Maybe they’re just getting preview-happy with White cards today, or maybe White is actually just going to get the only good cards in Eldritch Moon. Either way, there is excellent stuff happening in this set so far for Commander players, and we’d be silly not to take advantage. Historically, people can’t seem to decide how they feel about White. Some people swear White has the highest density of broken Commander cards and others swear it’s like Red without the ability to deal damage. I personally think White is very strong, and not just in concert with other colors, either. White got one of the best Commander cards I’ve ever seen in this set and it’s not even mythic rare. This has to be seen to be believed.

Legendary CARD, not Legendary creature. You can get quite a few things. Godsend. Heliod, God of the Sun. Serra's Sanctum. If only you could use Thalia’s Lancers to get the Eldrazi Displacer that is going to make this card get really bonkers. Expect this to show up in a ton of decks. Do I hate this in a 75% build since we try to avoid the linearity that comes with using tutors? I think it’s all in how you use this. If you have a healthy number of targets and don’t always grab the same one, I think this card could be pretty healthy in a 75% build. Maybe run a slew of hatebears and use this to grab them. And what set would be complete without a new hatebear?

Thalia is a fun, nasty little hate bear (hate ogre?) that makes your opponent think twice before they lay down a fetchland and use it to grab an ABU dual land. EDH is a format where basic lands can be just as good and maybe they will see it that way and fetch for basics. That, or you just Kismet them into oblivion. Kismet, Imposing Sovereign, and Blind Obedience all see a little play in EDH, and not just in nasty decks like Hokori, Dust Drinker. This could be a card for sure. She can even get picked up and dumped into play by her lancers. You know lancers, always giving people rides places.

Perhaps even more exciting for White than Thalia or her Lancers (although the Lancers are STUPID good) is not one but two possible new commanders coming to us via the meld mechanic. Bruna and Gisela have gone Mono-White because . . .  lore reasons . . .  (help me out, Vorthos people!) and if they weren’t both good enough to be standalone cards (they so are) and good commanders in their own right, they can meld together. If you control both of them you can make them into a big monstrosity that’s a combination of both cards. Here they are unmelded . . . 

...and here they are melded.

Amazing! Ok, here’s what it really looks like.

This is double art — the backs of both of the “halves” of this card combine to form this giant card. The art looks amazing, but I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen it before somewhere.

Right, that’s it.

As goofy as you may find the mechanic, meld could be a lot of fun for Commander players. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword if you think about it. Having either Bruna or Gisela as your commander means you only need to find half of the “combo” (Thalia’s Lancers, anyone?) to put it together and go all Jeff Goldblum in The Fly with Brisela. There are a few rules things we should know.

Combat damage dealt by Brisela counts for the Commander rule if either half is your commander. #MTGEMN

— Matt Tabak (@TabakRules) June 27, 2016

You could get someone in two hits if you can boost the power by a little bit. Not only that, it’s got more keyword abilities than a meld creature that’s made up of Akroma and the other Akroma. Not too shabby. All of this awesome power isn’t without drawbacks, however. If someone exiles Brisela, the half that is your commander goes back into the command zone and the other half is exiled. Better pack Peel from Reality, I guess! However, a lot of people are referring to Brisela being exiled by cards like Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile. That will be tough — Brisela says your opponents can’t play spells with CMC 3 or less. You know, like most of the exile spells. Besides, even if Brisela gets exiled by virtue of half of it being irretrievably exiled, you still have your commander which I’m hoping you built around. As anti-fun as not being able to make your Brisela might be, you should have another way to win. Maybe you could do some shenanigans with Gisela suiting up and taking them to beatface town with her Flying, First Strike and Lifelink. Maybe you could get a bunch of cards back out of the graveyard with Bruna and Angel of Glory's Rise. You could build a good deck with either of these cards as your commander and all you need to do to get that upside is remember to include the other half.

What would a deck with these new sicko White cards look like?

Brisela.dek ? EDH | Jason Alt

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Adarkar Valkyrie
• 1 Angel of Glory's Rise
• 1 Archon of Justice
• 1 Blazing Archon
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Dust Elemental
• 1 Eldrazi Displacer
• 1 Emeria Shepherd
• 1 Fiend Hunter
• 1 Flickerwisp
• 1 Gisela, the Broken Blade
• 1 Grand Abolisher
• 1 Jeskai Barricade
• 1 Karmic Guide
• 1 Knight of the White Orchid
• 1 Kor Cartographer
• 1 Luminate Primordial
• 1 Mangara of Corondor
• 1 Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Stonecloaker
• 1 Stonehorn Dignitary
• 1 Stormfront Riders
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
• 1 Thalia's Lancers
• 1 Village Bell-Ringer
• 1 Weathered Wayfarer
• 1 Whitemane Lion
• 1 Witch Hunter

• Spells (32)
• 1 Cloudshift
• 1 Eerie Interlude
• 1 Ghostway
• 1 Hallowed Moonlight
• 1 Liberate
• 1 Long Road Home
• 1 Otherworldly Journey
• 1 Peel from Reality
• 1 Return to Dust
• 1 Tithe
• 1 End Hostilities
• 1 Flicker
• 1 Open the Vaults
• 1 Blind Obedience
• 1 Flickerform
• 1 Gift of Immortality
• 1 Kismet
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Cloudstone Curio
• 1 Culling Dais
• 1 Dreamstone Hedron
• 1 Erratic Portal
• 1 Isochron Scepter
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Pearl Medallion
• 1 Phyrexian Altar
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strionic Resonator
• 1 Thousand-Year Elixir
• 1 Trading Post
• 1 Umbral Mantle
• 1 Ward of Bones

• Lands (37)
• 30 Plains
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Command Beacon
• 1 Emeria, The Sky Ruin
• 1 High Market
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Buy This Deck

This is a Mangara of Corondor shell with a few modifications. Mangara seemed like the ideal starting point for several reasons. First of all, the infrastructure to recursively cast Bruna was important to me. We have a lot of blink effects which aren’t great, but cards like Cloudstone Curio and Erratic Portal can help us re-buy dead creatures. Angel of Glory's Rise will similarly do some work in this deck because I loaded up on humans so we can recover from a wrath. If we ever draw Mangara, or find it with Thalia’s Lancers, we have a deck that benefits a ton from having Mangara.

Blink effects can help us save Brisela from removal, the removal that Brisela can’t stop them from playing. Blink effects do a lot of work in this deck and we loaded up with creatures that will help you out when they come into play. This gets you a lot of ETB triggers on top of your Mangara shenanigans. Eldrazi Displacer will do some serious work in this deck and I have some cards like Stonehorn Dignitary to help us out.

We’ll be recurring a lot of cards when we can, which will be good. Our commander gets back dead creatures and we also run cards like Emeria, the Sky Ruin to help get back our fallen soldiers. Gift of Immortality is going to do work in the deck, also. Bringing back dead creatures can help us get the most of our cards and maybe even be a second avenue for ETB triggers.

We will fill up our yard pretty easily. One danger of them exiling Brisela is that our Gisela will be gone into exile and we won’t be able to form Brisela again — that is unless we sacrifice Brisela before they can exile it. I loaded up on lands and artifacts that can serve as sac outlets. You may even want to sac Mangara before the ability exiles him so you can re-buy him with Bruna or some other card. Remember I mentioned Gift of Immortality?

I feel like we have enough Legendary creatures in the deck that we won’t always get the same card with Thalia’s Lancers. We have to be careful with tutors in 75% decks, but if we use them like toolbox cards they shouldn’t be that problematic. Remember, the entire point of building 75% is to eliminate linearity, so make sure you give yourself enough targets that things don’t get stale. Lancers can also get you Nykthos or Emeria in a pinch, so remember that you don’t have to get a creature. What’s that? Emeria isn’t Legendary? Of course not — why would something called THE Sky Ruin be Legendary? If they had accidentally made these lands Legendary like they were clearly meant to be through 99% of development, they might not have ruined Magic with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle decks. You can grab Flagstones of Trokair, Hall of the Bandit Lord or anything else you want to jam in your land base. Grabbing a Miren, the Moaning Well can be helpful if you need a sac outlet. This is a true toolbox card and I’m excited for it to be legal soon.

Did I miss something obvious? Should I have waited for more cards to be spoiled? Do you love the meld mechanic? Hate it? Know what I should cover next? Hit me up in the comments section and let’s get a conversation started. I’ll even try and make sure I read them this week! Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next time.