I like writing these pieces, but I want to make sure they’re fun to read. Every time a new set is fully revealed, I like to talk about which cards are good in 75% decks. I want to make it clear that I’m not merely pointing out with cards are good in Commander because lots of people are doing that, it’s evident to a lot of you and I don’t want to put out a low-value article. With that in mind, I think Aether Revolt has a lot of good Commander stuffs for us and I’m excited to start jamming them in my various decks. There’s a lot that wants to go in — this is a set that’s so good that it accidentally gave us a Splinter Twin deck in Standard by virtue of an unassuming uncommon. Or is it that unassuming? I happen to think Felidar Guardian and a few other uncommons from this set are 75% Commander all-stars. What else did I like from the set, I’m pretending you’re asking? I thought I’d never pretend you’d asked. Let’s get to it!

Airdrop Aeronauts — This may not be the MOST value you can get from blinking a creature (Cloudblazer is my current favorite), blinking this can be a nice way to gain a healthy chunk of life. The 4/3 body that this ability is stapled to isn’t too shabby, either. I used to play cards like Liberate on cards like Radiant's Dragoons. We’ve come a long way. You don’t gain any life when you initially play this which is a knock against it, that is unless you managed to blink something else or crack a fetch. I think this is worth jamming in Roon or Brago decks on occasion.

Call for Unity — You might not have a ton of room in those decks, though, considering we’re getting some real gas for blink decks in this block. This starts out as kind of a weak Glorious Anthem but it quickly goes all Cathars' Crusade and gets out of control. This is superior to Cathars' Crusade in a blink deck, however, because you can blink stuff and have it come back as big, something you can’t usually do with a creature that has counters on it. Turn after turn this will tick up and pretty soon even tokens will be a threat. I love this card. Proliferate is a thing, after all.

Consulate Crackdown — This will hurt every opponent and will hurt some a lot more than others. For the price of a Fumigate you can be the only person with a Sol Ring. Your Breya opponent will have their pants entirely pulled down by this. Colors that don’t have access to ramp spells and rely on Signets and such will be set back by turns. This will absolutely cripple certain decks but will still be good enough to be played in your deck all the time. I think this is dirty, especially if you can keep it from being destroyed, or blink or replay it later to get even more artifacts.

Conviction — This won’t impact a ton of decks, but this is a second Flickering Ward effect for decks that like that. It’s not quite as good at protecting the creature as Ward is, but being able to return it and recast it to draw cards, get experience counters and get other triggers for playing spells is useful and this is worth considering in decks like that.

Deadeye Harpooner — I don’t want to sound like a broken record here, but flicker decks want this, and a lot of White cards from Aether Revolt. The Revolt ability rewards you for flickering and this can murder (well, assassinate, anyway) a pile of their monsters, which isn’t typically a White ability. This is a very interesting card indeed. If you only have one slot for a new Aether Revolt card in your Roon or Brago deck, this may be the one.

Exquisite Archangel — Who knew mythic rares were good in Commander? I don’t need to tell you that you’ll want this card in a lot of decks, but I’d sure be remiss if I didn’t mention this. I don’t know if this is more useful or less useful than “You can’t lose the game” but I suspect I will feel more comfortable behind this than Platinum Angel considering killing Platinum Angel when your life total is 0 means you auto-lose and I might rather “lose” and trigger an ability that gains me 40 life. This goes in fewer decks, but DOES have 5 power. Mayael, the Anima players know what I’m talking about.

Felidar Guardian — Any card that ruins Standard forever is worth a try in Commander, right?

Restoration Specialist — I don’t see anyone talking about this card, but this does a lot of work. I think this card is a perfect first mate for Hanna, Ship's Navigator. What’s that? Navigators don’t get first mates? Was it necessary to point that out? You feel good about yourself?

Sram, Senior Edificer — I don’t like when cool Legendary creatures with good abilities are mono-colored. This goes in a lot of 99s but I’m not excited to build a deck around him. That said, I think this can impact multiple formats. This is very good and the best part is, it draws cards in White and Boros decks, something those decks struggle with, and it draws you cards for doing things those decks want to do anyway. This card is fantastic.

Sram's Expertise — I don’t remember who or when, but I swear I saw a tweet from someone in R&D who said free spells were the biggest mistake R&D ever made. I personally think it was affinity (and Eldrazi, which ended up affinity 2.0) but this seems like a great way to cast spells like Beck // Call (provided you can include that card in your deck. I think I put Beck // Call in a U/G elf deck in one of my earlier articles and people caught on right away. R&D isn’t alone in making mistakes). This is not the best expertise spell effect on top of a free spell, but this is certainly good enough for a lot of Commander decks.

Thopter Arrest — Commander is a singleton format, so having functional reprints of cards we already run can only help. Need another Oblivion Ring? Here you go.

Aethertide Whale — Deadeye Navigator loves this card a lot, provided you have a way to turn that energy into life, cards or damage profitably. I can’t think of a deck where I want to blink this or re-buy it to get a ton of energy, but if one materializes, this will get jammed. This is also likely to be a bulk rare for a while, and this is a bulk rare format. This will be a cheap addition to whichever deck wants to run it. I don’t normally recommend a card where I don’t have a deck or two in mind for it, but this has so much potential.

Baral, Chief of Compliance — You might be able to build a 75% deck around this, but this encourages you to be pretty antisocial with its second mode. I like this in the 99 of a ton of decks from Grand Arbiter Augustin IV to Mizzix of the Izmagnus. I wish this had a second color, but we can’t always have everything, and a cheap creature with multiple solid abilities is gift enough. Expect this to impact Commander more than almost any card in Aether Revolt.

Baral's Expertise — Of the cycle, this is my second favorite. The Green one is obviously more Commander-y but this one has a lot of potential. Being a sorcery hurts it a lot, but I suspect this might be a little broken at instant speed. Scoop stuff to re-buy it, keep them off of big, important creatures or do a bit of both. This spell is flexible and gives you a free spell to boot. What’s not to love?

Disallow — They revealed this card very early and I was all about it. I love spells that have multiple useful modes because they always warrant a slot in your deck. I can’t see my way clear to playing Stifle in a Commander deck, but I will always make room for Voidslime without the same reservations. This is a powerful, versatile spell that is always the right tool for the job. I love this card.

Efficient Construction — I can see this as a piece of a combo with Scrap Trawler or other artifacts. This could give you 2 mana with Krark-Clan Ironworks or Ashnod's Altar or damage with Impact Tremors or life with Soul Warden. Having a creature come into play repeatedly for 0 additional mana can fuel a lot of combos and I think this is worth really looking at.

Illusionist's Stratagem — I see people play Cloudshift. If you play Cloudshift, you should consider paying a bit more mana for a bigger effect. I like this card a lot.

Mechanized Production — This is the most 75%iest card ever. This card is so, so good. It lets you win the game with clue tokens, it is a Progenitor Mimic for artifacts, it makes a pile of the copies . . .  this is just too much fun. I don’t care if this card is even good (I suspect it rather is) I just love how much fun this is.

Trophy Mage — This card is so good it got its own article.

Whir of Invention — This card is so self-evidently good and useful, I’ll use this space to talk about what a punt its mana cost is. I realize they wanted to cost it symmetrically with Chord of Calling, but if you tap a Green creature, you can pay for the in Chord of Calling. You want to know what happens if you want to tap an artifact creature that is also Blue (Grand Architect can make this happen for almost every artifact creature) and try to pay for some of the in Whir? You can’t do it, nerd. Improvise ain’t Convoke. Accordingly, this probably should have been X or even X.

Defiant Salvager — This card is easy to overlook but with Nantuko Husk in almost 700 decks, it’s worth looking at a card that is quite a bit better in a few situations. Not being able to activate this at instant speed should hurt it, but I think the additional flexibility of what you can fuel it with might give it a pass.

Herald of Anguish — This is what a mythic rare is supposed to be. This will see some play given its big body and useful abilities.

Secret Salvage — How handy that they put this in the same color as Relentless Rats and Shadowborn Apostle. Thanks, WotC!

Sly Requisitioner — I see this in the same set as Scrap Trawler and wonder. This and Efficient Construction have a lot of potential in some sort of eggs build or some Rube Goldberg deck. I think this is worth identifying now because I think its ability is powerful in its repeatability.

Yahenni's Expertise — I don’t know if paying Damnation mana for a bad Languish is offset by casting a free 3-drop, but it might be. With other Expertise spells doing things I’d rather be doing, I think this will have narrow appeal but I do like the ability and I like that this spoiled the ability weeks ago so we could plan.

Indomitable Creativity — One of the unofficial tenets of 75% building is embracing chaos. What could be more chaotic than Polymorphing their board?

Kari Zev's Expertise — While I am not particularly excited about Kari herself (except in Limited) or her monkey token, her expertise is so, so good. Free spell on top of a perfectly good Threaten? This card is so, so 75%. I love it.

Lightning Runner — If you’re looking for an outlet for a ton of energy, look no further. This card is a ton of fun; and, while you probably won’t get to Relentless Assault if your only way to get energy is to serve a Ridgetop Raptor into a board full of Commander-tier creatures, this is a great energy outlet and a fun card. Plus, Red is terrible for Commander in this set and I wanted to talk about this.

Pia's Revolution — I have no idea how this will play in practice. I think this may be unplayable because you need to be already winning to the extent that they can’t afford to pay 3 life to stop your combo that you should be able to bolt them out. However, you can make them make decisions and opponents make mistakes when they make decisions. I will try this out in Daretti, Scrap Savant, at minimum.

Ravenous Intruder — Were you one Atog short of getting there with your Atogatog deck? Well, this isn’t Atog, but it does the same thing, in case that’s what you need.

Release the Gremlins — This will always have targets, and I will probably always enjoy using Gremlin tokens. Speaking of Gremlins, isn’t it weird how Zach Galligan was basically never in a movie anyone saw after Gremlins 2? I don’t get it. If you had told me in 1984 that Corey Feldman was going to get more acting work after Gremlins than Zach Galligan, I wouldn’t have believed you. Mostly because I was an infant, but also because that’s hard to believe.

Aid From the Cowl — What if your Lurking Predators wasn’t picky about what it put into play and didn’t require your opponent to do anything? This is enough to make you start looking at fetches like Grasslands, Krosan Verge and Ash Barrens. Sakura-Tribe Elder is already in my Mayael deck (he’s quite an intimidating blocker when he has on a Pattern of Rebirth) and there are a lot of ways to trigger this with flickering, an ability I’m not sure whether I’ve mentioned yet in this article.

Heroic Intervention — Being able to opt out of wraths and other such shenanigans seems strong. I don’t know if this warrants a card, but I can see scenarios where this leaves you the only person with permanents. How do you lose a game where no one else has permanents?

Maulfist Revolutionary — There’s no way this doesn’t find a niche for itself. It’s not quite Deepglow Skate, but it’s still quite powerful and who doesn’t want this ability on as many creatures as they can get?

Natural Obsolescence — Indestructible artifacts can be a nuisance. This is a little too narrow to replace Naturalize in my view, but if you can’t beat Darksteel Forge decks, you might want to give this a shot at that slot after all.

Rishkar's Expertise — Awwww yiss. This is a Commander card. I can’t wait to cascade into this in Maelstrom Wanderer. This is the best Expertise in my opinion and its first mode even makes its second mode better. This is likely a bulk rare for a while, also, which usually means cheap foils.

Dark Intimations — I think there will be a new Nicol Bolas Planeswalker card to go with this in the next set, which is good. I like the idea of getting a ton of value with this with Snapcaster Mage or Torrential Gearhulk, also. This is a spell I’m going to try and jam because of how Grixis it is and if we have multiple Bolas Planeswalkers to make this even better, I’ll allow it.

Hidden Stockpile — This is a few cards in one and I think this in all likelihood sees some play.

Oath of Ajani — I’ll make room in Superfriends for this for sure.

Renegade Rallier — At this point, you’re probably out of stuff you can even cut from a Roon deck.

Winding Constrictor — You just have to weigh how much you like smashing them because you have a second Hardened Scales against how much you don’t want to die to infect twice as fast.

Cogwork Assembler — I don’t care how expensive this is to activate, this is what I want a Magic card to do. I hope you got your Training Grounds years ago for a bad deck like I did.

Crackdown Construct — There are about a billion ways to make this go infinite. I hope you bought your Wandering Fumaroles years ago for a bad deck like I did.

Hope of Ghirapur — I don’t want this as a commander. I might want this in a few 99s. For the most part, though, if this is Ghirapur’s hope, Ghirapur is in trouble.

Lifecrafter's Bestiary — This card is bananas. I can’t wait to start jamming this into things.

Paradox Engine — This is probably my favorite card in the set. It also got its own article.

Planar Bridge — Expensive and absurdly powerful? Sign. Me. Up.

Scrap Trawler — Not everyone agrees, but I think this has a ton of combo potential. There are so many loops possible with this. I’ve seen it compared to Junk Diver which is absurd. This does go in every deck Junk Diver is in, but this is so much better it’s not even funny.

Spire of Industry — This isn’t a bad City of Brass, it’s a City of Brass that gives you colorless mana, which is nothing to sneeze at. I like this a lot in deck where you run creatures like Eldrazi Displacer (I hear that card flickers, which is an ability I’m not sure I’ve mentioned in this article) and need true colorless, something this provides. How often are you without artifacts in Commander?

There you have it. Did I skip something you want to jam in a 75% deck? Did I include something you think should not be in 75% decks? Do you want to make fun of my choices, tell me your favorite card, make me read your Tezzeret/Ajani fan fiction or some other shenanigans? Hit me up in the comment section or on Twitter @JasoneAlt. Until next week!