Modern Rome by JMW Turner (1839). Timestream Navigator by Zezhou Chen.

A few weeks ago, I dove into the wonderful world of Dominaria with an article where I explored the idea of picking a creature to pair up with each of the 34 new legendary creatures that had just been spoiled. You can read part 1 here.

Picking "sidekicks" for each new legendary was an exercise in familiarizing myself with these new cards and a chance to explore some of the strategies we might be using with them.

Thirty-four new commanders. I couldn't believe it, and I thought I would never stop writing.

I also thought for some reason that the list of 34 was a complete inventory of all the new legendary creatures we would see in Dominaria. Much to my surprise, I was wrong.

Over the past few weeks we've seen seven additional cards spoiled. Today's Commanderruminations will be a look at the seven legendary creatures that weren't available when I wrote my original article. I'm still not sure how I missed some, but I don't like to leave a job unfinished.

Since we're now seeing official spoilers that means we'll be able to look at the artwork. In part one, I didn't have the luxury of sharing the actual card artwork, but today's seven cards all have art! Since I'm only covering a fraction of the legendary creatures that we covered earlier, I'll be going into a little more depth on each one.

Danitha Capashen, Paragon

Danitha Capashen is a 2/2 human knight with first strike, vigilance and lifelink She costs and if she's on the battlefield the cost of your aura and equipment spells will be reduced by .

Danitha might save you mana on both auras and equipments, but one thing any White deck needs help with is card draw. You could go in lots of interesting directions with Danitha, but for her sidekick I'm going to pick Mesa Enchantress.

There are lots of great creatures that could be played with Danitha in an enchantress voltron deck. Umbra Mystic will turn all of your enchantments into totem armor. Auramancer will help bring enchantments back from the graveyard. Mesa Enchantress just gives you card draw, but if you're going to be casting lots of auras at a discounted price, having more card draw is going to be really important. We'll run lots of auras in Danitha, so Mesa Enchantress should do some real work. The two top auras I'd include are Conviction and Armored Ascension. Conviction can come back to your hand for so you can recast it for additional draw from Mesa Enchantress. Any Mono-White deck should run Armored Ascension. It can turn even a lowly 2/2 commander into a legitimate threat in the mid-to-late game.

I'm still not sure how excited I'd be about a Mono-White voltron build but I've never built an enchantress deck and I could definitely see it being a fun project. I could see running it with a focus on both auras and equipment, but I'd probably focus on the former to avoid dealing with equip costs.

Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp

Zahid is a flying Djinn with a power of 5 and toughness of 6. He costs but has an alternate casting cost. You can tap an untapped artifact you control and pay to cast Zahid.

My only problem with Zahid is that he is utterly and completely uninteresting. His biggest ability is that he has an alternate casting cost, but that doesn't even help with commander tax.

If I absolutely had to build a Zahid deck I would seriously consider building Djinn tribal.

Why Djinn tribal?

Because I honestly can't think of anything better to do with it, and I'd probably be the only person to have a Djinn tribal deck at any game store I walked into. It would probably never win a single game. I'm not even going to go into detail about the three cards shown above.

I mean . . .  have you looked at the options available for other cards with a creature type of Djinn?

Don't. It will just make you sad. It made me sad.

Let's move on . . . 

Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage

Raff is a 3/3 Human Wizard with both Flash and Flying who costs . He will let you cast historic spells (artifacts, legendaries and Sagas) as though they had flash.

Being able to flash historic spells into play is a very powerful effect. When I started thinking about useful flash spells, my mind went straight to creatures like Notion Thief (not in Raff's colors) and Aven Mindcensor, but we should really be looking at cards without flash to try to make the most of Raff Capashen.

Every Commander game I've been in lately seems to have boardwipes. If you're playing Raff, you're going to be playing lots of spells on the end step of the player to your right, so it shouldn't be a big deal to leave 8 mana open. My pick for a "sidekick" for Raff is Avacyn, Angel of Hope. Get Raff out, get up to 8 mana, build an imposing board and then play like a Blue player. Wait for someone to dare to wipe the board, flash Avacyn in and watch your opponents cry.

There are other tricks you can get up to with Raff. In White and Blue you've got lots of ways to either give Raff vigilance or let you untap him. Flashing in a Meekstone can catch a strong opponent with their biggest threats tapped. While Raff would normally be trapped by a Meekstone, if you have ways to untap him or give him vigilance it won't slow you down one bit. If you build your Raff deck with a tribal theme, Coat of Arms is worth looking at. Turning ten 1/1 weenies into 10/10 monsters after blocks are declared but before the damage step is a great way to end games.

I think the most interesting thing about Raff Capashen is that he gives you a fair amount of flexibility without locking you into any one tribe or any one type of deck. I'm not sure I'd build him, but I can definitely see how a Raff deck could be really fun and exciting to play. Trying to figure out how to turn legendary creatures and artifacts into instant-speed combat tricks might be a rewarding puzzle to try to solve.

Tatyova, Benthic Druid

Tatyova is a 3/3 Merfolk Druid who costs . Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control you gain 1 life and draw a card.

I would pick Azusa, Lost but Seeking as Tatyova's buddy. I'd run Exploration and plenty of other land-oriented ramp spells to make the most out of the card draw she provides. With Well of Lost Dreams in play we can drop a land, gain 1 life from Tatyova, pay to draw a card from Well of Lost Dreams and then draw a card from Tatyova. With Azusa in play we can do that three times in a turn if we have the lands in hand and the mana available. We'll probably want to play some big mana spells and permanents with landfall triggers. Zendikar's Roil doesn't actually have the word "landfall" on it, but it will give us a 2/2 Green elemental creature token for each land we play. Landfall might be a worthwhile keyword to look at for cards to include in a Tatyova deck.

With enough ramp, landfall and big mana spells, Tatyova could easily wind up being one of the more powerful commanders to come out of Dominaria. Her ability might not seem like much, but landfall into card draw and lifegain can be explosive if built right. She's no Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, but she should be able to compete with other midrange decks.

Shalai, Voice of Plenty

Shalai is a flying angel with a power of 3 and a toughness of 4. She costs and she gives you, planeswalkers you control and other creatures you control hexproof. She also has an activated ability that will let you put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control for the modest price of . That extra ability puts her into Selesnya () colors, giving us lots of options we wouldn't have available to us in Mono-White.

Hexproof is very powerful ability, but the thing I noticed about Shalai is that she is a great infinite mana sink. If you can cobble together an infinite mana combination that produces Green mana, your wincon is right there in your command zone.

Karametra's Acolyte is the creature I'd pair up with Shalai, though the deck would run loads of other mana dorks as well. Sword of the Paruns and Umbra Mantle can both help her create infinite mana if your devotion to Green is high enough. If you've got the ability to make infinite mana, Helix Pinnacle is a worthwhile alternate wincon in case you're somehow locked out of being able to push for a win on the battlefield.

Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep

Slinn Voda is an 8/8 leviathan who costs and has a kicker cost of . When Slinn Voda enters the battlefield, if it was kicked you get to return all creatures to their owners' hands except for Merfolk, Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses and Serpents.

A year ago, I was working on a deck that created token creatures and tried to use cards like Synthetic Destiny and Mass Polymorph to exile them to cheat sea monsters into play. Slinn Voda would have fit right into that build, but we're looking at running these creatures as commanders. If I had to pick a Robin to Slinn Voda's Batman, I would pick Archetype of Imagination.

Archetype of Imagination will let our army of Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses and Serpents fly over our opponents' blockers. We'll throw in plenty of other spells to help with our theme like Quest for Ula's Temple and Whelming Wave, but an army of flying sea monsters is really what we're going for here.

Josu Vess, Lich Knight

Josu Vess is a zombie knight with 4 power and 5 toughness. He costs , has Menace and comes with a kicker cost. If you pay when you cast Josu, you get to create eight 2/2 black Zombie knight creature tokens with menace.

Magus of the Coffers is my pick for a sidekick for Josu Vess. If you really want to make the most of this zombie knight, you're going to want to pay his kicker cost, and that means you're looking at a 10 mana commitment that will only get more expensive each time you have to cast him. The good Magus will help you with that cost.

For the rest of the deck, I'd probably focus on Black good stuff and zombies, rather than Black good stuff and knights. That means cards like Endless Ranks of the Dead and Liliana, the Last Hope would fit right in, alongside any number of zombies.

I've built zombie tribal before and didn't have much luck with it, so if I opened Josu Vess I'm not sure I'd jump at the chance to build around him. If you like Zombies and are confident about your ability to get up to 10 mana, I can definitely see how he might make for an interesting general.

Final Thoughts

This article and part 1 were all about picking a creature from the vast history of Magic to pair up with each of the new Dominaria legendary creatures. I was picking helpers or "sidekicks" for each of them, but the reality is that many of these new commanders are better suited to be sidekicks themselves. It takes a certain level of power and flexibility for a creature to be worthy of heading up their own deck and only some legendaries have what it takes.

As of this writing we'll be getting 41 new legendary creatures in Dominaria. I'd bet that half of them will truly only see use "in the 99" of other decks. Of the remaining 20 or so, only half of those will wind up being particularly strong options to head up their own deck. If we're lucky, we'll see 3-5 truly strong midrange decks out of Dominaria and maybe only one (Muldrotha) will be considered Tier 2 or possibly Tier 1.5.

That doesn't mean I'm not excited about opening packs of Dominaria and seeing what new legendary creatures I can get my hands on. I'm already planning to take apart decks that I haven't been playing much just so that I can free up sleeves and open up some deckboxes for new decks.

If you want to know how my Commander games have been going, you can follow my casual and Commander League play at http://dantesdad.wixsite.com/commanderruminations. I managed to win this past month, finishing March with the top point total on the back of a Mono-Red good stuff deck led by Ashling the Pilgrim. Next month we'll be on to a new theme and I'll be playing Oona, Queen of the Fae for the three Saturdays we'll be able to play in April.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next Monday!