Eternal Masters is fully revealed, and there are a lot of pleasant surprises for Commander players. Unless you’re building Burn or Death and Taxes or something, chances are winning the booster pack lottery with Eternal Masters isn’t going to completely enfranchise you in Legacy. There are still too many rare and expensive cards. It’s going to take time, energy, and money to build a Legacy deck. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, arguably, but I don’t want to have that argument here. Actually, I don’t want to have that argument anywhere anymore. Can we just not? My opinion on the matter is well documented by now, so let’s just move on. Besides, this column is about Commander, and Commander players get to feel like a kid on Christmas when they see the list of cards in Eternal Masters. We’re getting the chance to crack Commander cards like Mana Crypt, Sneak Attack, and Natural Order in booster packs, and we’re also seeing a nice price reduction for some cards like Toxic Deluge and Regal Force.

It isn’t just the rares and mythic rares in the set getting me excited, either. This promises to be a very interesting set to draft. Quite a few uncommon cards were made rare in this set because they are so good in Limited they would unbalance the set if they were left at uncommon. That got me thinking about uncommon cards good in Commander and, specifically, 75% decks. There are a lot of good ones both in this set and in the card pool we missed last time. Let’s take a second look at some of the uncommon good stuff both in Eternal Masters and in the rest of the card pool.

Faith's Fetters

I remember first-picking this card in a few Ravnica-era drafts. The lifegain is nice, which makes this worth flashing in and out. Blinking a Pacifism effect onto a bigger creature lets you get more mileage out of it and worry less about playing it too early. Being rewarded with lifegain is a nice bonus, as well.

Glimmerpoint Stag

While we’re on the subject of blinking things, this guy can deal with problem permanents nicely. Brago, King Eternal, Roon of the Hidden Realm, and other decks can really take advantage here, and the advent of Eldrazi Displacer lets you eschew Blue, exponentially increasing the number of decks you can try these shenanigans.

Honden Cycle

I have always liked these. Maybe they’re more cute than good, but with the full cycle out, you can form a brutal advantage engine. These are great in 75% decks, but they’re best when you can use 3 or more in the same deck.

Mesa Enchantress

This is a very nice rarity shift that really only matters in terms of Eternal Masters Limited, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention an effect this powerful in an article about Uncommons.

Wall of Omens

White seems to really like to blink stuff in this set. This is a great reprint for financial reasons as well as Limited reasons. I love Wall of Omens and Wall of Blossoms in Commander, especially when you have spells like Ghostway in the deck.

Phyrexian Ingester

Another rare I’ve long advocated is shifted to uncommon? Again, this was a bulk rare before so this won’t make it much cheaper, but I really like this in Commander, especially if we’re blinking it. I sense a pattern, here.

Wonder cycle

Wonder, Anger, Brawn, Filth and the White one that isn’t very exciting (Valor) are all very solid cards. Being able to affect the board after their death makes these cards fun to sacrifice, discard, mill and generally have somewhere in your deck ready to join your yard.

Animate Dead

This is the original “this feels like cheating” spell. Creature creep makes this spell better every year. Use it to cheat your big fatties into play, steal their creatures and get a second use out of your important utility guys. This is a must-have for a lot of Black decks and it’s the gold standard for reanimation spells.

Blood Artist

This and its new cousin, Zulaport Cutthroat, are staples in a lot of Black Commander decks. This can be a win condition and it feels like cheating most of the times I get it to stick around for a few turns.

Sengir Autocrat

I like any creature capable of making a bunch more creatures easily. Black doesn’t have many creatures capable of doing this and it has basically 0 that do it this efficiently. I used to use Autocrat to turn on Hecatomb back in the day. This is a great way to have a bunch of creatures to sac in a 75% deck but many people forget about this card. Don’t.

Victimize

In a deck where sacrificing creatures can be a good thing, this feels like cheating.

Price of Progress

A lot of the uncommons in Red in Eternal Masters feel too weak to use in Commander, but this one doesn’t. You’re going to deal a lot of people a lot of damage. Try and copy this with Dualcaster Mage or Goblin Dark-Dwellers for maximum punishment. Remember, we want to punish players for doing things, in this case, having the kind of mana base every Commander player wants to have.

Tooth and Claw

This card went overlooked for years until it was put in the Prossh, Skyraider of Kher precon, and this has won me a ton of games. With Doubling Season or a similar card out, this becomes an infinite source of Purphoros, God of the Forge triggers. This also turns Kobolds into threats. All in all, this may not go in every deck, but it’s indispensable in the ones it does go in. This is a great 75% gem and I’m glad people are getting another reminder.

Harmonize

Breaking the color wheel is always good. There are few ways to draw this efficiently in Green (though there are lots of ways to draw way more cards in Green) and this is a frequent inclusion in my own decks. It’s such a good Green card, I realized I’d been using it in my Riku deck but hadn’t been using Concentrate or even better Blue draw spells.

Rancor

It’s easy to underestimate how good it is to give a creature Trample in Commander, but ignore this card at your peril. It’s tough to get rid of and can really cause problems/get them a bunch of casting triggers.

Shaman of the Pack

Far from a staple, this card is an auto-include in a small number of decks and has won me as many games in my Nath of the Gilt-Leaf decks as attacking, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, and Sadistic Hypnotist have combined.

Ashnod's Altar

I am sure I don’t need to remind people to use this card, but I’m going to anyway. Looking forward to being able to get these in foil.

Worn Powerstone

The smaller cousin to Thran Dynamo, this card still packs a punch. I’m happy to play Ur-Golem's Eye so I’m thrilled to have access to Worn Powerstone. I hope Commander players all over appreciate the price reduction that’s incoming.

It isn’t just Eternal Masters giving us great uncommon spells for 75% decks, though. Here are a few not included in the last installment but are great inclusions in a lot of 75% lists.

Cabal Coffers

Cheating. That’s all there is to it.

Explosive Vegetation

A lot of people are tempted to jam Rampant Growth when they start building Commander decks because that spell was so good in Standard. You know what’s even better? Double Rampant Growth.

Hedron Archive

This card does two things you need to do in Commander, and it goes in any deck. Solid. 75% builders should also consider Mind Stone and Dreamstone Hedron. Possibly all three.

Into the Core

This card gets overlooked but I feel it is pretty powerful. It can’t deal with enchantments because Red basically can’t unless they’re casting Wild Swing or Chaos Warp or something like that, but this is a very good way to permanently deal with troublesome artifacts in a way that splashier spells like Shattering Spree cannot. Jam a few copies in a few decks and marvel at how many jams they get you out of.

Myriad Landscape

This is a relatively new card, but we’ve had almost 2 years to adjust to how powerful it is and the jury is in — this does a lot of work.

Return to Dust

Into the Core’s overachieving cousin, this is a slam-dunk if you want to be able to keep your opponents from pulling too far ahead or build too big a pillow fort.

Rogue's Passage

This card is cheating. Any time you can make a creature unblockable in a format where one swing from your Commander is sometimes enough to take someone out, you should give that card a look. If that card can tap for mana and can go in any deck because it has no color identity, you should REALLY give that card a look.

Sphere of Safety

This is a very 75% pillow fort card. Now might be a good time to look at foils from a finance perspective, also. Even if I never make any money on this card, I’ll be glad I bought a lot of copies because that means I have enough for a lot of decks. This is very powerful if you build with it in mind, and why would you not? This is an all-star in my Daxos the Returned deck, for example.

Trygon Predator

This is a personal favorite of mine from when it was in Standard. It was a very efficient beater and a great turn two play off a Birds of Paradise, and could carry an Umezawa's Jitte next turn for maximum advantage. The fact a small creature that was good because of its good casting cost to power and toughness ratio is still good in Commander is a testament to how good its ability is.

As with last time, this list is far from exhaustive. However, I did get to profile a lot of my favorite uncommons for 75% decks, some of which are often overlooked. Rares are great, mythic rares are even better. However, uncommons can do some things even those splashier, more expensive spells can’t do, and sometimes a low (money) cost option can get the job done even better. Thanks for reading! Send me a deck list or two if you’d like to be profiled in this series and thank you for reading. Until next time!