The Brothers' War Commander - 7point Highlander Set Review

 

Release date: November 18th 2022

Latest release at the time of writing this - The Lord of the Rings - Tales of Middle-earth

Throughout my set reviews I use '~' to denote the subject card.

Look, honestly, this one's gonna be sloppy. I'm just gonna smash it out and hopefully that'll help me catch up on these set reviews.

Dies to Wrenn and Six but she 2-for-1's really easy, which makes her worth the risk. You'll want at least 18 vehicle/artifact creatures in your deck for a ≈90% hit rate and you'll want them cheap enough to cast turn3. If you run a lot of acceleration, then you can get away with 4mana vehicles/artifact creatures.

You can use Springleaf Drum and Moonsnare Prototype to tap ~ turn2, but you'll hav eto get lucky to find a ≤1mana artifact creature to cast or have the fast mana to cast bigger dudes.

In a Hardened Scales strategy ~ will give you a Plains every turn. Not as good as Wrenn and Six because you're losing counters but Wrenn and Six is one the best 50 cards of all MtG.

~ can remove any kind of counter from any permanent. Removing lore counters from Sagas is pretty powerful. You can let the final chapter ability go on the stack, then remove a lore counter before it resolves, and do that every turn to keep getting the trigger. Here are the saga rules to confirm:

• As a Saga enters the battlefield, its controller puts a lore counter on it. As your precombat main phase begins (immediately after your draw step), you put another lore counter on each Saga you control. Putting a lore counter on a Saga in either of these ways doesn't use the stack.
• Each symbol on the left of a Saga's text box represents a chapter ability. A chapter ability is a triggered ability that triggers when a lore counter that is put on the Saga causes the number of lore counters on the Saga to become equal to or greater than the ability's chapter number. Chapter abilities are put onto the stack and may be responded to.
• A chapter ability doesn't trigger if a lore counter is put on a Saga that already had a number of lore counters greater than or equal to that chapter's number. For example, the third lore counter put on a Saga causes the III chapter ability to trigger, but I and II won't trigger again.
• Once a chapter ability has triggered, the ability on the stack won't be affected if the Saga gains or loses counters, or if it leaves the battlefield.
• If multiple chapter abilities trigger at the same time, their controller puts them on the stack in any order. If any of them require targets, those targets are chosen as you put the abilities on the stack, before any of those abilities resolve.
• If counters are removed from a Saga, the appropriate chapter abilities will trigger again when the Saga receives lore counters. Removing lore counters won't cause a previous chapter ability to trigger.
• Once the number of lore counters on a Saga is greater than or equal to the greatest number among its chapter abilities—in the Dominaria set, this is always three—the Saga's controller sacrifices it as soon as its chapter ability has left the stack, most likely by resolving or being countered. This state-based action doesn't use the stack.

You can regulate how burdensome The One Ring is on you.

There's gotta be some more broken stuff out there for this effect.

Spend the first couple turns dropping Eggs:

Mishra's Bauble

Urza's Bauble

Chromatic Sphere

Chromatic Star

Terrarion

Wizard Rockets

Conjurer's Bauble

Darkwater Egg

Mossfire Egg

Skycloud Egg

Shadowblood Egg

Sungrass Egg
Lotus Petal

Lodestone Bauble

- then turn3, cast Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy and crack all your eggs, make a bunch of powerstones...I dunno probably something there... With all those eggs you don't have to worry about the double black casting cost.

Would be pretty crazy with Krark-Clan Ironworks + Scrap Trawler + Mox Amber.

That art looks awesome with the old border. Rawwwrrr! Powerful Dragonnnnn!

Artifact offering lets you cast ~ as though it had flash, which makes it good. Run out a Myr Enforcer/Sojourner's Companion/Thought Monitor on turn 4 with RR open off your Spire of Industry/Glimmervoid/Silverbluff Bridge. They go to kill the Myr Enforcer then BAM, 10 damage to your face!

Give Starscream doublestrike mmmm

Sacrificing Chaos Defiler is value.

Esper Affinity top end. Reducing ~'s cost to 4mana is easy to do, which is about where this effect sits powerwise. The trick is making the mana work:

24-25 LANDS TOTAL

7 UNTAPPED ARTIFACT LANDS

Vault of Whisper

Seat of the Synod

Tree of Tales

Ancient Den

Great Furnace

Darksteel Citadel

Treasure Vault

3 BROKEN LANDS

Urza's Saga (finds Mox Opal)

Tolarian Academy

Once Upon a Time

2 RAINBOW

Glimmervoid

Spire of Industry

3 DUALS

Tundra

Scrubland

Underground Sea

3 SHOCK

Hallowed Fountain

Watery Grave

Godless Shrine

6 FETCH

1 BASIC FOR INITIATIVE

Swamp/Plains/Island

Mox Opal

That's 15 of each colour source. It's borderline but can be done. May need to run Springleaf Drum and other colour fixers.

Risky because it can be exiled or bounced and you get no value. However, if it lives you win the game, so perhaps it's a case of slamming scary threat after scary threat and eventually one of them will stick. Easier said than done when those threats cost a lot of mana and there is only 1 Mishra's Workshop in your deck. Better be lucky I guess.

Very nice with The Ozolith.

BOOM. Set review done. Fast and sloppy. Hopefully no one reads it.

Regards,

Mulch