Dear awesome reader! I hope that your day is going incredibly well! Let's turn to the recently released Warhammer40k Commander decks which have a bunch of powerful newly printed cards, much more so than a normal Commander slate. We'll be looking at my Top Ten from that set plus three honorable mentions, and then to chart it must be good in kitchen table play formats like Commander, multiplayer, Type Four, Five Color, Highlander and other formats. There are a ton of cards here and they are pushed in power since they are only legal in Legacy and Vintage so there are a lot of cards to talk about, so we'll be dedicating at least next week to this set as well.

Ready?

Honorable Mention #1 (#13 Overall) - Biophagus

This two-drop 1/3 can tap for any color of mana to use for anything, so it's already better than the smaller and defender Sylvan Caryatid. This can grab a piece of equipment and swing, and then has 1 power to play keep away from X/1 that don't want to trade. If your mana was used for a dork then it gets a permanent +1/+1 boost from a counter, and over time that could be quite powerful. In Commander with a creature as your leader that's a guaranteed +1/+1 which could be a faster Commander Kill by a turn so it's a Time Walk in mana dork form. It's strong everywhere, but it has enhanced value in archetypes that care about counters generally, +1/+1 counters specifically, proliferate tricks for multicolor brews looking to add loyalty counters for their planeswalkers, four and five-color decks, Commanders with evasion, Commanders with a power that, when increased by 1 get a faster kill, Equipment, Aura, and Voltron decks looking to get in kills with their Commander, and loads more! Love its power and synergy loads! Don't sleep on just how good of a mana dork this is.

Honorable Mention #2 (#12 Overall) - Sister Hospitaller

This six-mana Orzhov 3/2 can return a creature from your graveyard to the battlefield when it arrives to the battle and then you gain life equal to its mana value. This compares very nicely to Commander Classic (CC) Karmic Guide, in 50,000 decks over at EDHREC.com. That costs five, has echo 5, flies and has protection from Black. It's one cheaper, rarely stays around unless you want to spend 10 total mana, and then rocks flying and pro Black to block safely for the turn and is just one color. But this will stick around, has a bigger power, and can gain you some life, so there are some nice things gained here. This is great in many places and while it won't have the 50k numbers of CC Karmic Guide, it will have loads of value. There are four commonly played archetypes that would enjoy this tool. They include:

• Reanimation - Getting a Zombify on a stick is pretty nice. Reanimation is beloved at the kitchen table.
• Midrange - Getting a nice ETB ability that's card advantage that also recurs your other ETB dorks is nice.
• Blink - Getting a blink-able Zombify is pretty nice.
• Life-Gain - This is an ideal Zombify effect in life gain which is the most registered archetype in the Commander format according to EDHREC.com.

I also like it in Type Four which often has elevated casting costs to bring back due to the infinite mana nature of the format, and bringing back a giant 10/10 and gaining 8 life in one card is pretty strong there.

Honorable Mention #3 (#11 Overall) - Bloodthirster

This six-drop 6/6 Demon with flying and trample is my 11th choice. It's very on curve, and with two evasive abilities, hard to stop when it swings into the red zone. When it smashes a player's face untap it and then get another attack step after this one. Note that with its double evasive skills naturally that's pretty likely. You cannot attack that player with the Thirster of Blood this turn, but in a multiplayer game you can attack, and then if you slip through another untap, another extra combat and another attack. In a multiplayer game this is quite powerful. It scales up the more foes you control.

I like it being given a +1/+1 counter from the Biophagus above since that's 3 more damage you'll deal and more likely to get combat damage past blockers with the trample it has. What is keeping this in my honorable mention is that it needs multiple foes to get in multiple attacks. It's not as good in duels. I like it in multiple attack brews, aggro, tokens, and alongside Commanders that share combat damage triggers that you already invest in unblockable infrastructure like Whispersilk Cloak. Pretty much anything looking to win through combat.

Top Ten Time!

#10. Old One Eye

When I reviewed the early spoiler from this set, I posted this on our Type Four Discord server as a great new card for that format. This is an on-curve 6/6 for a splashable 6 mana with trample. This gives all of your other dorks trample, so that's nice on an on-curve dork. Then it brings a 5/5 token to the battlefield with it, so that's strong just generally. You get 11 power and toughness for 6 mana with trample? That is very mana efficient.

Then you can discard two cards at the beginning of your first main phase to return this to your hand from your graveyard, which is card disadvantage naturally but with madness, lands, discard triggers like Archfiend of Ifnir, and loads more, it's got value. I love it in ramp to win the game and make your other big stuff trample, madness, discard matters, Golgari self-mill, Jund's Lord Windgrace lands return to the battlefield from the graveyard, Sultai's self-milling Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, blink, midrange, tokens, and loads more. It's quite the face puncher. It's also one of the better cards for Type Four (infinite mana, one spell cast per turn) in the set.

#9. Resurrection Orb

Our only scoring equipment and colorless card is this two-drop and four to equip. As you can see, this gives the equipped dork lifelink. Then when it dies, it back under the control of the owner. It does wait until the endstep, but a free way to come back for one dork is quite nice, love it lots! It's really strong with creature Commanders since when they die they'll come back at the end of turn and then you'll just need to equip to have that happen again. It's strong in ETB heavy brews like midrange and blink, sacrifice brews where you can sacrifice to something like Attrition and then come back, Aristocrats where you can trigger Blood Artist for wins, life gain for lifelink shenanigans, Voltron and equipment that invested in equipment infrastructure to and any heavy creature build. And it's colorless, fitting into any color of brew! It's pretty nifty, so call me swiftly!

#8. Deny the Witch

This four-cast instant costs three colors of mana but is very strong with the ability to counter any spell or activity and then force that person to lose some life. It's like Voidslime and Undermine had a baby. This is very strong in Type Four since only one spell can be cast per turn so if your foe casts something and then you counter it, that's it, nothing more can be done. Also, if you use your turn casting something like a dork, then you cannot counter the counter, it's very strong there. This is broken in token decks but good fun in loads of places.

#7. Space Marine Scout

Hitting at roughly the middle of today's countdown is this 2/1 uncommon with first strike and vigilance. Vigilance is better in multiplayer since you can attack the open player without becoming open yourself. Then this has an ETB ability. On arrival to the party if a foe has more lands, search out a Plains and ramp it into the battlefield tapped. Great ramping fun times, and unlike many of these ramps, this gets you any Plains so a dual land counts.

It's very strong in multiplayer since you are more likely to be running at least one opponent with Green ramp and two-drop ramp spells like Rampant Growth and Farseek are getting added to ramp brews in Commander over conventional ramp like Cultivate and Kodama's Reach, so on the turn you have three mana, one player casting a two mana ramp spell with an extra land is pretty likely, and if not, then someone probably cast Explore spells or dropped an Exploration and an extra land or two. It's very strong!

#6. Plasmancer

Our final card outside of the Top Five proper is this four-drop 3/3 flyer that is on curve. Its ability is pretty rare for Black; there are only a few mono-Black ways to tutor for a Swamp. If my memory serves correctly those are Liliana of the Dark Realms and Liliana's Shade. Both are also four-drops and they'll get any Swamp, even a dual land, but this is key in Black decks alongside Cabal Coffers and Cabal Stronghold and similar massive ramping from your Swamp count. It's very strong there, and on a bigger dork with flying but it cannot be pumped. The ability to fetch out a Swamp without any additional restrictions is pretty nice. It's strong in most mono-Black decks, blink decks looking for lands, ramp decks looking for more ways to ramp out lands in the creature base and midrange decks that have loads of card advantage ETB dorks like this to use and abuse. Love its synergy loads!

#5. Sister of Silence

This five-mana flashing 3/3 is pretty good. On arrival to the battlefield, it will counter any instant, sorcery or ability. That's pretty flexible on a counter. Creature-based counters like this have been beloved at the kitchen table ever since Mystic Snake was printed way back in Apocalypse. This fun thang is a great counter adjunct in decks that could use counters outside of traditional instants and sorceries. I run Draining Whelk in a bunch of my Commander decks for y'all, as one example, as well as Mystic Snake, Voracious Greatshark, and Overcharged Amalgam. Loads of fun stuff is out there for the countering, and this is pretty strong. Creature based decks that are looking for additional interaction will love this as well as control brews like Azorius Control that could always use a backup counter. It's pretty strong in a bunch of places.

#4. Illuminor Szeras

This three-drop 3/3 is an on curve legendary option for you lovers of mono-Black and Commander. This has a tap ability for nothing else, to sacrifice a dork for Black mana equal to its mana cost. This means you have a sacrifice effect in the Command Zone that you can be ensured of getting for your sacrifice matters (10th most-played archetype on EDHREC.com) and Aristocrats (6th) that cares about this ability. It does require tapping, so you'll need to wait a turn to use it normally, but you can easily combine it with Commander Classics Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves to protect it and haste it in one swing. Then you can tap and sac and make mana with your sacrificing, which is great with stuff. This will kill with CCs like Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat and then net you triggers with mono-Black CC fun times like Grave Pact. I really like it with expensive dorks that have alternate casting costs like delve-ers. It's like a one use Phyrexian Altar in the Command Zone. It makes two Black mana when sacrificing recurring things like Bloodghast and Reassembling Skeleton. It's also good in the 99 of those brews in addition to leading them, and it's quite strong here.

#3. Trazyn the Infinite

This six-mana 4/6 legendary mono-Black option is behind the curve and rocks deathtouch with one other ability. If this is on the battlefield, it gets the activated abilities of every artifact in your graveyard!!! Wow...that's just...wow. Artifacts are the second most-played archetype at EDHREC.com and that's a powerful way to play into that beloved archetype. And this is a Command Zone able artifact lover as well as a player in the 99 of things like Esper Artifacts and Dimir Artifacts. From Burnished Hart to Oblivion Stone to Nevinyrral's Disk to Skullclamp and all equipment to Sensei's Divining Top there are tons of ways to build around and abuse this. Nasty right? I think so too!

#2. Space Marine Devastator

Our penultimate(ish) charting card is this. When you cast this, you can spend any amount of two generic mana and make that many copies of this. This will, on arrival to the battlefield, destroy any one artifact or enchantment (it says "up to" so you don't have to target your own stuff). This is basically a bigger Reclamation Sage, which is pretty heavily played at the kitchen table in most formats. It scales up with your mana as you go later and later into the game from a nice midgame removal spell on one dork to a decent two removal dork for six mana a few turns later to three or four in late game, and getting that many removal spells on one card is incredibly strong. It's very good in any White deck since its removal on a stick. I find that it's really valuable in:

• Any Color Combo with Green Ramp with the mana to easily abuse this;
• Azorius Blink which loves the removal on the body;
• Midrange that loves the ETB on multiple bodies card value that builds over time;
• Boros, Orzhov, Selesnya or Naya Tokens that love the ability to get multiple tokens out of one card that are pretty beefy;
• Bant Control where this can replace the Sage as a beefier body that can also be more powerful over time;
• Azorius and Dimir Control where this can be an additional Disenchant effect on a stick with the potential of growing over time.
• Boros Aggro where this is an on-curve option to removal in the creature that can mix it up and go wide with copies too.

And that's just the obvious homes that make sense to me. See why it got my second overall slot?

#1. Callidus Assassin AND Necron Deathmark with a shout out to Primaris Eliminator

Ever since Nekrataal was printed to introduce ETB dorks way back in Visions, this ability on a stick has been beloved, and we've had entries like Shriekmaw and Ravenous Chupacabra that have improved on it since. Check out these three dorks all of which are improvements on the iconic Chupacabra. The Assassin is a Dimir flashable 3/3 that enters the battlefield tapped as a Clone of any dork and then can destroy it like an six-mana Ravenous Chupacabra that leaves behind a tapped Clone of that dork you just killed and can serve as a Clone of your key dork instead if that is how the battlefield plays out. The Deathmark is a five-mana flashable Chupacabra that is one mana more, +3/+1 in size, adds in the valuable flash, and then can also mill yourself or another of 3 cards. That's nasty. And our shout out to the Eliminator a Chupacabra variant for five mana with +1 power and the ability to Infest one foe instead of killing just one thing to take out a bunch more. I think that's worth the extra mana. The Ravenous Chupacabra is played in 48,593 decks over at EDHREC.com so it's a clear classic of the format that has tons of uses. This trilogy are all very strong and the first two combine the power of a Chupacabra effect with the speed of flash to really dominate the board and you can two cards from one at instant speed with the Murder and then with the blocking by the Deathmark on a smaller dork to kill it out of nowhere plus the card itself that must be answered. Nasty!

And there we go! What did you think of my first Top Ten list and the three honorable mentions that cane with it? What are you most looking forward to opening up? Just let me know!