Commander Masters - 7 Point Highlander Set Review

 

Release date: August 4th 2023

Latest points change at the time of writing this - Murders at Karlov Manor

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

This would be an easy set to never know existed. There are 40 'first prints'. Here are the ones I think are playable in 7 Point Highlander at this time. On a sidenote, power creep is real. I go back to some of my old set reviews and laugh at some of the cards that I thought were playable back then. It's not all bad news though, the points system sometimes makes cards I dismissed, now playable. For example, the recent 2nd point on Wrenn and Six and 1st point on Orcish Bowmasters is enough for me to consider 1 toughness 2 drops again.

Tribal decks struggle against control decks, so this is a very nice addition to Slivers.

Note that ~ will trigger when itself enters (so does Constrcting Sliver).

~ is an excellent addition to all tribal decks provided that they're going hard, i.e. running ≈30 of their tribe. Green has a lot of support for tribal decks, so much that it's almost worth splashing: ~, Collected Company, Realmwalker and Once Upon a Time.

~ was a strong addition to the Goblins sideboard for the recent National Championships. Coming in against grindy decks like Jund and Control that give you the time off to cast a 3mana 'do nothing'.

Being instant speed is really nice against counterspells, espcially when Spell Pierce and Force of Negation typically get sideboarded out against tribal decks.

Some tribes will be able to maindeck ~ despite the tempo loss because they generate crazy amounts of mana, e.g. Elves.

Win condition for infinite mana with Food Chain + Squee, the Immortal. Of course you'll need to wait until next turn to attack.

I'm hoping for a critical mass of creatures that are acceptable with a regular amount of mana, to give my Food Chain deck a decent plan B.

Maybe there'll be a Leyline deck one day. They keep printing them!

Serra's Sanctum, Leyline Binding, Opalescence.

Here are some cards that are ok with ~:

Cast Out

Shark Typhoon

Seal of Fire

Urza's Saga

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

Bitter Reunion

Pernicious Deed

Enigmatic Incarnation

Medomai's Prophecy

History of Benalia

The Bears of Littjara

The Huntsman's Redemption

Enigmatic Incarnation and Urza's Saga are the exciting ones. 

Ironically ~ might be better in an artifact theme deck abusing Urza's Saga than an enchantment deck. There are several decent tutors for Urza's Saga. If your plan is to always have Urza's Saga, then I think ~ is playable in that deck. you could even run Dross Skullbomb and The Underworld Cookbook (and Asmo) to return ~ from your graveyard.

Can't target itself because it won't be on the battlefield when the cast trigger resolves.

Channel + ~ = win the game.

Excellent hit with Descendants' Path

Excellent creature to for Lazav, Wearer of Faces.

~ manifests for any kind of counter, There's gotta be something broken there.

Cody ran ~ in his Hardened Scales deck for Nationals just gone. Using The Ozolith to dump a bunch of counters on ~ is pretty awesome.

~ is a minor upgrade on the 0mana creatures that you run for the Mogg Bombers kill in Flash + Protean Hulk combo, however that kill has been superceded by Samwise Gamgee + Cauldron Familiar + Viscera Seer + Sylvan Safekeeper. Perhaps there's some Hardened Scales Flash Hulk hybrid deck?

If you create a nonlegendary copy of ~, e.g. by copying it with Spark Double and putting a counter on it, then they'll keep triggering eachother to make eachother infinite large. Luckily ~ is worded as "may" so that this interaction doesn't draw the game.

Win. The. Game.

Channel casts ~.

There are slowly more ways of cheat casting big instant and sorceries:

Mizzix's Mastery

Hidetsugu and Kairi

Skyway Robber

Spellshift

Wildfire Devils

Reenact the Crime

The reason to play the colourless deck is Mishra's Workshop, which doesn't cast ~! However, I do think that ~ is still playable in that deck. You're casting a 3 or 4 mana spell each turn making ~ huge.

The flash is nice against control, which is a bad matchup.

Not being an artifact can actually be a boon because you still have a threat after Seeds of Innocence/Brotherhood's End/Shatterstorm, etc. Giving the rest of your stuff flash to helps protect against these sweepers.

It may be worth running Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth or Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to help Mishra's Workshop cast ~.

CONCLUSION

Quick and rough, another set review done. The two strongest cards are For the Ancestors and Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate.

Next set review in my backlog is Wilds of Eldraine. I'll be current one day.

Mulch