Aftermath: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The design grade might seem overly harsh but I cannot get over how hideous that wording is. If I ever play against it I'm going to need to read it every time. Not any color, but that creature's colors. Only for a creature's activated ability, not something else's. Can't be a mana ability, not that you'd probably want mana abilities anyway since Tazri gives them a mana ability himself. It feels massively over-designed. I don't really see him being very good either, you're disincentivized from playing tap ability creatures since it works against the first ability, so you're playing a bunch of mana sink creatures? Tokens with activated abilities? I can't really see how this is supposed to work, honestly, and it seems like best case scenario you're just begging to get wrathed. I'll believe it when I see it, I guess.

Final Judgment: BAD

Kind of an insane ability on first blush, you get to combat cascade your entire hand into play tapped and attacking so long as your most expensive thing is already in play — and nothing has equal mana value — and you can afford to pay 2 for each creature. That said, he seems like maybe more of a "in the 99" card since the setup seems difficult and mono-red is fairly restrictive. Still, it seems like he can probably do something broken - you just need to get something expensive into play first, and I'm not really sure how you'd do that in mono-red reliably. Pray you draw Sneak Attack? I think he'll be too inconsistent to be a good commander, though I'm open to being wrong, and I do expect he'll put in some work in the 99.

Final Judgment: BAD

Plargg was one of my favorite legends from strixhaven and his pair up doesn't disappoint. Very much a standalone value piece. I can't think of a ton of ways to synergize here since you have very little control over what you're going to cast. There are some ways to get value from casting cards from exile (Nalfeshnee, Passionate Archaeologist) but I don't know that I'd want to give my opponents more reason to want to kill the duo. As a value generator, it's pretty reminiscent of Etali, Primal Storm - it costs 1 less and doesn't need to get into combat, but it can't expedite its trigger with haste. It always "hits" but is capped at 2 spells and never gets the "best" one — unless you can use politics or opponent naivety. Having played Etali, the payoff can be sweet, but the spells you get can often be less than helpful since they're often based on synergies you largely won't have. On the plus side, being less combat-focused might help reduce your need to close the game quickly, and you can maybe build into synergies over time. Besides a smattering of ramp to get to 5 and some protection, I'm not really sure what the rest of this deck looks like - likely a bunch of control stuff, or whatever passes for control in mono-red. Most likely they'll see more play in the 99 - but I love this sort of thing, so I'll likely give them a try in the command zone.

Final Judgment: GOOD

My initial thought with creature Nissa is that she's another boring elf/elemental tribal option, but that's not exactly true. She does get extra value from those types, but she tunnels to them, so you can still get plenty of value, and potentially more value, with just a couple in your deck rather than a swarm. There's very likely some combo nonsense that could be done on that front as well. In addition, she's a lotus cobra in the command zone, which makes her Azusa, Lost but Seeking-esque in terms of ramp. She doesn't ramp permanently like Azusa, but she does power up your other ramp and is explosive with any fetches. Overall she looks like either combo or a rampy good-stuff deck depending how the trigger is exploited. Most likely elves focused as elementals are more color diverse, though there are certainly some strong elementals that play nicely with her, like Avenger of Zendikar, Ancient Greenwarden, and Titania, Protector of Argoth. Definitely will see some play in the 99 as well.

Overall Judgment: GOOD (potentially bordering on ugly)

Thank god it's not another "play enchantment draw card" enchantress commander. Obviously there's a little payoff for playing a volume of enchantments but it's not really enough to be compulsory. So I can definitely see a version of Calix that uses a smaller number of high-impact enchantments that are great to copy, and either auras with evasive creatures, or evasion-granting equipment to get the commander through. Making a copy of Doubling Season or Mirari's Wake seems like a pretty sweet payoff, and I like the limitation that it only works once per turn to disincentivize just running a million enchantments like every other enchantress deck.

Final Judgment: GOOD

Vigilance, trample, and lifelink is a pretty solid set of abilities for a voltron commander since it has built-in evasion to make it much easier to get damage through, and vigilance/lifelink means it plays defense as well as offense. Voltron is generally a pretty weak archetype, and a 2/2 for 3 that provides no tempo advantages is a pretty slow vessel to enable it, though she does provide some extra durability. I don't think she'll be very good, but I think she's a nice option to have if you want a slow and steady voltron build.

Final Judgment: GOOD (bordering on bad)

I can't really imagine someone playing this as a commander. Grave hate on entering is not when I'd prefer to have that sort of effect, and setting up a reactive protection against board wipes is less effective when it's so predictable. I can imagine a deck running her alongside boardwipes to do a Plague Wind, but that doesn't seem exciting enough to build a deck around really.

Final Judgment: BAD

I've moved around a bit on this. The land-creature-only Coastal Piracy is potentially strong, but making lands creatures is so risky, and expensive too since it basically costs you 1 mana to attack. There are a few cards that make it look good (Awaken the Woods comes to mind, as does Sylvan Awakening), but otherwise I'd be very wary. On the other hand, just animating one land into a massive flyer could be pretty okay, and it gives you a free card every turn so long as you connect. There are a decent sampling of indestructible lands to target as well. I'm not super excited about her personally, but I do think she's a decent design for a land-creature based commander.

Final Judgment: GOOD

Lord do I hate sea monster tribal. As far as payoffs go, it's fine I guess. It's kinda just cascade, but not quite, so I guess it qualifies as unique (if you ignore Sunbird's Invocation). I don't think the power level is too egregious and I do like that the typically-high mana value matters so you aren't just jamming in 1mv changelings like certain sphinxes I could name. I want to get more angry at her because I hate wotc making meme decks into real decks, but that ship has sailed and honestly her design is fine if you're into this sort of thing.

Final Judgment: BAD (but close to good)

It really boggles my mind the way Wizards designs some of these commanders. They keep trying to make a commander that pays you off for having a bunch of separate creatures each equipped with something. Probably the best one they've ever designed was Nahiri, the Lithomancer. But for new Nahiri, Jor Kadeen, First Goldwarden, Dalakos, Crafter of Wonders, Halvar, God of Battle // Sword of the Realms, Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith, there's a really obvious problem - if you've got all these equipment around, and you've got a commander with solid stats... why would you bother equipping your other creatures? Your commander can kill people in 1-2 hits! You're supposed to dedicate a bunch of slots of the deck to other creatures just so you can justify NOT equipping it to the obvious target? Especially when (unlike planeswalker Nahiri and Syr Gwyn) they don't make it any easier to move the equipment around once you're done farting around for value and want to administer the killing blow. Neo Nahiri admittedly has a better payoff than most, but I can't look at a 5-power 2-drop and not immediately think "I'm putting all my swords on that". So she's kinda okay, but I find the design choices really frustrating.

Final Judgment: BAD

Hooray, a Narset who isn't cancer (probably). I like her ability to target any graveyard. I like how she's restricted by mana value but provides a way to work around that restriction. I like that she exiles the original so it can't get too repetitive. I like that she can't cast time magic by default. Overall a lot of good design choices. I'm not that excited about the team-wide prowess, but it's fine and other people seem to be into it. Overall I think she's one of the standouts of the set.

Final Judgment: GOOD

It looks very similar to Narset superficially, but I'm way less interested in rat tribal or legendary tribal, and I think there are more logical options for both archetypes anyway. Plus it's restricted to your own graveyard, which is lame. Not much to say, except: big meh.

Final Judgment: BAD

Turns out adding sour cream and tomato was all it took to make me like Niv Mizzy, the combo king and one of my most hated characters-as-a-card since 2009. It's hard for me to say for sure, but at least from first blush it seems like they fixed a lot of issues with similar designs. Unlike Kess, it doesn't prevent casting on enemy turns, it doesn't prevent your own interaction like Lier, and unlike [every other blue spell-based commander] it doesn't synergize with time magic. It also feels pretty balanced between the bi-color restriction and being forced to discard, though of course the discard also presents an opportunity to circumvent or even exploit the cost (squee, madness, etc). Does seem like it could be really strong still, but it's complex enough that I'm interested in giving it a try. Plus it gives me an excuse to bust out the eidolons again, and that's cause for celebration.

Final Judgment: GOOD

Small rant: I really don't love when they pair a value bonus with a threat bonus. Like, maybe you could get away with just cooking up some nice card advantage for yourself, but then also your highly evasive commander decides he needs to get massive and now everyone's going to by pointing their removal at him. That said, he's potentially very strong. There are a million effects that drain opponents for 1 or ping everyone for 1 in those colors, primarily in an aristocrats shell — although spellslinger can do so as well, so you could easily storm your way through a lot of your deck pretty quickly. I really don't like decks that tend to spend endless turns churning through their decks though, so I'm not into it, and I'm not looking forward to watching someone else play it either.

Final Judgment: UGLY

The more I've looked at her, the more I like her. She's a small value piece, but she definitely has the potential to generate some nice combat-oriented value. I do think trying to make a cast-from-exile deck, especially where the commander doesn't help you do it, is fairly difficult, but at least she looks like a fun way to pay if off.

Final Judgment: GOOD

Rocco fixes a lot of the design problems in other group hug-ish commanders. He doesn't force the group hug upon anyone unlike Kynaios and Tiro, but he does incentivize buying in (especially when you know the card you'll be giving up by abstaining!). He gives you some inherent value even if nobody wants to play ball, unlike Vazi. He's not relying on really specific circumstance to be effective like Parnesse, and the payoff you get is interesting since it's not obviously strong. He takes some work to really exploit; counter synergy and artifact synergy both seem like natural fits. The cards being exiled also means everyone gets a good look at what's going down, which can create a minor Telepathy-like effect that can sow some juicy discord. Price is right, too, at just 3. I dig it.

Final Judgment: GOOD

In a multiplayer game there's a good chance someone is open to get damage through, especially since people are disincentivized from trading. And there are some ways to make a lot of tokens with haste. That said, the payoff here seems somewhat middling. Typically if you're doing a big hasty alpha strike, the thing you want is for the alpha strike to kill people, not for it to set up a future alpha strike again. That said, the cost is quite low and the body isn't bad, and likely draws you a card when played. Definitely lags behind Goro-Goro and Satoru, but I do think it's a cute, tight design that doesn't get overly fancy.

Final Judgment: BAD (regrettably)

Ah, Sarkhan, and his love of ruining good draft formats. He's obviously got a lot of overlap with other dragon commanders, though his restrictive colors make him slightly unique? I'm not surprised that he's as unpopular as he is, given that he's not naturally a dragon and has pretty middling abilities - who'd want to pay 3 and need to keep a creature on the board for the same bonus that ur-dragon gets for literally zero effort? I do like him being a temporary clone, that is somewhat interesting as a way to dish out commander damage, though dragon tribal doesn't enamor me towards the actual build.

Final Judgment: BAD

Holy cow does this feel reflective of the other green-white angel commanders — but I guess the rest of them are also Sigarda, and one Gabriel Angelfire that no one cares about. She might be a slight upgrade on Shalai, Voice of Plenty or the other sigarda versions, but she's definitely not winning any awards for being interesting or creative.

Final Judgment: BAD

Now that's a much more unique ability. While it's interesting that you can quickly turn Priest of Titania into an Impervious Greatwurm in short order, that sort of relatively slow build seems pretty mild for a deck as explosive as elves. I think more likely the deathtouch is the crucial element as a pairing for the typical craterhoof plan, with the extra counters as more of a nice bonus. I do like the uniqueness of his abilities, but unfortunately they'll be bent to the service of the same boring elfball decks that previously had to rely on the comparatively weak Lathril, Blade of the Elves, so I'm not looking forward to seeing him across the table.

Final Judgment: UGLY

Boy is that first ability a waste of text. The obvious payoff for this guy is not his potentially-slightly-larger stats, but his ability to generate a ton of extra mana. He could easily be the strongest colorless commander, given that he turns nearly every nonland in your deck (and some lands) into +1 mana, which could ramp things out very, very quickly. Whether you prefer the setup or the payoff card in the command zone is a matter of personal taste, but I'll definitely be concerned when I see him sticking around for a turn cycle.

Final Judgment: UGLY (for a colorless commander)