Restraining Priest1WW
Legendary Creature – Human Cleric [R]
Vigilance
Whenever Restraining Priest deals combat damage to a player, that player can't search their library for the rest of the game. 2/3
I think it should be pretty clear what I'm getting at, but I feel the phrasing is off a bit. Also I'm not sure if this can enter as a 0/0 assuming there are no nonland permanents in exile that you don't own, exile the target nonland permanent as it enters and become a 1/1 or if this is just dead on arrival if there are no exiled things already. I was trying to move away from */* and it seems like Wizards has been doing more 0/0 lately (i.e. Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar).
The Prison Council2WB
Legendary Creature - Human Advisor
When The Prison Council enters the battlefield, exile target nonland permanent until The Prison Council leaves the battlefield.
The Prison Council gets +1/+1 for each nonland permanent card in exile you don't own. 3WB: Exile target nonland permanent. Activate this ability only if The Prison Council's power is 10 or greater. 0/0
Tuvasa the Sunlit: This is pretty much what Bant enchantment players have been dreaming of for years. Low mana cost, card advantage and late game win condition. Also a relevant tribal type, there will be a few players that will want to build Bant Merfolk decks and this will be the commander for that.
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow: Evading the commander tax is a big deal and will certainly be something many players are interested in. A lot of the Kamigawa die hards along with general fans of ninjas and the ninjutsu mechanic will be all over this one. It is a unique Dimir commander that will excite many flavors.
Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign: She cheats cards into play for free sometimes which can be very powerful when used in tandem with top library manipulation. Even if you don't play up the odds shtick, Yennett still is a reliable constant source of card advantage in the command zone which makes her a strong candidate for midrange and conrtol decks. Additionally, she is the only WUB legendary sphinx, so tribal sphinx fans will certainly build decks around her. I also anticipate a lot of Oloro, Ageless Ascetic players trading in for Yennet because there hasn't be a WUB commander that reliability provides card advantage in a long time.
Least popular predictions:
Thantis, the Warweaver: It's a legendary spider, but probably inferior to [[Ishkanah, Grafwidow]] for spider tribal decks. Otherwise while the forced combat is potentially exciting, it has a high converted mana cost and a weak triggered ability that I don't anticipate will excite many players.
Gyrus, Walker of Corpses: Interesting at first glance, but extremely conditional reanimation when there are so many better and more interesting reanimation commanders doesn't seem like it would entice many players. You would think players would make him the default Hydra tribal Jund commander, but his triggered ability is a nonbo with Hyrda's with X based power.
Tawnos, Urza's Apprentice: It's not that he's not good or interesting, it's just there are so many artifact matters commanders now, many that are more flashy and unique than Tawnos, I can't see many players gravitating around Tawnos. The players that specifically wanted a UR artifact themed commander are already playing Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain or will play Saheeli, the Gifted instead.
Note: For what it's worth, according to Scryfall, the most expensive legendary creatures are Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow ($14.66), Kestia, the Cultivator ($5.99) and Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign ($5.11). The least expensive legendary creatures are: Arimethes, Slumbering Isle ($1.99), Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor ($1.99) and Xantcha, Sleeper Agent ($1.99)
This probably doesn't need the CMC restriction. Zur has such a restriction because he looks through your library, getting from the graveyard is a much larger restriction.
I put the CMC restriction in place to prevent players from reanimating stuff like Omniscience or Eldrazi Conscription or even things that shouldn't be easier to recur that cost less like Asceticism.
Eva, Enchanting Angel1GWU
Legendary Creature – Angel [MR]
Flying
Whenever Eva, Enchanting Angel enters the battlefield or attacks, you may return target enchantment card with converted mana cost 4 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield. 4/4
Tilda, Soil Spinner2BRG
Legendary Creature – Human Monk [MR]
Reach, Deathtouch
At the beginning of your upkeep, put the top four cards of your library into your graveyard. BRG, Sacrifice a land: Destroy target nonland permanent if it has converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of land cards in your graveyard. Tilda, Soil Spinner deals 3 damage to that permanent's controller. 3/5
Lands Matter Spider Legend2BRG
Legendary Creature - Spider [MR]
Reach, Deathtouch
At the beginning of your upkeep, put the top four cards of your library into your graveyard. BRG, Sacrifice a land: Destroy target nonland permanent with converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of land cards in your graveyard. ~ deals 3 damage to that permanent's controller. 3/5
Would the rules count the sacrificed land from the activated ability towards the number of lands in my graveyard, or would I need to change it to something like the following?
"BRG: Sacrifice a land. Then destroy target nonland permanent with converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of land cards in your graveyard. ~ deals 3 damage to that permanent's controller."
If the original wording wouldn't count the sacrificed land, what would be the best way to rephrase it so it does?
Genza, Tranquil CenobiteGWU
Legendary Creature – Human Monk [MR]
At the beginning of your upkeep, if the total converted mana cost amongof permanents you control is equal to 7, choose one:
- Target creature you control gets +7/+7 until end of turn.
- You gain 7 life.
- Scry 7. 0/7
See spoiler below for Genza, Tranquil Cenobite design notes:
I wanted to create a legendary creature that covers relatively unexplored design space that Johnny/Jenny players would enjoy building a deck around. The idea I had was to design a card that rewards you for maintaining a specific converted mana cost among permanents you control. Genza, Tranquil Cenobite was designed with the Commander format in mind but because I don’t see any immediate power issues I could imagine the card appearing in a Standard legal set.
Genza, Tranquil Cenobite has a high toughness which makes it resilient to damage based removal while also functioning as a solid defense while setting up your total converted mana cost to 7. This can be supported with various permanents with low mana costs plus instant bounce spells and spells with flash to make it more difficult for opponents to interrupt your set up (i.e. Snap, Restoration Angel). Genza, Tranquil Cenobite can also be supported with a sub creature token theme (as tokens have a converted mana cost of zero) or a spell slinging shell with a high number of non permanent spells. If I were to explore the design space further, I would likely create trinkets or cantrips that allow you to temporarily change the converted mana cost of a permanent to 1.
The three options you can choose if you meet the criteria of the triggered ability cover the spectrum of Genza, Tranquil Cenobite's color identity (scry is primary in blue, life gain is primary in white, stat boost is primary in green). They are roughly equal power level in terms of what their mana cost would be (i.e. Might of Oaks, Angel's Mercy).
Note: Scry 7 seems like it could potentially have some developmental issues, specifically that it could cause turns to take longer than usual. However, I don't believe this is a serious issue though considering it is a mythic rare design and the player actually scrying 7 wouldn't happen frequently due to it being one of three options of an ability that is already conditional. While there is no precedent of cards with Scry 7, Dig Through Time and Ancestral Memories often function similarly to what Scry 7 would be (i.e. sometimes Scry 7 will function as an extended Impulse, especially in decks with multiple shuffle effects).
Reeva, Bog Guide1WUB
Legendary Creature – Human Cleric [MR]
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, choose a card type, then reveal the top card of your library. If the revealed card shares the chosen card type, you gain life equal to its converted mana cost and put that card into your hand. Otherwise, put the revealed card on the bottom of your library. T, Pay 2 life: Scry 2. 2/2
See spoiler below for Reeva, Bog Guide design notes:
I created Reeva, Bog Guide as a bottom up "top of library matters" commander. The effect is powerful as it provides a reusable source of card advantage but it conditional based on knowing what the top card of your library is. This makes her work well with effects like Future Sight and Lantern of Insight along with scry abilities. Even if you get the extra cards, they are revealed to your opponents which is a slight downside to the effect. The card also has mediocre stats considering its converted mana cost and color requirements which also makes it easy to remove.
The activated ability has obvious synergy with the triggered ability. You can use it to scry to dig for specific answers or to set up the top of your library so you can reveal the correct card type to gain card advantage. The life loss of the activated ability can be mitigated by the life gain of the triggered ability.
An alternate way to play Reeva, Bog Guide is to build a narrow deck with a high rate of a specific card type. For example, an artifact themed deck with 40+ artifacts. Under this scenario, even if you don't know the top card of your library, guessing artifact gives you a decent chance of gaining card advantage or getting you closer to another artifact. This concept could work with other card types as well (i.e. enchantments matter).
A few of your thought say "in competitive circles" - I can't speak for competitive circles. I can say it would suck for casual. We're not tutoring infinite combos usually. Sure, we're either tutoring a win condition or an answer to an opponent's win condition, but it's the back and forth and being able to tutor the right thing at the right time that keeps the game interesting sometimes. And it wouldn't create more variation - it would just make it harder to stop whoever got their win condition first because you would have to already have the answer.
- Clearly, combo decks would become less competitive, but so would toolbox generals.
- In place of tutoring one card, players would resort to mass-draw in hopes of finding the one card among many. Blue gets better.
I'm not sure if blue gets better. With combos being much weaker, counterspells become way less essential and that is currently one of blue's strongest assets.
The game would still be interesting. It arguably would be more interesting because games would have much more variance.
Legendary Creature – Human Cleric [R]
Vigilance
Whenever Restraining Priest deals combat damage to a player, that player can't search their library for the rest of the game.
2/3
Mystic Speculation is another hidden gem that is worth trying.
Legendary Creature - Human Advisor
When The Prison Council enters the battlefield, exile target nonland permanent until The Prison Council leaves the battlefield.
The Prison Council gets +1/+1 for each nonland permanent card in exile you don't own.
3WB: Exile target nonland permanent. Activate this ability only if The Prison Council's power is 10 or greater.
0/0
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow: Evading the commander tax is a big deal and will certainly be something many players are interested in. A lot of the Kamigawa die hards along with general fans of ninjas and the ninjutsu mechanic will be all over this one. It is a unique Dimir commander that will excite many flavors.
Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign: She cheats cards into play for free sometimes which can be very powerful when used in tandem with top library manipulation. Even if you don't play up the odds shtick, Yennett still is a reliable constant source of card advantage in the command zone which makes her a strong candidate for midrange and conrtol decks. Additionally, she is the only WUB legendary sphinx, so tribal sphinx fans will certainly build decks around her. I also anticipate a lot of Oloro, Ageless Ascetic players trading in for Yennet because there hasn't be a WUB commander that reliability provides card advantage in a long time.
Least popular predictions:
Gyrus, Walker of Corpses: Interesting at first glance, but extremely conditional reanimation when there are so many better and more interesting reanimation commanders doesn't seem like it would entice many players. You would think players would make him the default Hydra tribal Jund commander, but his triggered ability is a nonbo with Hyrda's with X based power.
Tawnos, Urza's Apprentice: It's not that he's not good or interesting, it's just there are so many artifact matters commanders now, many that are more flashy and unique than Tawnos, I can't see many players gravitating around Tawnos. The players that specifically wanted a UR artifact themed commander are already playing Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain or will play Saheeli, the Gifted instead.
Note: For what it's worth, according to Scryfall, the most expensive legendary creatures are Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow ($14.66), Kestia, the Cultivator ($5.99) and Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign ($5.11). The least expensive legendary creatures are: Arimethes, Slumbering Isle ($1.99), Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor ($1.99) and Xantcha, Sleeper Agent ($1.99)
It is very likely that the planeswalker face cards will lead the front in the popularity contest, but what about the alternate creature commanders?
1. Which three new creature commanders do you anticipate will be the most popular in terms of building a commander deck around? Why?
2. Which three new creature commanders do you anticipate will be the least popular in terms of building a commander deck around? Why?
I put the CMC restriction in place to prevent players from reanimating stuff like Omniscience or Eldrazi Conscription or even things that shouldn't be easier to recur that cost less like Asceticism.
Legendary Creature – Angel [MR]
Flying
Whenever Eva, Enchanting Angel enters the battlefield or attacks, you may return target enchantment card with converted mana cost 4 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
4/4
Legendary Creature – Human Monk [MR]
Reach, Deathtouch
At the beginning of your upkeep, put the top four cards of your library into your graveyard.
BRG, Sacrifice a land: Destroy target nonland permanent if it has converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of land cards in your graveyard. Tilda, Soil Spinner deals 3 damage to that permanent's controller.
3/5
Lands Matter Spider Legend 2BRG
Legendary Creature - Spider [MR]
Reach, Deathtouch
At the beginning of your upkeep, put the top four cards of your library into your graveyard.
BRG, Sacrifice a land: Destroy target nonland permanent with converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of land cards in your graveyard. ~ deals 3 damage to that permanent's controller.
3/5
Would the rules count the sacrificed land from the activated ability towards the number of lands in my graveyard, or would I need to change it to something like the following?
"BRG: Sacrifice a land. Then destroy target nonland permanent with converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of land cards in your graveyard. ~ deals 3 damage to that permanent's controller."
If the original wording wouldn't count the sacrificed land, what would be the best way to rephrase it so it does?
Legendary Creature – Human Monk [MR]
At the beginning of your upkeep, if the total converted mana cost
amongof permanents you control is equal to 7, choose one:- Target creature you control gets +7/+7 until end of turn.
- You gain 7 life.
- Scry 7.
0/7
See spoiler below for Genza, Tranquil Cenobite design notes:
I wanted to create a legendary creature that covers relatively unexplored design space that Johnny/Jenny players would enjoy building a deck around. The idea I had was to design a card that rewards you for maintaining a specific converted mana cost among permanents you control. Genza, Tranquil Cenobite was designed with the Commander format in mind but because I don’t see any immediate power issues I could imagine the card appearing in a Standard legal set.
Genza, Tranquil Cenobite has a high toughness which makes it resilient to damage based removal while also functioning as a solid defense while setting up your total converted mana cost to 7. This can be supported with various permanents with low mana costs plus instant bounce spells and spells with flash to make it more difficult for opponents to interrupt your set up (i.e. Snap, Restoration Angel). Genza, Tranquil Cenobite can also be supported with a sub creature token theme (as tokens have a converted mana cost of zero) or a spell slinging shell with a high number of non permanent spells. If I were to explore the design space further, I would likely create trinkets or cantrips that allow you to temporarily change the converted mana cost of a permanent to 1.
The three options you can choose if you meet the criteria of the triggered ability cover the spectrum of Genza, Tranquil Cenobite's color identity (scry is primary in blue, life gain is primary in white, stat boost is primary in green). They are roughly equal power level in terms of what their mana cost would be (i.e. Might of Oaks, Angel's Mercy).
Note: Scry 7 seems like it could potentially have some developmental issues, specifically that it could cause turns to take longer than usual. However, I don't believe this is a serious issue though considering it is a mythic rare design and the player actually scrying 7 wouldn't happen frequently due to it being one of three options of an ability that is already conditional. While there is no precedent of cards with Scry 7, Dig Through Time and Ancestral Memories often function similarly to what Scry 7 would be (i.e. sometimes Scry 7 will function as an extended Impulse, especially in decks with multiple shuffle effects).
Legendary Creature – Human Cleric [MR]
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, choose a card type, then reveal the top card of your library. If the revealed card shares the chosen card type, you gain life equal to its converted mana cost and put that card into your hand. Otherwise, put the revealed card on the bottom of your library.
T, Pay 2 life: Scry 2.
2/2
See spoiler below for Reeva, Bog Guide design notes:
I created Reeva, Bog Guide as a bottom up "top of library matters" commander. The effect is powerful as it provides a reusable source of card advantage but it conditional based on knowing what the top card of your library is. This makes her work well with effects like Future Sight and Lantern of Insight along with scry abilities. Even if you get the extra cards, they are revealed to your opponents which is a slight downside to the effect. The card also has mediocre stats considering its converted mana cost and color requirements which also makes it easy to remove.
The activated ability has obvious synergy with the triggered ability. You can use it to scry to dig for specific answers or to set up the top of your library so you can reveal the correct card type to gain card advantage. The life loss of the activated ability can be mitigated by the life gain of the triggered ability.
An alternate way to play Reeva, Bog Guide is to build a narrow deck with a high rate of a specific card type. For example, an artifact themed deck with 40+ artifacts. Under this scenario, even if you don't know the top card of your library, guessing artifact gives you a decent chance of gaining card advantage or getting you closer to another artifact. This concept could work with other card types as well (i.e. enchantments matter).
Swords to Plowshares
Path To Exile
Sun Titan
Wrath of God
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Mother of Runes
Please keep telling me how useless W is and how few tricks it has.
I'm not sure if blue gets better. With combos being much weaker, counterspells become way less essential and that is currently one of blue's strongest assets.
The game would still be interesting. It arguably would be more interesting because games would have much more variance.
Incorrect.
Cards that tutor solely for basic land types are still fair game. So things like Polluted Delta, Rampant Growth, Cultivate, etc. are still fair game. Cards like Crop Rotation, Sylvan Scrying and Scapeshift would be banned under this hypothetical thought experiment.