Wallet Warriors: Dominaria Legends Review Part 2
Welcome back Wallet Warriors! This is the second part of my two-part Dominaria Legend review so if you haven’t checked it out yet go read the first part here.
In part one I went over all the mono-color legends that have been spoiled so this time around I get to dive into the multi-coloreds.
Just as a reminder because there are so many cards to cover I will just be giving my thoughts and then an overall score out of ten for each legend. I will be coming at the set from a casual perspective to follow the theme of my budget article series so scores will be based on how fun and interesting I think each creature will be.
We’ve got a lot of material to cover so let’s get started!
Adeliz, the Cinder Wind
Adeliz sits in a weird spot since this ability would be great if you were able to generate a lot of wizard bodies. For example if there was a card like Hordeling Outburst or Call to the Feast that made wizards it would work perfectly with Adeliz.
There are unfortunately very few cards that make wizard tokens currently so to fill the board you’ll be relying on casting as many cheap wizards as possible. Adeliz takes the wizard tribe in a unique direction that doesn’t have a lot of support at the moment but I’m interested to see what kinds of decks come about with her in charge.
Overall Score: 5/10
Arvad the Cursed
Legendary tribal is an archetype that got some support way back in Kamigawa block but not a lot since then. Now as we return to Dominaria we’re seeing this neat area of design space being revisited. A legendary focused deck is one that oozes Elder Dragon Highlander. One of the pillars of the format is the variety you get from game to game and having a bunch of unique legends in your deck increases that variety in a great way.
Arvad should be able to lead a decent army on their own but only having access to two colors is rough. Where I expect to see the Cursed is in a three to five color deck trying to jam in the coolest and most powerful legends available.
Overall Score: 6.5/10
Aryel, Knight of Windgrace
Aryel is the first focused Knight commander which is super exciting. Knights have been a popular fringe tribe in the format for a while and Aryel fits perfectly as their general. She accomplishes multiple goals while being relatively cheap on mana. Knight players will rejoice once they have access to a token generator and reusable removal out of the command zone.
The only small drawback is that Aryel needs haste to be used the turn they are cast but only costing four mana means we can easily get over it.
Overall Score: 8.5/10
Darigaaz Reincarnated
Darigaaz was one of the five Primeval Dragons that ruled Dominaria way before the Phyrexian Invasion and everything went to poop. His original card: Darigaaz, the Igniter does not see much play in our format and unfortunately I don’t think this new version will either.
New Darigaaz has a sweet effect from a flavor standpoint but waiting three turns in commander is much longer than in a 1v1 environment since there are so many more people to wait for. It is nice that he has haste so when he comes back from death he gets to attack immediately.
Overall Score: 4/10
Firesong and Sunspeaker
This minotaur duo definitely ticks the box on ‘Build around me please’. Giving instants and sorceries lifelink is something we have seen in the past but never on a legendary creature. The ability is fun enough to incite people to use unofficial commanders such as Tamanoa and Soulfire Grand Master.
The EDH community has been clamoring for a new Boros commander that isn’t just about attacking and we’ve finally got one. That being said, six mana is a lot when you don’t have access to green mana. Ideally you want the pair of clerics to sit around for a long time while you accrue value off your burn spells but that can be difficult to accomplish since they’re so expensive.
Overall Score: 7.5/10
Garna, the Bloodflame
Flash is a keyword we rarely see on cards in these colors so everytime it comes up I tend to take an extra hard look at what the card is doing. Garna is doing a lot of awesome things. Garna can fill different roles when used as a commander versus part of the 99.
In the command zone Garna acts as a board wipe deterrent if you have the mana open to cast them since your board would essentially be unaffected unless it was primarily made of token creatures.
In the 99 Garna could be used as board wipe prevention or as a way to reuse sacrifice outlets such as Ashnod’s Altar or Phyrexian Ghoul when you have a payoff like Sek’Kuar Deathkeeper.
Overall Score: 6.5/10
Grand Warlord Radha
The new Radha is twice as expensive as the old one but much more than twice as powerful.
The Grand Warlord has a much higher ceiling on the amount of mana she can generate but the most important feature of that mana is that you are able to use it in your second main phase. You don’t have to work too hard to get a lot of value out of Radha. Mana sinks that generate tokens like Insect Queen or Centaur Glade let you multiply your forces. If you wanted to do something a bit more powerful than that you only need five creatures to get as many combats as you like with Aggravated Assault.
Overall Score: 7/10
Hallar, the Firefletcher
Hallar is definitely a card meant to be built around but unfortunately cards with Kicker have traditionally been designed for limited gameplay. There are only a few that see play in our format so to build a Hallar deck you would need to be willing to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
Since Hallar doesn’t specifically need Kicker spells to get +1/+1 counters you could use other cards to build them up then burst the table down with a couple cheap spells with kicker like Comet Storm and Everflowing Chalice.
Overall Score: 3.5/10
Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain
As soon as this card was revealed I could hear the brewers and tinkerers typing away trying to figure out the best way to use Jhoira.
What’s great about her is she will please both the casual and competitive player. The EDH community has been looking for an Izzet artifact commander for a long time and Jhoira fills that role (while also providing incidental synergy with other legendary spells).
She is very versatile because she does not ask a lot of the deck builder. Essentially all she wants is to be played alongside artifacts and to a lesser extent, legendary spells (sagas are much less relevant in our format.)
Casual players can use her to pilot their fun value artifact decks while the competitive player can build a powerful artifact combo deck.
Overall Score: 8/10
Jodah, Archmage Eternal
Jodah is a new five color commander! These don’t come around every day and the Archmage did not disappoint. He is perfect for all the Timmy’s out there who want to stuff their deck with all the hugest cards they own since he has his own Fist of Suns!
The only limiting factor with Jodah is being able to hit jeskai colors on turn four to cast him, then all five for the next turn. This shouldn’t be too difficult for an expensive mana base filled with fetchlands and shocklands but if you’re building on a budget check out my budget 5 color mana base article for some help.
Overall Score: 8/10
Muldrotha, the Gravetide
Muldrotha is the most exciting legendary creature I have seen in a long time. They tick every box I have for being a great commander.
The Gravetide offers tons of build around potential by benefiting you for including a variety of card types in your deck. Graveyard themes always excite me since it almost feels like cheating when you are allowed to play with the cards that have already been destroyed.
The coolest feature of Muldrotha is the versatility in their ability. At an almost worst-case Muldrotha acts as a pseudo Crucible of Worlds which is an incredibly powerful card.
Muldrotha is definitely powerful in a vacuum but they are also in the three sultai colors which are almost unanimously deemed the best in the format.
Overall Score: 9.5/10
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Rona is a very interesting commander that will need some dissecting to figure out. The clearest synergy with Rona is cheap artifacts that can send themselves to the grave such as Mishra’s Bauble or Nihil Spellbomb.
The limiting factor is that Rona exiles cards at a snail's pace without any help. Getting one chosen exile on entering the battlefield then paying four mana once a turn to exile the top card of your library which you will likely be doing blindly most of the time does not scream well-oiled machine.
Overall Score: 5.5/10
Shanna, Sisay’s Legacy
Shanna is a very straight forward card but has interesting applications for budget players. The first place people usually look when building green/white tokens is Rhys the Redeemed however the Elf’s price tag can be a strong barrier for new or budget players.
Shanna can be a great alternative commander for a tokens strategy that also offers an additional angle of attack in that she can threaten to kill with commander damage when left unchecked.
Overall Score: 6/10
Slimefoot, the Stowaway
Yes! Saprolings have quickly become one of my favorite tribes (I wrote an article not too long ago on a saproling tribal deck over here.
Slimefoot is great since a good portion of the creatures that generate saprolings also come with abilities that involve sacrificing them. Utopia Mycon and Psychotrope Thallid are good examples.
Slimefoot even makes his own saprolings (albeit at a pretty steep cost). The Stowaway may not be the most powerful general out there but when you’re playing with saprolings, you’re usually not trying to out-muscle the table.
Overall Score: 7/10
Tiana, Ship’s Caretaker
They wowed me with Firesong and Sunspeaker, an interesting Boros commander that was not based on combat. Tiana is a return to what the color pair does best (or tries to do it’s best).
However she has an important difference to the typical commander just trying to murder people as fast as possible. She offers a form of card advantage and protection. If another creature is suited up and gets killed, Tiana mitigates the damage by letting you reuse the attachments that were on the creature. Also if Tiana is shot out of the sky she will see any aura or equipment that came with her to the grave so you won’t lose all your value.
Overall Score: 5/10
Wrap Up
Whoo! That was a doozy. We’ve gone through all the legendary creatures that have been spoiled so far but there are still some trickling through. I’ll be writing an article wrangling up the stragglers so keep an eye out for that.
In the meantime, tell me which legends your going to start building and if you agreed with my assessments.
Cheers!
