Venice at Sunset by Ivan Aivazovsky (1873). Demon of Loathing by Tomasz Jedruszek.

Commander Christmas came early this year. It's a bit cruel for the 2020 Commander decks to come out during a global pandemic with mandatory social distancing, but you certainly can't blame Wizards for that. We want to get out and play some EDH with our friends, but the responsible way to behave is to avoid unnecessary interactions and to do our best to minimize spread of the virus so our healthcare systems aren't overwhelmed. That means wearing masks when we go out, and spending the bulk of our free time at home. This is the time to spend our energy sorting cards, building decks, and learning how to play online.

Today's column is going to be an overview of the many, many legendary creatures that are coming out with Magic's new set: Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths. It's a way for me to familiarize myself with what can only be described as an overwhelming assortment of new toys for us to play with. Some are amazing, some are just OK, and one has been banned in our format before it ever even got a chance to be played!

I've decided to include every new Legendary creature in both the regular Ikoria set and the precon Commander decks, with Part 1 today and finishing up the rest next time. That means I won't be discussing Odric, Lunarch Marshal, Karametra, God of Harvests, Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Zetalpa, Primal Dawn, Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, The Locust God, Rashmi, Eternities Crafter, Melek, Izzet Paragon, Talrand, Sky Summoner or Wort, the Raidmother. Those are all reprinted in the 2020 Commander precon decks, but there are still a ton of new legendary creatures coming out in Ikoria boosters and precons. As I start writing I'm sitting on my couch, laptop in my lap, with the 2014 release of Godzilla playing in the background, so we might as well start with the big boys.

Kaiju

Whether you translate the Japanese word "Kaiju" as meaning "strange monster," or just go straight to the more familiar English understanding that Kaiju are giant monsters that will eat you, your family, most of your city block and still have room for dessert, there's no denying that these creatures are awe-inspiring.

We are all familiar with such big boys as Progenitus, Consuming Aberration, Lord of Extinction, Malignus and Serra Avatar, how would Wizards of the Coast make their Kaiju both impressive and interesting enough to get us to buy boxes of Ikroia? Part of the answer lies in the brand new Mutate keyword.

The Mutate Kaiju

The five legendary creatures with Mutate can be combined with creatures that are already on the field, gaining all abilities of all cards, but keeping the power and toughness of the creature of your choosing (which should be placed on top). Any mutated creature with a commander in it somewhere will do commander damage, but if it's exiled or killed all those cards will go with it. Casting a commander for its Mutate cost will be affected by commander tax.

Brokkos, Apex of Forever

This legendary 6/6 Beast Elemental is in Sultai colors, has trample, and can be cast from your graveyard. I can see Brokkos as a really nasty Infect commander. Mutate a Blackcleave Goblin after a boardwipe and get someone almost halfway to 10 infect in one swing. Mutate a Plague Stinger, Whispering Specter, Flesh-Eater Imp or Viral Drake and you've got a flying 6/6 infect creature. You don't even need to worry that much about commander tax because you'll be re-casting it out of the graveyard when it dies.

It's the commander you just can't get rid of. You're in green so you should be able to ramp well. If it dies, you just mutate out of the bin. If Brokkos gets exiled, you can make enough mana to recast him. He's great for battlecruiser EDH and should see lots of play. Pairing him with low-power creatures that care about their own power makes sense, so a strategy where you mutate him onto creatures like Cultivator of Blades or Wild Beastmaster make sense.

Illuna, Apex of Wishes

This legendary 6/6 Beast Elemental Dinosaur is Temur, has flying and trample and has a special ability for when it mutates. You get to exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland permanent and you put that card onto the battlefield or into your hand. This feels like the good half of a Chaos Warp. You lose nothing and get a permanent. If it's a card with Mutate, you can put it in your hand (after revealing it to show that it is indeed a nonland permanent) so that you can cast it instead of just putting it onto the battlefield.

I can see Illuna working well with topdeck manipulation to cheat overly expensive beaters onto the field. If you're concerned about losing cast triggers, you can always put the card into your hand. You don't have to build this deck with evasive infect creatures, but you'll want to run cards like Sensei's Divining Top, Brainstorm, Serum Visions and other ways to know what you'll be cheating onto the battlefield. Strionic Resonator also makes sense as a way to get an extra "whenever this creature mutates" trigger.

Nethroi, Apex of Death

Your Abzan Cat Nightmare Beast Tribal deck finally has its commander! The 5/5 Nethroi, Apex of Death is another Kaiju with the mutate keyword and a decent 5/5 body with deathtouch and lifelink. This creature's party trick is that when it mutates it can return any number of target creature cards with total power 10 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.

Nethroi has tremendous potential as the leader of a graveyard combo deck. Walking Ballista, Viscera Seer and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed will win you the game and you'll have 3 mana to spare. Whether you dump a ton of cards into the yard with a Traumatize or you carefully put just the right targets into the bin using cards like Entomb or Buried Alive, you should be able to set up a win pretty easily. I don't know that Nethori is ridiculously powerful, but I know I'm going to see it and I know it's going to win games.

Snapdax, Apex of the Hunt

If you prefer a splash of Dinosaur, maybe the three-power, five-toughness Snapdax is for you. This legendary creature has double-strike and when it mutates, it deals four damage to target creature or planeswalker an opponent controls and you gain four life.

I'd have loved to see a combat damage trigger on Snapdax, but maybe the best way to make the most of this scary kitty is to mutate something big, nasty or both. Malignus comes to mind. You could also go the infect route with a pretty good range of flying infect creatures in white and black, from Tine Shrike and Shriek Raptor to the black flying infect creatures I suggested for Brokkos. The mutate trigger doesn't do much to excite me, though you could use it to clear away a blocker. I love the art on Snapdax, but I suspect it is better in the 99 of a mutate deck than at the helm.

Vadrok, Apex of Thunder

We're going to be able to make a heck of a Cat deck when all is said and done. Our next Kaiju is a 3/3 Jeskai Elemental Dinosaur Cat with Flying and First Strike. When it mutates, you may cast target noncreature card with a converted mana cost of 3 or less from your graveyard without paying its mana cost. It's a far cry from Nethori's graveyard interaction, but it's not nothing.

There are a lot of great low-cost noncreature spells in these colors, and when you cast your free spell, it doesn't get exiled so it will be there for you the next time you mutate Vardok. Mystical Tutor, Enlightened Tutor and Gamble all fall under the limit, and if you've got your Leyline of Anticipation or Vedalken Orrery on the field, you can even mutate Vadrok at instant speed and throw any of a number of counterspells onto the stack. They just have to be three-cost or less and in your graveyard. I'm not particularly high on Vadrok, but I can see some value there and I haven't even looked at all the enchantments you could cheat back out onto the field. Ghostly Prison and Propaganda both work, and that's just scratching the surface of what you can bring back.

A Word about Mutate

Before you get too excited - the three cards shown above aren't in the Commander decks.

Mutate presents us with a lot of possibilities, but also a lot of risk. There's no better feeling than to pay 1 mana to exile an opponent's creature when it's headed your way. With a mutated Kaiju, you could wind up using that Swords to Plowshares or Pongify to get rid of three or four cards, representing an investment of 10 or more mana by your opponent. Mutate will be fun to play with, and will definitely be seen at Commander tables. It will also serve as a reminder that we should all be running more removal and we should work hard to protect our threats.

If your big bad monsters are constantly getting exiled or killed and you aren't adjusting your deck to run more protection, you've only got yourself to blame. Grab that extra-large set of Swiftfoot Boots that comes in the Symbiotic Swarm precon, and don't be afraid to give your Kaiju a Mask of Avacyn. Heroic Intervention, Teferi's Protection or even an old school Withstand Death can go a long way towards having all those eggs which you just had to put in that one big basket actually survive.

There is one legendary creature who was built to help you deal with the inevitability of losing creatures that have mutated. This little guy will help get them back. As a 6/6 for six, he's not even a little guy, just a little underpowered in terms of his abilities.

Otrimi, the Ever-Playful

This Legendary Nightmare Beast costs six, but can mutate for four and comes with abilities on top. Since leaning on mutate is a relatively risky strategy, it's nice to have a way to get these cards back from the graveyard. To some extent, that makes Otrimi an interesting candidate as a voltron commander, but I'm not sure a little mutate recursion is enough to push Otrimi up to being a semi-competitive choice.

Non-Mutating Kaiju

These giant monsters can be mutated onto, but they just can't do it on their own, as they don't have the Mutate ability.

Yidaro, Wandering Monster

Yidaro, Wandering Monster is an 8/8 Dinosaur Turtle with trample, haste and cycling. If you cycle Yidar, which is unlikely to happen if it is your commander, you can shuffle it into your library and if you cycle it four or more times he goes onto the battlefield. An 8/8 for 2 mana is impressive, but that's a trick you're more likely to do in formats where you can play four copies.

Zilortha, Strength Incarnate

Zilortha, Strength Incarnate is a Gruul 7/3 legendary Dino with trample who will only be killed by damage if that damage is greater than its power. Zilortha can skip leg day at the gym and will get along just fine, so long as nobody gives him -3/-3, because that will kill him dead. This party trick extends to all your creatures, so playing an army of creatures with low toughness might be a way to go. There's a wide range of creatures that are X/1, but I'm not sure this is a big enough deal to get too excited about.

Kogla, the Titan Ape

The big monster I'm probably most excited about is Kogla, the Titan Ape. Its mana cost means you'll be stuck in green, but Kogla has some neat abilities, fighting up to one target creature an opponent controls. When Kogla attacks, you get to destroy target artifact or enchantment defending player controls. Removal is a wonderful thing, but his best party trick is the one where he juggles Humans. For 2 mana, you can return target Human you control to your hand to give him indestructible.

I'm relatively sure there is some serious combo potential with Kogla. With Concordant Crossroads on the field and a Human mana dork like Karametra's Acolyte, you'd be able to make infinite mana because she'd be tapping for at least five and bouncing for four. All you need is that haste enabler or something like Thousand-Year Elixir so you can play her, tap, bounce her and do it again without worrying about summoning sickness. I have yet to explore how many cheap Humans in Magic have interesting and abusable ETB triggers, but I'm looking forward to doing that soon.

Maybe Kaiju?

I'll be the first to admit, I'm not an expert on Kaiju. I grew up just outside of Boston and remember a local channel playing what they called the "Creature Double Feature" every weekend. I got to see a wide range of old horror and monster flicks, including the occasional Godzilla movie, but I never got into them that much. I think these are all pretty "strange monsters," but a monster movie purist might rule some of these out as actual Kaiju.

Whatever they are, they are definitely worth a look.

Keyword Counters

Keyword counters are an odd change. These are basically ways to give an ability that will go away if the creature leaves the battlefield. When someone hits your giant multiply-mutated Kaiju with a Rapid Hybridization and you get a 3/3 Frog Lizard token, you can now find ways to put keyword counters on it. A flying counter gives it flying, a trample counter gives it trample, and so on. One of our new legendary creatures cares an awful lot about keyword counters.

Kathril, Aspect Warper

When Kathril enters the battlefield, you put a counter on a creature you control if you have a creature in the graveyard with each of the following abilities: Flying, first strike, double strike, deathtouch, hexproof, indestructible, lifelink, menace, reach, trample and vigilance. For each of the types of counters you create this way, you also put a +1/+1 counter on Kathril.

Kathril lends itself to a graveyard-focused keyword commander deck. It starts out as a 3/3, so you'll likely wind up with a 6/6, 7/7 or 8/8 if you're doing well seeding your graveyard. Putting the counters on Kathril seems like a good plan if you don't have anything more interesting like a Hydra Omnivore to put them onto. A flying, double-strike, vigilance, trample, indestructible 8/8 Hydra that can do damage to all of my opponents by doing damage to just one of them feels like a pretty neat thing to try to do.

Tayam, Luminous Enigma

If you want a legendary creature that only cares about one token and you really like vigilance, Tyaam, Luminous Enigma might be just the Nightmare Beast you're looking for. Each other creature you control will enter the battlefield with an additional vigilance counter on it. Then you can pay three, remove three counters from creatures you control, mill yourself for three and then put a permanent with a converted mana cost of three or less back onto the battlefield. You can do this at instant speed.

The ability to cheat a card back if it's cheap enough allows Tayam to run a really versatile toolbox deck. The number of cheap cards that you'll be able to grab and use to respond to a problem is pretty huge. Cards that get and care about counters like Fertilid or Forgotten Ancient will help you set up the ability to use Tayam. When someone tries to combo off or attack, you can recur a Caustic Caterpillar, Spore Frog, or maybe a Spellbomb or some other response to a threat until you're ready to try to nail down your own wincon.

Kalamax, the Stormsire

Kalamax, the Stormsire is a Legendary Elemental Dinosaur and whenever you cast your first instant spell each turn, if he's tapped you get to copy that spell. Whenever you copy an instant you get to put a +1/+1 counter on Kalamax.

Given the way the stack works, Kalamax is a combo engine with any forked (copied) spell. You target a spell on the stack you want to copy. You cast a Fork, Reverberate, Wild Ricochet or any other spell that will copy another spell. With a tapped Kalamax, you get an extra copy of that spell. If you Fork a spell, the first copy must target the initial spell, but the second can target the Fork. Each time you get another copy of Fork, you target the Fork until, at an arbitrarily large number in your loop, you target the original spell on the stack to end the combo. You get the original spell, copied twice if my math is correct, and you get an arbitrarily large Kalamx because he's been gaining +1/+1 counters all this time. Ideally you'll do this on the end step of the turn before you untap and then you win with a cherry on top like Chandra's Ignition.

I don't know if you like to win games that way, but any competitive Kalamax deck will probably have that basic plan. There are other instants that will be really powerful when copied, but I think going the combo route is a pretty mainstream thing to do in Commander these days. You could always enchant it with Elemental Mastery and tap to make a ridiculously wide board.

Zaxara, the Exemplary

This next commander is quite possibly the Hydra general we've all been waiting for. For 4 mana, you get a 2/3 Legendary Nightmare Beast with Deathtouch that can tap for 2 mana of any one color. Whenever you cast an X spell, you get to create a 0/0 Hydra with X +1/+1 counters on it. That means copying creature and non-creature spells, but the most obvious use for Zaxara is to build a Hydra army.

Sure, you could squeeze a little extra value out of a Genesis Wave, Torment of Hailfire or any other X spell, but doubling down on Hydras would be a fun way to go. A more competitive build will be towards outright wincons that don't require going to combat, using the Hydra tokens to defend yourself.

Akim, the Soaring Wind

This legendary Bird Dinosaur has flying and will let you create a 1/1 white Bird creature token with flying whenever you create one or more tokens for the first time each turn. For 6 mana, you can give your creature tokens double strike until end of turn.

I would think a deck built around Akim would really want to take advantage of having flying creatures. I'm not aware of any combos that work with Akim's abilities. I think the "first time each turn" limitation makes it much harder to find some repeatable Intruder Alarm interaction. This is the kind of deck where Sephara, Sky's Blade would fit well, and a well-timed Archetype of Imagination might set you up for a game-winning swing. Divine Visitation would also fit in pretty nicely, as your tokens will be amazing as 4/4 flying Angels with vigilance.

Xyris, the Writhing Storm

This legendary Snake Leviathan almost escaped me in my writing process, but the inimitable Jason Alt wrote about him just last week. This 3/5 has flying and whenever an opponent draws a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, you get to create a 1/1 green Snake token. To add to the snakey mess you'll be making, whenever Xyris, the Writhing Storm deals combat damage to a player, you and that player each draw that many cards.

My instincts for how to build this deck lead me towards cards like Windfall and wheel effects, but if you're potentially going wide I think a little Coastal Piracy might fit in nicely too. Having your creatures draw cards seems like a pretty good plan, though that won't actually give you more snakes. Intellectual Offering, Blue Sun's Zenith and other card draw spells might be a good fit but you aren't going to do better than Teferi's Puzzle Box. Having everyone bottom their hand and then draw again is going to give you a boatload (or planeload) of Snakes without actually giving them more cards in hand than they would have had to begin with.

My .02 is just a quick take. If you have any interest in a deep dive on Xyris, please go read Jason's column. He really covers all the bases and does a great job of exploring everything you can do with this inspiring (and apparently very 75%) new legendary creature.

That's it for Part 1. Next time I'll tackle Part 2, with the Partner commanders making an appearance!