Commander 2015 releases next week, November 13th. This week, we've seen all of the new cards and decklists spoiled. You can find all of the new cards on our Spoilers Page and the decklists in the Commander 2015 Decklists thread. Additionally, we will cover the highlights here.
A New Experience
- Daxos the Returned helms up the deck, generating experience counters off of the standard "Enchantress" trigger of casting an enchantment. His second ability creates an enchantment creature token with power and toughness equal to your experience counters. The enchantment tokens are obviously useful for triggering Constellation effects like Doomwake Giant, Ajani's Chosen, Skybind, and similar. To rack up experience counters, recursive enchantments like Brilliant Halo, Fallen Ideal, Flickering Ward, Shackles, Sun Clasp, and others. Glorious Anthem effects are a good way to trigger his experience counters while also buffing the tokens he generates. While he lacks the green that Enchantress players have been clamoring for, he does offer a new strategy for black/white players. He can also be used in the 99 of an enchantress build as an efficient way to generate enchantment tokens.
- Mizzix of the Izmagnus is the commander for the deck. Mizzix focuses on instants and sorceries, gaining you an experience counter whenever you cast an instant or sorcery casting more than the number of experience counters currently possessed. For each counter, she offers a discount on all future instants and sorceries. This makes Mizzix ideal in a "Storm" build, chaining cheap cantrip effects like Brainstorm and Impulse into rituals like Seething Song and Mana Geyser and capping off with effects like Mind's Desire, Grapeshot, Brain Freeze, and Empty the Warrens. As part of the 99, she works as an excellent backup general to Melek, Izzet Paragon, a general who already likes to play the Storm strategy. Riku of Two Reflections and Jelava, Nephalia Scourge can also be used to helm this strategy.
- Meren of Clan Nel Toth leads the deck, with quite possibly the easiest experience counter trigger. Every one of your creatures that die grants you experience. Utilizing these counters is an end of turn trigger that Zombifies a creature in your graveyard if its mana cost is less than or equal to your experience. But even if it isn't, fear not, because the target still gets Disentombed. Gaining permanent strength from creatures dying and returning one once per turn makes Meren similar to Karador, the Ghost Chieftain, and she plays nicely as support for him. She can also take the strategy into straight for increased consistency. She also favors token generation over self-mill as a way to fuel her abilities, which helps differentiate her from Karador in her own deck.
- Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas commands the list. She gains experience whenever you cast a creature costing 5 mana or more, and gets a plain +1/+1 bonus for each experience. While this seems slightly underwhelming, double strike and vigilance allow Kalemne to utilize these +1/+1 counters to good effect both offensively and defensively. The restriction requiring expensive creatures makes it tricky to quickly power up Kalemne. However, utilizing creatures with alternate or reduced mana costs like Razor Golem, Avatar of Fury, or Oxidda Golem is one way to pump several out in one turn. Suspend creatures like Ivory Giant, Duskrider Peregrine, and Keldon Halberdiers can also be utilized to set up expensive creatures entering after Kalemne has hit the board.
- Ezuri, Claw of Progress leads the pack in the deck. Acting as a sort of opposite to Kalemne, Ezuri triggers off of small creatures - specifically ones with 2 or less power. Additionally, he triggers off of the creatures entering and not just being cast, so he synergizes well with tokens. In terms of utilizing his experience counters, Ezuri translates them into +1/+1 counters on another creature at the beginning of each combat. This means that Ezuri works perfectly with small creatures that have abilities that scale on power or +1/+1 counters - things like Cold-Eyed Selkie, Cephalid Constable, and Wild Beastmaster. Master Biomancer is another solid target, but be aware that he will cause creatures to enter with more than 2 power, thus preventing Ezuri from triggering further. For combo potential, with at least 5 experience counters, Sage of Hours can be utilized to take infinite turns. Ezuri also makes for a capable backup general for several generals. Edric, Spymaster of Trest tends to run many low-power creatures. The +1/+1 counters can be used to kickstart a Vorel the Hull Clade stack or grant Experiment Kraj abilities, or just make a huge creature for Prime Speaker Zegana to draw off of.
Calling for Backup
- Karlov of the Ghost Council is an example of the latter. With a lifegain trigger that puts two +1/+1 counters on him, it encourages a Soul Sisters-style deck, chock full of cards that repeatedly gain you life like Sunscorch Regent, Extort Effects, Blood Artist, and Patron of the Kitsune. As an added bonus, Karlov can convert these counters into creature exile, allowing the deck the capability to permanently deal with problematic creatures and clear the path for a lethally-huge Karlov. As support in the 99, Karlov plays good backup to lifegain-focused generals like Oloro, Ageless Ascetic and potentially Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter. Karlov can also support Daxos if sufficient lifegain-centric enchantments are included, like Underworld Coinsmith, Righteous Cause, Path of Bravery, and Blind Obedience.
- Arjun, the Shifting Flame is another example of a general who forges his own path with a built-in Mindmoil. While he can support Mizzix by filtering past dead cards into more spells, his ideal place is at the helm of a deck packing lots of draw triggers, like Chasm Skulker, Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind, and Psychosis Crawler. Arjun also makes a good support player in Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind lists, as again he is capable of generating huge numbers of draw triggers for Niv.
- Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest is one of the better lieutenants for supporting his primary general. Meren wants to make a lot of creatures and sacrifice them to generate experience. Mazirek rewards you for sacrificing creatures by growing the rest of the team. He lets "wide" strategies grow to lethal levels with extreme speed. He's also tremendous support for Ghave, Guru of Spores, a general who creates tokens from +1/+1 counters and can sacrifice them easily, and for Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, who generates a huge number of tokens and has a built-in sacrifice outlet. Mazirek on his own is capable as well at the helm of a standard tokens and sac fodder list, and he can be utilized with any persist creature to negate their persist counters and sacrifice them infinitely.
- Anya, Merciless Angel is decent support for Kalemne - after all, she is a five mana creature. However, she does not directly support him in any way beyond that. Anya thrives when multiple players are sitting under half of their starting life total, racking up +3/+3 per player and indestructibility for getting any player into that range. With even one bonus, she starts three-swing killing with general damage (which is useful if one player keeps their life total out of lethal range), and at a normal table of four players, keeping three opponents down puts her up to a terrifying 13/13 indestructible. Getting the opponents low in the first place can be a challenge. Heartless Hidetsugu is a good option for taking everyone to half their life in one go. Blessed Wind can be used to drag a player from triple digit life down to 20. Goblin Game halves a player's life, though it's tricky to control which player. Malignus can carve off half or more of a player's life in a single hit. Quietus Spike and the new Scytheclaw are also useful for carving life totals in half.
- Kaseto, Orochi Archmage provides decent support for Ezuri. Targeted unblockability allows you to force through creatures like Cold-Eyed Selkie and Cephalid Constable after Ezuri buffs them, to devastating effect. However, Kaseto is very clearly designed to support a Snakes Tribal list. Snakes are a deceptively powerful tribe, with a hugely powerful lord and lots of token generating effects. However, many of the powerful snakes such as Mystic Snake, Patagia Viper, Coiling Oracle, and Lorescale Coatl have been gated off by the color identity rule and the lack of a suitable snake legend. While Kaseto is weaker for the tribe than Seshiro, the addition of the color blue provides the aforementioned snakes as well as goodies like Distant Melody and countermagic. And, since the deck is still green, there's no lack of ways to tutor for Seshiro.
Myriad Options
The uncommon myriad creatures are fairly vanilla, with Broodbirth Viper being the most interesting, as it can potentially draw you multiple cards every combat. The real winner for the mechanic is Blade of Selves, which allows you to grant ANY creature the myriad mechanic. This allows for multiple instances of enters-the-battlefield abilities on that creature and can quickly spiral out of control. Even attached to something as normally-benign as Wood Elves makes for almost-Primeval Titan levels of ramp. Attaching to a creature like Craterhoof Behemoth, Kokusho, the Evening Star, Sepulchral Primordial, or Gray Merchant of Asphodel can almost instantly overtake a game.
A Confluence of Choices
- Righteous Confluence is the white confluence, offering three options - token generation, enchantment exile, and life gain. Of the new confluences, it is quite possibly the weakest, but it can generate 6 power worth of bodies, permanently answer multiple enchantments, or gain a whopping fifteen life. It's also worth noting that each choice of life gain mode is a separate instance, and thus triggers Karlov of the Ghost Council three times.
- Mystic Confluence draws some immediate parallels to Cryptic Command, as it shares quite a bit of commonality on its modes. Countermagic, bounce, and card drawing are all mainstays of blue commander play. Mystic Confluence can be used to hit all three of these at once, or to double or even triple down on the bounce or card draw modes. The only notable drawback is the fact that the countermagic mode is Mana Leak, which will sometimes necessitate expending multiple choices to make sure the spell gets countered.
- Wretched Confluence is another extremely flexible instant. It can act as an instant-speed Ancient Craving, shoot out up to three Disfigures, or function as a Death Denied. Like Mystic Confluence, the biggest hurdle it runs into is the fact that the removal mode often cannot do enough with a single selection - even utility creatures like Prophet of Kruphix require two Disfigures to dispatch, and larger threats like Sun Titan and Deadeye Navigator require all three.
- Fiery Confluence is red's offering. At four mana, it's the cheapest confluence, and as such it has the largest potential for 60-card play, and its three modes reflect that - Shatter, a 1-point sweeper, or 2 damage to each opponent. For Commander purposes, this can be used to clear utility creatures, wipe out artifacts, or take a sizeable chunk out of each opponent's life total. While none of these are tremendous on their own, the flexibility makes it a worthwhile inclusion. Additionally, it could crack into Legacy - six damage from one card makes this a rather capable finisher, while also being capable of taking out problematic artifacts like Batterskull or Umezawa's Jitte and/or clearing most creatures that aren't named Tarmogoyf or Gurmag Angler. The only sticking point is that four mana is a lot for existing red-heavy decks like Burn to cough up, meaning this card may be stuck without a home for the time being.
- Verdant Confluence is the final confluence. It offers several interesting choices - two +1/+1 counters, Nature's Spiral, and Rampant Growth. The third option is pretty clear-cut as the most valuable, given Commander decks' propensity for ramp. But at six mana, this puts Verdant Confluence in direct competition with Nissa's Renewal. So is the flexibility of Confluence's other modes worth the loss of Renewal's 7 life? Likely, yes. The middle mode can be used to repeatedly recur a card like Eternal Witness, allowing for the repeated re-use of the spell. The +1/+1 counter mode is clearly the weakest, but it can be used to provide a burst of damage to seal out a game.
The Best of the Rest
- Grasp of Fate is the latest in the line of Oblivion Ring-type cards. For just the cost of exchanging a for a , Grasp of Fate grants a Banishing Light for every opponent. This kind of flexible, scaleable removal is perfect for multiplayer Commander games.
- Kalemne's Captain is a new Monstrosity card, and it's quite a monster. The base stats are reasonable, as a 5/5 vigilance for five mana, but the Monstrous ability is the real kicker, as it exiles all artifacts and enchantments. This is the first time this effect has shown up - Furnace Dragon exiles all artifacts and Merciless Eviction can exile either artifacts or enchantments, but no card thus far can exile both in the same stroke.
- Oreskos Explorer is another interesting new card for white. White traditionally has difficulty keeping up in the land-ramp race, especially against green decks, and it often gets effects like Land Tax, Tithe, and Gift of Estates that can turn this disadvantage into an advantage. Oreskos Explorer packages this type of ability onto an efficient small body. While it does not ramp, as Knight of the White Orchid does, it can find multiple lands, generating quite a bit of card advantage.
- Æthersnatch bears immediate comparison to Spelljack and Commandeer. Like Spelljack, it costs six mana and can effectively counter and steal any spell. Like Commandeer, it costs only two blue mana, steals the spell immediately instead of needing to wait for your own turn, and can get around uncounterability. It has some benefits that neither can boast, however, as it can steal opposing commanders - Commandeer can't hit creatures, and Spelljack provides the opportunity for the commander's controller to put it back into the command zone. Overall, it's flexible and powerful piece of countermagic.
- Gigantoplasm is the latest in a line of Clone effects. It offers the interesting twist of being able to set its size, similar to Quicksilver Gargantuan. Unlike the Gargantuan, however, it doesn't pay a premium to clone, and doesn't suffer when targeting a large creature. It functions extremely well when choosing the same kinds of creatures Ezuri works well with - Cold-Eyed Selkie, Cephalid Constable, Master Biomancer, Wild Beastmaster, and others.
- Illusory Ambusher is a card whose primary purpose is obvious - flash it in as a surprise blocker for a large attacker, and draw a pile of cards in the process. However, it can be applied in other ways as well. Dropping it before a large Chain Reaction or Blasphemous Act is a good way to draw a huge number of cards as well.
- Mirror Match is a new powerful trick for blue commander decks. At worst, it acts as a Fog, creating blockers for every creature attacking you. At best, it generates a huge resource swing as you copy all of the enters the battlefield abilities of the creatures attacking you, while simultaneously trading with many or all of those creatures.
- Synthetic Destiny draws immediate comparisons to Mass Polymorph. While it exiles all of your creatures rather than sacrificing them, and the creatures it creates are not generated immediately, it has several significant advantages. The first of these is the fact that it is instant speed. Combined with the delay on generating creatures, this means that it can be used to avoid a Wrath of God effect. Additionally, the fact that the creatures are generated in the end step means that it's difficult for opponents to respond to them with further mass removal. In a deck with significant token generation and several large creatures to Polymorph into, this can create a game-ending boardstate extremely easily.
- Corpse Augur is a powerful new creature-based draw spell available in Commander 2015. It's particularly potent in a dredge-style list, where its death can be used to dredge every eligible creature in your graveyard at once, generally with enough leftover to continue to dredge any creatures hit in the first several dredges.
- Deadly Tempest is the latest black Wrath of God effect. While six mana is significant, it packs a hefty punch, as it drains the controller of each dying creature by a point. The closest similarity is Massacre Wurm, which drains twice as much, but only kills smaller creatures. If tokens are running rampant at your commander tables, the Tempest is a good way to wipe out their controllers.
- Scourge of Nel Toth is a powerful recursive creature, along the lines of Bloodghast, Gravecrawler, Reassembling Skeleton, and similar. While it requires the sacrifice of two creatures in order to return it, its massive 6/6 body makes this a worthy cost.
- Thief of Blood is the latest in the line of black cards that remove counters from permanents. This started with Æther Snap back in Darksteel, and has has very few powerful instances of it since, most notably Vampire Hexmage. Thief of Blood reestablishes this as a vampiric trait, but it drains all counters from all permanents. This makes it a wrath for planeswalkers, a way to clear +1/+1 counters, and even a way to wipe out persist -1/-1 counters from Cauldron of Souls or similar. It can also be used as yet another way to clear Dark Depths counters.
- Dream Pillager is the latest "impulsive draw" card to come out. Card draw tends to be one of red's primary weaknesses, and impulsive draw is one of the latest ways to compensate. Several of these cards are already powerful commander mainstays, like Outpost Siege and Commune with Lava. Dream Pillage provides a powerful way to generate a lot of card advantage in the late game for mono-red decks.
- Magus of the Wheel helps out in this regard as well. Wheel of Fortune effects are commonly used to shore up red's card drawing weakness, and as an added bonus, they can disrupt enemy hand-sculpting. The Magus provides an on-demand Wheel of Fortune, making it an ideal fit in a deck like Feldon of the Third Path or any black/red deck capable of repeatedly recurring creatures.
- Mizzix's Mastery is quite possibly the most exciting new red card. Red has had several cards in recent years allowing it to cast spells from the graveyard, most notably Past in Flames. Mizzix's Mastery follows this road, but provides a supercharged version. Casting Mizzix's Mastery normally allows the caster to cheat on the mana cost of a potentially extremely expensive spell like Enter the Infinite or Decree of Annihilation. Meanwhile, overloading Mizzix's Mastery allows the caster to cheat ALL of their spells in the graveyard, which frequently can mean immediate victory, especially in a Storm deck.
- Bloodspore Thrinax provides an effect that's only been seen on Master Biomancer, making every creature enter the battlefield with +1/+1 counters based on its power - or in the Thrinax's case, +1/+1 counters on it. This makes it a tremendous Clone target, as each successive clone will enter larger and larger, resulting in even tiny creatures becoming huge. It's also a great dump for the new Ezuri's counters, as it can turn all of your small threats into huge ones. Finally, it plays extremely well with persist creatures like Woodfall Primus, as its +1/+1 counters eradicate the -1/-1 counters and allow the creatures ot persist infinitely.
- Centaur Vinecrasher is the most Legacy-viable of the new stock of cards. While it might seem a little clunky, its abilities are perfectly suited to decks like Lands and Aggro Loam, which frequently flood their graveyards with lands and often replace their draws with dredging Life from the Loam. An easily-recursive threat that swells based on graveyard land counts makes this creature a force to be reckoned with in "fair" matchups.
- Ezuri's Predation is the obligatory color pie-breaking card that seems to show up in each Commander set, and always sets Mark Rosewater on edge. According to him, Green should not be able to clear a board without having creatures in play already. While Ezuri's Predation is not a guaranteed board clear, given the size of creatures in commander, it does drop a 4/4 fighting beast in for each opposing creature. There are definitely ways to break this card. Cards like Door of Destinies, Bloodspore Thrinax, or Coat of Arms can make the beasts huge enough to devour the competition. Cards like Vigor or Eldrazi Monument can ensure that they all survive (and in the case of Vigor, grow huge in the process). Archetype of Finality makes the fights always lethal for the opposing creatures, and Death Pits of Rath make them always lethal for both creatures.
- Pathbreaker Ibex is the strongest non-Changeling Goat ever to be printed. While it has a measly 3/3 base stats, it effectively casts Overwhelming Stampede each attack, which can turn even a small board presence lethal extremely quickly.
- Skullwinder is the latest take on Eternal Witness. With only a single symbol in its cost and a deadly 1/3 deathtouch body, it definitely has a lot to offer over the Witness. The drawback is that it allows an opponent to Eternal Witness as well. However, this drawback is not as severe as it might appear, because the target doesn't need to have a card in their graveyard to return. As long as you can keep one opponent on empty, it's possible to abuse this to is full extent as an Eternal Witness with a better cost and better stats.
- Sandstone Oracle is an interesting option for artifact draw, allowing the caster to equalize their hand to that of their most well-stocked opponent. Though it has a large cost, it's well suited to a deck like Feldon of the Third Path or Daretti, Scrap Savant that can easily bypass this cost and cheat this creature into play any time its hand needs topping off.
- Thought Vessel is Reliquary Tower on a mana stone. Most decks pack at least a few mana stones, and the "no maximum hand size" advantage granted by Thought Vessel makes it a compelling choice for any deck with a lot of draw.
- Command Beacon is an extremely unique effect, as it places the commander directly into the player's hand. The most obvious use of this is to bypass the "Commander Tax" that gets larger each time the commander is cast. However, it can also be used in a variety of ways. There are many commanders with abilities that work only when played from hand, like the Myojins and Iname as One from Kamigawa and Phage the Untouchable. There are also abilities that can be used from hand, like Ith, High Arcanist's suspend and Jiwari, the Earth Aflame's channel. While it has been possible to utilize this cards before through tricks like casting and then bouncing, or Torpor Orb in Phage's case, Command Beacon makes it a lot easier. Additionally, there is one commander that has literally been entirely unplayable before this point - Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. If none of these tricks make you smile, perhaps Titania, Protector of Argoth will. Titania can be utilized with the Beacon to return it each time, and then the Beacon can be sacrificed to return her to hand whenever she dies, making her never cost more than her base cost. Additionally, in conjunction with Food Chain, this trick can be used to generate infinite 5/3 tokens.
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