The contents of the Commander 2014 decklists have been revealed, along with the final two planeswalkers. There are many great reprints, along with several amazing new cards, including one which could have serious Legacy impact.
Nahiri and Daretti
The white planeswalker is revealed to be Nahiri, the Lithomancer. In the lore, she was the third planeswalker who helped Sorin and Ugin seal the Eldrazi on Zendikar. She comes from a line of Stoneforge Mystics, and her appearance and ability set definitely reflect it. Her +2 ability puts bodies onto the board to wield equipment, and also lets you cheat on equip costs. Her -2 ability cheats equipment directly into play and can also reanimate them. Her -10 ability can provide a huge swing of damage by adding +5 power and double strike, and can be difficult to deal with without bounce effects. Overall, she makes a capable equipment-centric general, and can play a devastating gameplan backed up by Humility, Torpor Orb, and other effects that can keep actual creatures down.
The red planeswalker is even more exciting. Daretti, Scrap Savant hails from Fiora, the home plane of Conspiracy. He's a goblin with an affinity for artifacts (and unlike Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer, he actually has a spark that lasted more than 5 minutes.) His +2 ability gives Red some much needed card filtering by allowing you to reverse-loot up to two cards. His -2 ability takes advantage of his binning of artifacts by giving you a Trash for Treasure. And his -10 ability gives you an emblem that recurs all of your artifacts every turn, which can be used to repeatedly generate value from effects like Trading Post, Bosh, Iron Golem, Wayfarer's Bauble, Conjuror's Bauble, Burnished Hart, and anything else that can sacrifice itself or other artifacts.
Decklists
We also got all four of the decklists that had not yet been spoiled. I'm going to take a look at each one and call out some of the exciting new cards as well as notable reprints.
Detainment Priest is, without a doubt, the most interesting card in the set for Legacy. The priest boasts a 2/2 flash body for two mana. This is an average statline, but the extra ability is definitely the appeal of the card. It effectively prevents nontoken creatures from entering the battlefield through any method other than casting them. Æther Vial? Hosed. Natural Order and Green Sun's Zenith? Hosed. Show and Tell and Sneak Attack? Hosed. Reanimate, Exhume, Animate Dead? All hosed. Narcomoeba, Ichorid, Dread Return? You'd better believe they're hosed. It's like Grafdigger's Cage, but it fights Sneak Show in addition to Elves and Graveyard decks. And it beats down. And it turns Flickerwisp into permanent removal. It even juliennes fries! Expect to see Death & Taxes lists packing this soon, especially as Elves can be one of their harder matchups.
Hallowed Spiritkeeper is another one that has garnered a little Legacy attention. Three power and vigilance for 1WW with a token-generating ability definitely mirrors Brimaz, King of Oreskos, which sees occasional play. Ultimately, it probably doesn't make the cut for most decks. It is nonetheless interesting to consider as an option if the meta shifts towards more mass removal options, as it can keep up pressure in the face of a Toxic Deluge, especially when Æther Vialed in in responsed.
Yet another card that has garnered a little Legacy attention. At a single mana, the ability to copy any equipment can certainly be enticing. This is especially true when facing down Stoneforge Mystic decks, where you can get your own Batterskull or Umezawa's Jitte to combat theirs. Also notable is the fact that it can be found with Trinket Mage.
Here's one that won't be showing up in a Legacy list any time soon, but is certainly a high-impact card in Commander. Assault Suit does several unique things. First, it allows you to loan out your general or other hefty beater to other players, which can encourage them to kill each other off with it. It is particularly effective if the equipped creature has to attack, like Zurgo Helmsmasher or Ruhan of the Fomori. It comes with several good impediments to your opponents abusing this advantage, however. Opponents can't attack you or your planeswalkers with the loaned creature, and they also can't just sacrifice it to Goblin Bombardment or similar abilities. If you wanted to be particularly evil, you could donate each player a detrimental creature, like Steel Golem, Grid Monitor, Akron Legionnaire, or Damia, Sage of Stone (who will cause a missed draw step, but not a "draw up to seven" trigger.)
The "can't be sacrificed" clause works in more ways than one, though. It also means that the creature is immune to effects like Diabolic Edict, Innocent Blood, and Killing Wave, much like Sigarda, Host of Herons or Tajuru Preserver are. Perhaps more importantly however, is that the ability makes the creature unable to be sacrificed to its own abilities. This means you could keep a card with Cumulative Upkeep around forever, even when you can't pay the upkeep. You could also keep a token from Kiki-jiki, Mirror Breaker or Feldon of the Third Path around permanently. Just make sure not to slap it on a creature with a state trigger that would cause it to be sacrificed, like Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder, Bronze Bombshell, or Emperor Crocodile. The game will enter an infinite loop if no player can stop the state from being fulfilled on these cards, causing the game to draw. Unless that's your intention, of course.
These two cards give White several additional powerful options for Wrath effects. White has no shortage of Wraths, but these can be used as particularly effective one-sided Wraths. Comeuppance functions as a Safe Passage effect, and for just one additional mana, also turns all the damage that would have been dealt back on its source. If your opponent tries to alpha-strike you, they may just find their entire army dead. It also affects non-combat damage, so Comet Storm can be turned against its caster in the same fashion. Fell the Mighty is a Wrath that lets you tune it to only destroy creatures above a certain power. This can be great for Token decks, because it can clear out anything that could block your tokens and survive. It's also particularly great with Doran, the Siege Tower, as you can eliminate basically every other creature while leaving Doran himself untouched for a mere five mana.
The blue deck may lack any Legacy plants, but it does have some whopper Commander bombs. Domineering Will is prime among these, being a triple-Ray of Command effect for a mere four mana. It requires a haste enabler to attack with the stolen creatures, and it can't pry creatures out of combat, but it can easily cause combat blowouts by putting three blockers where they otherwise wouldn't be. It even allows you to shift combat in which you aren't even participating, since you can give the creatures to an opponent. Your target is forced to block with their gift(s), so if you're feeling nefarious, you can throw cards like Phyrexian Negator or Dralnu, Lich Lord into combat between two opponents.
Howling Mine effects can be popular in Commander. They are a good way to curry political favor, draw cards repeatedly, and turn on your opponents once you drop Nekusar, the Mindrazer or Underworld Dreams. The big problem with them is that you are the last to gain any card advantage from them, meaning you often won't get anything out of them if the board gets cleared before the turn gets back around to you. Additionally, giving everybody the same number of extra cards works out poorly for you since you invested a card in the Mine itself. Well of Ideas fixes both of these problems by giving you double the extra cards it gives others, and also giving you two cards immediately when cast.
Red has always had a bit of a problem dealing with creatures in Commander, due to the fact that its primary method of dealing with creatures - burn - is ineffective against creatures with large toughness. These three cards help to bridge that gap.
Volcanic Offering is far and away the most powerful of the Offering cards. Even when the choice is in the hands of your opponents, the decisions can only ever benefit you. The other offerings all give an opponent a tangible resource, or at best, nothing. Volcanic Offering gives your opponent a hammer and forces them to swing it at stuff that does not belong to you. With the tiniest plying of diplomacy, Volcanic Offering will destroy the two biggest creature threats and the two biggest land threats at the table. Sure, a few of the largest creatures will still escape its grasp, but seven damage has significant reach. For five mana, it is quite a powerful effect.
Incite Rebellion offers Red a way to deal with both large creatures and numerous creatures in the same card, given the right circumstances. It is a scaleable Wrath effect, similar to Chain Reaction, but it punishes each player in proportion to the number of creatures he or she controls. So if your opponent playing Forged from Stone has flooded the board with tokens, they all go away and take a chunk of their controller's life with them. Meanwhile, your Bosh, Iron Golem will stand around solo and hardly flinch.
Impact Resonance is another powerful card for dealing with high-toughness creatures. Worst-case scenario, a large creature an opponent controls deals damage, and you then get to destroy it Avenging Arrow-style. Best-case scenario? You swing or block with your own titanic creature (Malignus, perhaps?) and then clean house post-combat with a huge dividable burn spell a la Fire Covenant.
Green is known in Commander for having some of the best answers to noncreature permanents, with spells like Bramblecrush, Creeping Corrosion, Back to Nature, Bane of Progress, and Terastodon. It does, however, have problems in dealing with indestructible cards. Wave of Vitriol provides a powerful sweeper for all artifacts, enchantments, and nonbasic lands. Most importantly, the spell does it in a way that circumvents indestructibility, giving Green another potent tool in its arsenal.
While Green has great noncreature answers, it is generally less great at removing creature-based threats. It gets the occasional bone with cards like Beast Within, but Green is largely trailing in this department. Song of the Dryads is one of the best answers to creatures that Green has, in addition to dealing with other problematic permanents. For a mere three mana, it transforms any permanent into a Forest, which neuters generals, blanks bombs, and can even deal with problematic nonbasics.
Have you ever thought to yourself, "This Green deck is great, but I really wish I could run Sphinx's Revelation?" Well, now you can! Lifeblood Hydra may not quite be Sphinx's Revelation, but it is a card that costs X3 and will end up drawing you X cards and gaining you X life. In fact, with the help of things like Kalonian Hydra, you can end up drawing and gaining much more than X! Lifeblood Hydra is one in a recent line of Hydras that offers a lot more bang for its X than just power and toughness.
Green traditionally has lots of Overrun effects, but it frequently cannot make great use to them. This is due to the fact that they are often on sorceries instead of creature bodies, which Green can interact with a lot more. Siege Behemoth and Thunderfoot Baloth help correct this injustice by adding two powerful alpha-strike creatures to Green's repertoire. Siege Behemoth doesn't offer a power and toughness boost, but it does make all of your creatures effectively unblockable - at least for the purposes of determining how much you can get through. Thunderfoot Baloth is arguably the strongest of the lieutenant creatures, offering a global +2/+2 and trample when your commander is around.
Masterwork of Ingenuity... you mention using it to get your own copy of the Jitte. But that card is legendary. Still works out though, both will end up in the graveyard, rather than each player having their own copy.
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