Choose Your Own M12 Commander Review

By Robby Rothe

Posted on July 7, 2011

Hey, reader email!

Hi Robby, or MTGColorPie, or whatever you’re calling yourself today.

It’s Robby. Mr. Pie if you’re nasty.

You suck.

Hey, thanks! I love your work too.

You write about how Commander players shouldn’t have Sol Ring and Top in their decks when clearly they should. Plus you didn’t really write set reviews for Mirrodin Besieged, New Phyrexia, and you completely ignored the Commander product release which I thought you would cover.

I, uh . . .

And now I bet you’re going to give us a non-review for M12. What gives?

Here’s a little secret about GatheringMagic (and what could be true with any Magic site that houses columns): We tend to go rogue with our columns. While there are general topics that we stick to, like me with Commander, Trick doesn’t give us ideas to write about. [Trick Note: Full disclosure, I do occasionally make suggestions, but very rarely.] I run some stuff by him and get shot down sometimes, usually for my own good, but the editors don’t know what we’re writing about until we turn our articles in.

Jeremy Blair (who writes about Commander on Mondays on this site) and I are looking to do some stuff together. That isn’t required of us, but we have the opportunity to do some fun stuff. Trick isn’t pulling any strings to make us do the same thing either; he wanted us to write for this site because he liked what we brought to the table.

But let’s get to the real issue of your letter before I wander too much with my thesis. I have a growing distaste for set reviews. There’s two main reasons to actually read set reviews: for speculation and for confirmation of their own opinions. Speculators want to know what might be the hot cards for upcoming tournaments, so anything that the professionals write will be taken seriously; it’s that appeal to authority that players crave.

The other group of players like to read set reviews to see if other people are thinking about the same things that they are. But it’s funny to see what happens when the author thinks differently than the player does. You feel pretty good if you both have the same thought about the card, good or bad. However, if you believe a card is pretty awesome but your favorite writer writes that it’s jank, you dismiss his or her way of thinking and try to find a way to break it.

It’s funny that I find myself in that appeal-to-authority situation; I write for a major Magic website about a popular format, so I should know what I’m talking about. But here I am telling you that set reviews don’t excite me. They are really horrible to write; you don’t want to repeat yourself, and you’re trying to make the fifth card in a row that might be fun to play sound exciting. It’s a trying experience. But reviews keep getting written, because for authors it’s an easy topic and because readers now expect them around the time of set releases. Plus, several months later, they can point to the review and say they were right (but conveniently not talk about it if they were wrong). That’s precisely why set reviews should be written a while after the set has been out, so we get some proper perspective on it.

Yes, I know that there are some people who actually read set reviews because they are curious and want direction about the new set. That’s perfectly fine and acceptable. This “review” is going to help those players out. Here’s what to look for in new sets with some new cards as examples. For the most part, almost every card can be played in Commander (except for Doubling Chant, for obvious reasons). I’m looking at this from a Commander point of view, as I’m not an expert in other formats.

Skip Cards That Don’t Really Do Anything

Examples: Gideon's Avenger, any creature in M12 with Bloodthirst, Skinshifter

Besides the obvious vanilla creatures that don’t have any rules text, you’re looking for cards that do something besides just get bigger. While these creatures are awesome in duels where you start out with 20 life, having more than one opponent and double the life makes these less-than-ideal creatures. Having a big creature is cool, but it can be blocked all day with tokens. If you have a combo or something else, obviously there’s an exception to that, but unless that happens, Gideon's Avenger just becomes a giant wall.

Watch out for: Primordial Hydra. It only doubles on your turn, but get it big enough, and you can have it trample (which does “do something”). This will stretch the idea of how big an almost-vanilla creature can get before it becomes playable.

Look for Cards That Mimic Older Good Cards

Examples: Grand Abolisher → Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Warstorm Surge → Pandemonium, Garruk's Horde → Future Sight, Swiftfoot Boots → Lightning Greaves

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. There are going to be players who don’t know what the “good old cards” are. That’s simple to find out: See what the more senior players are shuffling in their decks. Everything old is new again, but each of these have their own little twists. There’s the Blue Legend that’s now a White Cat that can be cast on turn two, a one-sided damage card, a hand-extender for creatures that can attack, and an equipment that protects your Commander that stills allows you to target it. There are bonuses and downsides to the new cards, but that’s what makes them exciting.

As is the case with a couple of these “new” cards, redundancy is never a bad thing. Since this is a singleton format, waiting for that single card in your deck can mean victory or defeat. And you never know when something is going to be destroyed, and that happens all the time in Commander. Speaking of being destroyed . . .

Prepare for Everything to Be Destroyed at Some Point

Examples: Aegis Angel, Vengeful Pharaoh, Chandra's Phoenix, Buried Ruin

Stuff that comes back from the graveyard, or protects cards from dying, is great for the long games that frequent Commander. It’s the attrition strategy that can save you from constant attacks. Of course, you can break the symmetry and just abuse the abilities. Chandra's Phoenix can be discard for Survival of the Fittest/Fauna Shaman and get it back. Buried Ruin gets Crucible of Worlds back, which allows you to get Buried Ruin back, which allows you to get Crucible of Worlds back . . .

. . . and so on and so forth.

Card that help themselves are better than the ones that completely rely on recursion spells. That way, you don’t need to completely readjust your deck to accommodate these helpful spells.

Creatures with ETB Abilities Can Be Abused

Examples: Sphinx of Uthuun, Phantasmal Image, Rune-Scarred Demon

Remember, I’m looking at new cards, or Solemn Simulacrum would be up there too. Both of these can be in the “mimic old cards” section, but being creatures, they can be abused more regularly than any other card type. Creatures can be bounced, reanimated, sneaked into play, cloned, etc.

Plus, you can swing with a Fact or Fiction. Sure, it may not have Flash, but it does have a nice 5/6 flying body to go along with it. It all fits into the two-for-one model that players are looking for; you basically get two cards (in this case a creature and a spell) for only one card. And in Commander, don’t be afraid of the higher casting cost; that just makes it juicer to play.

Look for Repeatable Effects

Examples: Azure Mage, Jace's Archivist, Mind Unbound, Circle of Flame, Arachnus Spider, Jade Mage, the planeswalkers

Again, it comes down to attrition. If you can play something that can be used more than once, you’re going to get better use out of it. Players are going to want to destroy these cards rather than destroying some of your more powerful threats because if these don’t get knocked off early, they can change the course of the game.

I never thought I would see a repeatable Windfall (If you’ve been paying attention, you notice that there are cards that fit in multiple categories), but that’s what you get with Jace's Archivist. Make your opponents keep drawing cards with a Consecrated Sphinx in play and get everyone to deck themselves (you’re drawing twice the number everyone else is, so when you do it again, everyone draws what you discarded).

Repeatable effects are good, and anything without a tap is better. Keep that in mind.

Stuff That’s Completely New Can Be Interesting

Examples: Monomania, Druidic Satchel, Sundial of the Infinite

It’s these cards that have no real ancestors that pave the way for the wacky games (you could say Monomania is related to Wit's End, but this feels like a Commander card; the other one was just mean). You get to peek at the top card of your library to get some effect depending on what the card is. But is that effect big enough for Commander? Putting the land into play, sure, but you’d have to play something like Top in the first place anyway. Is ending your turn to prevent an effect going off worth it? In a multiplayer game, it might be, especially if you’re being mean and playing a Smokestack.

It’s cards like these that we just haven’t the time to play with to know if they’re worth putting in your decks. After some playing around with them, only then can we make decisions about them.

If you’re new to Magic, or haven’t played with the reprinted cards, apply my rules to them and see if the cards look interesting. Wonder why the Titans are so popular in Commander? They have ETB effects that can be repeatable when they attack. Archon of Justice is waiting to die; Cemetery Reaper wants cards to die. Sure, there are a few areas we didn’t cover, like removal and cheating stuff into play, but those will be good topics when the next set rolls around.

If you like to pimp out your deck, here are some uncommon/common foils for Commander I would suggest you pick up now before they become too expensive (rares are always going to be worth more):