It’s time again to look at the new cards and decks from the latest Magic expansion. This time it’s Wilds of Eldraine with two precon decks, the UB Fae Dominion and the GW Virtue and Valor. One focuses on Faeries and control, the other on pumping up creatures and stomping with them. I’ll be going over all deck specific new cards in this article with a general summary at the end.

Fae Dominion

Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor

This legend is well costed for its size and abilities. On its own it provides an incidental advantage when other faeries you control die and buffs your own faeries. Of course I don’t think anyone is going to stop at incidental card advantage. With access to Black mana, recurring and sacrificing our faeries shouldn’t be a problem.

Tegwyll here will be a good commander for the deck out of the box with a bunch of good abilities and isn’t outrageous to play against as such. However the deck might also lend itself to its secondary commander, if only not quite as much.

Alela, Cunning Conqueror

This is a returning legendary character, and frankly one I find a lot more fitting to its epithet. Another good body for the cost, this legend wants you to cast spells during your opponents’ turns at least once each time to maximize the faeries you get from her triggered ability. It’s not necessary to make the deck function, but it helps and the cards are certainly there, even in the precon.

The third ability is probably going to do more in the long term. Being able to Goad a creature can be a very good ability to have on repeat even if you have to hit a player with a faerie to do so. Since Alela can provide those faeries, this should get some decent mileage in any game.

Archmage of Echoes

This is a kind of card we see every so often in a commander precon. What I’m talking about is some extra support for another creature type tacked onto the main creature type for the deck, here being Wizard tacked onto Faerie. Support for everyone (who’s a faerie or wizard)!

Getting double of something is always better than one of something if you’re the one actively doing it. This helps both exclusive legends the deck comes with by making more faeries and it protects itself with ward 2.

As a side note, ward works like counter magic, so if something is uncounterable it gets past the ward protection!

Blightwing Bandit

This card is an interesting one as it rewards you with stolen trinkets from the top of your opponents’ decks if you cast a card during that player’s turn. It comes with the clause that any mana can be used to cast it as well, making this card a bit better than some others with a similar ability. The Bandit is more in line with Alela’s game plan than Tegwyll’s, but good with either all the same. Deathtouch also makes it trade up and as a flyer that can count for a lot on its own.

Faerie Bladecrafter

A decent card, but unfortunately has the drawback of the words “one or more” in its text box. The third ability only references its power, which can be easily increased via the “lord” or “anthem” effect from Tegwyll or a number of other sources. Even with the “one or more” clause, being able to increase its own power on its own is always a plus.

Malleable Impostor

Alright, now here is a card I rather like a lot for a number of reasons, including that it teaches the word “malleable” to a bunch of people. It’s a clone, which I always like to play, has flash, and flies. While it can only come into play as a copy of an opponent’s creature, there are plenty of times where that will be valuable.

The ability Flash is specifically interesting here, allowing the player to bypass “summoning sickness” and get straight to swinging with a creature that an opponent hasn’t been able to yet, except ours will fly! I especially like this since I love throwing other players’ overpowered stuff right back at them!

Misleading Signpost

A mana rock version of Portal Mage, this card can easily slot into any deck that plays Blue and be excellent against anything other than a token swarm (and even then it might make all the difference). Flash makes this excellent to fake some removal or countermagic too, only to drop a mana rock at the end of the turn before you and get a little extra mana for your next turn.

Important to note here is that the benefit only works if you cast this and have it resolved during the declare attackers step in the combat phase. However you don’t have to wait to do that as the rest of the card works fine without doing so. It isn’t a time restriction for the card itself, just the triggered ability.

Nettling Nuisance

Another faerie that likes someone getting smacked in the face, this one gives those poor opponents a 4/2 red pirate token that is goaded for the rest of the game. It’s a cool mechanic here, but beware if you leave an army for your last adversary.

There are a few ways to take advantage or deal with this though. Massacre Wurm, Netherborn Phalanx and similar effects are good against numerous creatures if things go awry, or something like Perplexing Test takes care of tokens and comes in the deck.

Shadow Puppeteers

I rather enjoy this card as well. It’s quite expensive but protects itself, produces 3 bodies, and has the potential to win the game for you during your next attack. The ability to turn your flying attackers into dragons and likely increase their size and therefore damage and survivability is great. What’s better is the fact that the ability is a “may” ability, so if things aren’t going to go your way you don’t have to commit.

Tegwyll’s Scouring

The last new card gracing us from the Fae deck is a mass removal spell, which can be played at instant speed by simply tapping 3 creatures with flying. Once the board is cleared, you get three creatures back in the form of flying tokens. Not bad, and with Tegwyll on the field at the time you get all that card draw, but also all that life loss. Be careful.

Virtue and Valor

Ellivere of the Wild Court

Good cost, good stats, creates its own enchantments and draws you a card if you hit with an enchanted creature. It doesn’t do much without other cards, but we’re talking a GW deck here. There will always be other cards.

Besides that, the role enchantments are token enchantments. This is where the real strength of the deck and this commander come in is the absolute deluge of support for these archetypes. Constellation fans are going to love this card and things that trigger off tokens being made or duplicated will love it. The manipulation of the token enchantments are what will make this commander stand out.

Gylwain, Casting Director

The secondary legend of the deck is living up to his name. Have a creature come into play and receive a role to play a part, which will let it gain ward 1, scry when it attacks, or gain trample respectively in addition to the +1/+1 bonus. These effects seem small, but when you get them every time you have a nontoken creature enter the field, they add up quickly in typical GW style.

An important note here is a creature can only be enchanted with one role at a time, but a new role can replace the old one (see the reminder text on Ellivere). Each creature you control can have a role you created enchanting it. The only way to get more than one role on a creature you control is if another player gives it one they create.

Giant Inheritance

A new aura hits the blo…. Roof with this enchantment. For the mana, it isn’t too bad but works better if you enchant something able to attack the turn you cast it because then you can give your creature the Monster role, which then provides an additional +1/+1 boost and trample.

Better yet this enchantment returns to your hand if it goes to the graveyard, ala Rancor. This by itself is good since you can keep creating monster role tokens and pressuring your opponents over the game.

Knickknack Ouphe

Let me just say I’m glad this doesn’t also get creatures. When you cast this for a good amount into X, let’s say 4-6 mana, you are probably bound to get a beast of a creature if just using this alone. Being able to spread those auras around makes it potentially more dangerous. Or hilarious, depending on the build. A number of Lignify or Impetus effects might also scratch some deck brewers the right way.

Liberated Livestock

I’m not sure I’d include a cat in with livestock, but eh? 6 mana for a 4/6 that doesn’t do anything right away is a bit of a waste. When it dies though it acts as a kind of recursion and gives you 3 bodies to enchant with what it can get from your graveyard or your hand. It does create an interesting tension between needing the card to be binned when needed and just using it to attack or block until it dies.

Likely the right way to use it is to enchant the card itself with something you can get back when it dies and enchant a tokens it creates. The six mana investment is a bit steep, but you can always put a role on it to make it more useful. There is also bound to be some auras you can get back by the time this hits the pasture anyway.

Loamcrafter Faun

This is an interesting card that I think might be better off in a lands deck in general use. Still, with the enchantment support in the deck, namely the drawing of cards, you are probably going to end up with a bunch of lands in hand at some point that you don’t need. This simply trades the extras away for more gas, and let me say I’m getting this for my own Narci deck because of that alone if I can find the room to add it.

Ox Drover

Another take on the “give an opponent a creature and you get a thing for it”. Largely, White is more about these effects than most other colors and the politics to be had with such things is often at least a little entertaining. As for the card overall, good cost with a good body that has evasion from the creature it donates and draws you cards. It won’t go in every deck, but it’s a fun one. Like the Nettling Nuisance from before, there are ways to take advantage of this. In GW we have Soul and Essence Warden, Riot Control, and Ezuri’s Predation.

Songbird’s Blessing

Another new aura with another great ability. This one lets you dig for another aura and put onto the battlefield. This could be a buff, removal like Darksteel Mutation, or a curse. Remember to put the aura on the battlefield you have to have a legal target. Luckily with this card if you don’t you just put the found aura into your hand. This will be a good card for aura based decks.

Timber Paladin

A Figure of Destiny style card, but this time with auras! Okay seriously though this gets obscene since you can probably just get a free one from a card that gives it a role enchantment token. This will be a threat on board most of the time, and woe (pun) to anyone in its path. It being 2 mana value, an artifact and a knight isn’t something to forget either, as each of those are relevant in some form in the GW slice of the color pie.

Unfinished Business

This card is nuts. Flat out insane. It won’t go in every deck, but it’s unconditional recursion in White with even more recursion tacked on. It’s like Wizards of the Coast is almost going overboard on apologizing for White’s lack of recursion above Mana Value 3. The value you get here for 5 mana is crazy, especially if you can get something like Eldrazi Conscription into your graveyard. Even then it could be Shadowspear and Rancor and you are way ahead on cost.

I don’t look forward to seeing this resolve against me, I’m not gonna lie.

Wild Ingredients for the Brewin'

These decks seem good out of the box, excluding the ever-present and not quite adequate mana bases. They each give you a different flavor of playstyle, being more control and evasion on one end and more big stompy value on the other.

Likewise I think the secondary Commanders also work well with the decks as they come, which was surprising. They won’t work as well as the face Commanders, but it has been a while since the secondary commander can be slapped in front and the deck doesn’t lose a bunch of potency outright (both face commanders draw cards, so there is that to consider).

The main set itself also looks amazing so far at the time of writing, with includes for these decks and just general good stuff at all levels of rarity. I’m personally going to be building an Alela deck. I’ve wanted to try a Flash and instant speed matters archetype for a while now and the color identity of Alela fits right into my roster of decks. I’m quite excited to build it and begin testing the design!

Hopefully the Wilds of Eldraine bring you something to inspire a build, or perhaps that’s on a world yet explored. Until next time, be careful not to get baked into a pie.