Angus Mackenzie **** This guy is as good as his hat is fancy. He is very cheap to play, got fine creature types and a very nice ability. The color combination is powerful too and should allow enough weays to protect him from removal. Great guy.
arcades sabboth *** Costs a ton of mana and even some more each upkeep. At least he got a big butt and is also helping your other creatures survive. I give him three * instead of two, because he is really big, got evasion and a nice color combination.
axelrod gunnarson *** He's big, tramples, got sweet art, an ok creature type and gains you life and deals some damage. With 8 mana though he is a tad very expensive.
barktooth warbeard * He would probably deserve a second star just for the funky name, but meh...
bartel runeaxe **** 6/5 vigilance for 6 mana ain't that bad actually, nor is beeing protected from auras (like confiscate or whatnot). Giant warrior are fun creature types too, and so is the color combination. Not allpowerful, but a solid choice.
boris devilboon ** I want to like this guy, but 2/2 for 5 mana is bad. And 4 mana and tap for a 1/1 token is bad too. In general, commanders generating tokens are fine, especially in black and red where you can sac them for all kinds of stuff, and his creature type zombie is fine too. But still, far too overcosted. Maybe deserves a third star if the token art is great.
chromium ** He is large, got evasion and a good color combination, but that's it. Rampage is a rather useless ability, and the upkeep cost blows too. The only good thing about the upkeep cost is that people can't steal him who don't play those colors.
gabriel angelfire ** It's seven mana for a 4/4. That's bad. Sometimes he got trample or flying, the rest is mostly irrelevant.
gwendlyn di corci **** Now this one is playble. Four manaf or a 3/5 is fine, and discarding random cards is great too. Also she is a rogue, which allows some other shennanigans as well.
halfdane **** Great commander too. Always got the p/t of the strongest guy in play, got a reasonable manacost and great color combination.
hunding gjornersen ** He is a 5/4 for 5 which is alright but not great. His ability is mostly useless though. At least according to the flavortext he is a charming guy, and there ain't that many commanders either.
Kei Takashi *** It's a cleric with a reasonable ability, average casting cost and fine color combination. Nothing great but playable.
lady caleria ** Powerful ability but she is just far too costy.
lady evangela *** Now she is better. Allows you to play all cleric cards you want, and got a strong ability, nice color combination and reasonable manacost.
nebuchadnezzar **** Fun guy. Great art, let's you reveal peoples hands. Wizard is a fine type too, and with enough bounce you can get rid of any permanent you dislike.
palladia-mors *** Is fat, got trample and evasion, can't be stolen: nice. Costs too much and has an annoying upkeep cost: bad.
pavel maliki ** If he would have trample or something...
rasputin dreamweaver **** Should probably just have three stars, but if you play him and have 7 mana, and keep him in play, then you have up to 15 mana next turn (if you play another land), which is quite impressive. Creature type and color combination are fine too. Just dies easily to -x/-x effects.
vaevictis asmadi *** Same as the other eldar dragons: costs a ton of mana, but is hard to steal. This one can kill a player in two hits, which is nice, but he still is so incredbily costy.
xira arien *** Card draw is fun, but it really costs a lot her and is on a fragile creature.
xiahou dun, the one-eyed *** It's a 3/2 unblockable with a built-in raise dead. Fun, especially with enough equipment.
reveka, wizard savant ** It's a 0/1 for 4 mana, which is bad. It can shock stuff, that is good, but only once every two turns.
sun ce, young conqueror *** A built-in bounce is great, and beeing unblockable is great as well.
sun quan, lord of wu **** Basically makes all your guys unblockable. Only 4 stars though since it costs a whopping six mana and ain't hard to kill.
hua tuo, honored physician *** Solid ability, but nothing spectatuclar or game breaking as far as I can tell. Fun with cards though that puts creatures from top of your library into play, like lurking predators .
land tax ***** This will probably make it into about every commander deck that can play it.
capture of jingzhou **** How many additional-turn cards we got already? This is the fourth or fifth?
recall **** It's not yawgmoths will, but returning a large amount of stuff from your gy to your hand sure is powerful. Especially since blue doesn't have too many such options. (well, except for instants and artifacts)
mana drain **** Probably not as good in commander as in other formats, still a very solid card that allows you to replay your commander if it already died a dozen times.
reset *** Great for commanders with activated abilities requiring mana.
dance of many *** It kills non-commander legends for 2 mana
grim tutor *** Another tutor for combo decks, though it's one of the more crappier ones.
the abyss *** Well if you can give your commander shroud...
nether void *** Powerful card, not sure what to combo it with though.
zodiac dragon **** I'm not up to date on the combos for him, which probably can't be played in commander anyway. Still, such a large creature that keeps returning should find a home.
knowledge vault *** Solid card draw for decks that don't have enough of it (aka all red, white or red-white decks)
nova pentacle *** Fun for decks with few creatures, or a commander that has shroud.
sword of the ages ** Can definately end the game quickly, but only good for finishing off the last player.
Summary: Tons of legends of varying quality, which is just awesome. A few other very powerful cards, and, as always, a good amount of crap. Will bring a lot new stuff to commander all in all.
You need more lands! You need more card draw! You need more removal!
I think you overestimate Loyal Retainers . It is a 1/1 so will properly first be played after you got the target for it. In that case you might as well play a "real" reanimation spell (for 1 more) since that can hit way more targets. I suppose it is quite decent in Sisay though.
Mana Vortex is going to make Zur alot more annoying which is quite well done for a already annoying commander.
Spiny Starfish seems like a good defender (1 mana a turn to stop 2 attackers)
arboria is properly overrated since green is quite bad at using it (no strong instants and usually wins by attacking). I suppose 5c might like it though.
City of Shadows is a interresting sac outlet (except that it doesn't sac anymore - ok the original wording is funny) and mana accel (well later on).
I really like stealing things temporally for cheap so I like Old Man of the Sea .
The duals are naturally nice.
Just because I got bored. A list of cards which will be nasty in Zur:
nether void - Zur is often heavy ld... This is quite nasty with heavy ld. dance of many - might not be good enough but seemed interesting. Mana Vortex - you won't even have to sac the first time since you do not play it. Mana Drain - mana accel for zur Land Equilibrium - this + armageddon + you not playing lands= none can play lands since they will blow up... Land Tax - lots of land + ld... That is not even going to be funny. The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale - play it after Armageddon with zur and a artifact mana thing in play... Play it before and ppl won't have much mana if they are trying to kill you (aka. got creatures). Lu Xun, Scholar General - not really nasty, just very good CA.
I would just like to note that 1)Meng Huo, Barbarian King is a better Kaysa , and as an anthem that only hits your green creatures, not a problem when it's a 4/4 for 5 on top of that, and has a relevant creature type in tribal-based decks (can wear a Obsidian Battle-Axe out of the gate, gets a counter and trample from Bramblewood Paragon , and likely useful as a subsidiary card with Stonebrow, Krosan Hero ).
That said, 2) I think you've underestimated Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed -- it's not just that he's a 3/2 unblockable for 4, but that he pops for ANY Black card, not just a creature, and this means he works with your Tutors and draw and win cons. He gets me my Black enchantments back, so I will use him with Seiza. What keeps him from being on the shorter list of MB Commanders is that his ability can only be used before combat (since Portal had no second main phase) so that he can't attack, then pop, and as such he's got a built-in choice.
3)Dance of Many is a 2-mana Clone . It is enough that when used with the ability to bounce it, you can recur Solemn Simulacrum , such that I think non-commander legend killing will be the least of its applications. With cards like Woodfall Primus , Sim, and DSC, it will also produce advantage where your opponent (or you) drops such an enticing piece of gear).
4)Old Man of the Sea and Karakas were on my wishlist for MED3, and I am glad they saw it in. I would wonder if Karakas will not be banned for Commander, but it likely will. Old Man, however, is a great steal effect, although many people will worry about pumping something that can never attack, but that it can block or just take someone's potentially blocking Solemn Simulacrum to deny them the card is useful, and some commanders are cheap and small (it can grab Zur and Merieke before the opponent can do much, or in response to effects that allow them to protect the commander, and as such it's on what I would think a short list of effective cards competitively, especially since it's a stealer for 2/3 for 3, and without the type-limitation of Callous Oppressor .
5) Almost anything with horsemanship at this point will be interesting to try out. But perhaps one of the best is Wei Night Raiders for pressure decks and Nath. It's a Specter they can't chump, even iof it's smaller than Abyssal.
6)Chain Lightning is a Sorcery speed Bolt, but in cases where the opponent is not playing Red, this still makes it a pressure card and it can be redirected to PWs, so that it's role is probably more defined than Bolt's "anywhere" bit. That it can be forked if you start shooting your own creatures, and are running a pre-combat Vigor , then you might as well be play Mana Geyser to ramp into a massively pumped army.
7)Tracker plus any form of pump or equipment can turn it into a killing machine. If you have means of untapping him, he becomes a one-sided sweeper. The damage stacks, so finding ways to prevent damage to him (like Magebane Armor ) is an important key, but otherwise he kills off tokens, and can kill Kiki in response to a Pestermite combo offset.
8) Of the many lands we get, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale most has an impact on the board state, and can keep token decks like Rhys down, while favoring creature-light decks, and punishing aggro pretty well. I recall using the Magus in a similar lock down deck, and playing a card that is fairly hard to get rid up (especially casually) means this land could be very useful punishing players NOT running Wasteland /Strip Mine . I shouldn't need to talk about the sheer awesomeness that is Sorrow's Path , as it speaks for itself and the comboes are often quite clear! (For the record, a combo includes attacking tokens and Bitter Ordeal .)
"Possibilities abound, too numerous to count."
"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)
"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion Backs)
I would just like to note that 1)Meng Huo, Barbarian King is a better Kaysa , and as an anthem that only hits your green creatures, not a problem when it's a 4/4 for 5 on top of that, and has a relevant creature type in tribal-based decks (can wear a Obsidian Battle-Axe out of the gate, gets a counter and trample from Bramblewood Paragon , and likely useful as a subsidiary card with Stonebrow, Krosan Hero ).
It is actually a soldier and not a warrior afaik...
Qilong wrote:
8) Of the many lands we get, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale most has an impact on the board state, and can keep token decks like Rhys down, while favoring creature-light decks, and punishing aggro pretty well. I recall using the Magus in a similar lock down deck, and playing a card that is fairly hard to get rid up (especially casually) means this land could be very useful punishing players NOT running Wasteland /Strip Mine .
I suppose I will have to play have to play some quite evil ld things :/ - which I hate.
It is actually a soldier and not a warrior afaik...
You are correct! My bad.
"Possibilities abound, too numerous to count."
"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)
"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion Backs)
You missed Karakas . 5 Stars, should go in nearly every commander deck. The ability to bounce any commander is awesome.
Banned in paper, so likely online.
"Possibilities abound, too numerous to count."
"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)
"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion Backs)
commanders either.
