During the March of the Machine first look at MagicCon Philly, we got a ton of interesting new tidbits. Long-time favorite characters getting compleated, surviving ones getting team-ups, and the death of the king and queen Kenriths were some of the biggest revelations about the upcoming set. One of the most shocking, however, was the return of Planechase in the set's Commander preconstructed decks!

I've been a fan of Planechase since my college days. Someone brought a Planechase deck with them one day, passed it on to me, and it became a mainstay of our Commander games. A short while later, Planechase 2012 released, bringing with it a whole host of new cards. I bought all four decks and found myself playing constantly with friends, providing an extra fun element to games. As time has gone on, accessibility to these plane cards has diminished, despite an all-inclusive package of Planechase Anthology releasing in 2018. It has, however, been a cult favorite and shows up often in various Commander content.

Now, with a more modern release in a setting more fitting of it (remember, previous Planechase releases didn't involve Commander), there's opportunity for this alternate mode of play to grow in popularity! With several new cards and a handful of reprints waiting in the wings, I want to talk about what I feel are ten of the best options to include in your planar deck. These are in no particular order, as it's fairly subjective which are truly the best. I tried to go with planes that provided the most fun or otherwise created an interesting and memorable game experience. Additionally, I'm avoiding ones that only care about narrow strategies (singling out specific colors or keywords) or else aren't the most enjoyable, such as Eloren Wilds making everyone no longer want to roll the planar die and instead just soak up the extra mana.

Before I dive into the main list, however, I want to tackle three small honorable mentions:

Planewide Disaster

This card is the only phenomenon on this list. A phenomenon, for those who may be unaware, is a one-shot effect that happens when you planeswalk to the phenomenon. After the effect resolves, you planeswalk away. These are often big, splashy effects. Mutual Epiphany makes everyone draw four cards, Time Distortion reverses turn order, Morphic Tide basically casts Warp World - you get the idea. Many of these are crazy, chaotic, and do interesting things, but I feel like Planewide Disaster is the simplest choice because of how you always need to be mindful of the risk of a sudden board wipe. If everyone's board disappears all of a sudden, it may be a little groan-inducing, but it's nothing most players can't recover from with a little time. I'd almost like to include this in my list, however it seems like a shoe-in for a reprint in the upcoming Commander decks so it gets an honorable mention. It's absolutely worth including in your planar decks to help shake up games, and is one you should play regularly.

Pools of Becoming

I included this one here because I think it works well within the chaotic nature of Planechase, however, it can be quite divisive. Take Teferi's Puzzle Box, for example. There's a number of players who love the card, and not just because of how it works with something like Nekusar, the Mindrazer or Underworld Dreams. Some, like myself, enjoy the way it constantly changes what hands look like and gives you a variety of options to play with every turn. Many players, however, build their decks to carefully cultivate the cards they're putting into their hands, and having it ripped away turn after turn can be frustrating. There's also the whole Narset, Parter of Veils interaction to deal with. While I think this is very much a great inclusion to most planar decks, this one should definitely be considered on a case-by-case basis depending on your playgroup.

Tember City

This might surprise some people, but I waffled really hard on including this one in the main list. You can probably imagine that an ability that damages people for simply trying to play Magic might prove a bit unpopular, which is why I left it here in the honorable mentions. However, I think it provides an interesting sub-game as it requires players to walk on eggshells to find a way to escape the plane and keep things going forward. Sometimes stories - or games for that matter - need a moment where the action slows down and tension rises, as finding relief for that tension becomes exciting and memorable. This makes Tember City a very interesting inclusion, but it's not hard to see players having a big problem with it as well. I highly recommend giving it a try, but be ready to remove it from your deck depending on the response.

Now, with the honorable mentions out of the way, let's get right into the main list!

Goldmeadow

Goats! Who doesn't love goats? These weak critters have become a fan favorite since the days of Lorwyn and Shadowmoor blocks where we got cards like Goatnapper and Springjack Shepherd. We've seen them on a handful of cards since such as Clackbridge Troll, Trading Post, and Woe Strider, but unlike those card with built-in uses for the tokens, Goldmeadow just provides you with a bunch of random oddball tokens. It's rather innocuous and provides some small, fun bonuses for taking basic game actions. Best of all, it provides a lot of great toys for many decks, such as go-wide pump, sacrifice, and Impact Tremors-style strategies, thereby offering a lot of play in small and subtle ways. It's an easy inclusion that's bound to get a bunch of cheers and laughter from your playgroup every time you land on it.

Grove of the Dreampods

One thing I've often found in Commander is that players love spinning the wheel, especially when everyone gets a chance at hitting something awesome. That's what makes this plane so great. Every single turn, players flip over the top of their deck until they hit a creature and put it into play. Will it be a 1/1 mana dork or a game-ending eldrazi monstrosity? Who knows! That's what makes it fun, though. It's exciting in a casual setting to see what each player gets. Everything from the joy of hitting something high-profile to the lowly groans of a big miss just makes it a blast for everyone involved.

Hedron Fields of Agadeem

What makes the Hedron Fields of Agadeem so fun is that it really doesn't do a whole lot on its face apart from slowing down the biggest of creatures. That doesn't seem too exciting, but the looming ominous threat of someone rolling chaos and creating a huge eldrazi token is a fun and unique gameplay experience. It can feel stressful if you aren't on the receiving end of that token boon, but there's a certain thrill to this that makes it such a cool moment that you're bound to remember after the game has finished. That alone should make it an easy inclusion.

The Maelstrom

The Maelstrom fills a similar role to Grove of the Dreampods in that you're effectively spinning the wheel. This one doesn't have a guarantee of hitting, though, making it a bit more volatile. It can, however, hit a variety of permanents that you can't get off of a Grove of the Dreampods, such as lands, artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers. So, while it may be similar to another choice on this list, it's different enough to warrant an inclusion.

Murasa

What makes Goldmeadow so great is it rewards you with small creatures for taking small, basic game actions: putting lands onto the battlefield. Murasa takes this approach and effectively reverses it. Now instead of getting creatures for playing lands, casting creature spells will allow you to find basic lands. This helps speed up the pace of the game without bringing it to the breakneck speed of something like Eloren Wilds. The chaos effect doesn't give players a lot of incentive to try moving away from the plane, but at some point, someone is going to get sick of how many lands are coming in, and will want to see something new come down instead.

Naar Isle

Now here's a spicy inclusion! Who says every plane has to be good fun and provide everyone with a bonus. This turns the game into a ticking time bomb as players will race to try getting off this plane as quickly as they can. However, it's likely that in their attempts to escape, they'll end up burning one another quite a bit in the process. This both accelerates the rate of play within the game as well as shaking up the momentum at the same time. Rather than playing the game as normal, players will be drawn to trying to deal with this plane as quickly as they can, which creates an interesting dynamic that makes it a worthy inclusion. It's similar to the previously mentioned Tember City in this regard, but this one is far less hostile to the general flow of gameplay while still being interestingly disruptive.

Otaria

This plane feels super flavorful and incredibly unique. For those who may not be familiar, Otaria was the setting for Odyssey and Onslaught blocks, making it the original home for the flashback mechanic. As a result, the Dominarian continent (and personal favorite of mine) is well represented here by giving every instant and sorcery in every graveyard flashback. This can lead to something small like an extra casting of a Rampant Growth or Preordain or can represent the second coming of a monstrous spell like Comet Storm or Time Warp. It's the kind of effect that lets players do more of what they already enjoy doing and be able to do it in an extremely flavorful way. It's really hard to say no to something like that.

Panopticon

I almost included Stairs to Infinity in place of this. Everyone always seemed to love that card when I would play it in my planar decks in my college days, but looking back, it probably makes card drawing a little too egregious. It's the kind of thing that's fun once in a while if included in a big deck (making it great with the Planechase Anthology set of 86 planes) but in a small deck it's probably a bit much. Panopticon very similarly provides everyone with a bunch of extra card draw, but in far smaller quantities. As such, it's farm more akin to a good old-fashioned Howling Mine with a little extra opportunity to draw more cards if you can roll a chaos. That makes for a great inclusion and provides everyone with a little something to help further the game along.

Selesnya Loft Gardens

Doubling Season is a truly beloved card in Commander, but with a $90 price tag, it's hard for most players to justify running. As it happens, Selesnya Loft Gardens is just that: Doubling Season. The only hitch is it works for everyone, not just you. As a result, you run the risk of players getting unexpectedly frisky with some planeswalker ultimates, but that just adds to the zany chaotic fun that is Planechase. It provides a wildly popular effect to everyone for totally unexpected results, and that alone makes it an easy inclusion.

Truga Jungle

Nothing feels quite as bad as color screw. Truga Jungle says to hell with that and gives everyone exactly what they need, and can help players who aren't just color screwed but are mana screwed as well if they roll chaos. That's a great blend of abilities that's unique without being too splashy and makes sure everyone is actually able to play a good fun game of Magic. It's never enjoyable when someone just outright can't play, so putting this into your deck to make sure everyone can have a chance is always going to be welcome at any table.

With so many great planes out there, there's no shortage of outstanding options. These are merely the ones I feel can provide some of the best experiences to general gameplay. With 86 current planes or phenomenon already in print and 25 new ones on the way, there's plenty of ways for you to build and play the way you want. I'm very excited to see what cool new abilities the upcoming releases have to offer, and can't wait to add all of them to my planar deck in the near future. In the meantime, if you've never played Planechase, pick these planes up and give it a try. I guarantee you'll have an absolutely great time.

Paige Smith

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