Readers!

Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate is one of the best sets for our format in recent memory and I feel like so many other sets came out on top of it that we have barely scratched its surface. I have been poking around the set on EDHREC and I am really kind of shocked at some of the cards that have gone overlooked and underplayed. This isn't an article telling you that Black Market Connections and Displacer Kitten are good cards. You don't need anyone to tell you that. However, there are a few cards at the less-played end of the spectrum that are quite impactful and maybe belong in some more decks. This set came and went in the blink of an eye and you can't be blamed if you immediately got distracted by the next set and missed a few things. I missed them, too, which is why I am going back to rectify my mistakes. Let's talk about the cards ALL OF US missed.

Sigil of Myrkul

If your deck likes having creatures in the graveyard, this card is a slow, steady stream of 2 kinds of value. Milling a card for free every turn is slow, but you're also going to get +1/+1 counters on your creatures and, if you want, you can send small creatures into battle with Deathtouch hoping to get even more value from creatures dying. Syr Konrad and other Blueless graveyard decks would benefit from this card. I'm not saying it's a format staple, but it's currently played less than Saddle of the Cavalier, and that can't be correct. I realize I overrate Enchantments on occasion, but what can I say? I like when cards do something once a turn. Why not try a card that instead does two somethings?

Bhaal, Lord of Murder

A five-mana commander can be tricky because a few wipes and you're likely to struggle to cast him again. Bhaal is currently built less than every other gold rare commander in the set for this reason, to be certain. However, he's also not featured terribly much in the 99 of decks, either, seeing less play than Colossal Badger. I think people are severely underestimating a steady stream of goad triggers in a deck that is Jund at least and therefore likely able to sac lots of nontoken creatures. You can even target your own creatures to grow them. It's a waste of a Goad trigger, but if you don't WANT to goad anything, what the heck, make one of your creatures have to attack you and watch it not be able to do it like that scene in Robocop where he found out he couldn't attack anyone from Omnicorp. Bhaal is also indestructible a decent amount of the time, which helps you get more than one or two triggers before someone kills it. If we're worried about people killing it, why aren't we testing it out?

Banishment

Remember Maelstrom Pulse? Well now it's mono-colored, instant speed and seeing less play than Mold Folk. While Banishment doesn't cut quite the swath of destruction that Maelstrom Pulse does because there is a chance they will get their permanent back when Banishment is dealt with. Also, Maelstrom Pulse isn't played a ton in Commander. So why am I excited about a sometimes worse version of a card that isn't played much? Because this is mono-colored, Instant speed and all people would use Maelstrom Pulse for is to kill a bunch of tokens, anyway. Pulse is sometimes played in Commander because it's at worst a slow Putrefy and at best a delete token army button. Banishment is at worst a Neck Snap and at best a card that can delete a token army on anyone's turn. If you get one card with this, it's fine, but this is good, Instant-speed removal stapled to a card you'd love to sideboard in if you could sideboard in Commander. People used to play junk like Arrest in this format, I had more fun doing that than I do now feeling like I should be playing Swords to Plowshares. Let's make our removal expensive and modular again, because make no mistake, this is a modular card and we should think of it as such when we decide if we'd like 2 cards worth of value in one slot.

Drillworks Mole

Drillworks Mole is a card that is disregarded because people don't see it as having enough value for the time and effort. Two mana is a lot to pay early and he is very vulnerable while he slowly gets bigger. The thing I feel people forget is that creatures haven't put the number of +1/+1 counters that the card says to put onto a creature since Ravnica. Doubling Season, Hardened Scales, Branching Evolution - any deck that is putting counters on things is doing way more than putting them on one at a time. If you're doubling the tokens, you're already doubling up because Mole puts counters on two different creatures, one of which can kill someone if it gets 21 power.

Fraying Line

Speaking of adding counters, check out Fraying Line. Fraying Line is a board wipe that happens in slow motion. When one player is satisfied with how many creatures are going to die, they get to decide whether or not the board wipe happens. Political cards like this introduce a subgame of sorts; forcing players to either pay or end up with fewer saved creatures than everyone else. I like this design a ton, and it even works flavor-wise. Yet somehow this card is being played less than Moonshae Pixie. Fraying Line isn't a good wrath, it's a fun one. Try it out and you'll see what I mean.

You've Been Caught Stealing

I spent too much time trying to think of a stupid Jane's Addiction joke for like four of you, which does this card a bit of a disservice because it should really not be upstaged by the sick 90s reference I would eventually have made. You've Been Caught Stealing is, in a lot of decks in the format, 3 Treasure for two mana. That's a good rate. However, the ability to force creatures to block is non-trivial and I think the additional utility, in the decks where you can damage each opponent trivially and reliably, makes it deserving of a slot. I don't always want to rummage when I play a spell that makes Treasure - sometimes I want to slaughter a bunch of utility dorks.

Vrock

Vrock is played a bit more than some of these others, but it's played less than Cloudkill and that shouldn't be the case. Vrock should be called Vclock because 3 a turn is no joke. Three life lost per opponent if you managed to do as little as using a Treasure token won't kill everyone but it will make the job easier for the creature that does. Five mana is a lot for a creature in Bolt range, but you can bring your creatures back in Black, so make this as much of a problem as you need to. Also, this seems like a really funny creature to copy. Some copy effects create a token that dies on your end step which would synergize well here. You don't have to build around this card to get a ton of value out of it - the first time you deal 9 damage because you blocked, you'll be as sold on this card as I am.

I'm sure I missed some good ones, also. This was a large set that introduced a lot of lore and characters and keywords and we just haven't had time to fully digest it all. The more I add these cards to decks, though, the more I want to pore back over the whole set to see if I missed something fun. Do you have some favorites? Something cute like Loot Dispute? Send me a tweet. Thanks for reading, everyone. Until next time!