Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate - 7point Highlander Set Review

 

Release date: June 3rd 2022

Latest points change at the time of writing this - Phyrexia: All Will be One
Throughout my set reviews I use '~' to denote the subject card.

Longest, blog name, ever.

It's a shame that I didn't do this set review ages ago because I believe I would've identified the strength of the Initiative mechanic early. I remember work was crazy at the time and my 7PH research fell by the wayside.

Let's start with the defining mechanic of the set, which has been so influential:

Some important rules exerts:

722.2. There are three inherent triggered abilities associated with having the initiative. These triggered

abilities have no source and are controlled by the player who had the initiative at the time the

abilities triggered. This is an exception to rule 113.8. The full text of these abilities are “At the

beginning of the upkeep of the player who has the initiative, that player ventures into Undercity,”

“Whenever one or more creatures a player controls deal combat damage to the player who has the

initiative, the controller of those creatures takes the initiative,” and “Whenever a player takes the

initiative, that player ventures into Undercity.” See rule 701.46, “Venture into the Dungeon.”

This clarifies that the person who has the initiative controls the triggers, which is important for determining what order triggers go on the stack.

722.5. If the player who currently has the initiative is instructed to take the initiative, this causes the last triggered ability in 722.2 to trigger but does not create a second initiative designation.

So if you already have the initiative and you take it again, you'll still trigger a progression.

If you completed the Undercity the last time you took the initiative and you take the initiative again, you just circle back to the Secret Entrance. It never ends, like Mephisto runs in DiabloII.

If you're already in a different dungeon, i.e. Lost Mine of Phandelver, Dungeon of the Mad Magi or Tomb of Annihilation, when you 'take the initiative', you advance through the dungeon you're already in, and you only venture into the Undercity when you've come out of the other dungeon.

Ok, rules stuff over.

Basically, if you keep the initiative, you win.

If an opponent casts an initiative creature, ideally you'll have your own initiateive creature to take it back, or you'll have a removal spell for their initiative creature and an attacking creature to take the initiative off them. The next best thing is to have a creature that is too big for them to block or your create simply has evasion, in which case the opponent can attack you back to race; And in that case they had the initiative first, so they might win the race anyway.

If your deck is using the initiative mechanic, then you must design it to hold and take back the initiative as easily as possible. The easiest way to take and hold the initiative is to play a creature which takes the initiative. That way you don't need to attack and you have a decently sized untapped blocker. This is where things get interesting: 

To maximise the chances of casting an initiative creature you want to run as many as you can, which means more colours and more ≥4 mana initiative creaures, both of these things reduce the chances of curving out. 

The other interesting consideration is the existence of fast combo decks; Fast combo will beat you in a race, therefore you'll need disruption to slow them down. However, disruptive cards are typically poor at keeping tempo: discard doesn't effect the battlefield and disruptive creatures are typically smaller than creatures dedicated to attacking and blocking. The exception to disruption being tempo-negative is of course Force of Will, Force of Negation and Mana Drain. There is a reason why these cards are so popular (personally I believe Mana Drain should never have gone to zero points, but that's another article).

So stepping back, I propose that initiative decks are best in metagames with a lack of fast combo. 

It remains to be seen if initiative beats all non-combo strategies. The hope for other strategies is that being an initiative deck means running a ton of creatures, which means less removal and disruption, therefore other decks may have the space to 'get big' and do more powerful things than the Undercity.

Musings:

Most of the cards which take the initiative are creatures, and all of them have at least 3 toughness. This means that Stomp // Bonecrusher Giant and all the Shocks are worse than they used to be.

Giving yourself Shroud or Hexproof with something like Leyline of Sanctuary forces the opponent to not go into the powerful Trap room, otherwise they'll have to target themselves.

The Forge is good for the Hardened Scales strategy (that I always talk about but never build). Similarly good with Walking Ballista and Persist creatures.

All the initiative creatures are strong with blink effects because you can use them to untap for surprise blocking and also get extra triggers to accelerate through the Undercity. There's also the chance that you can respond to removal to save your creature, which is some sweet value.

Everyone will be running a couple basic lands now thanks to the Secret Entrance room. Therefore the chance of depleting your opponent's basics with Feild of the Dead, Demolition Field, Ghost Quarter, Path to Exile, Assassin's Trophy, etc, is reduced.

A good strategy could be to cast Moat, then run as many Inititative creatures you can to counter the opponent's chances or ending up with The Initiative.

Let's get into the initiative cards:

It's a sad day when my set review is so late that a card I review has already had enough time to earn a point (it has happened before). ~ has definitely caused a plume of white decks.

If the opponent doesn't contest the initiative, ~ kills shockily fast; If you cast ~ turn3, on turn4 it attacks for 5, then turn5 the trap does another 5 and you attack for yet another 5. 15 damage by turn5 from a single 3mana spell.

If you cast ~ on turn2 off turn1 mana dork, all it takes is another creature on turn3 or a burn spell, combined with a couple fetchlands from the opponent and you have a midrange deck dealing 20 damage on turn4, i.e. racing a combo deck with an average hand and no disruption. That kind of power unbalances a format. 

The initiative needs to be slowed down by a turn so that it has a natural enemy in combo. We also don't want players' options to be 'play fast combo' or 'play a deck with cheap creatures that can take the initiative and keep it'. It would be a shame to lose grindy control decks and ramp decks from the metagame.

The other initiative creatures are at least a turn slower, which is why ~ earned its point. Not only that, ~ has that untap trigger, which effectively gives it vigilance; being able to beat down whilst still blocking to keep the initiative. If you cast ~ off a mana dork you can untap the mana dork to have two blockers; Or if you have a 1mana removal spell, the mana dork can cast it.

After ~ there are a bunch of 4drops, all of them playable. I'll list them in increasing order of strength:

Sometimes the goad ability will force a chump attack.

Is a powerful human to hit off Winota.

Typically the opponent won't have enough life to afford taking the 5 lifeloss from blocking. However, ~ only has 1 power, 3 if you put the two +1/+1 counters on it with the Forge; that is few enough that the opponent has the option of trading the initiative back and forth and possibly racing you. Therefore, ~ typically needs support.

Flying typically lets you take the initiative back and also block fliers which would take it from you.

Lifelink lets you race. You're happy to trade the initiative back and forth because your big lifelinker will win the race.

A bigger initial body makes it hard for the opponent to attack into you on the first initiative turn.

The replacement effect prevents a few important triggers from happening, e.g. Skullclamp and Protean Hulk.

Another powerful human to hit off Winota.

Vigilance is attack and defense, and ~ has the mana ability for some tempo regain after blocks.

~ is a strong threat even if the opponent had a Torpor Orb effect.

The trample helps get initiative back, so does the extra card from attacking, especially if you flip over removal or an extra blocker.

Yet another powerful human to hit off Winota.

Winota really got a boost from this set.

~ has a respectible size. She's unblockable and therefore excellent at taking back the initiative. Gets bigger from explore.

You get a bonus attack trigger if you already had a cleric, rogue, wizard or warrior ready to attack.

Now onto the 5drop initiative creatures:

Vigilance is very strong in an initiative game. The downside of course is being a 5drop; Counterspell wrecks you. Weirdly players have been cutting Counterspell (ultimately thanks to Ragavan), which gives expensive cards a chance.
All the 5drop initiative creatures seem to play out similarly, they're big enough that the opponent can't attack and therefore you keep the initiative and win, or they had to chump attack with two creatures and lose an attacker, which is enough tempo for you to win the race anyway.

Feywild Caretaker is a step above the others because it provides an extra blocker for keeping the initiative.

Tempo is everything in an initiative game, therefore 6 mana is worse than usual. But I have to give ~ a 'playable' stamp since it's an initiative creature which can attack, and ~ is blue which helps the ultimate tempo card, Force of Will.

I wouldn't maindeck this as it's not a creature or removal and therefore the risk of losing the initiative is high. However, if you're running Karn, the Great Creator, ~ is a good sideboard option.

There's a risk that the opponent has incidental graveyard removal. Therefore, I would only run ~ in a deck with lots of ways to kill Scavenging Ooze, Deathrite Shaman and Voidwalker.

The exile clause makes ~ a bit stronger than traditional reanimate effects because if your opponent bounces the creature it won't go back to their hand.

Good in Soldier tribal. It doesn't help you defend but in Soldier tribal you'll almost always have an attacker ready to get tokens and the tokens will ensure you get back the initiative.

I almost can't believe no one has mentioned this card and I haven't seen it until now. Unfortunatly ~'s triggers will go on the stack on top of the opponent's, therefore in the case of initiative, the opponent will end up with the initiative.

I still think this card is good though. Flash 2/3 ward can gobble up random dorks and ETB creatures like Fury and Solitude are super popular.

When I first saw the art for this I thought he was holding a knife to his throat. 

Yet another card that got a point before I reviewed it. By now you'll be well acquainted with Minsc and especially Boo. I'm not enlightening anyone here but let's do a brief analysis:

If you simply have a Dreadbore against ~ there's still a 4/4 trample that has probably hit you for 4 already. This demonstrates how bad sorcery-speed removal is against ~. To get a good exchange you need a counterspell or instant removal with good timing:

If you have instant removal like Leyline Binding, or a Lightning Bolt ready the moment ~ enters, you can respond to the ETB trigger and all they'll get for their 4mana is a 1/1 haste Hamster. This is an amazing exchange compared to the alternative; If you don't kill Minsc in this narrow window then you're going to need 4 power of creatures ready to attack Minsc, plus removal for the 4/4 Boo and any other blockers they have. If you only have one of those things then you're in trouble; If you just have the removal and <4power, Minsc lives through the attack and the next turn they make another 4/4 Hamster. If you have just have the ≥4 power, you probably can't attack because the 4/4 will eat one of your attackers or trade.

If they get one turn without you interacting they sac Boo to kill one of your guys and they draw 4 cards, which is practically game over.

It's worth noting that sacrificing a creature is not part of the cost of ~'s -2 ability, Which means you can kill Boo in response; In that case they can still sacrifice a different creature but presumably that different creature won't be a Hamster and therefore they won't draw cards. If the ~ player is switched on, they'll recognise your ability to remove Boo in response and they'll simply +1 ~ instead, making ~ harder to kill.

I haven't got the right words here but game theory-wise the ~ player has all the agency. To simplify, there are two scenarios I explained earlier where ~ can have a bad exchange, otherwise ~ is likely to win. The ~ player choosees when to cast ~, you don't know if they have ~ and the ~ player has all their other resources available to create a favourable scenario.

~ and other powerful planeswalkers combined with The Initiative, force players to either run cheap high-power creatures or be a fast combo deck. This is sad for old strategies like Control, Ramp and Prison.

Karakas is a nice answer to ~ because you can bounce Boo every turn.

Angus McKay has been slaying with his reanimator deck featuring ~ as a second copy of Worldgorger Dragon. They achieved 10th at CanCon 2023 and also top 8'd the 60+ player 7PH Highlander side event at the Sydney Regional Championships in November last year. Here's their list from CanCon.

So yeah, reanimating ~ with an Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead or Necromancy is infinite 1/1's. ~ reads "any number of", so once you have 1,000,000,000 1/1's you can choose 'none' and stop the loop, whereas Worldgorger Dragon doesn't give you the option and will draw the game if you can't break the loop somehow.

~ is nice in a Yorion deck for value.

Tell ya what, I do a lot of Scryfalling for these set reviews, and the addition of Arena-only cards is really annoying. I now have to specify vintage legal for every search I do.

Players search their libraries a lot in 7PH. Most decks run 9 fetchlands and players often search for their powerful pointed cards. 

The first room of the Undercity, Secret Entrance, is a must. Opposition Agent has gotten even better.

There are also effects like Boseiju, Who Endures and Path to Exile. In the case of those effects, the searching is optional for the opponent, so most of the time they would choose not to search as ~'s trigger is more beneficial to you, but that's still better for you then them getting a land.

Good if you're really mana hungry. You'll need a lot of plains in your deck to get maximum value; you'll naturally be drawing plains and fetching them, and then there's all the ones you'll get from ~. It might trigger ≈3 times in a game from your opponent's fetchlands and you will presumably be playing cards such as Boseiju, Who Endures and Path to Exile; maybe even Feild of the Dead, Demolition Field, etc. Ghost Quarter has gotten much worse now that everyone is running at least two basics for Secret Entrance.

Ever since Rally the Ancestors dominated Standard in 2016 I've wanted to try it in 7PH. There is a lot more incidental graveyard hate in 7PH though, so I suspect it won't work out. I'd still like to try it though. What has stopped me from trying in the past is the lack of Rally the Ancestors effects; With the addition of ~, we probably have enough:

Ascend from Avernus

Rally the Ancestors

Return to the Ranks

Immortal Servitude

≈4 probably the minimum. We will need a lot of scry, draw and search effects to increase the chance of finding them. If we splash blue we also get Spellseeker; Although the opponent will prioritise exiling our graveyard if they see Rally coming, so it may not be good.

~ costs an extra W than Rally, but you get to keep the creatures, which is huge.

Goes infinite with Kiki-Jiki. Would be playable in a Yorion Kiki-Jiki deck. In the same deck it would create infinite ETB triggers with Felidar Guardian or Restoration Angel; All you'd need then is a Corpse Knight or something similar.

Compliments Hardened Scales, Winding Constrictor, Conclave Mentor and Branching Evolution. And Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp if you're going Modular.

~ halves the mana required to max Hexdrinker.

Works especially well with Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes. Minsc comes in at 4 loyalty, makes Boo, +'s to 6 loyalty and pumps Boo to a 5/5. I suppose she works especially well with any planeswalker that puts +1/+1 counters on creatures, and there are plenty of those.

In my Commander: New Capenna set review I considered Weathered Sentinels and the Defender strategy involving Arcades, the Strategist. When I saw ~ I immediately went back to that brief analysis but it's clear that there is a divergence of 'Defender' and 'Toughness damage' plans. Some of the best Defender payoffs only work for defenders and not for creatures that simply have low power and huge toughness. Below are the later:

Assault Formation

~

High Alert

Doran, the Siege Tower (Green Sun's Zenith, Treefolk Harbinger)

Huatli, the Sun's Heart

Ancient Lumberknot

The two payoffs which made it across from the Defender strat are Assault Formation and High Alert.

I played this strategy a bit in Standard when High Alert and Huatli, the Sun's Heart were legal together. The deck was only good for best-of-1 daily goal farming on Arena, but I had fun.

The first couple turns you ideally deploy three 1mana dudes with ≥4 toughness and turn3 you start pounding. Honestly it's a bad strategy because you're too reliant on your Doran effect; that can get removed, discarded or countered. You also have too little room for disruption of your own. Regardless I still want to keep my eye on it in case something like several 0/6 1drops get printed.

Me wondering how it got that leg through the waistband.

I got a bit excited that they printed another Quickling for my Aluren combo deck, but then I realised that ~ isn't blue or black and therefore can't get picked up by Cavern Harpy to continue the Recruiter loop. Move along people nothing to see here!

Many of the 4drops that artifact decks want to ramp into aren't artifacts, e.g. Urza, Lord High Artificer, Karns and Tezzerets, but those decks should still have enough artifacts to make use of ~'s discount each turn. In a way, ~ is a Mindstone that you don't have to sacrifice and also has an ultimate.

~ is fine in any artifact deck that can cast him. He's not on the power level that you'd hope for a triple colour card and you certainly don't splash just to run him. However, he has enough versatility that he's good. The haste can help pressure planeswalkers and The Initiative. You can chump block with things and turn them into treasure before damage.

~ is designed to alternate between his two abilities each turn, effectively netting you one resource a turn.

Of course he gets extra value if you're saccing things like Nihil Spellbomb and Hangarback Walker.

~ goes infinite with Intruder Alarm on turn4, which is pretty sweet. 4 different colours though and requires a noncreature artifact to sacrifice.

Decent beater for artifact aggro. That deck is casting ~ turn2 off a Mishra's Workshop/Tolarian Academy/Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors/Sol Ring.

Bad against Narset, Parter of Veils / Leovold, Emissary of Trest / Hullbreacher.

Easy to dismiss 8mana spells but there could be something here. That's a powerful ETB:

Players have had the option of Flash-ing Wurmcoil Engine for ages but it hasn't taken off. Perhaps there could be a hybrid deck where it's an ok option.

Decent Dragonstorm hit. Also a good Hypergenesis and Eureka hit that is also blue for Force of Will and Force of Negation.

Pretty funny with Dollhouse of Horrors but it's hard to imagine that coming together.

Goes infinite with Saheeli Rai but once again, very hard to assemble.

Dragonstorm kill with Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund.

We already had a few pairs of dragons that would kill together but ~ might be better in some situations.

If you're curious here are some dragon pairs:

Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund or Dragonlord Kolaghan paired with one of:

Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm

Blast-Furnace Hellkite

Dragon Tyrant

Atarka, World Render

Terror of Mount Velus

Lathliss, Dragon Queen

Ziatora, the Incinerator

Terror of the Peaks

Or Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient + Hellkite Overlord/Inferno of the Star Mounts

Combo central.

I had a bit of a think:

~ + Teferi, Time Raveler + a zero-mana artifact = infinite card draw. This one is particularly good because Teferi protects ~ whilst you go off.

~ + Trinket Mage = infinite tutors for zero-mana artifacts, which means you'll draw 2 cards from Mishra's Bauble and Urza's Bauble. If you have a combination of Lion's Eye Diamond, Lotus Petal, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring that adds up to 5 net mana, then you can go get Gerrard's Hourglass Pendant and bring everything back tapped except the Pendant. For each mana you get above 5 you can get an egg (Chromatic Star et al), which will net you two cards per egg over two turns since Pendant brings each back tapped.

~ + Mishra's Bauble/Urza's Bauble/Lotus Petal + Eternal Witness/Gloomshrieker/Treasure Hunter/Trusty Packbeast/Archaeomender = infinite card draw/mana

Oh course each of these combos are vulnerable to a removal spell but I think you could steal a lot of wins by the opponent not expecting it and therefore not having removal ready.

Excellent Prowess payoff. Unlike most of these payoffs, ~ works if you have a huge graveyard and if you graveyard has already been Delved away.

You really want to be playing Thoughtscour and Mental Note.

As long as you're casting this for 4 mana or less then you're very happy, because you'll be guaranteed up mana against any removal they might have.

Only hits for 2 damage but it's decent. I like it in decks that want to augment their creatures.

Put it on a Hexproof creature and then try win the game before the opponent finds one of their few ways to remove ~. Might be best to play ways of protecting ~, e.g. discard effects.

If your control deck is struggling against recurring graveyard creatures like Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, then ~ could be a good option for a win condition. The turn after it enters you'll presumably have 2 Uchuulons, which is 4 total power. The turn after that you could have 4 Uchuulons, which is 16 total power. 

It gets big and has some resilience to removal. You just need enough discard, counterspells and removal to keep feeding ~ your opponent's creatures.

I'm not running this in my Jund Goblins list because I don't have enough 1 and 2mana Goblins to sacrifice. Often that deck's curve is turn1 nothing, turn2 Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors 3drop. In that scenario, ~ is bad.

In the past I've had builds of Goblins which utililse the Persist combo, i.e. combining Metallic Mimic/Grumgully, the Generous with a Persist Goblin: Putrid Goblin/Murderous Redcap/Skuzzback Marauder; and of course you need a sacrifice Goblin, e.g. Mogg Raider, Goblin Sledder, Skirk Prospector. Combine those three things and you win. The reason Gut would work well here is because in addition to Putrid Goblin, you run other Goblins which are good to sacrifice so that your Mogg Raiders et al are decent even if you don't have the combo. I'm talking about Mogg War Marshal, Goblin Instigator, Impulsive Pilferer, etc.

I don't run this build because all these Goblins are pretty bad by themselves and you can't rely on always combining them together to make them ok. I found it's better to run Goblins that can stand by themselves. However, if a couple more Persist 2drop Goblins were printed then I could switch back to this version.

~ doesn't have to go in a Goblin deck. He would be quite good in Aristocrats or a weird Atog deck or perhaps an aggressive Mayhem Devil deck.

Effectively 2mana draw three cards, which is a good rate. Obviously you can't cast it until later and it's weak to counterspells and weak with counterspells.

~ is competing with big fat 5drops threats. Fury for example can kill two creatures and leave behind a 3/3 doublestriker. That's probably a bad comparison because Fury is fucked. I think Fury should get a point on the basis that aggro can't beat it and it's extremely maindeckable. You can of course run Fury and ~, but is ~ better than the next two best red 5drops? Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker and Sarkhan the Masterless can be 1-for-1'd so ~ could be better. Glorybringer is generally better but it can get 1-for-1's also. If you want a 5drop then I think ~ is good, but perhaps you just run a bunch of 4drops before your first 5drop, e.g. Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Hazoret, the Fervent, Jaya, Fiery Negotiator, Koth of the Hammer, Zariel, Archduke of Avernus. Hmmm, yeah the 4drop plan seems generally better. However, if you have a bunch of Prowess creatures and other instant/sorcery synergies, then ~ is better.

~ could hit two lands, so if you already played a land this turn then maybe go with the something else, and save ~ for when you can stagger the land drops over two turns. However, if your deck is running Fastbond/Exploration/Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, then go ahead and jam ~ ASAP.

~ is awesome with Goldspan Dragon but that's pretty win-more.

I could see this in a deck with all the pitch spells:

Fury of the Horde

Blazing Shoal

Sickening Shoal

Soul Spike

Fireblast

Pyrokinesis

Contagion

Cave-In

Mine Collapse

Snuff Out

Unmask

Such a deck would probably run Wheel of Fortune and Wheel of Misfortune to refuel. Yawgmoth's Will just went to zero points, that might work. Past in Flames, perhaps. Vial Smasher the Fierce would be even better than ~ in this deck. Oh shit, the idea's got me, time to spend hours on a deck...

VIAL SMASHER 7PH BY LUKE MULCAHY

What the fuck is that? So ugly.

~ is a kill with Food Chain + Squee, the Immortal/Eternal Scourge/Misthollow Griffon. 6mana is borderline castable. ~ wins even if you Tainted Pact your library away, unlike something like Hydroid Krasis which won't work in that scenario.

Now this is a much better win condition with Food Chain + Squee, the Immortal/Eternal Scourge/Misthollow Griffon because she's actually castable.

Once there is a critical mass of castable win conditions for this combo, then I'm going to build it; You Tainted Pact for Food Chain hitting Squee, the Immortal/Eternal Scourge/Misthollow Griffon along the way, then you naturally have a win condition available because you're running about 10 of them.

I dunno, might be some hybrid Glimpse of Nature/Song of Creation deck where you can beatdown but the real plan is to run a tonne of effectively zero-mana creatures to draw your deck.

Maybe a Pattern of Rebirth deck where you want creatures that sacrifice but can also cast your fatties if you draw them.

Nice with Skullclamp.

The best defense is not even knowing what the word "defense" means.

Sophie from Canberra crushed me at the big 7PH side event at the Sydney ANZ Champs last November; she simply cast Kiln Fiend on turn2, I didn't kill it and she just goes turn3 give it unblockable and double strike and kills me. She used Assault Strobe, which is half the mana cost of ~, but perhaps ~ is still good enough because it permanently gives double strike.

Double strike counter would be nice with The Ozolith and Nesting Grounds.

They've printed a few powerful token cards recently: Idol of Oblivion, Bennie Bracks, Zoologist and now ~. Gaea's Cradle would be the main focus of a tokens deck, and probably Natural Order into Craterhoof Behemoth. The deck must be close to playable.

Could use Flamekin Harbinger or Mwonvuli Beast Tracker to set up an Erratic Explosion effect for 15 damage.
Could also Natural Order for it.

Can pitch it to Nourishing Shoal or Allosaurus Rider in a Neoform + Griselbrand deck.

Decent alongside Shadow of Mortality, Scourge of Skyclaves, Ranger-Captain of Eos and of course Death's Shadow.

~ is only playable if you can get to ≤10 life by turn4 consistently. The good news is that a 5/2 indestructible is playable enough, the triggered ability is gravy.

Very vulnerable but you can Strip Mine lock with it. Unlike most Strip lock pieces, ~ puts the land on the battlefield, which allows you to develop your mana further, which gives you more resouces to deal with whatever pieces they might have, and for you to kill them before they combo you or whatever.

I like ~ in a cantrip based deck that can set up the top of your library easily and then you run all the alternate casting cost cards like Fury, Solitude, Force of Will, Pyrokinesis, Terminus, Temporal Mastery, to make a bunch of Faerie Dragons.

Super powerful. Realistically if you crew this turn4 with two dudes you're likely to win. I did some Gathering and it seems that Naya artifacts is the shell which maximises ~. Here are some spells which double crew ~:

Blade Splicer

Lovestruck Beast

Minsc, Beloved Ranger

Imperial Recruiter + Wild Nacatl / Toolcraft Exemplar

Recruiter of the Guard + Wild Nacatl / Toolcraft Exemplar

Rocco, Caberrti Caterer + Wild Nacatl / Toolcraft Exemplar

Arlinn, the Pack's Hope

Huntmaster of the Fells

Esika's Chariot

Ranger of Eos + Memnite

Vital Splicer

Master Splicer

Winota, Joiner of Forces is a good fit. May need to add Memnite or Ornithopter to trigger her on curve with a Recruiter.

Solitude can be found with Recruiter of the Guard and can be part of the crew before the evoke sacrifice trigger resolves.

Pendelhaven is a strong option with Recruiters and Memnite creating high probabilities of 1/1's.

So far this deck is Jegantha, the Wellspring compatible; You could add Ranger-Captain of Eos and Finale of Glory to increase the crew numbers of ~. If you did so you would also open up the option of  Walking Ballista, Food Chain and Squee the Immortal as a combo kill. This would be cool but unnecessary. Perhaps you would become a Yorion deck instead of a Jegantha deck considering all the ETB creatures listed for crewing ~.

Clarion Spirit and Monk of the Open Hand are good options if zero-mana cards such as Memnite, Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh and Ornithopter are added.

Taking a step back we can't really build a deck around a single 3cost vehicle, the remainder of the cards in the deck will be 1 and 2 cost cards. Will those cards provide a strategic edge over other decks? I'll give it some more thought. Moving on...

Mana dorks are amazing for getting a mana advantage in the midgame. The downside is that if the opponent answers all your more expensive spells, then you can be left flooded with mana dorks.

A strategy I used to like (before Wrenn and Six got printed) was to have as many ways of turning your mana dorks into threats as possible, e.g. Skullclamp and Birthing Pod. ~ is a nice way of turning dorks into threats.

~ would be cool in a legendary human midrange deck with Cryptolith Rite, Katilda, Dawnhart Prime and Esika, God of the Tree.

~ could be a good option for a Winota deck.

Aggressive Spirit tribal.

If Wrenn and Six gets a second point then this would be ok in Warrior tribal.

Strong payoff for each party tribe. Like another Realmwalker. Obviously at her individial best in Rogues being a Rogue herself.

I love tribal strategies because I'm bad at making decisions; 7PH has so many options that I really struggle to build decks. However, if you reduce my options then I'm good at finding the good ones. That idea reminds me of the following TED talk. It seems that TED talks have become a joke at this point, but there's a reason why they became famous in the first place and I believe this one from 15 years ago is an excellent example of why.
After rewatching that talk I realise one of the reasons I love Magic so much is that it limits my options; I don't have to decide which of the infinite careers to pursue, I simply just need to play as best as I can.

Strong if you can augment him with equipment or perhaps Warrior tribal synergies.

Wizard tribal? I dunno, seems pretty janky. But here are the Wizards that could work:

Lightning Stormkin

Malevolent Hermit

Spellstutter Sprite

Aven Mindcensor

Cloudkin Seer

Nimble Obstructionist

Vendilion Clique

If you go for a Prowess strategy then you also get:

Delver of Secrets

Balmor, Battlemage Captain

Stormchaser Mage

Adeliz, the Cinder Wind

Considering the powerful planeswalkers or inititative creatures you could be casting instead for 4mana, I don't want to pursue this idea.

Wow. What a payoff. Dragons now have Crucible of Fire and ~ as amazing payoffs. There's nothing else on that level though, and Dragons are traditionally big expensive cards, which are bad against the cheap counterspells of 7PH and you can only run a few expensive cards in fast eternal formats. Dragons have a long way to go before being playable.

Seeing cheap small humanoid Dragons bothers me a lot. Dragons should be huge awesome badass powerhouses. Leave accordions on rooftops to the humans thankyou.

That's a big payoff for Horror tribal. Apart from Thing in the Ice, this is the first Horror payoff I can think of. Unforunatly Thing in the Ice and ~ don't really work well together because tribal decks don't tend to run lots of instants and sorceries. Maybe if they print a few instants and sorceries that make Horror tokens, then it could work; Unlikely though.

I know there aren't many playable Horrors but this migh be the start of something.

Sideboard only. Ideally you want intimiate knowledge of your opponent's deck. This card is perfect for LGS play where you know half the 75 of your mate's deck. This can be a strong answer to Blood Moon regardless of what colours your deck is (cause their Blood Moon give you the RR). There's a chance that Blood Moon is the only enchantment in their deck. Other enchantments that are commonly in Blood Moon decks are Back to Basics and Eidolon of the Great Revel, so beware of those.

Postboard you might have Grafdiffer's Cage, Containment Priest and Weathered Runestone, which make ~ better, but 3 is not many of that effect.

Sideboard sweeper option if you're a deck with low-power creatures. Note that you must have a creature for ~ to exile anything at all.

Definitely a good sideboard if your deck has lots of ≤2 toughness creatures of its own that you don't want dying to your own Anger of the Gods or Firespout. If you don't have the creatures then you should just run the 3 damage symetrical sweepers instead.

For this card to be good you need to kill two of your opponent's creatures. For 3 mana that is only likely against tribal or hyperaggro decks.

If you're a ramp deck then you can realistically Foretell cast this. It's much better in ramp.

Foretell is a good sink for turn1 Sol Ring mana.

Sideboard card against storm for Mishra's Workshop decks,

Wow, I finally finished this set review. Probably too late for it to be of significant value but glad I did it.

Mulch