Is Eternal Command playable with the recent B&R changes?
I've recently been finding success with a variation that cuts Tarmogoyf for Ice-Fang Coatl and plays the Kiki/Pestermite combo as well - I haven't played too much since the B&R, but the only deck I struggled with before it was Hogaak. Reasons for the swap are:
Not playing Goyfs makes you almost entirely instant speed, and Coatl/Pestermite lets you be proactive on their turn as well.
Clique and Goyf haven't aged well as bodies in the last 7 years.
Not playing Goyf makes closing out games slow - the combo helps with this. Having 8 flyers also allows a lot of chip damage for Snap/Bolt plan. Also resolving a Kiki with any other creature in play, especially Witness, is often winning.
Pestermite actually feels great. There are neat Vial interactions (you can vial in T4 to untap a land for Kiki, or untap vial). Lots of tempo plays that can make life really awkward for opponents.
One of Goyf's responsibilities was dealing with creatures - Coatl helps on this front as well.
Taking out Goyf but putting in Pestermite makes Ops deciding to have removal awkward - removal will be dead in their hand early, which is effectively a form of tempoing.
Taking out Goyf makes GY hate worse vs you.
There are plenty of downsides as well - most obviously no thicc creatures and almost everything has 1 toughness.
Drown in the Loch also looks very spicy for BUG Eternal Command.
I've considered moving Tamiyo to the board, but she is very rarely a dead card and tends to add more of an effective clock overall than the SB Kitchen Finks would (Finks being the SB card that would come in). Considering that I might cut the second sword for a dismember there's a possibility of moving the Dismember main and the Tamiyo to the board, but there tend to be more situations where Dismember is bad G1 overall relative to Tamiyo.
Wanting to have the 16th blue source is the primary reason behind the 61st card and 21st land - there is a good chance I'm going to cut blessed alliance moving forward. The Gavony is particularly good for two reasons: it makes our Goyfs bigger than opposing Goyfs, and it is extremely powerful with the persist creatures. Although I could see cutting it.
It's hard to find good artifacts to want to put in the main deck, and the singleton Thirst already gets to be good most of the time as pitching either an artifact or a combination of lands and cards that are bad in the matchup is fairly consistant. Traverse oftentimes won't turn on Delerium until later, and that is somewhat problematic, but overall the card seems very strong even without additional enablers. Enablers tend to be fluff cards and one thing that Eternal Command as an archetype in general can suffer from is a lack of effect density (ie, I want to have X number of removal spells, X number of cards that can be flashbacked early, X creatures at both 2 and 3 drop slots). Filigree Familiar is usually worse than Kitchen Finks. Filigree Familiar is primarily in the deck in order to give [card]Trophy Mage{/card}] more than one target in order to make the value more consistant. The Treasure Mage is clunky, but powerful. I have played several previous iterations, and while I'm not 100% sold on the Trophy Mage plan I'm fairly confident that it is, at the very least, on par with builds without it.
There is a lot of thought that goes into the swords discussion overall, but the primary reason for War and Peace is that it kills faster than any other sword against a majority of the decks that you have to play the beatdown role against. There are a lot of other reasons - it protects your creatures from two removal heavy colors, it allows you to push through Lingering Souls (which is the most common chump block generating tool in Modern atm), very importantly it is both good when you're the beat down and the control. Etc. I was playing a Feast and Famine in the SB previously, but found it to be underwhelming overall relative to Light and Shadow - both of these cards are good vs BGx, but BGx isn't a particularly problematic matchup. Fire and Ice would be my second pick for the MD Sword, but I still prefer War and Peace.
Trophy Mage has been surprisingly good, albeit the package is somewhat clunky.
Tamiyo is extremely good against anything that is grindy or wins with creatures but doesn't go wide. It's nice that it can protect itself with either a plus or a minus (people generally won't give you cards if they can't kill it outright). Tamiyo to some extent acts as a pseudo sword for all your little creatures, and can help to push through damage if you plus or minus on blockers. BGx in general has a very hard time beating it, especially Jund post board as they don't have souls and likely board out some amount of Bolt.
Yes, it is a 61 card deck - the 61st card is probably Resto, Blessed Alliance, or Seachrome Coast. I'm strongly considering cutting the SB sword for a Dismember as well. Additionally a lot of my playtesting is without all 3x Goyfs as I two of mine turned out to be fake and I no longer play with them.
Regarding Tron: I've found this SB setup to be quite effective. You have 3x Land Destruction (GQ) and 3x ways to capitalize off of it (Crucible, Surgical, and Trophy Mage getting Crucible). Also if the game goes long enough for you to get Delirium (which is normally somewhat hard to get against Tron) the two Traverses can fetch either side of what you need. Also having SB land is nice vs match ups where you want to board out some number of Vials.
Edit: Trophy Mage gets Crucible, not Surgical.
I've recently been finding success with a variation that cuts Tarmogoyf for Ice-Fang Coatl and plays the Kiki/Pestermite combo as well - I haven't played too much since the B&R, but the only deck I struggled with before it was Hogaak. Reasons for the swap are:
Drown in the Loch also looks very spicy for BUG Eternal Command.
Wanting to have the 16th blue source is the primary reason behind the 61st card and 21st land - there is a good chance I'm going to cut blessed alliance moving forward. The Gavony is particularly good for two reasons: it makes our Goyfs bigger than opposing Goyfs, and it is extremely powerful with the persist creatures. Although I could see cutting it.
It's hard to find good artifacts to want to put in the main deck, and the singleton Thirst already gets to be good most of the time as pitching either an artifact or a combination of lands and cards that are bad in the matchup is fairly consistant. Traverse oftentimes won't turn on Delerium until later, and that is somewhat problematic, but overall the card seems very strong even without additional enablers. Enablers tend to be fluff cards and one thing that Eternal Command as an archetype in general can suffer from is a lack of effect density (ie, I want to have X number of removal spells, X number of cards that can be flashbacked early, X creatures at both 2 and 3 drop slots).
Filigree Familiar is usually worse than Kitchen Finks. Filigree Familiar is primarily in the deck in order to give [card]Trophy Mage{/card}] more than one target in order to make the value more consistant. The Treasure Mage is clunky, but powerful. I have played several previous iterations, and while I'm not 100% sold on the Trophy Mage plan I'm fairly confident that it is, at the very least, on par with builds without it.
There is a lot of thought that goes into the swords discussion overall, but the primary reason for War and Peace is that it kills faster than any other sword against a majority of the decks that you have to play the beatdown role against. There are a lot of other reasons - it protects your creatures from two removal heavy colors, it allows you to push through Lingering Souls (which is the most common chump block generating tool in Modern atm), very importantly it is both good when you're the beat down and the control. Etc. I was playing a Feast and Famine in the SB previously, but found it to be underwhelming overall relative to Light and Shadow - both of these cards are good vs BGx, but BGx isn't a particularly problematic matchup. Fire and Ice would be my second pick for the MD Sword, but I still prefer War and Peace.
Tamiyo is extremely good against anything that is grindy or wins with creatures but doesn't go wide. It's nice that it can protect itself with either a plus or a minus (people generally won't give you cards if they can't kill it outright). Tamiyo to some extent acts as a pseudo sword for all your little creatures, and can help to push through damage if you plus or minus on blockers. BGx in general has a very hard time beating it, especially Jund post board as they don't have souls and likely board out some amount of Bolt.
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Restoration Angel
1 Trophy Mage
1 Filigree Familiar
1 Kitchen Finks
Instants 15
2 Spell Snare
2 Remand
3 Cryptic Command
4 Path to Exile
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Bant Charm
1 Negate
1 Blessed Alliance
Sorceries 5
3 Serum Visions
2 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Aether Vial
1 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
1 Sword of War and Peace
Lands 21
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Flooded Grove
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Flooded Strand
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Botanical Sanctum
1 Gavony Township
1 Seachrome Coast
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Dispel
1 Celestial Purge
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Negate
1 Disenchant
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Bow of Nylea
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
Yes, it is a 61 card deck - the 61st card is probably Resto, Blessed Alliance, or Seachrome Coast. I'm strongly considering cutting the SB sword for a Dismember as well. Additionally a lot of my playtesting is without all 3x Goyfs as I two of mine turned out to be fake and I no longer play with them.
Regarding Tron: I've found this SB setup to be quite effective. You have 3x Land Destruction (GQ) and 3x ways to capitalize off of it (Crucible, Surgical, and Trophy Mage getting Crucible). Also if the game goes long enough for you to get Delirium (which is normally somewhat hard to get against Tron) the two Traverses can fetch either side of what you need. Also having SB land is nice vs match ups where you want to board out some number of Vials.
Edit: Trophy Mage gets Crucible, not Surgical.