Typically I would make some pun about whatever 75% of 2019 is but I'm going to skip all of that and get right down to brass tacks. This set is pretty bonkers in terms of the new cards they gave us to play with. You don't need me to tell you which cards are good and which cards are bad so instead, I'm going to tell you which cards work in 75% strategies specifically and, where relevant, link a deck I've already built that these cards would spruce up. I'm really champing at the bit here, so I'm going to do even less preamble than normal because I trust all of you to keep up. These are cards for 75% decks and if you don't know what that is, you have about 5 years' worth of back articles to read so start with this one. Everyone ready? Good.

Oh, one more thing, I'm only covering new cards. Hope that's cool with everyone. OK, article now, I promise.

This is easily the most 75% card in the set. Taking something of someone else's is very strong and even though you have to give them something of yours in return, it's going to be worth it. Letting them have your Dominating Licid or even your Consecrated Sphinx won't mean much if you're taking from them an X=20 Torment of Hailfire. Did someone Teferi's Protection in response to a Wrath? Yoink. Insurrection? Well, you can have one of my creatures, but I'm taking the rest. Expropriate? It's been appropriated. The game is full of powerful haymakers and while you could counter one of those spells, just making it your own spell is far more 75%. A table with a few casual decks might not appreciate it if you combo out and Torment everyone, but if you petard hoist someone who was going to do it? They just might high five you. They still lose, but so does the person who thought they had the game locked up. You have to make sure to keep a creature alive, but with the relatively low mana cost of Substitution relative to its power level, you can probably keep a flash creature in hand for the occasion. Faerie Conclave and other creaturelands may even get another look due to these shenanigans. This is my favorite card of the set, easily.

Having a spare copy of Waste Not really doesn't suck, but I think there is upside to having this as a creature. It's fairly easy to reanimate creatures in Black, doubly-so when it's a zombie. Being able to dredge this into the yard and fish it out with a reanimation effect or bring it back after someone kills it means this effect will persist for a long time. Everyone is packing enchantment removal these days and with creatures being far easier to bring back from the great beyond in this color, you'll be glad you have a body stapled to this effect. Five mana is a bit pricey, but this IS Commander, after all. We can cough up five mana for a brutal effect like this. Also, don't forget this stacks so if you have this and Waste Not out, your Seizen, Perverter of Truth deck will really do some damage. Don't have one of those? Well, how about Nekusar? Any deck with both access to Black mana and Teferi's Puzzle Box should be able to do some real damage with Bone Miser. Check out the EDHREC page for Waste Not for ideas. I'm planning to slot this directly into Nath of the Gilt Leaf even though he's not an elf, he's that good.

You had me at "Thieving."

Amalgam is a bit on the expensive side mana-wise, but I like this card a ton. One trick I think not everyone is always thinking about is using mana rocks like Fellwar Stone and Chromatic Lantern to make sure you always have the mana to cast their spells. Sen Triplets decks have been taking advantage of this since the Change to Commander Rule 4 back in 2016. Being equipped to flip anything you manifest will really make Amalgam a powerhouse in your deck. All of those mana rocks can help you cast Amalgam at a reasonable time, too. Having a tough time getting mana rocks in play? Why not throw this in a Gonti, Lord of Luxury deck and let Gonti steal all of the Sol Rings and Mana Vaults the table brought. On an unrelated note, linking my old articles has reminded me of when I made puns like "Lifestyles of the Lich and Famous" and "Getting Nathty" and I should get back to doing that. You can't take anything better than what's in their decks, so Amalgam helps you scale your deck to theirs inherently, which is what we strive for in 75% building.

If all you ever do is windmill this on like turn three and make four treasure tokens, it was super worth it. Everyone is playing ramp and while Red struggles a bit to keep up, this can really even the score. Blinking this or bouncing it significantly increases the value. This is good with Revel in Riches and it's good with Conjurer's Closet. I like the idea of setting up a loop with Cloudstone Curio and Goblin Matron. This addresses a weakness of Red's in a clever way that leaves you room to exploit it since it's stapled to a creature and it is better against players who are more likely to have a lot of expensive rocks out early. A player with a precon will have a Manalith out and you get two or three tokens which is fine and if there is a player who curves Mana Crypt into Grim Monolith or Sol Ring into Talisman into Wild Growth, you'll be better against them. This also helps Hellkite Tyrant, one of my favorite 75% creatures. All in all, this is a fantastic 75% card and a lot of my decks are waiting for it, not the least of which is my Xantcha Mindslaver deck which has a goblin subtheme and can't wait to swap a treasure token for a Mana Vault with Gauntlets of Chaos.

I tend to avoid Red, especially mono-Red when I build decks because I feel like they really struggle at card selection unless you play cards like Gamble, Mind's Eye, or Faithless Looting; all cards I am not thrilled with in a 75% deck for various reasons. This does a nice job of mitigating Red's struggle to keep its hand full and at the end of the game when you have the mana to flash this back, you can end the game, which is helpful. There isn't a ton to say about this card other than that it helps Red out a bit with something Red is bad at and if you're playing with Brainstorm or Scroll Rack, it's amazing.

It seems like all of the colors are getting a creative new way to pilfer their cards. Playing their spells, even at random, is pretty amazing, especially getting to do it every upkeep. Blink it, bounce it or just leave it in play and watch the value add up. Maybe you want to sculpt their yard with Relic of Progenitus or Scrabbling Claws to force them to pick something good. Maybe you want to just let it ride and be the cackling, lunatic Red mage fomenting chaos across the land. The more good spells in their deck, the better Devils are, so you're scaling to their power level with this card, too. I imagine you're going to get a Wrath of God often, but you may be able to use this card politically to convince someone to let you rebuy a wrath and stop someone else from getting too far ahead. Maybe you can re-buy a Merciless Eviction and pick a different mode. Maybe you just get a free Harmonize or Kodama's Reach and then this dies. I love this card and it makes me want to put Mindclaw Shaman back in my decks. I used to play Mindclaw Shaman, Spelltwine, and Jace's Mindseeker in my Maelstrom Wanderer deck and the more competitive it got, the less fun it was. This could get me back on that "cast all of their spells" train with more decks than just Gonti. Time will tell.

Edric is back and now he's a snake! But better! Obviously Edric decks may want to take a look at Snakeyface over here but other decks with tokens could benefit as well. Do you have any decks with Beastmaster Ascension? Those decks want this card. Deathtouch makes creatures with Trample way better so throw this in your Overrun or Craterhoof decks. Honestly, any card that prevents the board from getting gummed up with everyone's creatures is something I want. That's not a problem in tight games with combo decks, but the farther you slide down the spectrum into casual town, the more you get situations where no one is attacking and you can't attack first because three people will attack you while you're tapped out. That's why I like Insurrection and that's why I like this. If you don't want to use Assault Suit or Thantis, at least make blocking suck, make not blocking suck, and dig until you find that Constant Mists, because you're going to need it.

Eternal Witness has become a bit of a de facto "must include" in Green decks and when anyone challenges that, the backlash can get intense. I like Witness and always have, but I run a couple of Food Chain decks and when someone deals with my Food Chain like they should, it can get a bit pricey to run my Commander back out if I have sacced a few times. I like this as a card that can both re-buy something I need and bring my Commander into my hand to let me cast it for a reasonable amount. I will be testing this in both my Prossh deck and my Maelstrom Wanderer deck in the place of Eternal Witness. This is worse with Deadeye Navigator, but it's way better when they blow up Food Chain, especially if they don't exile it and you can get it back with this.

If I hadn't written a whole article about it last week, this is what I would have written today. I like how this is a kind of Green way to steal cards, since it's pretty easy to make tokens that are copies of theirs and then populate. If they want to run out Consecrated Sphinx, you're going to make them pay. Actually, if you have a bunch of Sphinxes, they'll just deck you. Bad example. Pick another card. Yeah. That one. Yeaaaaah. They'll pay for playing that card you're thinking of, won't they? They'll rue the day. Teach 'em a lesson.

This is just a good card. You can make a friend early or collude with one you already had. You can give them player who's struggling a helping hand and benefit when you do. I like using this to catch someone up and get a bit ahead yourself and if that makes you the archenemy, you hopefully have made an ally. Not much to say about this card other than that I think it's pretty 75% to help someone who is struggling at a casual table and try to get some residual benefit from the player most likely to have a Voltaic Key at a competitive one.

If you're blinking cards, this is a monster. Basically another Illusionary Mask but slightly better and not $200, Scroll turns dead lands into chump blockers, build an army out of nothing and turns Ghostway into a ETB trigger bazooka. This card does a lot of work and if you have a Roon or Brago deck, this card will help you cheat creatures into play. People are already picking up copies of Phyrexian Dreadnought to pair with this. Don't pay full mana cost for a creature, ever - cheat things into play. Cheating is how we win at Magic and cheating by legally cutting corners is the best kind of cheating. It's really the only kind of cheating I sanction. It's not really cheating. Just work with me, here. Stop paying full mana cost and start playing more blink cards and Panharmonicon. This card is fun.

Basically everything I said about Road applies here. I don't have a lot of non-Food Chain decks where I want Sanctum so I don't think there are any decks where I'll try it but wouldn't also try Road. I like this for the same reasons.

Honorable Mentions - There is nothing particularly 75% about these cards but I like them.

I like effects like this that don't use the stack. It can be hard to know which cards are dangerous and which are lands when everything is a face-down 2/2 so try not to get board-wiped and be ready to pounce with this.

This hurts the player farthest ahead, which is very 75%. I just hate how much mana this is. I will try it in Etali, but I don't see where else I want it. I didn't want to give this a whole paragraph because while the effect is good, I think the card costs too much.

This is the only White card I discussed. I like it a lot and I like it even more on Isochron Scepter. I also think locking someone like that isn't super 75% and this card is fairly meh without Scepter. You likely don't have room in the deck for this and Teferi's Protection and I know which one I always pick. That said, I like this card. Not enough to advocate playing it, but in a "I miss Scepter Chant in Extended and also I miss Extended" sort of way.

This set is very good and if you're wondering why I didn't mention any of the new Legendary creatures, don't worry - the ones I like are getting their very own articles soon. In the mean time, I know it's pretty disappointing that there weren't any flashy reprints like we all kind of expected but I do think the decks are worth buying and if you're not looking to go that deep, a few of the key singles are never going to be cheaper than when the set has been out for a week or two. Go nuts and remember to steal their spells any way you can. Until next time!