Release date: September 9th 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.
Throughout my set reviews I use '~' to denote the subject card.
Wizards of the Coast are printing an overwhelming amount of cards for the Commander players base. Their focus used to be on Standard and Draft; they would hype Standard and Draft up with the Pro Tour, then the rotational nature of Standard and the natural one-and-done nature of Draft would keep the money rolling in for the company; Now they've put a big if not bigger focus on Commander, but Commander doesn't have the rotational nature of the other two formats. Commander decks are 100 cards, it's quite an investment to build one. And with the practically infinite amount of legends available, Commander players must have an insurmountable backlog of decks they want to build. Much like video game players who work full time jobs. Ain't no way are they getting through them all.
You also wouldn't take apart old decks because they're still legal and you invested so much into them. This would lead to Commander players simply buying up more of the second hand market to build new decks, driving up prices for us 7point Highlander players. Dammit.
5-COLOUR
Cute with Bring to Light, or any multicolour spell which finds more multicolour spells; Eladamri's Call.
Some hybrid mana cards are more colours than their mana value, giving you a little extra value with ~. Cascade spells are also better with ~.
Companions are all multicolour.
Cute with Painter's Servant.
Manamorphose is cute.
Kills with Squee, the Immortal + Food Chain.
Decent in the 5 colour deck. Basically every spell you cast gains scry 1 and if you're lucky you'll get an Angel.
Fallaji Wayfarer can trigger ~ turn3.
Perhaps a Human tribal deck with Realmwalker could cast creatures off the top well with ~.
All the companions are multicolour. Jegantha is the likely companion to use.
The Kavus that ~ creates are all colours but I don't think you'll have time to +1 him against combo; You'll need the -3 to be effective immediately, which means running a bunch of multi colour creatures.
With the exception of Fallaji Wayfarer and hybrid mana creatures, you can only get as many colours on a creature as its mana value, so to maximise ~ we want as many 3's and 4's as possible whilst still having the minimum number of 1's and 2's to consistently curve out. Not sure what that minimum number is, from experience I want at least 17 plays for the first two turns, but that might be antiquainted from the power creep of recent years.MtG-wise it's hard to imagine ~ not winning the game when you cast it. It even disrupts most combos with the Naturalize and graveyard exile modes. Thassa's Oracle and Flash are two popular combos that come to mind which ~ doesn't stop.
Might look like a big dumb timmy card, and it is, but I think it's good. It's bad on defense so you'll need to be at least equal on tempo when you cast ~. I think ~ works best with lots of removal spells to ensure you stay ahead on tempo and discard spells to protect ~ and not die to combo when you tap out for ~. Force of Will and Force of Negation are better than discard, ~ can also be exiled to Forces if necessary. ~ is probably better as 1WUBRG than it would be at 2WBRG for that reason.
Mox Amber hyper aggro.
oooo what deserts do we have? mmmm desserts.
Another Amulet of Vigor, just for land though.
Ever since I discovered the power of Goblin Recruiter, I've kept an eye on Dwarven Recruiter and any dwarves that get printed. At the moment the best I have is (imagine this list as a stack of Dwarves from Dwarven Recruiter):
~ was in the winning Nationals list from 2023. Amazing.
Not much strategy to report here. Apart from Merfolk Tribal perhaps you could do something crazy with Arcane Adaptation.
Good with fetchlands. You cast ~ turn 4 then immediately crack the fetchland and ~ gets you a second land.
I love the challenge of getting around 'no shenanigans' clauses. This one was tough.
As discussed in my Baldur's Gate set review, ~ can be used in the combo of Trinket Mage + Displacer Kitten. basically you find and cast all zero-mana artifacts in your deck and mana artifacts like Lotus Petal can get you to enough mana to crack eggs and even ~ if you have enough mana artifacts. You don't win at the end but you should have enough value to take the game.
~ is like an instant speed Cruel Ultimatum which is easier to cast. There is always a greater power.
Ways that you can cheat-cast ~, which come to mind are Mizzix's Mastery and Dream Halls.
LEGENDARY
Warrior Tribal.
All legends, Mox Amber, etc, etc.
Could also go in the 'Feather' deck that runs all the creature targetting cantrips and payoffs such as Feather, the Redeemed, Ink-Treader Nephalim and Duplimancy
This is the first Mercenary printed since Prophecy in the year 2000. Could be a sign of things to come? Get your Cateran Summons now!
Crews Mighty Servant of Leuk-o on curve.
Compatible with Kaheera, the Orphanguard.
Most decks are running forests at the moment for Minsc and Boo, Timeless Heroes, Wrenn and Six, Mawloc and more. This makes the forestwalk of the tokens better.
Apparently this bitch created, corrupted, enslaved and faught with Dakkon Blackblade. Enslaved a couple elder dragons and Sol'Kanar the Swamp King, and has sided with the Phyrexians. I have no idea how such a being could have white mana, but hey.
That -3 is powerful and weird. Obviously you want a bunch of ≤3 mana value legends to protect her but you can also get some synergy from the treasures she creates. Affinity for Artifacts is a good mechanic for it. A trick with Affinity for Artfacts spells is you can announce the spell, which sets the amount of mana you'll need to spend, and then you can sacrifice the treasures to pay for it. This is cool but most Affinity for Artifact cards are blue, and we're talking about casting a 1RWB spell. You'll probably need to devote some spell slots to mana mixing.
Affinity for Artifacts is not the only thing you could abuse:
- Disciple of the Vault
- Time Sieve
- Tolarian Academy
- Karnstructs from Urza, Lord High Artificer, Urza's Saga and Karn, Scion of Urza
~ puts all legendary cards into hand, not just creatures, which means 3. and 4. from the list above work well. Running a bunch of legendary lands is a good idea if the colour requirements work. This would benefit Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful too.
And the Legendary support keeps on coming. ~ is not as aggro as you'd like but the menace helps a lot against The Initiative.
Ideally you'll cast ~ on turn5 so that you can get 1 or 2 triggers before the opponent untaps and potentially kills him.
LANDS
You must play with green sleeves on your cards if ~ is in your deck. That's the rule.
~ is best in 5colour Elemental decks where her creature type matters and you have maximum fetchlands to get as many Badgers as possible.
~ is more of a 6drop because you want to play a fetchland immediately to get 2 Badgers before ~ dies. There's a minigame that arises here, the same as it does for Tireless Tracker; if the opponent has instant speed removal, then you don't want to immediately crack the fetchland because if they kill ~ in response to cracking the fetchland you'll only get 1 Badger. Instead you want to pass the turn, then if they target ~ in your end step then you can get the 2nd Badger. Otherwise you just wait, forcing them to hold up the removal or you simply crack the fetch if you need the mana from the fetchland more than the Badger.~ dies to Armageddon and Dress Down.
The protection ability is a bonus against Teferi, Time Raveler, Jace, the Mindsculptor, Oko, Theif of Crowns and other planeswalkers that would spoil the Badger party.
Fastbond is definitely one of our points. Then once we're a land strategy then the rest will be some combination of Wasteland, Strip Mine, Crop Rotation, Urza's Saga, Green Sun's Zenith (~, Ramunap Excavator), Karakas, Wrenn and Six.
We actually want deserts we can sacrifice so that we can keep making Sand Warriors.
- Dunes of the Dead is good but only if you we can sac it to for good value, e.g. Lotus Field, Elvish Reclaimer, Crop Rotation...
- The coloured untap series are good, but with colourless deserts in our deck we're only interested in the Naya ones: Hashep Oasis, Ramunap Ruins and Shefet Dunes.
- Hostile Desert is good. We'll need max fetchlands and maybe Wasteland Strip Mine to exile to it.
- Scavenger Grounds is good against Underworld Breach combo and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath.
- Sunscorched Desert + a sacrificer + Fastbond could create a Channel Fireball-esc combo.
- There's another 8 untapped colourless deserts if we want them.
Another card that likes Deserts is Hour of Promise, which also finds Field of the Dead.
You can Scapeshift prematurely if you have ~ and you think he isn't going to get removed. 8 Sand Warriors is worth a 4mana spell. If we're running Field of the Dead and Scapeshift, then we won't want to be sacrificing our lands because we aim to get to 7. We'll have to choose between Wasteland and Field of the Dead.
Strong with:
Karoos, e.g. Golgari Rotfarm
Lotus Field
Thawing Glaciers
Myriad Landscape
Scapeshift
Primeval Titan
You can use fetchlands to find shocklands tapped to tap down the opponent's blockers and maybe even a Grim Monolith, Basalt Monolith or Mana Vault.
TRIBAL
Realm Walker
1mana Dwarf
Magda, Brazen Outlaw
Dwarven Bloodboiler
1mana Dwarf
1mana Dwarf
1mana Dwarf
1mana Dwarf
yeeeah it's still missing the punch of the Goblin Recruiter pile.
~ is the best Dwarf payoff yet but unfortunatley most Dwarves were printed 30 years ago before Modern Horizons made 70% of cards obsolete.
Good Dwarves include:
Countless Gears Renegade
Dwarven Blastminer
Dwarven Miner
Magda, Brazen Outlaw
Veteran Motorist
Metallic Mimic
Aerial Responder
Depala, Pilot Exemplar
Dwarven Bloodboiler
Dwarven Recruiter
Realmwalker
Fairgrounds Warden
Priest of Ancient Lore
Solemn Recruit
Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
The following are equipment focused. To get a critical mass of playable Dwarves you probably have to add an equipment strategy.
Toolcraft Exemplar
Sram, Senior Edificer
Reyav, Master Smith
Koll, the Forgemaster
Digsite Engineer
Bruenor Battlehammer
What card fucks this strategy? You guessed it, Wrenn and Six. Regardless there's only 1 good 1drop, so unless they print another ≈5 good 1drop Dwarves and point Wrenn and Six, ~ is unplayable.
I mean if your entire deck is dudes and lands, drawing 7 is well worth 7 mana.
Insane hit off Winota, Joiner of Forces (which is what Joshua was doing in his winning list). Josh had Gaea's Cradle to help cast ~, which is a great idea.
~ is a fantastic Food Chain hit, you're likely to hit 4 creatures, which is surely a win.
Oooo you can cheat ~ in with Preeminent Captain!
MISCELLANEOUS
Note that you gain 2 life from the shock trigger.
Super strong with Pyrokinesis; if you distribute between 4 creatures that's 2 to each, an additional 2 from ~ and 11 life. Fury would be good too despite not getting the trigger from ~.Other nice cards with ~ include:
Gut Shot
Soul Spike
Gitaxian Probe
Force of Will
Basically any instant and sorcery. I was focusing on the zero-mana ones because ~ will likely die before you can untap. The trick is having the resources remaining after making it to 5 mana when everyone else is focused on spells costing 4 or less. I'm not sure it's possible but I'll give ~ a go.
2/2 flying deathtouch lifelink is strong at racing, especially in the air where Initiative creatures are unlikely to be.
~ is excellent with Birthing Pod, giving you double value, even if you sac ~ himself, you'll still get double dudes.
Good with Priest of Fell Rites if you have two targets in the graveyard.
Good with Yawgmoth, Thran Physician...man Yawgmoth would've loved to work on vampires back in the day. Phyresis is Covid19 and vampirism is the common flu.
~ is good with Eater of Virtue and Soulflayer.
You could exile it with Ludevic, Necrogenius, which is something you can't do with Emrakul, the Aeon's Torn or the other titans.
Similarly you can copy it with Dimir Doppelganger or Shadow Kin.
~ is a strong sideboard card against Time Walk decks, especially since it has flash, providing the opportunity to counter Time Walk, rather than them keeping Time Walk in hand until they have removal for ~. Time Walk is 5 points and truly busted when returned from graveyard and cast multiple times in a game. This means that such decks are running many cards to find Time Walk and to return it from graveyard. This means that ~ shuts down all of that or at least forces the opponent to find/recur far worse spells, or have artifact removal to search for. Either way it's an excellent exchange for you, the ~ player.
There's at least 3 regulars in the Melbourne metagame playing Omnath Time Walk consistently. The popularity of Time Walk makes ~ a real consideration for any deck with Trinket Mage or Urza's Saga. Graveyard hate is also effective against Time Walk recursion, but not as much as ~. The versatility of graveyard hate makes it a better option most of the time, but if your deck can also make good use of ~'s activated ability, then ~ is better. Some cards which work well with ~ include:
Krark-Clan Ironworks
Rain of Filth
Squandered Resources
Phyrexian Altar
Brings back any fetchlands you may have sacrificed that turn too.
~ is symetrical, which is pretty funny with Emrakul, the Promised End, although probably win-more.
Paradox Engine could be a good way of untapping everything which ~ brings back tapped.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
That does it for the Dominaria United Commander set review. The best two cards of the set I would say are Dihada, Binder of Wills and Torsten, Founder of Benalia. They are both niche cards but some cards have to be the best in this set.
Hopefully we'll jam games soon,
Mulch
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