plan or just cast our Chandras to keep pace with the table.
To add to our graveyard shenanigans, Light Up the Night is a lovely way to burn out an opponent after Worzel and Chief Magistrate have done their work.
Behind the curtain is a little extra oomph…
Every deck needs a little extra oomph sometimes, and for our planeswalkers, we add three more proliferators to keep our team healthy and our ultimates online. Patrolling Peacemaker seems particularly egregious. Every crime committed by an opponent puts a loyalty counter on every planeswalker we control? Yes, please.
Or when all else fails, behind the curtain is a villain…
“Champion of Justice” or not, this Gideon looks like a villain, and after proliferating, Worzeling, and doubling activations, Gideon plans on standing alone at the table and slowly, slowly attacking everyone down.
Cleanup Step
(And as long as we don’t have to cut cards anymore, how about an Anointed Procession, Starfield Vocalist, a Roaming Throne, an extra few lands…)
No, no. We’re done considering Whtz, there are other cool and exciting commanders in Mystery Booster Commander Edition, too.
Balefang, Gustha, and Chief Magistrate open up doors to pretty ridiculous and fun play patterns for the kitchen table. While Mystery Booster Commander Edition has a while yet before it is released broadly to the public, there’s no harm in building a few decks to try out before a full, official public release.
Back to brewing.
(Right, and we could just move Elspeth, Storm Slayer from Magistrate to Whtz…)
