I've been pouring over the cards in Throne of Eldraine and there's so many great cards for commander that one could quite literally make a commander deck with just cards from this set. That might seem a bit farfetched but remember that commander is a format that also cares about redundancy. So, a card like Thrill of Possibility can go in decks already running cards like Wild Guess and Tormenting Voice, especially since Thrill of Possibility is an instant-speed Tormenting Voice.
Maybe this set review can help you see some of these cards in a new light and maybe there are some that you haven't considered before for decks you already have, decks you're considering brewing, or maybe inspire you to build an entirely new deck.
I made this review in video form and hopefully it's not too daunting to see through. I do give some time stamps pertaining to the legendary creatures and then the rest of the cards by color, as well as colorless and lands. So if you just want to skip ahead of see a specific subset of cards, you can.
My YouTube Channel: The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
the cauldron of eternity has been lingering in mind for it's potential with hermit druid lines. It's a bit awkward but offers a nice way to stop from self-decking.
thrill of possibility is a big win for my red splash storm brews. The issue with most discard requiring cards is the potential blow-out if it's countered, but doing this at end-of-opponents-turn makes that less desirable for the control player to counter. It's another instant-speed discard spell to help fluff storm# if there are multiple wheels on the stack, and any instant discard is always desirable in a casual deck running phage the untouchable against an opponent playing rise of the dark realms.
I am a little sad that the beautiful boarder of some of these new cards didn't translate to any legendary creature. The cast-for-discount to exile thing would have been interesting for a commander.
Also the fetchable non-basics like witch's cottage are all very good for decks that can take advantage of their etb. The red blue and black one will be very strong in decks with fetch lands as they can act as random answers/blocker or unexpected recursion.
I am a little sad that the beautiful boarder of some of these new cards didn't translate to any legendary creature. The cast-for-discount to exile thing would have been interesting for a commander.
I'm actually pretty baffled about us not getting any legends with adventure in a set made for Brawl.
I like Questing Beast though; vigilance+haste+evasion at that CMC is unique to it, and it just sort of passively wrecks superfriends and planeswalker commanders as a bonus.
Having gotten to play with Garruk, Cursed Huntsman at the pre release im really interested in putting it into my Kresh deck. The emblem is very achievable, the wolves relevant and all it ends up doing is 4BG to replace itself and kill something that's still ok.
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EDH BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern: RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
I am a little sad that the beautiful boarder of some of these new cards didn't translate to any legendary creature. The cast-for-discount to exile thing would have been interesting for a commander.
I'm actually pretty baffled about us not getting any legends with adventure in a set made for Brawl.
I like Questing Beast though; vigilance+haste+evasion at that CMC is unique to it, and it just sort of passively wrecks superfriends and planeswalker commanders as a bonus.
There's an adventure commander in the bant Brawl deck, Chulane, Teller of Tales. He doesn't have an adventure or directly reference it, but he's sort of an adventure lord that can operate more broadly (which is a good thing). Like, he's generally good for rewarding you for casting creatures and being able to get them back to your hand to do it again, but he really makes adventure creatures a lot better by giving you a reliable way to get them back in hand to recast their adventures. He lets you cycle the same adventures over and over again if need be, and he gives the otherwise generally tiny creatures some more oomph by having them draw you a card and sometimes ramp you when you cast them. He's in the colors with the payoffs, and you really need to be able to recycle adventure creatures because there are too few to actually make a deck with them otherwise, even in brawl.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
I'm actually pretty baffled about us not getting any legends with adventure in a set made for Brawl.
This is likely by design, as Adventure interacts oddly with the Command Zone mechanic.
In theory, if the adventure half is more relevant than the creature, you could cast the creature as an adventure, and then when it tries to exile itself on an adventure, simply send it back to the Command Zone, which would let you adventure again. While it could be interesting having a spell in the Command Zone, I bet they probably want to wait a bit on making that a thing, until they can dedicate a bit more time to getting it right.
It's also a bit of a flavor fail on the part of Adventures, because you send your Commander on an Adventure (which is weird itself, what leader abandons everyone at the time of need?), but then s/he DOESN'T go on the adventure, but just goes straight back home (going to CZ), but you still get the benefit of the adventure... that you flavorfully didn't actually go on.
Mechanically, it would be interesting though, as you'd have the choice between letting the Commander get exiled on the adventure so you can cast them for cheaper (just mana cost from exile), compared to sending them back to CZ, which would then increase the cost by 2, regardless which half you chose to cast.
There's also interesting portion of 'cheating' some Command Zone cost if the spell is cheaper than the creature, as you could cast the spell for more expensive, and split the cost over 2 turns. For example, imagine a Legendary Adventure Creature cost 4w, but the adventure cost W, and you have cast your Commander/Adventure twice, so you have a tax of 4. You could cast the spell for 4W, then the creature for 4W, Whereas just casting the creature straight from CZ would have cost 8W. This lets you still cast your Commander, even if you're on 5 lands, despite the tax, by splitting the cost over the two turns.
On the other hand, if the Creature half is cheaper, then you get the interesting question earlier in the game, as to whether you want to cast the creature half alone - knowing that it would make the Adventure cost more expensive later.
Either way, it shows there's quite a lot to consider in the design of a legendary creature with an Adventure, so I'm not surprised they didn't release one off the bat.
The final nail in the coffin is also probably that an Adventure legendary would want to be multi color, probably even 3 color, but the set itself is very focused on mono-colored interactions and cards. It could go into a Brawl deck, but that raises the complexity of a Brawl deck, which they would want more as introductory towards new players, I imagine.
I've been pouring over the cards in Throne of Eldraine and there's so many great cards for commander that one could quite literally make a commander deck with just cards from this set. That might seem a bit farfetched but remember that commander is a format that also cares about redundancy. So, a card like Thrill of Possibility can go in decks already running cards like Wild Guess and Tormenting Voice, especially since Thrill of Possibility is an instant-speed Tormenting Voice.
Maybe this set review can help you see some of these cards in a new light and maybe there are some that you haven't considered before for decks you already have, decks you're considering brewing, or maybe inspire you to build an entirely new deck.
I made this review in video form and hopefully it's not too daunting to see through. I do give some time stamps pertaining to the legendary creatures and then the rest of the cards by color, as well as colorless and lands. So if you just want to skip ahead of see a specific subset of cards, you can.
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My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
thrill of possibility is a big win for my red splash storm brews. The issue with most discard requiring cards is the potential blow-out if it's countered, but doing this at end-of-opponents-turn makes that less desirable for the control player to counter. It's another instant-speed discard spell to help fluff storm# if there are multiple wheels on the stack, and any instant discard is always desirable in a casual deck running phage the untouchable against an opponent playing rise of the dark realms.
I am a little sad that the beautiful boarder of some of these new cards didn't translate to any legendary creature. The cast-for-discount to exile thing would have been interesting for a commander.
Also the fetchable non-basics like witch's cottage are all very good for decks that can take advantage of their etb. The red blue and black one will be very strong in decks with fetch lands as they can act as random answers/blocker or unexpected recursion.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
I like Questing Beast though; vigilance+haste+evasion at that CMC is unique to it, and it just sort of passively wrecks superfriends and planeswalker commanders as a bonus.
- Rabid Wombat
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern:
RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
There's an adventure commander in the bant Brawl deck, Chulane, Teller of Tales. He doesn't have an adventure or directly reference it, but he's sort of an adventure lord that can operate more broadly (which is a good thing). Like, he's generally good for rewarding you for casting creatures and being able to get them back to your hand to do it again, but he really makes adventure creatures a lot better by giving you a reliable way to get them back in hand to recast their adventures. He lets you cycle the same adventures over and over again if need be, and he gives the otherwise generally tiny creatures some more oomph by having them draw you a card and sometimes ramp you when you cast them. He's in the colors with the payoffs, and you really need to be able to recycle adventure creatures because there are too few to actually make a deck with them otherwise, even in brawl.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
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RGodzilla, King of the MonstersG
-Retired Decks-
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StaffIn theory, if the adventure half is more relevant than the creature, you could cast the creature as an adventure, and then when it tries to exile itself on an adventure, simply send it back to the Command Zone, which would let you adventure again. While it could be interesting having a spell in the Command Zone, I bet they probably want to wait a bit on making that a thing, until they can dedicate a bit more time to getting it right.
It's also a bit of a flavor fail on the part of Adventures, because you send your Commander on an Adventure (which is weird itself, what leader abandons everyone at the time of need?), but then s/he DOESN'T go on the adventure, but just goes straight back home (going to CZ), but you still get the benefit of the adventure... that you flavorfully didn't actually go on.
Mechanically, it would be interesting though, as you'd have the choice between letting the Commander get exiled on the adventure so you can cast them for cheaper (just mana cost from exile), compared to sending them back to CZ, which would then increase the cost by 2, regardless which half you chose to cast.
There's also interesting portion of 'cheating' some Command Zone cost if the spell is cheaper than the creature, as you could cast the spell for more expensive, and split the cost over 2 turns. For example, imagine a Legendary Adventure Creature cost 4w, but the adventure cost W, and you have cast your Commander/Adventure twice, so you have a tax of 4. You could cast the spell for 4W, then the creature for 4W, Whereas just casting the creature straight from CZ would have cost 8W. This lets you still cast your Commander, even if you're on 5 lands, despite the tax, by splitting the cost over the two turns.
On the other hand, if the Creature half is cheaper, then you get the interesting question earlier in the game, as to whether you want to cast the creature half alone - knowing that it would make the Adventure cost more expensive later.
Either way, it shows there's quite a lot to consider in the design of a legendary creature with an Adventure, so I'm not surprised they didn't release one off the bat.
The final nail in the coffin is also probably that an Adventure legendary would want to be multi color, probably even 3 color, but the set itself is very focused on mono-colored interactions and cards. It could go into a Brawl deck, but that raises the complexity of a Brawl deck, which they would want more as introductory towards new players, I imagine.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs