Hey everyone, Dave here again! Thanks for all the feedback I received for my previous Commander article. I was happy to hear thoughts from Commander stalwarts in the comments, and I hope to get another discussion rolling this week! Unfortunately, it is no longer the time to conjure up those double-entendres and chest size comparisons we love so much. Instead, now that New Phyrexia has been fully spoiled on the Mothership (let’s pretend nothing scandalous happened the week before), we get to chew the fat about this sweet new set, and what it means for Commander players!

I’m not one for writing full set reviews (oops), but I do want to sketch out a rundown of what, mechanic-wise, we will be getting in New Phyrexia that we haven’t quite seen before, and look a bit at the new Legends that we will be seeing. There are also 10 NPH cards I’m absolutely excited about playing in Commander, and I will lay them out at the end of the article. Get ready for another payload of K-bombs!

(I didn’t link that spoiler for nothing. Until the card linker thing updates with the new set, open up the NPH spoiler and read along!)

Phyrexian mana

This is the big one. Using life as a resource, as we have [card=”Necropotence”]seen in the past[/card], can enable a great range of new opportunities, and the cost-reduction aspect of pMana cards ranges in scale from  “convenient” to “blowout.” Each Magic format places a specific emphasis on certain pMana cards that offer the most value (ie. [card]Mental Misstep[/card] in Legacy, [card]Gitaxian Probe[/card] in Standard, etc.), so in the case of Commander, we are looking for the pMana cards with the biggest splash for your life payment. Of course, one of the biggest assets of pMana cards – its surprise value – is somewhat negated in this format because our colour choices are still limited by the colour identity of our Commanders. For example, we can’t play [card]Norn’s Annex[/card] in a mono-red Commander deck. But for many multicoloured decks, paying 2 life instead of a coloured mana is a nice alternative to mana fixing.

Another big plus for Commander is that 2 life is an easy payment when you start with 40, and when turns go long and plays get complicated, being able to shave off 1 or 2 mana from your calculations can ease your mental math. And should you find a way to give your [card]Moltensteel Dragon[/card] Infect ([card]Grafted Exoskeleton[/card] or [card]Phyresis[/card] perhaps?), you can see that pMana can be a very economic mechanic to incorporate into your Commander deck.

Chancellors

Each of the Chancellors are large-CMC beatsticks, which are always welcome in Commander. But their unique characteristic is being able to resolve a special ability even before the first land is played. Their hand-reveal abilities aren’t game-breaking by any means, and they aren’t all created equal, but they are nice bonuses to have.

I believe [card]Chancellor of the Annex[/card], the white representative of the cycle, is the strongest by a fair margin. Hindering the early-game growth of your opponents is a very useful tool, and even when she lands later in the game, she can make it inconvenient for them to tap out or play multiple spells in a turn. While [card]Chancellor of the Spires[/card] is a little narrower in application – and may even help one or two of your recursion-oriented opponents – I think its potential for abuse is greater, especially against other blue decks that like running powerful sorceries like [card]Bribery[/card] or [card]Time Warp[/card]. The other three Chancellors are fairly straightforward: [card]Chancellor of the Dross[/card] gives you a decent life bump attached to a reasonable flying beatstick; [card]Chancellor of the Tangle[/card] is a solid two-way monster that can speed up your early game; and [card]Chancellor of the Forge[/card], despite having the most underwhelming game-start ability, can potentially end games with a little work when he enters play. Never underestimate the ability to put lots of hasty dudes onto the battlefield.

New Legends

Whenever new Legends enter the fray, Commander players are always chomping at the bit for them. For a small set, we are gifted with a bunch! Let’s look at the Praetors first:

[card]Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite[/card] is a beating and a half. While her stats are fair, it is her buffs and debuffs that are her most attractive features…Well, those, and her utterly charming headpiece. P/T boosts for the team are not uncommon, especially in white, but what does make her unique is her ability to drop a static [card]Massacre[/card] on your opponent’s boards. Having Elesh Norn in play makes it harder for your opponents to keep anything on the battlefield, let alone try to kill you. It absolutely stifles swarm-based decks, and can de-fang larger creature armies short of just wiping the board. Elesh Norn’s high CMC makes me a bit hesitant to play her as a Commander, but she seems like a great addition to W/x decks that can run her.

[card]Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur[/card] is obscenely frightening. Once it hits the battlefield, players can expect to kiss their hands goodbye when their turns roll around. What is interesting though, is how table order affects Jin’s impact on the game. If Player 1 drops Jin on Player 2’s end step, at a 4-player table that leaves Players 3 and 4 to come up with an answer to the Praetor before they are forced to discard their own hands. Any player except the one who answers it is undeniably shafted, while all the remaining players get to keep their hands. So, if there is one player who needs to be hated out of the game, Jin can drop on that player’s end step, and either its controller or another player can remove it before another player’s end step rolls around. Regardless, Jin-Gitaxias is an extremely powerful Legend, and I would not be surprised to see it being run both as a Commander and as a brutal card advantage engine…even if it has a CMC of 10(!).

When [card]Sheoldred, Whispering One[/card] was spoiled, I, like a few other players, expected a little more from this mysterious Praetor. Sheoldred seemed like a very clever, subversive character, so it’s a little disappointing to see that on the surface, she’s merely a swampwalking beater. Of course, that doesn’t exactly do her justice: she can still do a great [card]Reya Dawnbringer[/card] impersonation, and [card]The Abyss[/card]-like effect is nothing to sneeze at, either. There are probably more potent Commander choices for mono-black, but Sheoldred is an all-around good fattie: solid stats, impacting abilities, but nothing that mono-black doesn’t already do. I would probably expect to see her in multicolour black decks that could use the extra recursion, such as [card]Teneb, the Harvester[/card].

[card]Urabrask, the Hidden[/card] is a little less splashy than his counterparts, but I don’t think his abilities should be underestimated. Haste is a very sought-after ability in Commander, and as a card that does much more than just give your team haste, it is nice to have a valuable enabler that does more than [card]Fervor[/card] or [card]Madrush Cyclops[/card]. And with a creature [card]Kismet[/card] attached to his body, Urabrask also helps defend against players who might use haste against you, and leaves them open to your attackers. All in all, he is a very flexible addition to an R/x deck and with his relatively light CMC, as well as his unique offering to mono-red decks, he will likely see a fair amount of play as a Commander.

Perhaps more than Jin-Gitaxias, I am most afraid of/excited about the green Praetor. Mono-green Commander players love mana ramping and fatties, and with [card]Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger[/card], they now have an option that offers both. But the most powerful part of the card is the vicious [card]Winter Orb[/card]/[card]Yosei, the Morning Star[/card] effect that can lock down other players. Fair warning: when Vorinclex hits the board, you MUST answer him or lose. He is deceptively oppressive, and as a creature, he can be tutored up in a variety of ways. Any green deck can ramp him out at such an early point in the game that his ability is debilitating. Vorinclex is far from bannable, but he will be a force to be reckoned with.

Now that I’ve spent a bit of time covering the Praetor Legends (this IS a Commander article, after all), let’s turn to the remaining two Legends:

[card]Melira, Sylvok Outcast[/card]: The most obvious application of Melira I can see in Commander is using her to abuse the Persist mechanic or other counter-themed cards. This would, however, likely require a multicoloured deck, as some of the most powerful Persist cards like [card]Twilight Shepherd[/card] and [card]Glen Elendra Archmage[/card] are in non-green colours. Still, [card]Woodfall Primus[/card] is another Persist staple in green so there are still synergies to be had within a single colour. Melira is also a nice silver bullet against Infect Commander decks, which the release of New Phyrexia will no doubt…proliferate (YEEEAAAAHHHHH).

[card]Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer[/card]: The art is nice but it feels a little too fantasy-generic for my taste. Anyway, as a RW Legend, Jor Kadeen (what a terrible name) continues the Boros theme of team buffs and emphasis on attacking. Five mana for a 5/4 first-striker isn’t the worst deal, but the Metalcraft ability makes him and his army much scarier, especially if you can find a way to give them all trample or deathtouch. With all the sweet artifacts/artifact creatures/artifact lands in Commander, I don’t think it’s too difficult to turn the ability on. He has the potential to take out people quite easily with Commander damage, but I wouldn’t consider him a top-tier Commander. As another [card]Crusade[/card] effect in a RW/x deck, he is perfectly serviceable.

10 to Titillate

To cover a bit more of the set without analyzing it ad nauseam, here are the 10 New Phyrexia cards I am most excited about for Commander:

1. [card]Karn Liberated[/card]: Colourless [card]Vindicate[/card]s? Cool! Last ability? Not cool! No restarting games please.
2. [card]Phyrexian Ingester[/card]: The second [card]Duplicant[/card] I’ve always wanted! Role player.
3. [card]Phyrexian Metamorph[/card]: Super [card]Sculpting Steel[/card] [card]Clone[/card] for 3 colourless? Heck yes. Role player.
4. [card]Bludgeon Brawl[/card]: Most fun card ever?!
5. [card]Beast Within[/card]: Green [card]Vindicate[/card]s are sweet!
6. [card]Triumph of the Hordes[/card]: Best [card]Overrun[/card] effect ever, not close. Format staple.
7. [card]Batterskull[/card]: Windmill slam into virtually every deck that turns dudes sideways. An equipment that keeps making its own body is super.
8. [card]Unwinding Clock[/card]: WHAT.
9. [card]Caged Sun[/card]: I love colourless [card]Mirari’s Wake[/card]s! Format staple.
10. [card]Sword of War and Peace[/card]: Expect to take a lot of damage from this card – it is very deceptive.

I was excited about Mirrodin Besieged before it was released, and I find it hard to believe but I’m even more excited about New Phyrexia. I’ve definitely earmarked a number of cards I need to grab in foil for my Commander decks. What new cards are you excited about? Let me know in the comments!

Until next time, may you draw 7 cards every end step.

David Lee
@derfington on Twitter

David Lee

Dave is the author of Durdling Around, a weekly Magic: the Gathering webcomic.