Oh lord, we've already doubled every possible thing, so now we're tripling it. That said, as insane as it sounds, I think Ojer Taq is likely inferior to Mondrak, Glory Dominus. They're very similar - each is mono-white, multiplies your tokens, and has a protective ability. But the difference between four mana and six is enormous. A four drop only wants a single piece of ramp, whereas a six-drop either needs the deck to have a heavy ramp focus, or the expectation of playing without them for the early turns. I'm also less hot on Ojer Taq's protective ability - you need creatures on board, you may need to take a bad attack, and it costs a significant amount of mana to flip him back. While we're here, how annoying is it that all the gods flip-back abilities are sorcery speed AND enter tapped? Tapped prevents any sneaky blocks already, so why bother making it a sorcery? Especially for Ojer Taq, who would be impossible to flip on an opponent's turn anyway. But getting to Ojer Taq's upsides - how much better is tripling rather than doubling? I might be wrong, but honestly it feels relatively minor. Doubling is already pretty must-kill, so tripling just sounds like overkill. Plus he can't copy treasure, it's creature tokens only. If Mondrak didn't exist, he'd have more of a niche, but I think the comparison leaves him with little reason to be played in the command zone.

Final Judgment: Bad

There are a lot of artifact-matters blue commanders already, and Akal Pakal doesn't offer much new except a fun name. Urza, Lord High Artificer, Emry, Lurker of the Loch, Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant, Sai, Master Thopterist...all of these do much more interesting things than Akal. Put to the question, he could be okay with some artifact token production on enemy turns, but the ceiling is relatively low and the field is already quite full. I don't see much room for Akal.

Final Judgment: Bad

Talking about power creep gets a bit tedious, but this card would have been absolutely insane back when I started playing. Two power flyers for two would typically have downsides, let alone three different upsides. Malcolm honestly looks potentially cEDH worthy to me - he's extremely cheap, lets you keep up answers, generates free value, and if left unchecked becomes a mini omniscience. That said, I don't think he gets into ugly territory - setting aside proliferate, four turns is a fairly long time, even you do get to freecast eldrazis, and the value he generates before that point is minor by commander standards. These sorts of slow builder commanders are usually weak to interaction. Of course blue does help a lot in protecting him, but he does provide enough time for the table to break through the counter wall if necessary, and when he does get stopped, he gets stopped for a good while. Still, strong card for sure.

Final Judgment: Good

My initial read of Ojer Pakpatiq was that his resurrection ability not requiring any support seemed pretty great, but on more reflection I think it's probably the weakest of the resurrection abilities. Waiting four turns is incredibly slow - the land entering tapped doesn't help - and it's difficult to speed up too. You're mostly relying on time travel stuff from the WHO precons, which isn't nearly as developed or powerful as proliferate (which, if your opponents have any, can ruin your whole day). So I think you'll usually choose to return Ojer Patpatiq to the command zone on death, unless you really want another land and aren't in any particular hurry to get him back. As far as rebounding instants - it's obviously a powerful ability, but instants are a bit tricky since most of the good ones have fairly limited functions. Counterspells, removal, and draw are the big ones in blue, and they don't generally advance your board state directly. Double-casting removal can often mean choosing unnecessary targets the second time around, and counterspells don't work at all (though modal counters with other options are a good choice). That said, doubling your spells is a pretty powerful ability for a four-drop, and I'm personally quite glad he doesn't copy sorceries given the sorts of despicable things blue sorceries tend to do. And while it's not the most relevant thing, a 4-power flyer is definitely worth something as a finisher. So I do think Ojer Patpatiq makes it into the good camp, but he definitely has some limitations.

Final Judgment: Good

First off, let's marinate on that name for a second. Holy hell that is metal. Type line is pretty metal too. Okay, the card. 4/4 flying lifelink is unbeatable in limited, but this is commander so it just gets a shrug. Big enough and evasive enough that commander damage is on the table, but at 5 mana it's far from efficient. Making everyone discard on attack is definitely enough to annoy people, but strong decks will often be able to outrace that. Getting a bat token when a land gets discarded…eh, feels pretty minor. Mostly a chump blocker I would think. The land this flips into is interesting because I think you'll often NOT want to flip this. Part of the problem here is that discard is tricky to get the right amount of. Ideally, of course, you want to have exactly enough discard to completely strip enemy hands. Too much, and you've wasted cards. Too little, and their most important cards can survive. Making matters much more complicated, of course, you have multiple opponents. Your commander is a strong discard engine already, so how much do you want to add to the deck? Sure, a Myojin of Night's Reach will enable flipping your commander back, but it also kinda renders him irrelevant. Small discard like Tasigur's Cruelty might be the perfect amount to render your opponents helpless, or it might not be nearly enough, or it might be a dead card because everyone went hellbent already. All that to say, discard commanders are tough, and as cool as Aclazotz is, one discard per turn is in that awkward zone where it's hard to know how hard to commit to additional discard, especially as regards his resurrection ability that risks stranding him in play (you can go to one card yourself in a pinch, but that's risky). Couple that with heavy discard being often hated off the table, and despite all his bells and whistles I think he's just okay.

Final Judgment: Good, but only because that name is so cool

Major not-for-commander vibes here. Even if you get all three triggers, the result is a major "meh". And the setup is pretty significant, too, especially when you're constricted to mono-red pirate tribal. Breeches alone is decent-ish as an option between a treasure or a card, but there's no way he's worth making your commander just for that, especially since an on-curve attacker will need support quickly to stay in the game.

Final Judgment: Bad

The attack trigger mostly reads to me as a way to enable this in limited formats, so it can probably be mostly ignored. What we're left with looks to me like a looter tribal deck - every variety of discarding to draw plays pretty nicely here, and the commander is very cheap. That said, these sorts of effects make me nervous - if you impulse draw into more looting, it's easy to dig yourself into corners where you're looking at a lot of cards but not actually casting much of substance. I think impulse draw is also generally weaker in commander than in other formats, because timing is so much more important here compared to raw power. And beyond providing a draw engine, Inti doesn't provide a lot of direction in terms of your game plan - I don't think there's enough discard synergy to constitute a real wincon. That said, for a pretty plain-looking commander, I think he's got some decent legs and could be made into a functional deck.

Final Judgment: Bad

A four-drop mono-red commander that adds damage to your red sources…how original. There are quite a few comparisons to make here - Torbran, Thane of Red Fell, Solphim, Mayhem Dominus, Imodane, the Pyrohammer, Urabrask, Toralf, God of Fury...crazy how many times we've gone to this well. The biggest weakness of Ojer Axonil compared to many of them is that he doesn't do anything for damage against creatures or planeswalkers. Torbran and Solphim are both very good at board control, while Ojer Axonil can only go face. Sure, he turns 1 damage into 4, but I really don't think that's enough to justify on its own. To make him properly interesting against those other options, you've got to be buffing up his power. I think that all leaves him a decent amount weaker than the other options, though he does have some upside in his protective ability. He's definitely not bad, and he will present a must-kill threat fairly often, as all of Purphoros, God of the Forge's children do, but with the additional setup and lack of board control I think I'm a fair bit less scared than I am against other options.

Final Judgment: Good

I've spent a while pondering over this one. He's probably about the polar opposite of what interests me in this format, so I have a very high inclination to write him off. That said, while he is very expensive, he's got some potentially huge value and a very straightforward buildaround. Ramp and fatties, a tale as old as time. Mono-green is a limitation, but eldrazis don't mind. There is a potential weakness to board wipes, so etbs with some draw attached are extra valuable. I can't deny that he's a decent commander, even if he's a bit boring.

Final Judgment: Bad. Ha.

We finish off the god cycle with probably the most insane of the bunch. Stat-wise he's slightly above curve, but the damage trigger has a really high ceiling and a very passable floor - basically a cheaper sun titan as long as it's not fully blocked. What really pushes it over the top, though, is that the flip ability is basically free, putting this just below Derevi, Empyrial Tactician in terms of self-recursion. Build-wise, I think this looks like Ghalta without so much ramp - less explosive for sure, but with more staying power. I don't think it's completely overpowered - it still needs to get through combat, it's difficult to trigger more than once a turn, and creatures don't synergize easily with pushing commander damage through - but it's definitely got serious potential.

Final Judgment: Good

For someone worried about being remembered, he could have picked a more memorable name than just "grandfather". I do expect him to stand the test of time, though - at least as much as any legend can be noticed in the growing ocean of options. At his low cost, ward 2 is an excellent deterrent, costing an entire early turn to remove. His blink ability recalls Mistmeadow Witch, a pauper commander I've played. By comparison, his ability is cheaper and can target artifacts, but can't target himself or enemy permanents. Personally I think that ends up as a downside - stifling the return trigger and shadow-realm an enemy commander is glorious, messing with enemy boards in combat is great, and as much as I like the ward, it's not much protection in the late-game where self-blink would have been. All that said, mistmeadow witch isn't a normal commander, and while Brago, King Eternal is much much scarier than Abuelo, being able to blink things out at instant speed has some perks, plus he's not forced into combat to do his thing. I still love mistmeadow witch, and while Abuelo is less interesting, he's still a fun design.

Final Judgment: Good

First uncommon entry, and it's what you'd expect. Set mechanic, low ceiling, and uninteresting. Maybe it could be a decent, if boring, option with an easy setup, but descend 8 is a lot of effort, even with fetchlands.

Final Judgment: Bad

Some vampires need glasses? Weird. Amalia is an obvious meme card - ward 3 life is flavor text, and the destroy clause is an achievement to unlock, not a real strategy. If Karlov of the Ghost Council didn't exist, maybe she could be a novel lifegain option, but sadly she's not. Only reason I can see playing her is if you're a big fan of Werner Herzog.

Final Judgment: Bad

What an iconic name…on such a trash card. And a mythic, to boot. Talk about wasted potential. Honestly I'd probably rather play the BG uncommon, at least he's got evasion once he's powered up, via the same condition. The only thing this guy has going on is that activated ability, but even if you put a bunch of permanents into the deck and some high mv cards so that he's enabled reliably (at least fetches can help a little), 6 for an 8/8 with no evasion isn't compelling at all. And as a means to mill people out, forget it, you'd need a deck full of expensive crap and he's still cost a ton of mana to mill a deck, while doing nothing else of relevance. Yuck. The only good thing I can think to do with him is sacrifice him to Disciple of Bolas, but I don't think there are nearly enough of that sort of effect to be viable.

Final Judgment: Bad

Hmm, sort of a funky Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin. Same cost, base stats, and ability to make increasing numbers of tokens, but a few important differences - she doesn't need to attack herself, she can't be buffed by non-counter means, the tokens enter attacking, and she starts one token lower than Krenko. With those points of comparison, I think she looks much less explosive - a few pieces of equipment and Krenko starts making goblins like it's going out of style, whereas Anim has a lot fewer options to scale up gnome production. But all this is ignoring the elephant in the room - nobody plays Tin Street Kingpin because Krenko, Mob Boss is so much more powerful. And Anim is likely weaker than both. So from a power perspective, she's not too impressive, but she does provide an extra color can do some things better because the tokens enter attacking - Cathar's Crusade comes to mind, though most other buffs will apply before combat unfortunately. I doubt she'll see a lot of play, with the unfavorable comparisons to other commanders and weakness to interaction, though she's not a total disaster.

Final Judgment: Bad

That is some elegant simplicity. I believe the only other free unlimited sac outlets in the command zone is Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter, which costs a whopping 7 mana, and Yahenni, Undying Partisan and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician who are both mono-black, and none of those can sacrifice artifacts. That said, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim has been around for a while, is also an Orzhov 2-drop, and provides a fair bit of utility for the extra cost. But anyone who plays sac decks knows that a free sac outlet really is the gold standard - it gives a lot more control to any kind of Grave Pact or Blood Artist shenanigans, where an additional cost can really slow things down. Bartolome's value isn't nil, either, since he could pretty easily become a lethal threat in the right deck. For being an uncommon 2-drop, he's got some major legs, and I expect he'll be quite popular. Elas il-Kor is the fourth most popular Orzhov commander, and it's easier to build a deck with a guaranteed sac outlet than a guaranteed blood artist.

Final Judgment: Good

Was this supposed to be legendary? It doesn't sound legendary. I guess Caparocti is his first name? He's not the worst uncommon legendary, but he's unlikely to see any play. The setup cost is pretty minimal, but the payoff requiring an attack, being mostly limited to once per turn, and only hitting small things leaves him pretty anemic. You could build it as a voltron deck with swords of X and Y to get some solid hits, but then you're not running mana rocks needed to accelerate him out faster. It could still be okayish, but I doubt hardly anyone will take up the challenge.

Final Judgment: Bad

She looks like a pirate tribal commander, but I doubt if you'd actually want to bother. More like she's keeping the treasure all for herself, to get maximum value from the counters. Triggering on artifact entering is admittedly very easy to do, and could put her up to lethal power reasonably quickly with mass token production, but she still lacks evasion and doesn't do anything except swing. This seems to be pretty baseline for a lot of the uncommon legends - technically it could be decentish, but it's not very interesting.

Final Judgment: Bad

Huatli has a hell of a lot of text to parse through before an evaluation can be made. She starts off as an upgraded Borderland Ranger, then flips into a 4-stage saga that puts tokens on the board, ramps, tutors, and provides a finisher. With all that going on, she can't be too terrible. Simply being a tutor and ramp engine to drop a reliable Wakening Sun's Avatar is a pretty reasonable line, and she can also be a vessel to grab Gishath, Sun's Avatar or other more offensive options. Dinosaurs is the obvious direction to go in, but she's still decent even with a primarily non-dinosaur build exploiting the ramp ability. All that said, she's not exactly fast - the order of her abilities makes them awkward to accelerate too much with proliferate, lest you have insufficient time to set up your alpha strike, and the 3 mv into 5 cost activated make it difficult to flip her earlier than turn 4 without fast mana. So I think she mostly hits a fairly normal power level for commander, with a high consistency (provides fixing, ramp, and tutoring) but not too high of a ceiling (predictability, speed, dinosaurs). That all adds up to a decent but not outstanding grade in my estimation.

Final Judgment: Good

They're really having us on with these names. Pretty sure every time someone plays this card, they're going to say "iiiiiitttt'sss Quinth!" like they're announcing a talk show host. For limited, he looks pretty bonkers - a 2/3 haste for 2 with upside is well above curve - and he might even be decent in the 99, but he's quite uninteresting as a commander. His stats aren't enough to be a good voltron option, and the bite trigger is expensive enough and requires enough setup that you can do much, much better.

Final Judgment: Bad

Oh my son, look what they've done to you. He's still adventuring, but Kellan this time around is much less interesting. His adventure is cheap enough, and likely to get you 3-4 artifacts consistently (except on the turn you most want to cast it, the first turn), but map tokens are pretty weak and GW lacks much synergy for raw numbers of artifacts (too bad he can't partner with Captain Storm, Cosmium Raider). Still nice to be able to adventure him and then pay just 2 to cast him later regardless of tax, but it's a far cry from the strength of Kellan, the Fae-Blooded's adventure. On the ground, a 2/3 for 3 is a decent statline, but the attack trigger is simultaneously difficult to build around yet weak enough to not be worth the effort. Even going all in, you've still only got a 60% hit rate thanks to lands, and it would render the deck pretty nonfunctional. The map tokens do let you see the top of your library, but I don't see what difference that would make - if you have a good attack, take the attack. What's on top shouldn't make much of a difference.

Final Judgment: Bad

Ugh. Few lines of text annoy me more than "your opponents can't cast spells during your turn". Time to play the guessing game of "are they playing a casual deck? Or are they going to combo me out next turn?" every time this hits the field. It's bad enough on Dragonlord Dromoka at 6, but at 3 is just gross. On top of that, the rest of the card is pretty solid too. I'm not a huge fan of the wordiness of the ability, but hitting with a buffed creature is a reasonably low bar (a lot of creatures come pre-buffed with counters too) and drawing a card for each opponent is a damn high ceiling for a 3-drop (and theoretically more with double strike or extra combats). The only real limitation here is that degenerate combo nonsense may not gel cleanly with buffed creatures, so getting good value from both halves may be somewhat difficult, but there is a lot of power here on both fronts. I am not going to want to see this on the other side of the table, and you know what that means…

Final Judgment: I dub thee the first uncommon to earn an UGLY. Congratulations.

The first half of this card I'm really not interested in. As far as payoffs for going wide, getting one fat creature is really not compelling to me. You've got an army, what do you need a 10/10 for? So the whole question rests primarily on how good the endstep trigger is. The closest analog I can think of is Totentanz, Swarm Piper - same cost, different colors, but Totentanz gives you the tokens immediately whereas Mycotyrant waits until endstep, but also gives tokens for noncreature permanents, and permanents put into graveyard from mill, discard, etc. That means fetchlands and baubles will work, which is some solid value, but the option to dredge a golgari grave-troll and get six more tokens is the real value here imo. Self-mill seems like the name of the game here. Triggering only on endstep is a bigger deal than it sounds, though - killing Mycotyrant will shut down all the theoretical tokens you set up for the turn, and he doesn't give you a board of tokens after a wipe like Totentanz does. It also means a lot fewer combo possibilities. Hard to be too certain of a grade when the closest comparison has so many big upsides and downsides, but I think ultimately he's quite a bit stronger, though more vulnerable to interaction.

Final Judgment: Good

Nicanzil sounds like the medication I need to get through the never-ending spoiler season without a headache. As far as his abilities, they're okay, but explore isn't nearly deep enough to make this good. There's only 26 cards available, and most of them are draft chaff, so this is a loooong way off from viability. He'll see play in the 99 of Hakbal of the Surging Soul, but not in the command zone anytime this century.

Final Judgment: Bad

Another iteration on Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, but this time with blue. The initial cost is outrageously low, but having a decent cost to activate does make it harder to play something and copy it for value right away. Despite his power in the 99, Kiki himself isn't the best commander, and I think that's mostly because of his color identity and cost, which Saheeli does resolve, plus she gives the option to copy artifacts. So she's a pretty easy "good", but how good are we talking? It doesn't have the combo potential that Kiki has, but adding blue makes it a lot better as a way to grind value without worrying as much about being unable to stop someone else ending the game. Looking at what Kiki decks tend to include, many of them are somewhat middling value, but Saheeli has access to plenty of blue Mulldrifers as well as artifacts like Ichor Wellspring, so I think she'll have enough options to be effective. I don't think she'll be too powerful because of the activation cost, but I'm glad for that with a 2-drop.

Final Judgment: Good

There's three ways to make Okinec work, from what I can think of – using pump spells like giant growth to make him a huge and growing threat, going wide with tokens and anthems and overruns, or playing creatures that enter with counters. The ward especially makes the first option potentially pretty scary - a single titanic growth lets him swing for 11, and then 11 again the next turn, and 19 the turn after that. So the voltron lethals are definitely a real option. The wide option could work with something as basic as a Glorious Anthem, though I think the most effective option will be a temporary boost like overrun given that the buffs will become permanent anyway through Okinec's ability. The hydra version I think is probably weaker, though there are definitely a few standout creatures like Kalonian Hydra, that could fit into either of the other versions. I do think he's strong, but he does still rely on combat so I doubt he gets into ugly territory.

Final Judgment: Good

A pretty ordinary mistake, really. Besides the opportunity to use the new finality counter, there's nothing remarkable about Uchbenbak. He's basically on-curve for limited, and his recursion ability is slow to setup and unimpressive in its cost and its one-time use. Narfi, the Betrayer King cost less and could use his ability repeatedly, plus he actually did something relevant on board, and he still wasn't good. This guy is atrocious.

Final Judgment: Bad to the bones

I've gone back and forth on Vito. He does seem reminiscent of Vraan, Execution Thane, who looked pretty decent but has gotten very little interest because of his once-per-turn limitation. Vito does share this limitation, but he's got some major upsides that I think make him a solid option. For one, while he does require sacrifice and not any old death, he does trigger off any sacrifice, which includes fetches, treasure, clues, etc. Fetches alone give a lot of free triggers. And of course, his third trigger is pretty spicy, even if it's not the sort of thing most aristocrat decks are looking to build towards. And beyond those things, he has the more banal advantages of giving an additional color and having a decently sized body (though he does pay for it with his mana cost). Bartolome is certainly the easier fit for a classic aristocrats deck, so Vito may lose some ground there, but I think there's enough room for both since Vito cares about pretty different things. Baubles, fetch recursion, treasure, etc will give this deck some decent legs, with the commander as a payoff rather than Bartolome's enabler role.

Final Judgment: Good

Damn, for a moment Zoyowa looked decent, until that last line of text. The setup is pretty minimal, but the payoff is so middling - many decks won't mind sacrificing (any permanent? Even lands? She sure is easy to please), some won't mind discarding, and for the rest, 3 life is pretty minor when it's only once per turn. The body is fine, but she doesn't have nearly enough going on to be worth playing. Mogis still has some popularity (can't say that I understand why, to be honest) but Zoyowa has a fragile body and provides way more options for your opponents to satisfy her, so she seems really bad.

Final Judgment: Bad

Ugh, tribal commanders. Maybe the closest comparison for Brass is Mishra, Eminent One, in that they have the same cost, and both make hasty 4/4s at start of combat. Brass has the major advantage of keeping her 4/4s alive, though, whereas Mishra gets to enjoy a much lower setup cost since he can reuse the same target every turn. Accordingly, I think Brass does need to have a fairly high density of pirates. Pirates on the whole aren't very synergistic with each other, nor do they have many strong individual cards, so although I do think Brass has a pretty powerful ability, I doubt that the deck will live up to her power since she's so held back by the 99.

Final Judgment: Good, just barely

Really weird tribal payoff. You need vampires (though only one each combat), you need to attack, and then…not much happens immediately. Your board doesn't become any stronger. But if your vampire gets lethally blocked, or someone wipes the board, then you get some board presence and CA later. That sounds like a pretty sketchy plan to me - the tokens you get aren't vampires, and demons are much more poorly supported especially in BW, and an aggressive tribal deck needs to be putting pressure on, which Clavileno doesn't really help with. He's also got a pretty low ceiling by modern standards - drawing one card and getting one decently-sized token per turn looks fairly middling considering the setup needed. There are a lot of strong options for vampire tribal that play towards the tribe's strengths more, so I don't see much reason to want to play him.

Final Judgment: Bad

All your creatures exploring takes a minute to think through. There's a few ways it's likely to pan out. One option is to draw lands until you hit a nonland, then leave it on top and take the counters - so usually you'll put a +1/+1 on all your merfolks or most of them, and maybe draw a land or two. Another option is to keep milling nonlands, getting +1/+1 counters on some of your merfolk and drawing a bunch of lands, while filling your grave. A third option is to mill and draw until you get someone particularly spicy (and then potentially attacking with Hakbal to draw it), in which case the number of counters and lands is somewhat variable. All of those options are pretty strong, especially if you have some way to exploit the graveyard. But that said, some of them do end up pretty similar to Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca, so a comparison is in order. At low numbers of merfolk, Hakbal is definitely stronger, since Kumena will struggle to activate his abilities. At 5 merfolk, Kumena can mostly achieve the first mode. He can never draw as many lands as Hakbal can, but he also can draw nonlands, which is often more important. However, Hakbal does have his attack trigger to draw a single card, if the attack is safe. So in terms of draw power, Kumena needs quite a few merfolk to compete with Hakbal, and can never catch up in terms of pure digging. He also can't ramp like Hakbal can. However he can grow his army faster and draw more nonlands with sufficient numbers, and he can become unblockable. And he costs less. It's a messy comparison, really, but suffice to say that Hakbal seems at minimum competitive with Kumena, and Kumena is a pretty powerful commander. I think this bodes pretty well for Hakbal.

Final Judgment: Good

As I said earlier, I think people get a bit too excited about big numbers for this sort of effect. Run big butt creatures if you want, but you're still going to hit a mana rock or something most of the time. What really limits Pantlaza, though, is only triggering once per turn. I don't see many practical ways to produce dinosaurs on enemy turns, and considering how bad dinosaur tribal is, cascading once per turn cycle just isn't enough of a payoff in my opinion. Four is a pretty high amount of toughness to build a combo deck around, though one interesting possibility would be filling the deck with blink effects, and then a single storm card. Definitely not possible with the number of blink effects in the game, but come back in fifty years and maybe there's a combo build somewhere in there. Man, fifty years of spoiler seasons sounds exhausting.

Final Judgment: Bad

Sort of a mashup of Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest and Rodolf Duskbringer. On one hand, an evasive creature that grows whenever anyone uses a fetchland threatens commander damage lethals fairly easily, especially with symmetrical sacrifice effects. On the other hand, being Sun Titan-adjacent in the command zone is some solid value, even if you're just recurring lands. The obvious buildaround is an aristocrats deck with a lot of Grave Pact stuff, though I do think that going too all-in, especially with a 5-drop commander in a deck that isn't typically super rampy, is asking for your commander to get removed before it starts swinging for lethal. So I could definitely see going lighter on sacrifice fodder in order to fly under the radar, so to speak, while accumulating value off the attack trigger. Ultimately I think both parts of the ability, while reasonable, aren't crazy - the comparison to Mazirek is pretty stark, considering he gets a counter on all of your creatures whereas Carmen only does herself, and especially if you're going all-in on sacrifice I doubt her attack trigger is powerful enough to compensate. But I do think it offers good flexibility between lethal damage and slow value.

Final Judgment: Good

There might be some methods that don't come readily to mind to exploit Don Andres - something like Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor comes to mind - but I'm not sure that the creature buff he offers is substantive enough to really make it exciting, considering how hard it is too apply to tokens (the most value thing to apply this sort of buff towards). As someone who's played a fair number of decks that use other peoples' cards, it's usually a mixed bag - lots of narrow synergy pieces, or utility creatures that aren't really built for combat. You could focus on stealing creatures from in play - which is itself a stronger form of removal than I think people give credit for - exiling from library to cast, like Plargg and Nassari, or reanimate enemy creatures, but I think all of these will have a similar pitfall. Not that it can't be done, but I'm just not sure Don Andres offers enough to make it a good idea. Alternatively, there's the treasure making trigger, which I think has more potential, though noncreatures are probably even less likely to be useful for you. That said, I do think it's fun to pay people off for stealing enemy cards, it's a good design space, but I can't really wrap my head around how to make Don Andres actually good.

Final Judgment: Dealer's choice…I'll go good. I want this to work.

I am so bored of braindead tribal commanders, so it's such a relief to see a commander that enables a tribe in a more novel way that "make your cards better if they have this word on their typeline". Wayta is obviously great with enrage dinos, but she's also great with anything else that triggers on taking damage (as a connoisseur of Sorrow's Path, I am quite familiar), or simply using her as an Ulvenwald Tracker in the command zone. Having haste is great too, because although it's probably too expensive to use as removal, it's easy to use her to trigger your enrage the turn she comes out, especially with her 1/5 body. Love this design, and really wish we saw more tribal designs like this in general, that focus on the things that make that tribe interesting mechanically, rather than just having a certain creature type.

Final Judgment: Excellent

This seems like an absurd amount of work for a Wilderness Reclamation. Sure, some lands have counters on them, but most of them are bad and they're few and far between. He's easier to use with creatures, of course, but most creatures with counters don't also have tap abilities, so then it's either glorified vigilance or you're jumping through quite a few hoops in order to get one extra untap, which you could play something like The Fifth Doctor and just get it, and the counter, for free, at a lower cost. He can't even disable enemy lands, so there's rarely any point to putting flood counters on them, and he doesn't put them out quickly or easily enough to do anything interesting anyway. Maybe there are some angles I'm missing - there are some artifacts that he's decent with, like everflowing chalice and Aether Vial - but overall I want a lot less effort necessary to make my 6-drop commander do something relevant.

Final Judgment: Bad

Okay, I've had a look through the double-sided artifacts, and I gotta say, the pickings look pretty slim (I also have absolutely no idea how the secret lair transformers Blightsteel Colossus and company work, but I sure hope they don't). But let me back up a bit. This card has a ton of text, so what exactly do we need to make it work? His front side triggers when double-sided artifacts enter, and then dig 3 cards deep to find an artifact and mill the rest. Only digging 3 deep means you really want a high proportion of artifacts to hit frequently, but the bigger hurdle is having double-sided ones entering. Now, you can use incubator tokens to trigger him, but unless they're also created by an artifact they won't be a hit, so they're not an ideal fit, plus incubator tokens are usually pretty minor in commander. And, as mentioned, true double-sided are pretty weak. So it's a lot of buildaround for probably a pretty weak outcome But okay, forget all that, what if we can just play a bunch of baubles or whatever to fill the grave with artifacts, and then flip him? It's costing us 7 mana and an enormous amount of setup, but it better be good. The result is…pretty disappointing. A 6/6 is definitely not an exciting statline for that amount of effort, and the etb and attack trigger really relies on having double-sided artifacts that are powerful to flip, else he's just a very crappy Grave Titan. But most of them just boil down to saving a couple mana. There are a few major hits, like Azor's Gateway, but even then, a lot of those are relatively narrow synergy cards that won't necessarily work with the rest of the deck. And if you're trying to fit in a bunch of double sided artifacts rather than baubles, it's going to be really hard to find 6 you're happy to exile to transform him. So I really don't think Tetzin gets there. He's got a ton of hoops to jump through for a mediocre payoff.

Final Judgment: Bad

Xavier has an obvious issue, besides looking like a Pirates of the Caribbean extra, which is that he's pretty similar to the most popular commander of all time, Atraxa, Praetor's Voice. She eclipses his colors, and provides once per turn proliferation without any hoops to jump through, plus a powerful body. Xavier is slightly cheaper, granted, but he has a much greater setup cost to proliferate, and because it's a tap ability it will usually start proliferating the same turn. The idea seems to be that you'll populate tokens by removing counters, then sacrifice those tokens to recoup the counters, but this plan seems fairly weak since it's very slow, and requires having tokens and counters on-board to get anywhere, which is a lot of deck slots to be consistent. He could have an advantage in the right context as a free sac outlet, but considering he taps and it's sorcery-only, that seems unlikely given all the other requirements on the deck. For all these reasons, I think focusing on proliferate, or even on a balanced mix of his abilities, is probably a mistake. I think his best, or at least most unique, feature is his ability to populate for a very low cost. There are a lot of lands that enter with, or cheaply produce, counters which could be used to populate nearly for free. There are also cards that benefit from having counters removed, like Mystic Remora, and the new finality counters. So then the challenge becomes to find some powerful tokens to populate. The construct tokens from Urza's Saga seem like a good place to start, there are plenty of clone tokens, or just generic big stuff. Add in some counter lands and some cards that want their counters removed, and you've got a stew going.

Final Judgment: Good

This guy was a bit confusing to me until I remembered Breeches, Brazen Plunderer and Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator from CML. Francisco is apparently here to completely the cycle, so that you can play any two of the three pirate colors with partners that trigger when your pirates hit an opponent. Unfortunately for Franky, he got the short end of the stick. Breeches and Malcolm are an extremely natural fit, with Breeches giving card advantage and Malcolm giving tempo - a perfect one-two punch of value. Francisco gives card selection and possibly some lands. That's awkward with Malcolm, who is already generating mana and so isn't as reliant on land drops, and with Breeches who already draws lands on his own, plus generates other cards to play that make card filtering less important. And all of this is on top of the elephant in the room, which is that Francisco has zero damn power. If you pair him with Malcolm, and don't have a pirate on 1, you're playing Francisco on 2, then Malcolm on 3, then hitting with Malcolm on 4, then maaaaybe getting a counter, and then finally on turn 5 Francisco maybe gets to actually attack. So his low cost is basically a lie unless you're playing a deck packed with 1-drop pirates. I really don't think he would have been problematic as a 1/1, but as printed I think he's really weak. If you want to build a 1-drop pirates treasure deck, maybe he's a decent fit with Malcolm, but that's extremely niche and I think he's still pretty mediocre there unless you're just dying to build a Revel in Riches pirate partner deck.

Final Judgment: Bad

The play pattern for these partners is pretty on-rails - play Grady on turn 2-3, Blue on 3-4, and then start slamming dinos with 2+ ability counters. Seven mana over two turns is a pretty high cost for a couple keywords, especially when reach is pretty weak and trample and menace aren't that exciting either. Compare to Greymond, Avacyn Stalwart who provides two ability for four mana, alongside a +2/+2 buff, and this pair looks pretty unappealing. You could just ignore the extra text and play them as voltron-ish, but the payoff still looks very weak for the cost.

Final Judgment: Bad

I think people tend to overstate the value of big numbers for cascade, which has become discover. Even if you cascade for twelve, you're probably going to hit a 3 drop. So I don't think it's going to be worth including a ton of high-cost creatures in the deck to make big discover numbers. But I do think you'll want to minimize the chances that you hit a boring ramp spell. One potential way to approach this issue is to include mostly creatures of the same relatively high cost, so that if you do hit a creature, you'll get it for sure. I think I'd aim for about 6, since you can cast those creatures the next turn while E&A are doing their thing. You'll still hit ramp and removal and other boring stuff, but it's the best chance you'll get to get something spicy. As far as providing fuel, some amount of discard might be a good idea, to ensure a good target, though self-mill is obviously more ideal. Best of all worlds are probably cards like Greater Tanuki and cyclers which can provide fodder without putting you down in resources, and ideally be decent beaters in the late-game if you're glutted on graveyard action. Another important aspect to consider is going low, especially with the suspend cards. I'm not sure any of them are worth THAT much effort to work towards - maybe there could be some sort of combo build with Gaea's Will, Hypergenesis, or Restore Balance, but considering how much is needed to make that work I doubt it will be anywhere near a cEDH table. Anyway, given the effort needed to build around the commander, I do think they're somewhat limited in their power level, but it's still a pretty gnarly tap ability, so they're at least reasonably strong. They do take some thinking to figure out, though - I think a lot of first-draft decks will flounder with bad hits or lack of graveyard fodder.

Final Judgment: Good

I might be wrong, but I think Henry is probably pretty bad. Even setting aside the treasure, having a human enter and also sacrificing a nonhuman is a pretty significant setup cost for a single card. Having a mix of humans and nonhumans also leaves a lot of room to get a bad mix and have the deck crap out. Getting a treasure token seems fine, but I'm not so sure it's worth the effort of producing typically much more expensive to product 3-power tokens instead of saprolings and zombies. I suspect it's going to take a pretty high percentage of the deck just to make this card advantage engine do anything, and then you've got to figure out how you're actually going to win. There's very few payoffs for exploit, as well, so you're relying entirely on Henry to make the deck work. So for now I think he's bad. I'll change my mind if it beats me, I guess.

Final Judgment: Bad

Ugh. I hate this kind of design. I have wracked my brain trying to think of a way to make this card good, and I have come to one simple conclusion: you can't. He is designed to be "fun" and "wacky" but the end result is that casting him will probably be a misplay even within his own deck. Let's break it down. To get anything out of him beyond a Gray Ogre, you need an opponent to draw two cards. That will happen naturally, of course, but could be inconsistent. So you run some Howling Mine effects. Now you're getting cards exiled, yes, but you're also rendering whatever value you get from Malcolm increasingly irrelevant since everyone has lots of spells to cast anyway. Casting spells from your own deck is usually better than enemy spells - they're good with your deck, that's why they're in there, right? To make matters even worse, your opponents will often get first crack if anything particularly strong shows up, since it's dependent on whose turn it is. You'd probably prefer something like Vision Skeins so that you'll be able to see them first, but those effects are less common and typically less efficient, plus it means your opponents are being given even MORE cards, since a single additional card won't cut it when it's not their turn. But then for the cherry on the top, even if you're running a bunch of jank to enable this, and you've accepted that you're giving your opponents tons of free resources, but you've got a bunch of strong spells exiled and you've got first crack at them…your big exciting payoff is restricted to one card per turn. And then all the rest go to other players. And hey, cherry on top of a cherry, if he leaves play, everything he exiled is gone. As I said at the start - casting him is a misplay even in his own deck. He's just so, so bad.

Final Judgment: Incredibad.

Rex has a lot in common with Rayami, First of the Fallen, but is different in a few key ways. You don't need to cast the creatures, so that's a big plus. Shove in all the high-mv keyword-soup jank you want. It also provides some free draw, which is great. On the downside, it provides no grave hate, can't take enemy creatures keywords (making double strike currently impossible except in the 99 of a 4+ color deck), and it doesn't persist keywords across castings. P/T vs MV-wise, I favor Rayami but it's not a huge knock. Having played Rayami, merely having a lot of keywords (especially without double strike) really isn't enough, and having a bunch of trash keyword creatures in your deck can be a real drag (even if you recoup some of that with the draw trigger). With double strike, this could get interesting, but without it I think it's pretty hard. So now you're running a voltron deck with a bunch of jank creatures in it, which is starting to spread yourself thin. Indestructibles and hexproofs, which are your best keywords, don't usually have a ton of additional keywords (some flying, some trample, one or two oddballs like deathtouch). I don't think Rex is awful, but I do think it's a lot of complexity in deck construction that would be a lot more consistent if you just ran, say, Thrun, the Last Troll instead.

Final Judgment: Good…Psych, Jurassic World is trash so I give you a Bad.

What a weird card. Dealing a bunch of damage just to make your commander big seems bad. Menace is a middling keyword. And the trigger gives your opponent too many options. I think the idea is that you play it, let it trade, they'll probably take damage, then you recast it as a 6/4 for 5? Yeah, I'm not impressed. And if they decide to sacrifice after taking a trade on blocks, you've just got a crappy 3/1 for a commander again. I guess if you include a bunch of ways to trigger the enrage it maybe gets interesting, but there's a lot of setup required and I'm pretty skeptical of the payoff. Did you see Ojer Axonil up there turning every ping into damage equal to his power with so much less setup required?

Final Judgment: Bad