MTG Salvation

I think I can make a brawl deck with Demonlord Belzenlok as the commander. I like janky combos and I have a plan...

The fail-rate here is a 6/6 Flying Trample Dusk Legion Zealot that exiles (meaningless?) lands that are in the way, always drawing a live card. Build your deck right, and he draws a ton. Build your deck wrong(?), and he kills you dead. But reasonably speaking you're going to get a good result here with much less of a deck-building cost than Champion of Dusk demands.

Basically, he's preeetttty good although I am not entirely certain where his home lies. Probably some sort of Bxy value deck, especially alongside Muldrotha, the Gravetide, Whisper, Blood Liturgist, or The Scarab God to get even more value! I don't see him as great in the 99 in this format, as there simply aren't as many deadly comboes and starting at 30 life with more aggression and less control means you can't afford to count on building a deck to draw 29 here.

EDIT: I was a bad and didn't review everyone else's thoughts before posting my own - you give him a C-? He's sorta like an infinitely better Phyrexian Gargantua and is comparable to a Mulldrifter that can't be evoked but has actual bone-crunching stats; a 6/6 flying trample is no joke in Brawl-land.

I think people are getting hung up on how hard it is to reliably draw 3+ on this guy and forgetting that a 6/6 Flying Trample Draw 1 lose 1 for 4BB is a pretty dang solid card, especially when you are 100% guaranteed to draw gas with it. In Brawl his chance to draw more than 1 card is a perk, not a build-around, but that's still very good.

*in the 59 (not 99)

I'd say it comes down to how much you value the body.

Personally I think he's nowhere close to mulldrifer - drawing lands is almost never totally irrelevant, costing 1 less is a big deal, evoke is a big deal especially with blink, and blue has more tools to abuse creatures via blink. But more importantly, commander has a lot more tools to blink and recur creatures to get value from the etb than standard. Without support, mulldrifter is only decent outside of limited imo.

Imo being mono-black and not completely mindblowing disqualifies him to lead his own deck.

In the 59 he feels like an ok goodstuff card that could see play, but never a top choice. demon of dark schemes is my go-to example since it costs roughly the same, but it has way more immediate impact AND more potential long-term value by comparison. If you really have no idea what to synergize with and you just want a body and cards, then maybe he squeaks by in the 36th slot, but I can't think of any situation where I'd be thinking "yes, THAT, that's exactly what I want" as regards belzenlok.

And there are so many good 6-drops in this format already - just looking at my in-progress scarab god list, I've got saheeli's artistry, torrential gearhulk, unesh criosphinx sovereign, noxious gearhulk, immortal sun, and tetzimoc, primal death - all of which have way more impact imo. How many do you really want to run? I think probably just a couple most of the time.

Quote from DirkGently »

*in the 59 (not 99)

I'd say it comes down to how much you value the body.

Personally I think he's nowhere close to mulldrifer - drawing lands is almost never totally irrelevant, costing 1 less is a big deal, evoke is a big deal especially with blink, and blue has more tools to abuse creatures via blink. But more importantly, commander has a lot more tools to blink and recur creatures to get value from the etb than standard. Without support, mulldrifter is only decent outside of limited imo.

Imo being mono-black and not completely mindblowing disqualifies him to lead his own deck.

In the 59 he feels like an ok goodstuff card that could see play, but never a top choice. demon of dark schemes is my go-to example since it costs roughly the same, but it has way more immediate impact AND more potential long-term value by comparison. If you really have no idea what to synergize with and you just want a body and cards, then maybe he squeaks by in the 36th slot, but I can't think of any situation where I'd be thinking "yes, THAT, that's exactly what I want" as regards belzenlok.

And there are so many good 6-drops in this format already - just looking at my in-progress scarab god list, I've got saheeli's artistry, torrential gearhulk, unesh criosphinx sovereign, noxious gearhulk, immortal sun, and tetzimoc, primal death - all of which have way more impact imo. How many do you really want to run? I think probably just a couple most of the time.

I am underwhelmed with Tetzimoc, but otherwise a fair point here - the Gearhulks and Unesh are better top-end, and Demon of Dark Schemes is also better top-end especially if you have even a smidgen of energy synergy (and you're heavily incentivized to run Glimmer of Genius so why not?). If we figure you want to run like 5-6 six+ drop bombs in this format, he is just a good-stuff card. But he is real good stuff! I think his stock will go up once the Hulks rotate; the hulks are just such incredible stupid value at six mana that it is really hard to compete.

Alright I posted my list for the Demonlord Belzenlok => https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/brawl/decklists/791712-demonlord-belzenlok-mwahahahahaha

Twas fun coming up with the concept.

That is hilarious, and a smart use of the card. Too bad there's so few reanimation effects in standard, though, that does make it a lot harder to pull off.

Today's....that's not quite right....ok, well "now's" card is Primeval's glorious rebirth.



This card looks cool but I'm surprised how high the mana cost is, considering that it's also legendary. For 2 mana more (and minus a color) you can bring back ALL creatures from ALL graveyards with no legendary requirement. On the other hand, this does hit legendary non-creatures, which means all your planeswalkers come back. The obvious spot for this sort of thing is arvad the cursed, but maybe it could also go into some sort of vona superfriends deck? There are only 6 planeswalkers in BW right now though, and only 1-2 of them I'd really consider good enough to be slotted into the deck on its own. You do have a couple tutors in black, though, so maybe this is reliable enough. Although then it also gets riggedy riggedy rekt by scavenger grounds, which I maintain should be about as ubiquitous as sol ring in commander.

Thoughts?

I think Primevals' Glorious Rebirth ability to bring back planeswalkers is what makes this card quite unique and powerful.

I could see some 5 color planeswalker deck making use of discard to cheat a bunch into play.

Quote from darrenhabib »

I think Primevals' Glorious Rebirth ability to bring back planeswalkers is what makes this card quite unique and powerful.

I could see some 5 color planeswalker deck making use of discard to cheat a bunch into play.

That's a fair point, Jodah might have the chops to make this sort of thing work. Plus he can play it for 5.

I feel that common grave hate is going to make this card too risky to build around. We actually don't have too many good walkers in white and black anyways (if we had an Esper commander, that'd make it more appealing, since you'd get a lot more useful walkers and have counter magic). I'm really quite baffled by why it doesn't just say "return all historic permanent cards from your graveyard to the battlefield", returning a bunch of sagas and artifacts would have been sweet I think. As-is, I don't think it'll see play and the play it does see is likely going to be lackluster because of things like Scavenger Grounds, TSG, etc.

Quote from darrenhabib »

I think Primevals' Glorious Rebirth ability to bring back planeswalkers is what makes this card quite unique and powerful.

I could see some 5 color planeswalker deck making use of discard to cheat a bunch into play.

Not just Walkers, it hits any legendary permanent like the Legendary Enchantment Flips, the Monuments, Legendary Vehicles like Weatherlight, Heart of Kiran and SkySovereign.

I still feel like it's just too much mana and setup for Brawl. The fact that it gets blown out by scavenger grounds is a very relevant problem.

I agree with the consensus here; this is a lot of set-up for a mediocre payoff in this format especially given the prevalence of Scavenger Grounds, Sentinel Totem, Crook of Condemnation, and Silent Gravestone not to mention The Scarab God. I can see it in Jodah, Archmage Eternal superfriends due to the relative lack of big blowout spells in Brawl but for more controlling or creature-focused Jodahs I don't see it being consistently better than a Boneyard Parley or God-Pharoh's Gift, and I think Arvad would rather just run more powerful creatures than count on this.

Apologies for the long delay. Things have been busy. Prerelease is just 4 days away!



Interesting commander. The fact that sagas have an immediate effect makes them pretty exciting with flash, and legends of course give you the option to throw out a blocker. Artifacts are a little trickier to get value from. You could throw out artifact dudes or vehicles but that's not particularly great. I think the bigger draw here is simply that you can play a legend/artifact/saga heavy version of draw-go control. Giving every permanent in your deck flash is a huge draw for control decks, even if they're a lot more limited with their options in brawl.

I think the card in Standard/Brawl that gets the biggest boost in performance from Raff Capashen is Oath of Teferi in a superfriends deck. Being able to flash it in, save a card from removal/boardwipes, and then start double-spamming your 'walkers is suuuuuuper strong.

Honorable Mention power-up goes to Cataclysmic Gearhulk and Urza's Ruinous Blast, which also get significantly stronger when flashed in at the most opportune time (or inopportune, for your hapless opponents).

As noted though, all control decks like playing with flash because you get to hold up counter mana and be flexible. It is worth making your deck just nothing but Legendary, Instant, Saga, and Artifact cards to maximize Raff's insane bonus. As an upshot, he also holds equipment well to close things out. I see him as the premier Azorius commander once Dominaria is out, even in specifically Approach of the Second Sun lists.

Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage + Voltaic Servant + Gilded Lotus/Pyramid of the Pantheon = Brawls Prophet of Kruphix, lol

Whenever I'm building a deck in Commander, there are really four "resources" I look to acquire: card draw, mana ramp, life gain, and flash. One of those things (flash) is much harder to get than the others (and not exactly a resource per se, but I still like to lump all these items together), so it's always exciting for me to have a new one see print. (I eagerly await the day Wizards decides to print Vedalken Orrery with flash straight up. Teferi doesn't count.)

Raff occupies an interesting territory. Like Shimmer Myr, he himself has flash, but also like Shimmer Myr, Raff only allows you to only cast a subset of cards at instant speed. Granted, between artifact creatures and legendary cards of all kinds (even sorceries!), Raff still covers a lot of ground, so much so that I can't imagine not playing this card in any deck with both blue and white. He's just so flexible, and his ability is so irreplaceable that I can't imagine anything out competing Raff given what he does.

Quote from darrenhabib »

Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage + Voltaic Servant + Gilded Lotus/Pyramid of the Pantheon = Brawls Prophet of Kruphix, lol

Note that Voltaic Servant is only at the end of YOUR end step, so not quite Prophet/Seedborn/Unwinding Clock. More like a extremely narrow Merrow Commerce. It's still good in Raff since you can flash in both the Servant and mana rocks and then "double dip" on them, but it isn't super broken.

Raff does look like a lot of fun. Can flash in Weatherlight at the end of your opponents' turn or Skysovereign, Consul Flagship in response to an attack or something for a surprise bolt, then he can crew either one during his turn and swing with them. Flashing in Time of Ice is great, stopping a large threat immediately, and getting another during your upkeep, then making opponents think twice about attacking during their next turn in fear of getting their creatures bounced. I'm not sold on Urza's Ruinous Blast being hyper playable with him because of the high legends count and the fact it's going to exile pretty much all of your mana rocks, that being said, Cataclysmic Gearhulk seems pretty solid. Oath of Teferi is pretty great, but I'm kind of indifferent about the walkers we have access to right now in u/w. In Bolas's Clutches is another interesting flash card for surprise turnarounds (like EoT stealing someone's walker that is about to ult or something). I think he has a lot of potential as a brawl commander.

Quote from Lumovanis »

I'm not sold on Urza's Ruinous Blast being hyper playable with him because of the high legends count and the fact it's going to exile pretty much all of your mana rocks.

It's a little situational, especially if you're going high on artifacts (although there aren't enough mana rocks that i'd consider them super important), but the fact that you're probably running a ton of legends is a big draw...and being an instant-speed wipe for 5 is pretty insane. Not hitting enemy commanders is a bummer, sure, but c'mon, you can't really expect an instant-speed all-types exiling plague wind for 5. It's definitely stronger than gearhulk imo. Both are likely to leave some strong threats around, but gearhulk basically guarantees they'll keep their best stuff, whereas with urza's it's likely but not certain.