Hello happy Kamigawa fans! I hope that you enjoyed our run through the best of cards from NEO that I did the last few weeks. Now let's turn to the Commander set that debuted with it and look at my Top Ten-ish. In order to make this list, the card in question needs to be good at the kitchen table like Commander, multiplayer, Highlander, Five Color and Type Four. Ready? Let's do it to it!

Honorable Mention #1 - Organic Extinction

Essentially hitting at #12 on my list is this 10-mana sorcery with improvise. That cost keeps it back here outside of my Top Ten proper. This destroys all non-artifact creatures. In a deck where you have half of your creatures as artifacts then this could be as powerful as Mass Calcify in a two color deck where you'd save roughly half of your stuff. Sure, your foes won't lose their Solemn Simulacrum or Duplicant or Esper Sentinel or Iron Myr, but that should still leave you better off. In a deck where you have most or all of your creatures count as artifacts then this could count as a White Plague Wind, although worse since you could play against another dedicated artifact list. They're pretty common at the kitchen table. However, there is a super-secret ability to break Improvise: Treasures, with a shout out to Clues, Bloods, and Foods. Consider Boros with Odric, Blood-Cursed's massive Blood making and a sizeable amount of artifact dorks. Loads of decks that lean into these as well as creatures with cards like Confirm Suspicions that counters and gives you three Clues or Dockside Extortionist that nets a nice bounty of Treasures. In those brews you can just tap them for the mana needed to drop this and cast it easily for 5 or 7 mana and still get its impact. Don't sleep on that way to drop the cost.

Now let's turn to another improvise card and look at more ways to synergize with tokens.

Honorable Mention #2 - Universal Surveillance

This X spell card draw is three to start and then X to draw. Typically, sorcery speed X card draw spells are (Mind Spring; Braingeyser). This is an extra which is really harder to cast and drops its power in this list... but you do draw a bunch of cards. Since this has Improvise, you can tap Treasures or Clues to draw cards. You can even tap artifact dorks like Servo and Thopter tokens and Burnished Hart. Is has all of the improvise synergies of the previous card but is more flexible since it's just a 3 mana Mind Spring on an empty board and you don't have to worry about a bad matchup.

Now let's leave behind the Honorable Mentions and turn to the Top Ten proper.

10. Kotori, Pilot Prodigy

This set and its Commander spinoff really pushed Vehicles in new directions for the Kitchen Table. Previously, we had one deck archetype built around Vehicles - Boros. But now we have a different feeling Orzhov reanimation strat built around Greasefang, Okiba Boss and this Azorius Vees Matter leader here in Kotori. This 2/4 Moonfolk Pilot is 3 mana, cheap for a Commander. When in play there are two abilities. The first is that your Vees have crew 2 and with the 2 power it brings to the table, that means any Vehicles is crewable with Kotori. Also, you can give an artifact dork lifelink and vigilance for the turn. That synergizes with Vees since you make it a creature, move to combat, vigilance and lifelink, and swing. Good stuff!

9. Blastoise...er...Kappa Cannoneer

Our third Blue card in a row is this 6-drop 4/4 with improvise and ward 4. Ward 4 is pretty high and plays keep away pretty well, even if it isn't proper hexproof, and thus when it goes off, it's just a toothache to answer. With five generic mana, there is a lot of interplay for a cheaper Cannoneer using the synergies we talked about before between Improvise and Treasure tokens. This is also an artifact for those synergies like Organic Extinction above. When an artifact arrives at your party, you place a +1/+1 counter and it's unblockable for the turn. That's some pretty potent power, since unlike other effects this can be done many times and all at once. Imagine this in an Izzet deck with something like the token making Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer that also happens to make artifacts, or the power of Treasure making with the counter Spell Swindle. Good stuff for the masses!

8. Imposter Mech

Our fourth Blue card in a row, Mua aha! But this is our penultimate scoring Blue card (sorta) and does gold really count? Anyways, this is a cheap 3/1 Vehicle for 2 mana and crew 3, a bit pricey. On arrival to the battlefield, it can copy a foe's creature but it's a Vehicle with crew 3. That makes it a worse version since you'll need 3 power to crew it, and it only copies foes stuff so it's harder to build around. Make it target anything and that would make the Top Five. Allow it to target anything and it wouldn't be legendary would crack my Top Three. Remember you still need to crew it to make it count and that's 3 crew. A copy of Consecrated Sphinx needs to be crewed to draw cards. But it's cheap and very nicely done and it's pretty strong in control, artifact, vehicle, and Clone brews. Enjoy it!

7. Chishiro, the Shattered Blade

The leader of one of the Commander decks is this Gruul Snake Samurai which is a good size for 4 mana, a 4/4 with two abilities. The first is that as your Aura/Equipment enters your battlefield, you'll make a 2/2 Spirit which is pretty nice already, and then it has menace, an evasive ability. Also note that there is no "once per turn" restriction on it either. Also note that this will toss a +1/+1 counter on your modified stuff at the end of your turn, so it clearly wants to lead a modified Gruul Deck which is a new archetype introduced in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. That's pretty nice for the spice.

6. Release to Memory

Our penultimate hitting White card (again, sorta see the next one...) is this fun four-cost instant. It will instantly exile an opposing graveyard, which is great at instant speed since you can foil a foe's Living Death or shut down their Meren of Clan Nel Toth engine. The list of examples is long as graveyard abuse is rife in Commander and pretty much every deck will run some even if it's just Eternal Witness and Karmic Guide in a Selesnya Brew. But here we have an instant way to handle that. And for each exiled creature in that foe's graveyard, you make a 1/1 Sprit token, so you are not down a card either. Good card for the Commander metagame and if you were in Azorius or Boros and looking for a nice anti-graveyard abuse card that won't hurt you like Scavenger Grounds or Relic of Progenitus I have you covered. Black has free stuff that cantrips (Nihil Spellbomb) but it's slower and thus stops a slower range of things like Bojuka Bog. Also, it has cheaper instants but they won't hit an entire graveyard (Crypt Incursion just hits creatures). Szat's Will is one more and will exile all foe's graveyards at instant speed.

Top Five Time!

5. The Myojin Cycle

This set of five cards is our only cycle of cards in this set. They changed up the language, the original ones comes into play with divinity counters, which gave them indestructible but now they just have indestructible counters that you can pull off and on again with things like Tyrite Sanctum. The cycle is pretty good, but it only gets the counters when cast from your hand, which prevents them as Commanders unless you wanna jump through some serious hoops. I wish they had added in "or Command Zone." I get the initial idea of putting a brake on reanimation, flickering and Tooth and Nail, but if I am limiting myself to just one color and an 8 mana leader, that it should work.

Myojin of Blooming Dawn can make a ton of 1/1 dorks in ramp decks with a ton of lands or in going wide brews like Selesnya tokens. Myojin of Cryptic Dreams makes three copies of a permanent spell in Blue and I love it in blink or midrange with all of their ETB triggers. Myojin of Grim Betrayal is great after a mass removal spell like Wrath of God or Blasphemous Act was cast leaving you with just the Myojin. Myojin of Roaring Blades can really kill al lot of stuff and can target your three foes for 7 damage each and loves to get doubled or tripled with damage increasers in that color. Myojin of Towering Might is a powerful 8/8 indestructible for 8 mana so that's not overpaying, and you can pump it up to a 16/16 permanently and with trample for the turn.

This cycle is nasty in Type Four (rules for it here - Type 4 - MTG Wiki (fandom.com)) where you have infinite mana so their casting cost is not a problem, but you can only cast one spell per turn. They are, collectively, my 2nd favorite card from the set for Type Four, and then the best hits lower. Good cycle for the casual fun times!

4. Kaima, the Fractured Calm

This four-mana 3/3 Gruul Spirit also created a new archetype for Commander like the previous two hitting ones in Azorius Vehicles and Gruul Modified. In this case it's "Reverse Voltron." You are rewarded for enchanting your opponents' creatures. At the beginning of your end step, you goad each opposing creature that has an Aura on it that you control. Then Kaima grows by that many goaded dorks with +1/+1 counters on it making it a powerful Commander Kill on a naked board as your foes attack each other. Reverse Voltron is clever as you will have a few options. You could pump them with things like Rancor to enable them to smash more easily. But then when Kaima is answered they will come your way and you are not in colors like Blue to White to slow down their attacks with Ghostly Prison effects so you will get hit hard. Or you could find negative Auras that hurt them, but they won't kill each other that quickly. And when they attack you post-Kaima, then you'll get hurt less, and either way makes sense to me.

3. Access Denied

This is my favorite card for the set for Type Four. As I mentioned earlier, you only get one spell per turn, which increases the power of counters there. Normally, you get past counters by casting one bait spell, letting them counter it, and then casting the card that you wanted to resolve. But here you cannot save up to blitz past a counter deck, which increases their values. But they cannot counter to save a spell on the stack either. If they cast a nasty game winning dork they are open, and you can just counter it and move on. This is now my favorite non-free counter in that format (spells are free if you cast their alternate cost like pitching a Blue card to Force of Will). My previous one was Draining Whelk which could win the game with the big casting costs in the format, but this is better since it cannot just be answered by a single 1:1 removal spell like Utter End. It can only be answered by mass removal like Damnation. Nasty there! In other news, making a few artifact flyers from your counter is pretty useful and I've already tossed it into Commander decks. I like counters that do things since counters are 1:1 card disadvantage at the multiplayer table since you were outdrawn 1:3 by your foes. I like replacing it with Dismiss and similar effects or effecting the board with this and Desertion and the afore mentioned Draining Whelk. Love it a lot!

2. Go-Shintai of Life's Origin

This is a huge hit and there are already 1,738 decks registered with this over at EDHREC.com as it's leader. Five Color leaders are pretty powerful stuff. This 4-drop 3/4 Shrine legendary can tap for one of each mana and Zombify an enchantment from your graveyard to the battlefield. Nice! Five color enchantments! And then when it, or another Shrine, enters your battlefield, you'll make a 1/1 Shrine enchantment creature token so that will add to your Shrine count, so this is also a Shrine lord. Nice addition to the game! I run a Cromat Five-Color friends deck with the ten Shrines as supplemental win cons with a bunch of Wrath effects to play keep away that this might be the better leader for. As you can see, this fun thing is a powerful new addition to the canon of Commander, and only a real new powerful addition could beat it to #1...

What did hit that mark?

1. Drumbellower

This did. 3 mana, 2/1 flying. During each other player's untap step, you can untap your dorks. This was printed in the Azorius Vehicles deck and has synergy there since you can tap to crew your Vehicles and then keep on crewing when your foe's attack to keep your shields up. That works. But imagine how powerful this is in Selesnya or Bant alongside mana tappers like Birds of Paradise, Noble Hierarch and Priests of Titania. Imagine it in a deck with a tapper as your Commander like Ghen, Arcanum Weaver or Osgir, the Reconstructor. This is a Seedborn Muse for just creatures, and color shifted to White. But that's still pretty good. Love it lots here!

All right, there we go! What did you think of my choices for the top cards from NEC? Anything missing or in the wrong order? Anything that inspires your own deck-building? Next week we'll rank the 8 cards from Street Fighter Secret Lair. Good stuff!