Eldritch Moon has given players one of the biggest twists in Magic History (as of summer 2016), the Meld mechanic. With it, commander got something unique for commander. Bruna, the Fading Light, Gisela, the Broken Blade, and their combination Brisela, Voice of Nightmares. I've been brewing on the idea since it's been spoiled, and here's what I learned.
First, the Rulings:
While there hasn't been anything officially amended in the comprehensive rules as I write this post, here's what's important right now:
When Brisela, Voice of Nightmares would leave the battlefield, the angel that is the Commander can return to the command zone and the other one will go the zone directed by the intended effect being applied to Brisela.
The short reason: Matt Tabak, the Rules Manager for Magic the Gathering, said so on Twitter.
While the comprehensive rules haven't been amended yet, the justification already exists, and if you pester people that have memorized the rules hard enough, they can explain the situation readily and in detail they did not know they would have to, which may or may not be what I did.
The following is not official... yet. But it makes sense.
The comprehensive rules define what a commander is in rule 903.3. That rule separates a commander as an attribute of the "card" rather than an attribute of the "object" represented by the card. In the past, that only mattered in ownership of cards and in commander when it came to cloning commanders because a clone of a commander cannot carry...being a commander... the commanderness?... you know what I mean... because the physical card is Clone and not the commander card, not the commander commander. The card itself is Clone, but the object it is representing in the game is a legendary creature for all game play purposes. So that's where the distinction between "card" and "object" matters, and the precedent that has been set.
Now for Brisela, Voice of Nightmares and how meld will play into that. In a game, Brisela is one object that is made up of two cards. The fact that it is made up of two cards does not matter if neither card is the commander because all individual permanents on the battlefield are considered single objects. This is why Brisela only would only get one +1/+1 counter for Cather's Crusade and not two because Crusade reads one object, not two cards. When the object that is Brisela leaves the battlefield, the two cards go where the effect dictates where the object Brisela should go.
But now one of those cards is the commander (I'll say Bruna, the Fading Light because she is my commander). When Bruna, the Fading Light and Gisela, the Broken Blade meld, "Bruna" the object (as well as Gisela) ceases to exist inside the game and is replaced by "Brisela" the object. However, the card that carries the "commanderness" still exists within the game and is projecting that "commanderness" onto Brisela, Voice of Nightmares. This means Brisela can not only deal 21 commander damage, but even though Brisela, Voice of Nightmares does not have the name "Bruna, the Fading Light", it will still count towards Bruna's 21 commander damage because the same card within the object is dealing the combat damage.
But there's more. Now the opponent casts Wrath of God on their next turn, and it's going to destroy the object Brisela. Brisela carries commanderness, but on the face-up side, Gisela can't go to the command zone because she's not a commander. This is where the distinction between "object" and "card" is more important than ever. Even though neither Bruna nor Gisela exist in the game at the moment, the object named Brisela is made of two nameless cards functioning as one creature object. The justification that one of the nameless cards projects its "commanderness" onto the melded object above it does not work in reverse (this is also why all meld cards have the "own and control" condition clause because ownership is also an attribute of a card and not the object in the game). The return to command zone replacement effect applies to the commander card, not the commander object. It does not matter what the commander's name is or is not, it does not matter that the commander is melded with another card to function as one object, what matters is there is a single card on the battlefield that the commander replacement effect can apply to. The other nameless card that makes up the object Brisela (in my case, Gisela) has no special attributes of the card itself to override the fate of the Brisela object, so it must follow the fate of Brisela to the grave. The player can choose for Bruna to follow the fate of Brisela as well, but this long paragraph is why a commander can be an exception to the fate of a melded object when removed from the battlefield.
This post will be updated to reflect the official rules update should there be any differences from this assessment.
*Whew, now that all that complicated stuff is out of the way, let's talk the deck itself*
In my limited testing, if a player is aiming to assemble Brisela, Voice of Nightmares, their commander should be Bruna, the Fading Light because Bruna can resurrect Gisela over and over means that it's much easier to assemble Brisela multiple times.
Also, that said, Bruna, the Fading Light should not be constructed as a Voltron Deck with the sole goal of assembling and winning with only Brisela. It can be done, but sometimes reviving an Iona, Shield of Emeria with Bruna's cast trigger can be more devastating than assembling Brisela. This deck is more of a white good stuff.dec (at the moment; a more coherent strategy could be down the line). Also worth noting: Brisela herself would be the single greatest card in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage if she was a single card with her effects on front side. That's not the case. In multiplayer commander there is a LOT of removal in the format that starts at CMC cost four. Brisela still shuts out a lot of cards, but most of those cards (ramp spells and artifacts) will already be out by the time Brisela hits the field. She still stops stops a lot though and is worth assembling if the opportunity because the combination is stronger than the individual parts.
Here's the deck I've started brewing with. I'm skimping out on a lot of details because I'm still searching for a direction for the deck, and that's where community help comes in:
This is by no means a final draft, and I can already see some work that needs to be done with it. However, I want to get ahead of the pre-release, so all suggestions are welcome, and let's get discussing.
I am trying to build this deck as well, and finally got the cards to playtest this. A few overarching things that I saw:
I am guessing you wanted Plains instead of Mountains.
Any reason you are running Gods Willing instead of Brave the Elements
I think 33 lands is probably 5-6 too few, especially with your creature curve being very high. It seems very vulnerable to artifact hate.
First, the Rulings:
While there hasn't been anything officially amended in the comprehensive rules as I write this post, here's what's important right now:
The short reason: Matt Tabak, the Rules Manager for Magic the Gathering, said so on Twitter.
While the comprehensive rules haven't been amended yet, the justification already exists, and if you pester people that have memorized the rules hard enough, they can explain the situation readily and in detail they did not know they would have to, which may or may not be what I did.
The following is not official... yet. But it makes sense.
The comprehensive rules define what a commander is in rule 903.3. That rule separates a commander as an attribute of the "card" rather than an attribute of the "object" represented by the card. In the past, that only mattered in ownership of cards and in commander when it came to cloning commanders because a clone of a commander cannot carry...being a commander... the commanderness?... you know what I mean... because the physical card is Clone and not the commander card, not the commander commander. The card itself is Clone, but the object it is representing in the game is a legendary creature for all game play purposes. So that's where the distinction between "card" and "object" matters, and the precedent that has been set.
Now for Brisela, Voice of Nightmares and how meld will play into that. In a game, Brisela is one object that is made up of two cards. The fact that it is made up of two cards does not matter if neither card is the commander because all individual permanents on the battlefield are considered single objects. This is why Brisela only would only get one +1/+1 counter for Cather's Crusade and not two because Crusade reads one object, not two cards. When the object that is Brisela leaves the battlefield, the two cards go where the effect dictates where the object Brisela should go.
But now one of those cards is the commander (I'll say Bruna, the Fading Light because she is my commander). When Bruna, the Fading Light and Gisela, the Broken Blade meld, "Bruna" the object (as well as Gisela) ceases to exist inside the game and is replaced by "Brisela" the object. However, the card that carries the "commanderness" still exists within the game and is projecting that "commanderness" onto Brisela, Voice of Nightmares. This means Brisela can not only deal 21 commander damage, but even though Brisela, Voice of Nightmares does not have the name "Bruna, the Fading Light", it will still count towards Bruna's 21 commander damage because the same card within the object is dealing the combat damage.
But there's more. Now the opponent casts Wrath of God on their next turn, and it's going to destroy the object Brisela. Brisela carries commanderness, but on the face-up side, Gisela can't go to the command zone because she's not a commander. This is where the distinction between "object" and "card" is more important than ever. Even though neither Bruna nor Gisela exist in the game at the moment, the object named Brisela is made of two nameless cards functioning as one creature object. The justification that one of the nameless cards projects its "commanderness" onto the melded object above it does not work in reverse (this is also why all meld cards have the "own and control" condition clause because ownership is also an attribute of a card and not the object in the game). The return to command zone replacement effect applies to the commander card, not the commander object. It does not matter what the commander's name is or is not, it does not matter that the commander is melded with another card to function as one object, what matters is there is a single card on the battlefield that the commander replacement effect can apply to. The other nameless card that makes up the object Brisela (in my case, Gisela) has no special attributes of the card itself to override the fate of the Brisela object, so it must follow the fate of Brisela to the grave. The player can choose for Bruna to follow the fate of Brisela as well, but this long paragraph is why a commander can be an exception to the fate of a melded object when removed from the battlefield.
This post will be updated to reflect the official rules update should there be any differences from this assessment.
*Whew, now that all that complicated stuff is out of the way, let's talk the deck itself*
In my limited testing, if a player is aiming to assemble Brisela, Voice of Nightmares, their commander should be Bruna, the Fading Light because Bruna can resurrect Gisela over and over means that it's much easier to assemble Brisela multiple times.
Also, that said, Bruna, the Fading Light should not be constructed as a Voltron Deck with the sole goal of assembling and winning with only Brisela. It can be done, but sometimes reviving an Iona, Shield of Emeria with Bruna's cast trigger can be more devastating than assembling Brisela. This deck is more of a white good stuff.dec (at the moment; a more coherent strategy could be down the line). Also worth noting: Brisela herself would be the single greatest card in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage if she was a single card with her effects on front side. That's not the case. In multiplayer commander there is a LOT of removal in the format that starts at CMC cost four. Brisela still shuts out a lot of cards, but most of those cards (ramp spells and artifacts) will already be out by the time Brisela hits the field. She still stops stops a lot though and is worth assembling if the opportunity because the combination is stronger than the individual parts.
Here's the deck I've started brewing with. I'm skimping out on a lot of details because I'm still searching for a direction for the deck, and that's where community help comes in:
1 Bruna, the Fading Light
0 Brisela, Voice of Nightmares
Lands: 33
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Mistveil Plains
22 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Strip Mine
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple of the False Gods
Creatures: 23
1 Angel of Deliverance
1 Angel of Jubilation
1 Avacyn, Angle of Hope
1 Blinding Angel
1 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Emeria Shepherd
1 Gisela, the Broken Blade
1 Grand Abolisher
1 Herald of War
1 Indomitable Archangel
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Karmatic Guide
1 Knight of the White Orchard
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Reya Dawnbringer
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Thalia's Lancers
1 Twilight Shepherd
1 Weathered Wayfareer
1 Caged Sun
1 Coalition Relic
1 Dreamstone Hedron
1 Druidic Satchel
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Extraplanar Lens
1 Gauntlet of Power
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Grim Monolith
1 Hedron Archive
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Marble Diamond
1 Mind Stone
1 Mind's Eye
1 Mox Opal
1 Pearl Medallion
1 Planar Portal
1 Ring of Three Wishes
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sisay's Ring
1 Sol Ring
1 Staff of Nin
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Thought Vessel
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Tower of Fortunes
1 Unwinding Clock
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Land Tax
1 Oblivion Ring
Instants: 6
1 Apostle's Blessing
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Gods Willing
1 Pull from Eternity
1 Swords to Plowshares
Sorceries: 4
1 Austere Command
1 Day of Judgment
1 Terminus
1 Wrath of God
This is by no means a final draft, and I can already see some work that needs to be done with it. However, I want to get ahead of the pre-release, so all suggestions are welcome, and let's get discussing.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
I am guessing you wanted Plains instead of Mountains.
Any reason you are running Gods Willing instead of Brave the Elements
I think 33 lands is probably 5-6 too few, especially with your creature curve being very high. It seems very vulnerable to artifact hate.
Loyal Retainers might be a worthwhile inclusion? Maybe Tooth of Ramos?