Welcome back to The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly - the series where we look at every new set and analyze the new potential commanders to see whether they'll be worth building. We look at their potential power, consider whether their design looks fun or interesting, and finally give them a grade based on whether they'll be good (fun to play, a positive contributor to the format) bad (weak and/or uninteresting, not worth building) or ugly (those broken commanders that make you groan when your opponent decides to play them). And sometimes we remember that we're supposed to have a western theme. Yee haw!
In keeping with the mostly-alternating cycle of universes beyond and universes within, we're heading towards the most inevitable crossover of all time with Marvel. While I haven't watched many Marvel movies in recent years, I've seen enough that I have a least a ballpark idea of what's going on, which is more than I can say for Final Fantasy or Ninja Turts. Let's just crack open the spoiler and see how many legends we're dealing with this time around. Probably quite a few with the jumpstart packs—Avatar ended up with 112 between the main set and jumpstart, and this will probably be higher thanks to commander precons. Maybe even more than Final Fantasy, which set the record with 178. So, let's rip off the band-aid. What's the number?
…
That can't be right. I must have screwed up my scryfall search. Hang on a second.
…
C'mon, that's crazy. They wouldn't actually…
…
[scrolling sounds]
…
[heavy breathing]
…
THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY TWO?
ARE THEY COMPLETELY OUT OF THEIR MINDS?
EIGHT CAPTAINS AMERICA? SEVEN IRON MEN? EIGHT HULKS?
[long sigh] Alright, there's no getting around it: this article is going to be absurdly long. But tarnation, I am committed to critiquing every legendary creature to ever see print, no matter how ridiculous that objective becomes. However, not everyone is going to be interested in reading a quarter of a novel about the legends of Magic the Gathering presents: Marvel's Marvel Super Heroes by Marvel, also starring Marvel Super Heroes Commander, which for some reason also includes jumpstart, intro decks, scene boxes, and a Marvel-branded bucket of live eels (probably). So I'll give you a quick spoiler: there are fifty-two "good" commanders, by my reckoning, which is a much more manageable number. So maybe do yourself a favor and control+F your way to the good bits. For your sanity. Mine is already forfeit.
Easy setup cost, but nevertheless not enough of a payoff to be interesting outside of limited.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
That's a pretty reasonable payoff honestly, especially for a 1-drop, but unfortunately there aren't nearly enough teamwork cards to make her interesting. I'm sure she'll be great in draft.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Pretty powerful ability here, especially on a 2-drop. Very Steel Overseer-esque. The power is definitely there, but is the support? Personally, I don't think so, especially since he doesn't buff himself. A lot of the existing white heroes are limited fodder, and while Coulson's buff is definitely efficient, it probably wants the creatures to provide some additional synergy and high card quality, which is pretty scarce with such a small card pool. If you do run him, though, don't forget champions from beyond. That card is really solid.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Much like Coulson, this doesn't have the support, though unlike Coulson, this wouldn't be very interesting even if he did. Hexproof is nice, but if you want to give hexproof to your other creatures, we've already had Shalai, Voice of Plenty for ages. The cost discount isn't worth being way narrower, mono-colored, and lacking other relevant abilities.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
It's not an awful payoff for the archetype, but I just don't think being in mono-color with a narrow tribe is a winning recipe. You'll either have a really low creature count, or run a bunch of jank and messy synergies that don't line up.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I always thought it was weird that Marvel has a superhero named after their company. Surprisingly, perhaps, that despite being mythic she's also kinda crappy here. You'd think for that much mana, you could get more than a french-vanilla beater. She's not even particularly good as a voltron, between her cost and mediocre keywords.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
You've gotta be messing with me with this name, right? His condition is light enough that, outside people attacking before casting spells, it's basically just "all your stuff has flash all the time". But I don't really think that's enough of a payoff to run a generic Serra Angel as a commander. White is a nice color for it, though, since you can flash out board wipes, though admittedly people can make this strategy less effective by attacking without casting anything. But then, if they don't do anything before combat, you'll know the threat going in, and you can always respond with normal instants. So…I guess it's not awful. You'd want to be judicious about which wipes you run to avoid pricing your commander off the field. Though the "40 asymmetrical board wipes in a trench coat" strat probably won't make you many friends.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Brigone, Soldier of Meletis does approximately the same thing, except with the option to draw instead of scry (but at the expense of losing the counter). This could be a passable aura voltron commander, but it's definitely no light-paws, emperor's voice in terms of power, and in terms of design, it's just kinda boring.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Odd design here. You need some number of other heroes to make her function, but at least you only really need one in play. From there, you need a way to repeatedly put counters on said hero, and then your payoff is a bunch of…walls…which you can maybe use walking bulwark to get them into the red zone? Yeah, that's a crazy amount of work for a pretty pathetic payoff. There's probably better stuff to do, but with three hoops to jump through before anything happens at all. I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze here, especially not for five mana. Feels like a real "challenge mode" commander.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
He's a reasonably efficient indestructible, so you can run him with some board wipes, but that's not really enough to be an interesting commander in 2026. Just run Zurgo Helmsmasher to get more colors and a much scarier statline.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Another option for a mono-white aura voltron build. More expensive, but having double strike is a pretty big game. Much like Colleen Wing, this is functional but pretty boring.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
My favorite thing about this card is that I misread the flavor text as…well, something other than "faces". But in terms of commander, this is not a commander.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
An okay etb, but not enough to be worth blinking, and the passive token bonus is pretty minor. There are many stronger token-centric white commanders.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
If you want to play a bad mother of runes as a commander, just run Pippin, Guard of the Citadel and get an extra color while removing the activation cost, and get some keywords thrown in for free.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Neat that you can target lands with this. That said, trying to shut people down by tapping their permanents at a rate of one per spell sounds impossible. Maybe with static orb or similar? But if I'm going to piss off everyone at once, I think I'd rather have a stronger commander.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I love having these conditional effects face-up in the command zone so my opponents know not to walk into them!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
The neat thing about the Sentry is that his downside becomes a potentially potent upside in multiplayer. Since he has vigilance, whoever you give the Void token to is motivated to attack elsewhere, meaning he essentially deals twice as much damage. Blink him a couple times, and everyone is swinging voids around and whittling down life totals. As far as a voltron option, he's a lot more efficient than Captain Marvel, but still ultimately a bit boring I feel. And voltron doesn't synergize well with giving out his tokens, which will be dealing non-commander damage. Plus, the strategy is risky - if he gets removed, the Void tokens will potentially be swinging right back in your face. Overall, I think he's a cute design and an interesting build, but probably not a very strong one.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
ETB commanders are always a hard sell for me, and this etb isn't nearly interesting enough to bother trying to blink.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Attuma is a pretty potent lord for merfolk, giving both a stat bump and a potentially major source of card advantage, up to three per turn cycle. Merfolk are generally not the best tribe in commander, being a generally low-to-the-ground aggro deck in other formats, but lacking the explosive numbers of goblins. And I think some other merfolk commanders do a better job of shoring up their weaknesses. That said, Attuma is fine if you want a really straightforward merfolk commander, and he'll definitely get played in the 99 for other merfolk commanders.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Basically Gogo, Master of Mimicry but only able to copy once, and only abilities from creatures, in exchange for a 1-mana discount. Gogo ended up being somewhat middling within FIN, and this seems significantly less interesting, so I doubt it'll see much play. Looking through Gogo lists, I don't think there's anything that goes better here than it does with him. Still, it'll probably see more 99 play than most uncommons.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This does nothing in commander. Token is even legendary, so blinking to make more doesn't work.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Looks great for limited, but for commander a below-rate beater that can sometimes draw a card isn't really enough.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
We've had similar commanders before in Galazeth Prismari and IUrza, Lord High Artificer. What does Ironheart offer that they don't? Well…not much, frankly. She's serviceable, but only really makes sense if you want Urza-lite.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Looks great for limited, but does nothing in commander. Awkwardness bonus points for having a slowly growing threat that you also want to blink.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I have a pretty strong knee-jerk reaction to extra turns in the command zone. 8 mana is pretty hefty cost, so it's not exactly overpowered, and the body is otherwise pretty boring. In reality I expect he'll see very little play, and probably mostly just as a mediocre value piece, so giving him an "ugly" feels disingenuous. I don't like his design, but I don't think I'll actually groan when I see him. I'll probably think "this guy must really like this character, because otherwise I don't know why you'd bother".
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
He grows way to slowly, funny enough. And the hexproof thing takes a lot of setup when you could just run Kira, Great Glass-Spinner or something.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Are you for real with this name? Most generic character ever conceived by man. That said, he's actually fairly strong as a draw engine, basically providing Shorikai, Genesis Engine card draw without the activation cost. There isn't a ton of other connive worth running, but as a standalone it's still pretty dang strong, and it can even grow to eventually become a threat, given enough time. I don't expect him to be a popular commander since the synergy is minimal and it's mono-color, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think this guy is pretty powerful if you want a mono-blue control deck.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
I might be missing something, but from what I can see, there are no free activations available in mono-blue (like nomads en-kor in white), but there are still a lot of ways to draw cards efficiently off this guy. shuko draws an easy card, and artificial evolution can draw quite a few, plus any creature removal you're using comes with a built-in cantrip. Even relic of progenitus can give you a free draw. For just a 2-drop, that's a lot of draw power, even if he doesn't do much else. I don't think he's quite at the "ugly" threshold without a free way to trigger him, but he's definitely no slouch.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
I thought that ability was pretty overpowered back when it was on Marneus Calgar, and now it's on a 4 mana uncommon. Realistically, I think Calgar is still stronger because of his additional colors - blue isn't a strong token color. In fact, the most played blue token-creating cards create them for your opponent. Probably the most reliable source of token generation is Talrand, Sky Summoner and his derivatives, but a 2-card combo to create an archmage emeritus isn't THAT crazy. For an uncommon, I do think he's quite powerful, but not so strong that I think he'll invoke groans.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
I guess you could do an aura voltron here, but blue is one of the weaker colors for that sort of build. With the right combination of evasion and curiosity variants, though, it might be a solid rogue build. Alternatively, you can just run some random targeting cantrips like enter the enigma to get a 1-mana divination while making your commander a solid beater. Either option, or a combination, seems like a decent build, and blue provides the best tools to hold down the fort. I think I managed to talk myself into it.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Pretty crazy that, on top of an already very strong token-producing ability, Namor is also a very plausible lethal attacker for only 3 mana. Why does someone who swims have the ability to fly, anyway? Especially in blue, this seems very dangerous to let live, since it will be easily making several tokens per turn while also controlling the board and the stack, and turning itself into a lethal threat. Personally I think generating that much value while doing the stuff blue wanted to do anyway is going to be pretty aggravating to play against, and coming down on 3 makes it all the scarier. I'm not going to lie, there's a chance I will build this guy, because generating value while doing control stuff is one of my favorite pastimes, but I don't expect my opponents will be having much fun.
Final Judgment: Ugly
Final Judgment: Ugly
This will surely show up in the 99 in other decks,but as a standalone it's not very compelling. Being a tap ability and only lasting until end of turn makes her activated ability pretty limited, and while the cost discount is more potent and generically useful, it's also not very interesting, and we've seen similar effects before with splashier upsides (like urza, lord protector).
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Is that actually her name? Imagine calling yourself that. Anyway, she can get in one unblockable hit I guess, which will be a cute trick for limited, but it's not really interesting enough for commander.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Displacer Kitten got a couple downgrades to get turned into a commander, which is probably for the best. Not returning the blinked permanent immediately cuts down on a lot of the shenanigans that kitten is capable of, but gives some added potential to play around board wipes. What's really interesting is that Wiccan can also target enemy permanents, which has the potential to blank attacks, remove blockers, or even trigger enemy ETBs for political shenanigans. This seems like a fun, straightforward design with a lot of potential angles to shoot from. I'm into it.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Like other pseudo-removal commanders, this might see 99 play, but isn't nearly interesting enough to run in the command zone.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
3 mana is way too much for a small token. Next!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I was strongly leaning towards rating Zemo "ugly", until I remembered that "boast" isn't just flavor text. While it's relatively easy to get enough stuff in your grave to activate him either discard or mill, he still needs to survive a turn to pull it off. And it's also worth keeping in mind that black isn't blue, and there's no Expropriate or Enter the Infinite to worry about. Getting a free Zodiark, Umbral God on turn 3 is powerful, but it's not instant game over. While there are some game-winning combinations, putting it together reliably probably takes some degree of setup cost. Stack that on top of surviving long enough to attack, and I think he'll be a tolerable, if powerful, commander.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Eventually maybe villains will be a reasonable tribe, but it's not now, and Strucker isn't enough of a payoff to make him interesting even if it was.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Surprisingly weak for a mythic and name-brand Avenger. Having options is nice, but paying full mv for an opponents card is way too unreliable in a format where most decks are highly synergistic, and a single +1 counter is way too slow of a growth plan (Super Shredder a few sets ago absolutely laps her). And for that matter, menace is a pretty weak form of evasion. You could voltron her up to be harder to block, but I don't see the point when her saboteur trigger is so weak.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
More terrible villain tribal support! This guy is even worse than Strucker. Even if he triggered every turn with no setup cost, he'd still be bad.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
For a 6-drop, this doesn't really do that much. It puts a decent amount of stats on the board, and indestructibility is nice and all, but in terms of ongoing value, all you really get is a phyrexian arena (though at least it triggers on endstep). Arena is still a decent card, and having it in the command zone would be some nice reliability, but for 6? Hard pass. And while his ETB is reasonably strong, black isn't the best at trying to blink him for additional value. You could combine fake your own death-type recursion with sac outlets, but that's a lot of effort for a modest payoff, especially when you also need to ramp him out.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I kinda thought hands not being able to have children was half the point, but what do I know. Even in the 99 this is a weak option, and in the command zone, it's just terrible. The most interesting thing about this card is that her last name sounds like one of my favorite foods.
Final Judgment: Almost as bad as her movie (I didn't see it)
Final Judgment: Almost as bad as her movie (I didn't see it)
Kinda similar to Isareth, the Awakener, except you always pay 4 instead of the cost, the creature enters attacking, and it has a much worse body. Isareth isn't strong, and this isn't either. If you want a more reliable reanimation tool, there are plenty that don't force you into the red zone. That said, for an uncommon, this is somewhat reasonable, and the creature entering attacking gives it a fairly unique selling point over others, even if it's not really enough.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Limited fodder.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Almost interesting until you notice she costs 5 mana. Limited fodder.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
These guys don't really master anything. For 6 mana you'd hope for a much stronger anthem, especially for a narrow tribe like villains in mono-black. And the most interesting part of the card isn't even practically usable.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This card is interesting, but man I don't want to look at that art any longer than necessary. Being able to pay life for card selection is a pretty huge deal, especially since he helps you gain it back, and the passive debuff to your opponents creatures can suppress a lot of decks. That said, 3 life for a loot is hardly necropotence efficiency, so you probably need some kind of plan to ensure you don't pay 30 life, hit a land pocket, and die—especially if you're relying on your commander to recover your life, and he gets hit with removal. This is definitely a deck that wants lightning greaves. Besides that, cards that trigger on life payment and losing life are strong options, and you might even consider the lich family of cards if you're feeling spicy. This feels like an interesting build, so long as you can stomach looking at it.
Final Judgment: Good (but art-wise, ugly)
Final Judgment: Good (but art-wise, ugly)
Most similar to Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer, but less interesting since it doesn't let you change normal timing rules. Still a decent option for a discard deck, but pretty vanilla.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Ronin really is the king of abilities that look interesting right up until the last line. The mana ability would probably be busted without the once-per-turn clause, but only allowing equipment cost would definitely make him interesting. Only getting 2 mana for equipment is something I guess, but not enough to make using a vanilla 3/3 as an equipment commander. And then the sacrifice option is an okay removal tool, but making it sorcery speed kills my interest. Plus being a tap ability makes it way harder to do the equipment thing while using it at all. I guess he's an uncommon, but still, disappointing. Remove some of his restrictions and he might have been cool.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
"Another"? Seriously? There's no way you're jamming random villains into your voltron deck to cheat equip costs, so we're left with the attack trigger. It's not enough.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I'll admit he's a hell of an upgrade from the days when people jammed voltron Isamaru, Hound of Konda. But he's still pretty crap. Dealing a bunch of noncombat life loss is a bit of a nonbo with an archetype that wins via commander damage, and black is the wrong color to try to do some sort of "all the cheap equipment" + Sram, Senior Edificer storm build.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Absolutely not.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This guy just seems like a troll, trying to single-handedly make stone rain a viable strategy in commander. There aren't a ton of benign targeting spells in red that will trigger him, though I suppose if you run a bunch of artifact creatures you could cast crimson wisps and company, which is probably the way to go rather than rely on your opponents to be running artifacts. Whether going land destruction is actually worthwhile is questionable, both because of the multiplayer aspect and because people will start trying to kill you as quickly as possible, but honestly? I don't hate having a troll commander like this in the format, and giving a boost to targeted land destruction is an amusing way to do it.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
There's a lot of words that add up to nothing here. None of these abilities is impactful enough to matter, and while tapping a creature is fairly easy to do, there's really no reason to bother.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Honestly a pretty solid effect, albeit one with a lot of overlap with Torbran, Thane of Red Fell and Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might. Unlike Torbran, she can grow beyond 2 damage (but only applies to noncombat damage), and unlike Ojer Axonil she applies to damage dealt to creatures, and has better synergy with already-high sources of damage (but doesn't have Ojer's God tricks). Considering she's an uncommon and those are two very powerful and popular commanders, I think she's shooting well above expectations.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
This really does nothing. You need to run a bunch of other random heroes for that extremely mediocre ability? You think they could have at least gone with "each opponent". And 7 mana for the power-up? Ew. No.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Another mediocre uncommon, though at least more interesting than human torch. Turning a brute force into a 5-damage lightning bolt is…fine, but it's not exactly incredible in the context of commander. You could add in some ways to untap him and maybe eventually achieve something meaningful, but there are much more efficient ways to deal direct damage and/or kill stuff. Points for trying, at least, which is more than we can say for torch.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
On her own, she's not awful. Basically Phyrexian Arena efficiency draw. She is somewhat vanilla, and I doubt she'll see much play, but if I'm putting my objective reviewer hat on, she's pretty easy to turn into a premium card drawing engine. One piece of equipment and she's providing a ton of value. The downside of needing to cast the spells this turn is an issue, though, particularly since you'll often want to spend mana to buff her power before activation. For that reason, I think she misses "good", but honestly she's not far off.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I can see why he doesn't go by his last name often. Honestly I kinda dig him, though, copying spells can obviously be very powerful, so getting in the command zone for just 2 mana is shockingly efficient. Whether you want to focus on small spells to use him reliably, or plan to boost his power to copy heavier-hitters, is an interesting build decision. He's naturally a bit limited in red, but just off the cuff, he can easily copy all of the 2 mana "discard a card to draw 2" spells to generate a lot of CA. Not bad for a Goblin Piker.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
In a similar vein to Jones, Knight is an efficient red card advantage engine at uncommon. Red has a fair amount of synergy for discard, among them the wheel effects that will let Misty generate a pretty stupid amount of draw, and ways to turn discards into damage. I don't think we've seen a better enabler for that archetype within mono-red, so Misty looks like a very viable commander.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Pretty funny that his discount ability only saves you one mana. Not exactly the usual leyline efficiency. Overall he's not a very impactful card, and while double strike is a valuable ability, five is too much to pay considering he doesn't do much until then. It does occur to me, looking at him, that I'm surprised they didn't word power-up to include command tax, so that when he gets recast for the second time he gets to power up for free, which would at least keep him somewhat efficient. As-is, he's RDW standard fodder at best—I probably wouldn't even play him in limited.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
He's cute with Pyrohemia, but for a 6-drop he takes a lot of setup to actually get going. There's something here, but it's far too inefficient for my tastes.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Shadow hanging over scarlet witch's head is Vadrik, Astral Archmage. He's got one less power, but applies to all instants and sorceries, gives access to blue, and has a nifty self-growing ability (albeit one that's often difficult to trigger). Her only real upside is that she starts with 1 extra power. So while she's not exactly weak, I don't see much reason to play her over Vadrik.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
What?
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
As a longtime Kaervek the Merciless player, I can attest that people really don't like having their creatures constantly sniped when spells get played. With that deck, I offloaded the responsibility by having the person casting the spell choose the target, but Thor offers no clear way to abdicate responsibility, and telegraphing a removal machine is definitely going to draw a lot of removal and probably some groans. He does at least provide some nice ETB value even if he dies right away, and I do think he's a flavorful design, but as a general rule I think he's going to create a lot of frustration at most tables.
Final Judgment: Ugly
Final Judgment: Ugly
There are only 12 power-up cards in red, and most of them suck. Call me in 20 years.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This isn't half bad for an uncommon. Starting off as a gilded lotus isn't the worst, and while the counter boost looks like other hardened scales effects we've seen before, it also applies to other types of counters, notably loyalty counters. This lets you immediately ult Nissa, Vital Force, or get other walkers into ult range much more quickly. Considering he costs five, this still seems a bit anemic, but expectations are low here. Not great, but definitely playable.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Not sure why it doesn't just have undying, but if you ever wanted strangeroot geist as a commander for some reason…now you've got it.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Even for limited this looks pretty boring.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Wooooow. No.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Playing lands off the top is nice, but 5 mana is way too much for it, and the token isn't enough to make up the difference, particularly when it doesn't deal commander damage.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Honestly not a bad value engine. For limited.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Quite the power creep on Ramunap Excavator, a card that's still quite strong. Just for sacrificing a few stat points, you get a strong landfall trigger, and the option to put this into the command zone. I don't think the mill effect is too meaningful, since one fetchland generally gives you all the lands to recur you'd ever want, but maybe some versions will want to get extra value from the grave. The biggest restriction here is the color identity, but green does house most of the "play extra lands" cards, which will be a top priority here. Add in some overrun-style wincons, and the deck practically builds itself.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Neither of these options is remotely interesting at that price. And they only last until end of turn? Ick.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Somewhat reasonable rate on the draw, but for pidgeonholing the build to enchantments (don't even kid yourself about heroes), we can do a lot better.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Weird guy that I've never heard of in the mythic slot. Giving pseudo-haste can be deceptively powerful with mana dorks, so I'm not saying there's nothing here, but there's also not enough to make me interested. I'm sure you could make a decent mana dork deck, but it's not like it'll compare to Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Indrik Stomphowler as a commander. Yawn.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
The most important thing I want on my expensive beater is the ability to get even bigger when I'm already successfully hitting my opponent. In case it wasn't obvious, that was sarcasm—this card is boring, terrible, and win-more.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
We've seen a lot of Ajani's Pridemate commanders in white, but not in mono-green. So this would almost be interesting, except we've already seen Trelessara, Moon Dancer, who does the same thing but better and with more colors.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Any commander that can go exponential just on its own is a serious threat, and squirrel girl only needing mana (in green) makes her even scarier. If the game goes late enough for her to have 12 mana, which can happen quickly for a dedicated ramp deck, she can turn a couple squirrels into a lethal army in a couple turns, even with no other support. In other words, you either need to price her off the field when her deck is dedicated to ramping, or you need to remove her controller from the game, or you're going to get flooded in squirrels and lose. That kind of dynamic just isn't fun imo. The fact that she can do it all just makes her too obnoxious and hard to disrupt.
Final Judgment: Ugly
Final Judgment: Ugly
That's a very unimpressive god. Have you met Purphoros, God of the Forge? Now THAT'S a god.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This guy seems like he should have stronger stats. In terms of limited, he's probably pretty good, but for commander, a one-time removal spell is not remotely worth seven mana.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
A neat card, but not something I think makes too much sense in the command zone. If you're casting something yourself for him to copy, you'll need to wait a turn before he can copy it, plus you've already paid full price for it. Much more interesting to copy enemy bombs and use them before they get the chance, but that's generally too situational to want to build a deck around. He's neat, but he's not really commander material.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Not the worst token generator, but nothing to write home about when his ceiling is 4 tokens per turn cycle. And the attack trigger is pretty weak considering he personally must attack, and you need to spend mana on top.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Neat trigger here, but that forced attack is a bummer. You can recast him if he dies, granted, but that's really going to slow things down, and a 4/3 isn't attacking very safely for very long. It would honestly be better if it said every other creature you control needs to attack, since you're probably only running things you plan to attack relentlessly with. Probably the best options are nice ETB critters, which combined with a sac outlet let you do a sort of rakdos-blink strategy. That's admittedly pretty mana-intensive, so I don't think it's overly powerful, but I do think it's a neat design, so I'm feeling generous.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
As a standalone, this seems pretty slow and disruptable. Even if you're supplementing with Brainstorm and the like, getting his counters high enough with draw will probably be tricky. I think it's best to use draw a way to jump-start his numbers, and then start using counter-doublers like solidarity of heroes to get his numbers properly huge. From there, you've got the usual overrun suspects to finish the game. This seems like a reasonable concise strategy, especially since draw is something you want anyway, and the reliability of getting him down on turn 2 is great. It's definitely vulnerable to disruption if he gets removed when you're not prepared to pop him, but you are in blue, so you ought to be able to protect him and hold mana up.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Nothing of interest here. There's plenty of better saboteur commanders and the flying is barely worth the effort.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Another hero tribal commander that doesn't sell me. Costing 4 gives him a slow start, and while going wide and then buffing the team is generally a reasonable plan, I don't think he does either efficiently enough to really carry the deck.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Very rough to block, but that's about it. She'd be better in green with lure effects.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
You can sac eggs to get extra value from the sacrifice, but once you've paid 3 mana, no shot you're getting an efficient rate for whatever benefit you're getting.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I gotta dock some points from the design because I find this kind of punished blocking to be kind of silly. It reads like you're going to keep hitting them, but in reality it's just "unblockable" unless you have some way to force a block or otherwise deal damage, or unless they have enough power to kill him. He does go infinite with Caltrops, though just hitting him with so low-grade burn spells is probably enough to close out a game with combat damage, so he's definitely not something you want to let your opponents untap with unless you're holding an answer. He'd already be very powerful, but then on top of that, he has a front half which provides a reasonably efficient CA engine, and a way to distribute his commander tax when recasting him. He's doesn't have much downside and he's very threatening, but I do think a 6-drop without haste is probably still fair enough in 2026.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Dionus, Elvish Archdruid is a very nasty commander, so my initial read on this guy is that he could be quite powerful considering he applies to all creatures and costs 1 less. But after perusing the tap-ability creatures within his colors, I'm less convinced. There are some solid cards, but there's not a very coherent theme running through them, like the huge number of mana dorks that Dionus can run. Activating mother of runes for free on your turn is nice I guess, but it's doesn't fit with Will, Scion of Peace or Emry, Lurker of the Loch. Possibly there's some coherent plan that can be cobbled together from this, but my overall impression is that the colors don't have the right options to make this work. Still, I think it's a worthy endeavor to try.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Starts strong, but then it's just an o-ring in the command zone. Lame. Can't even get value from blink.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
We've seen a couple commanders with this exact cost that impulse-draw one card per turn, and Bell Borca, Spectral Seargent doesn't require you to attack for it. The only thing Daredevil can do than you can't already get is a slightly bigger body, but needing to attack is a significant cost, and running heroes in a deck trying to red-zone its commander every turn sounds like a mess.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
That…exists. I guess.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Obvious limited fodder. That discount will only apply to a couple cards, and those cards will still suck.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
He's a decent beater and an ok card draw engine, so you could definitely do worse. That said, he's not the most interesting, and there are plenty of higher-impact artifact commanders in RU that offer more unique build-arounds.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I'm immediately predisposed to hate anything that restricts interaction. But the back half of the card is pretty interesting, turning your fight spells into double-hitters, or having your tokens fight giant enemy creatures and throw the damage back in their face (or their controller's face). And while the lack of interaction is lame, it is nice that you aren't forced to fire off a prey upon into enemy swords to plowshares mana. I'll give her a pass this time, but I'd still be pretty wary around her in case she's just a smokescreen for a combo.
Final Judgment: Good (but on probation)
Final Judgment: Good (but on probation)
This doesn't really do anything.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Even if the sacrifice was completely free, he's still just a statted-up Ravenous Chupacabra. Next!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Both sides of this are pretty solid, and provide a reasonable card advantage option for a control deck. Notably on the front side, he triggers off your own second draw, so casting a cantrip on your turn will draw 2 cards, and brainstorm on an enemy turn will draw an extra card. Interestingly, this means the front half is capable of drawing more cards than the back, and while the back half is a reasonable wincon, the body is small enough to get brickwalled by a lot of board states, so I suspect the front half will be more compelling to build around, with the back half as more of a late-game option. It is unfortunate that transforming is sorcery-only, considering both halves have flash, but I guess they didn't want to deviate from the pattern with the rest of the cycle.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Doran, the Siege Tower has been rehashed a dozen times by now, and this version doesn't seem particularly exciting. He doesn't let defenders attack, he doesn't have green, and he only works on offense, with the only substantive upsides being that he has extort, and that he's somewhat less vulnerable to interaction since the trigger will persist even if he's removed. That's not nearly enough to make him interesting in my book.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Much like the uncommon black panther was for heroes, this isn't a good enough reason to go into villain tribal.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I don't 100% understand what's going on here. One one hand, she's a blink commander. On the other hand, she's doing a puresteel paladin equipment thing. Those seem like almost completely disjoint strategies, but I guess if you blink a spare piece of equipment you can lying around, you get a draw out of it? Either way, for a 3-drop she's got a lot going on, especially considering she's a 3/3 flyer to start with. Whether you focus on equipment or on ETBs, she seems like a very serviceable option, even if she's not as aggressive as cheaper or double-striking voltron commanders.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
The front side is an efficient but uninteresting beater, which I doubt will ever actually get cast. The back side, on the other hand, is pretty gnarly. Red and white both have lots of ways to make tokens using noncreature spells, so this pretty quickly starts looking like a Cathar's Crusade in the command zone. That would already make this very strong, but having hexproof is a huge boost that will make the deck much more reliable (though still vulnerable to board wipes, so prepare accordingly). And on top of all that, she's reasonably capable of a commander damage kill on her own. She's borderline ugly, but I think costing five plus being combat-centric keeps her from being completely oppressive. Still, not a commander to take lightly.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Even by Marvel standards, this seems pretty goofy. As a commander, it's not awful—with fairly minimal setup, it's a pretty efficient body, and it also provides some card advantage. This isn't a terrible voltron option, but I think you can find other commanders that are more effective at providing value if you're suiting them up properly. The main advantage this card has is that it continues to generate CA even when it's not getting into combat, which lets it play a bit more passively. It's fine, but nothing to write home about.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Five mana to get a permanent into play is usually a good rate, but I think the type restriction here makes it mediocre. There aren't many things within those types that cost more than 7, and while dropping Parhelion II into play for 5 is a great deal, not being able to activate it more than once without some sort of blink quickly makes the efficiency a lot less interesting, plus your deck will need to be full of expensive clunky cards that doesn't synergize strongly—you'll probably want to focus primarily on heroes since they have more built-in synergy. Obviously a 5c commander can never be terrible, but I don't think Nick is really the payoff a 5c hero deck wants. At best he's just a minor utility dork in his own deck. You may point out "but cEDH loves him because he's a 1-drop that lets you build 5c while enabling your free spells!", and I will point out that this is incontrovertible evidence that cEDH is a joke format.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
All these abilities are very minor, with the exception of the symmetrical sacrifice. But having a fleshbag marauder in the command zone isn't very compelling imo, especially when it doesn't work off reanimation. There's really nothing to like here.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I feel like this guy just has to be good. He's only 2 mana, and he lets you copy abilities for free? Off the dome, copying sword triggers is pretty sweet, or once you get to big mana, you can go absolutely ham with Portal to Phyrexia. His restriction is significant, so his power can drop off unless you find a way to blink him, but he's so open-ended that I feel like there are going to be lots of ways to build him for various power levels.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Between the obnoxious ward and being a pseudo-grave pact in the command zone, this looks pretty obnoxious to play against. I don't think it's necessarily overly strong, since deathtouchers are a pretty narrow band of creatures, and a rare breed of token, so a go-wide deck can probably outpace this pretty easily. But I still see this creating a lot of frustrating games, so I think the ugly pile is the only place for it to go.
Final Judgment: Ugly
Final Judgment: Ugly
Cuter than it looks, since he's basically hexproof, and gets a free +2/+2 whenever you cast a targeted spell. That said, he's still basically just a beater, so the ceiling on his power is low.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Are you in the right set? Didn't we get enough spider-people by now? Anyway, this is clearly limited fodder.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I originally wrote that snarky joke about spider-man for this card, but since spider-man goes first alphabetically I just copied it up above. Anyway, same joke applies here.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
An odd design, basically just preventing your opponents flyers from interacting with you in combat. The triggered ability seems pretty mediocre, since it's a bit clunky to use on enemy creatures (why not just use removal?) and isn't enough to be worth synergizing for your own creatures when you could just run some flyers. It feels like a narrow hate card, and those rarely make interesting commanders.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Kenrith, the Returned King version 2. For the most part, this guy seems significantly weaker. For a start, his mana cost is a lot harder to pull off, and his abilities are more expensive and often less effective. What he is good at, is really annoying your friends with commanders that have 4 or less toughness, and drawing a ton of cards provided you can afford 6 mana per turn. He's still a 5-color commander with relevant abilities, so he can't exactly be bad, but he can be very boring. And so he is.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
As far as clones go, this one is pretty versatile, copying anything on the field or the grave. Personally I've always felt that copying your own battlefield is the least interesting thing to copy, since you've already gone to the trouble to get the copied thing into play, whereas the grave you can exploit with discard or mill, and enemy battlefields you can poach the rewards of their spells. It's also worth noting that he plays nicely with any legends you might copy, which provides some extra options. Personally I'm a sucker for clones, so I'm probably overrating him, but I do think the ability to continually choose the best targets makes him an intriguing option.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Extinction Event is a pretty mid board wipe, so paying 6 mana for it is a bit of a tough sell, especially since being in the command zone means people will play around it as much as possible. Having a lifelink deathtouch body leftover is something I guess, but personally it's not enough to excite me about the possibility of having an overpriced board wipe in the command zone.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
He'd be a passable spell-voltron commander if he was smaller and cost less.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Slightly overstatted limited fodder.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
The front half pales in comparison to Bruce Banner, but in much the same way, the back half is where the action is. And while it's definitely action, it's the kind of action I generally dislike, namely cheating things into play. Which means that, instead of running fun value equipment like Umezawa's Jitte or Sword of the Animus, you're going to be cheating in Blightsteel colossus and Aettir and Priwen so you can start OTKing people on turn 4. I particularly detest this type of design because your opponents have to guess how abusive your deck is before letting you go to combat without removing your commander, which either forces them to hate you off the table or risk getting blown out by some absurd mega-bomb like Portal to Phyrexia. Either way, someone's not having a good time.
Final Judgment: Ugly
Final Judgment: Ugly
It's a 4/4 for 4 with extra steps.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This thing is a 1/3? If you say so. Anyway, this is limited fodder.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This is a very aggressively-slanted voltron option. While there are a fair number of double-strikers that will get a similar boost to damage from equipment, Winter Soldier having menace and a recursion ability makes him a good option if you're less interested in getting value and more interested in dealing lethal quickly. In a commander game, personally I think the value route is the better option, but I do think he provides an interesting alternative.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Weird ability, and not very good either. Basically he just needs to die in one hit to damage, and he can kill something small-ish on etb. Looks like a house in draft, and trash in commander.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Trying to build a colorless deck of legendary creatures sounds like an absurd level of challenge. What's more plausible is the ability to accrue keyword counters, even from enemy creatures, which is interesting. Notably it does exclude hexproof, but you could still plausibly make this guy a pretty potent beater with some equipment support. However, if you're going to go the equipment route, there's no need to muck around with the keyword counters, and definitely no reason to restrict yourself to colorless.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
As far as colorless commanders, this is probably about as good as it gets. Copying most of the spells in your deck for a mere 2 mana is a pretty great rate, and while turning them into creatures does make them easier to interact with, it does also provide you with an army to threaten people with. I'm still not completely sold on mono-brown, but this lets you do all the things you were already doing, but twice as much. That's pretty strong.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This would be so much more interesting with a color. As-is, the indestructible is very hard to trigger on enemy turns for protection or to draw, so this is mostly just a beater that draws a card once per turn cycle so long as you're playing noncreature artifacts, which you probably are. I'll probably consider this for the 99 in some places, but as a commander it's too limited.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Way too much effort for a Phyrexian Arena, and I hate playing colorless.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Not a big enough discount to run a glorified Serra Angel as a commander.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
No.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
That qualifies as a mythic? Sheesh.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I do like that first line of text, but white is a tough spot for it, and being only a 3/3 makes truly abusing him require a source of indestructible. At that point, it's just not worth the effort. And the power-up ability is overpriced crap.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This would be pretty solid except that Sergeant John Benton already does the same thing, except with haste, another color, and the ability to scale up with extra damage. I generally think this sort of thing is fun design, but there's really no reason to play her over her superior predecessor.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Definitely not.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
We've had a couple equipment tutor commanders at this point, and while Cap can't hit the ground as quickly as Cloud, Midgar Mercenary, tutoring the equipment into play makes him a much more interesting blink target, and making tokens is a nice defensive tool.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Having global indestructible in the command zone is pretty nice, particularly in white where you can run a bunch of board wipes. Avacyn, Angel of Hope is the best known, but she costs eight, and is vulnerable to a well-time exile in a way that this Cap is not. He does have competition in Ultra Magnus, Tactician who has more colors, but Ultra Magnus is a bit more niche since he needs to run artifact creatures or else get permanently stuck face-up after a big attack. And the global +1 counters from Cap aren't nothing either. I don't think he's amazing, but for a go-wide board wipe commander, he's pretty reasonable.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Wow, it's kinda like the previous version, except it sucks!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Pretty boring etb, and Telegraphed from the command zone. Could be used proactively with your own board wipe, but adding 4 mana plus the cost of the wipe makes that very slow, and much weaker than the skybound Cap variant. Can't see any reason to play this.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This is a powerful effect, but seven mana is just too much. To reasonably get it onto the field, you'd need enough ramp that you'll start significantly cutting down on your synergy pieces. Not unplayable, but not worth going mono-color for.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I guess when she's not being Thor, her day job is being trash.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
You know…let me just go ahead and put "F F Bad" on my clipboard. I feel like I'm going to need it a lot.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Rhox Faithmender is a fairly popular lifegain card, so having it in the command zone makes sense. The buff is fairly easy to achieve and a decent payoff for the cost, though it does make him more niche since he really wants a lifegain deck that's also going wide.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Gods really aren't too impressive in the Marvel universe. My man dies to a Goblin Grenade. Also he doesn't do anything. To the clipboard!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
What an exciting fantasy game we're playing. This is just Mangara, the Diplomat without the good part. Clippy, hit it!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Very similar to Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin except that he's one turn behind, but makes fliers and he's white. While he doesn't have the same level of tribal synergies as Krenko, making fliers is a big game, and while provides better equipment support to boost his numbers too, so I think he makes the cut.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Say it with me, kids!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I can't HEAR you!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This guy is a general and he dies when he gets blocked by Foggy Nelson. Aight.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
He attacks and he blocks. That's about it. I'm not burning removal for a "scry 1".
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
It exists.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
If I wanted this effect, I'd run Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer so at least he works on blocks and has an etb. And I still don't really like Anti-Venom either.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Strong effect, but not something I'm going to run a 7-mana mono-color commander for considering it doesn't help you win the game. It's a strong defensive card, but he'll either get removed before the big attack or you'll die to chip damage, most likely the former.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Paying for the counters? Only ward 1? Nah.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Like Hercules much worse.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
There's a lot going on here that it's easy to miss. You get a draw, plus cheat the cost, plus get indestructible. Attacking alone is a fairly easy cost, but you'll probably either want some evasives, indestructibles, or chump fodder to ensure you're not throwing anything important away. My biggest question is how exactly you win here. Getting a nice flow of cards and mana is great, but if we're filling the deck with small creatures, don't we want to swing a bit wider? I guess you can save up the bodies for a big alpha strike later in the game, but it does feel a bit slow. I think Nick is probably pretty borderline, where he could be an interesting build or he might not quite get there. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt because I like playing white weenies, but I wouldn't expect him to function higher than low-mid bracket 3.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
This guy is brighter than a disco ball.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
One of the cheapest ways to get indestructible on your commander, which does make it a semi-reasonable option for a board wipe voltron. Still, probably better off with Arwen, Immortal Queen or Tegan Jovanka.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
We just saw The Mighty Thor, Jane Foster, why would you play this?
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Oof, that is weak for a 5-drop. It'll shut some decks down, but even go-wide decks should have ways to buff their team and kill you. And as long as anyone can take away the monarch, you're defenseless again, with a commander that only does defense. And it doesn't even protect your planeswalkers to give you a way to accrue value from your defenses.
Final Judgment: bad
Final Judgment: bad
Not worth 5 mana.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Not worth 0 mana.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Hey, it's Momo, Rambunctious Rascal!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
What is the point of this card existing?
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Not complete garbage, but we've seen basically the same thing before, like Celestine, the Living Saint who offers more flexibility and bonus lifegain.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Exalted is a trash keyword, change my mind.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
He attack, he block, he suck.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
…Are we being serious right now? This seems kinda crazy, doesn't it? With pretty minimal requirements, this card starts going exponential on turn 3, while becoming immune to any remove short of a board wipe (and we're in blue to counter those). This seems like an absolute nightmare to play against tbh. Kinda fun, but…yeah…
Final Judgment: Ugly
Final Judgment: Ugly
Fundamentally garbage!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Is this dude's actual name "Happy"? Don't tell me, I don't care.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Noting that it doesn't cast for free, this seems pretty weak. It's basically just impulse drawing a card from your graveyard, conditionally and when you attack with a pretty weak attacker. If it cheated the cost it might get there (considering you also have to work around his power, that seems pretty fair to me) but while paying for it, this is a nope.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Restricting the ability to only work on noncreatures seems like a smart nerf to prevent him going infinite with pemmin's aura and freed from the real, but I think he still ends up being busted. There's so many ways to untap him with spells, including some that cantrip. The real question is how doable getting him started is: a Timetwister would probably be the optimal choice, budget aside. Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix hasn't really put up huge numbers, but there's a big difference between colorless and blue mana. But whether or not Immortus ends up being a consistent game-winner, I'd expect his deck to be a linear combo build, which rarely leads to fun games, especially with non-deterministic combos like this.
Final Judgment: Ugly
Final Judgment: Ugly
This is the closest we've had to mirage mirror in the command zone, one of my all-time favorite cards. The 3-mana activation cost and being locked into mono-blue (compared to Shameless Charlatan, another similar commander option) are definite knocks, but that's not enough to stop me from liking this card. He's pretty open-ended as far as deckbuilding options, so I don't think there's any particular correct way to build him.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
It's Lyla, Holographic Assistant with a little flying bonus. Goes infinite with Benthic Biomancer...otherwise it's pretty boring.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Little pricey at 5, but still, this is a very powerful effect with a lot of versatile options. Voltron, ETB value, or just getting extra value from your solemn simulacrum are all reasonable approaches. I don't think he's incredible (certainly a weaker voltron than Arna Kennerud, Skycaptain) but the versatility makes him an interesting build.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
The artifacts becoming creatures permanently makes this significantly more interesting, as does triggering the turn he comes down. I don't think there are many artifacts I'd be particularly excited to transform, so most likely the objective here is to use treasures, eggs, etc to make your 5/5s for the lowest cost possible. He does build a threatening army quite quickly, so I think that puts him into good standing.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Pretty boring for a mythic. Anthem and a card draw if you build all artifact creatures, which seems pretty weak.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Not really enough good heroes in mono-blue, and even if there were, this is a pretty meh payoff.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
"Inhuman" is weird. Besides that, this is I guess a cheaper but conditional Zhuge Jin, Wu Strategist? I'm not impressed.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
We've seen this sort of effect before on cards like Nanogene Conversion, but not in the command zone. That definitely opens up some crazy options when you can plan around it, running a bunch of token generation and then turn them all into Kozilek, Butcher of Truth or whatever. Just from an entertainment angle, this is a pretty cool commander, and I suspect it'll be in high demand.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Ew, no.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
It's like if Leader and Iron Man had a baby and it SUCKED.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Okay trigger, but way too expensive.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Definitely high draw potential, but I'm not too excited about the cost. At that point, you could just run Arcanis the Omnipotent and not need to worry about combat, or Nezahal, Primal Tide and have protection for your giant card advantage machine. This is definitely a threatening card, as a 6-drop ought to be, but between the casting cost, its vulnerability, and needing it to connect, I don't think it's actually a strong commander.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
On first blush, this basically just draws 3 extra cards per turn. Where it falls down a bit is that you need to run a bunch of extra draw spells in the deck in order to activate him, which is pretty annoying when your commander is a big expensive draw engine that was supposed to ensure you had sufficient draw. Again I go back to Arcanis: sure, Richards can draw you more cards if you can draw them on enemy turns, but with Arcanis you can just have him in the command zone and have your draw basically taken care of, without needing to dedicate extra slots to making it work. Arcanis needs to be ramped out and protected, sure, but this guy costs 6 as well, so you're not off the hook for those things here, either. So again, like Professor Hulk, this guy is definitely a scary card to see on the field, but as far as the deck itself goes, I think it ends up being kinda mid.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Good, an easy one, I was getting tired of having to think.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Basically Yorion, Sky Nomad for an extra mana and with the ability to hit lands (and flash). So the question to me is, is there a mono-blue landfall deck? And I think the answer is no. There's a few cute ones like Ruin Crab that can maybe become a wincon, but even then you need like 4+ etbs to win, which is a lot of work on top of casting a 6-drop. I'd much rather go with Yorion for the extra color and the mana discount.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
"Winsome" feels a bit insulting compared to "incredible" and "fantastic" and whatever other carnival-barker-tier nonsense adjectives everyone else gets. But I guess it's also kinda fair because this card sucks and doesn't do anything.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
"Precocious" might be even worse than "Winsome", and this card is at least a competent commander. A discount plus a draw engine is a reasonable game for sure. I'm not sure she'll be very popular since she's quite open-ended, but I think the extra mana is worth it compared to something like Baral, Chief of Compliance if you're going with a control deck, since she actually provides real CA and not just filtering. For that reason, I like her more than blue hulk and reed richards as well, even if she's kinda vanilla.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Not the worst ETB, but I don't think worth the command zone.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Cheating a spell is obviously very strong, but for 8 mana and only once per turn, this seems like a waste of time to me. And "robots"? What are we, stupid? This thing is cheating out Omniscience, Expropriate, and Time Stretch, and that's it. It would be ugly for that reason, except that I think it sucks too much. By the point you have enough to cast him, you could already be casting those spells if you had a competent commander.
Final Judgment: Bad and dumb
Final Judgment: Bad and dumb
Basically this translates to "each turn, put a +1/+1 counter on every flyer you control as long as you can hit someone, and draw a card for each person you can hit." Getting a +1 counter on your team each turn will quickly make them hard to profitably block while building a wincon, and drawing 1-3 cards will keep you in the card advantage game too. For 4 mana, this is a very reasonable option for a flyers build, so long as you don't mind mono-blue.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Super cute to care about power less than 0. As far as I can tell, there aren't any creatures that naturally have negative power, so you're pushed towards neutering your opponents boards with stuff like Cumber Stone, targeted removal like Fresh Start, and maybe some temporary effects like and overloaded downsize to get one big shot of draw. And honestly, just being a 1/3 flyer for 3 that will almost always draw a card on attack, while slightly hampering your opponent, is not awful. Neat design and a unique build, can't ask for much more.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
After two garbage cards in the main set, can Black Widow finally catch a break? Nope! A 5-drop with weak evasion, terrible stats, and a trigger that makes no sense with a build focused around getting a commander through for damage. Somehow this is worse than the uncommon. Better luck next time!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Next time is apparently right now. And hey, for once, she got a playable card! She's got solid stats, and provides a nice stream of card advantage to deathtouch tribal, which is a fairly underserved archetype. She still looks pretty crap compared to Vulture a few cards ago, who grows his team and doesn't have to lose life while drawing cards, but baby steps. Black has a solid deathtoucher count, and you only really need a handful to get reasonable value from her, since a lot of decks won't be too keen to trade their important utility creatures for your random Typhoid Rats. The biggest issue is that there's not a lot of additional deathtouch synergy…Hooded Blightfang is about it for mono-black. So I don't necessarily know how the deck actually wins. But I'll give her the benefit of the doubt after 3 disastrous cards.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Funky design. Basically you can forsake your attack step in order to drain each opponent for 2 mana each turn, at the cost of 2 mana. There's a few other cute things you can do, like use him to trigger Bontu's Monument or certain attack triggers, but it's not nearly enough to really get anywhere imo.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Wasn't Suicide Squad a DC thing? Did both companies make a freaking boomerang-themed villain? Anyway this sucks btw.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
There's technically enough villains to fill a deck, but a lot of them are total garbage or don't particularly synergize, or at least aren't that interested in attacking. The effect can be strong, but Blech, Loafing Pest did it a lot better.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Easy to enable with fetchlands, but even at 4 mana, a 6/6 vanilla flyer isn't something I'm interested in for the command zone.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
The payoff potential is real here. A 3-drop that generates three 2/1 menace tokens every turn is no joke. But as always, the limit here is the card quality. There are a handful of good villains, but you pretty quickly run into mediocrity and draft chaff when you're stuck in mono-color. And while Doctor Doom is an okay-ish card, he's not exactly a fast way to start building up an aggressive board. Once we pare down the garbage and the ones not designed for combat, the list gets pretty short pretty quickly, and the deck loses its appeal just as fast.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Kinda underwhelming considering it needs to be crewed AND get damage through. Sacrificing a nontoken creature isn't a huge punishment, but even if they're unwilling, drawing 2 cards off a 5-drop isn't an exciting rate, especially considering the setup cost.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This would have been bad enough in blue, but in black you've got Demonic Consultation and Tainted Pact, plus a million tutors for them. This is going to be the most linear combo deck of all time, and the easiest ugly of all time. If you build this, I dislike you on a personal level.
Final Judgment: Uuuuuuugly
Final Judgment: Uuuuuuugly
Pretty efficient, but pretty boring. You could do worse I guess.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
It's like Kaervek the Merciless if he was trash. I'd much rather play Kambal, Consul of Allocation, considering he gains you life and triggers every time instead of once. Your opponents will probably cast their cheapest spell first anyway, so hitting for big damage is unlikely.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
"Somehow, Green Goblin returned." I'd much rather run Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal at that mana cost, especially when the mayhem ability is basically null.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
"Maggia", very creative, can't imagine what that's supposed to be analogous to. And this guy is analogous to Bartolome de Presidio except without white. Bleh. I guess mono-black has its pluses but still.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
There are a reasonable number of villains that connive, but most of them are draft chaff, and there aren't many non-villains who connive either (at time of writing, the text "connive" only appears on 17 cards within the black color identity). Between a niche tribe and a niche mechanic, there's just not enough material to work with here. Maybe in a few years.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
A decent payoff for sacrifice stuff, and he can generate a lot of treasure if you space out your sacrifices, but he seems like more of a 99 card considering he doesn't provide the sac fodder nor the sac outlet nor the payoff for the treasure.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Paying full mv for a random enemy spell is rarely worth it, and then stack getting through in combat to the setup cost? Absolutely not.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This is a card I guess.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I'll tell you what I don't want to stick my voltron commander deck full of: creatures. Plus this is just a dumb beater.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
That's quite the image. Anyway, it's a decent effect that we see on cards like Open the Graves, but 6 mana is too much for it to be interesting. I'd much rather run Zahur, Glory's Past.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Pretty hard to trigger this more than once every turn cycle, and you only target one opponent? Pretty weak sauce for a 5-drop with additional setup. At least it says nontoken, but still, hard to get very excited about this.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Virtus the Veiled does this for 3 mana with an extra color and a partner. Next!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I don't need to know about her being a "screamer", thanks. Anyway, she's trash.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Reading this card wasted valuable seconds of my life.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Elenda, the Dusk Rose but terrible.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Man, this guy talks a big game considering he's a 6 mana version of a 2 mana effect.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Obviously calls to mind Syr Konrad, the Grim. Does have some spiciness by being able to crack treasures, and making creature tokens is a small but nice feature—in fact, I think it's just enough to push him over the edge, since it gives him some fodder to channel into Warren Soultrader and Pitiless Plunderer, plus provides some modest defense after everyone decides they need to kill you.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Great line of text, but then she doesn't really do anything with it.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Pretty nice suite of abilities: if she's let through, she can Nantuko Shade a chunk of damage, but if she's blocked by a big fatty, she just goes deathtouch mode. And I guess lifelink is nice to have too. But it's all a bit mana-intensive, and nantuko shade isn't a playable card anymore. She doesn't have evasion either. So interesting, but also no.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Obvious plant for the so-far-only-good black widow. As a commander herself, she's reasonably efficient, but too slow and vulnerable to board wipes.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Red! We're getting there! Kinda! And this card sucks! Completely!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This is a neat design, Enduring Courage with extra steps for a low cost, and with some self-recursion to boot. Unfortunately I think the extra steps are a few too many for the payoff here, particularly since it's impossible for it to trigger on tokens, which is where you're most interested in a one-shot buff like this.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Are we just getting UB: random people you remember from college? Don't really get how the sculpting factors in (I guess her sculptures are treasure?). She's an ok utility dork but definitely not commander material. If there's anything useful to be done with the control-regaining ability, I can't think of anything.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
So for 6 mana you can deal 4 damage to 2 targets? Sounds good for limited I guess.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
With her whole name, she's bound to get a great card this time. Right???
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I guess he's a bad enabler for a budget version of someone else's deck.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I kinda love that first ability. Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence vibes. Add in a decent CA engine (some assembly required)? Yeah, I can get behind this. Don't forget to give him lifelink!
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
This card's only actual ability is the ability to make nerds get distracted by the art. It looks like she's lying on a police-brutality-themed throw rug.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Pretty easy in red to give her a big power boost and then go for an alpha strike. That said, she's very weak to interaction and seems pretty linear. Decent, not amazing.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Discover 6 is less exciting than it looks. You're gonna need a bunch of mana rocks and whatnot to cheat him out, so there's a high probability you'll just hit one of those instead of a bomb. I'd just run one of the Etalis instead.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
More interesting payoff than most, but I still don't think there's enough heroes in a single color to commit to a tribal deck, especially when barely any of them are tribal payoffs, and most synergize with unrelated things.
Final Judgment: Bad.
Final Judgment: Bad.
Being in the command zone makes the artifact wipe telegraphed, and beyond that, he's just a beater. But the worst part is that, with his high cost, how are you supposed to get him into play in a reasonable time-frame in mono-red except via artifacts, which he then blows up? Kinda feels like Hulk should have thought this through a little better.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Apparently "superhero name, human name" is the formula for trash.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Easy to trigger, though being limited to creatures only (compared to impossible man) is a bummer, and mono-red is a lot worse than mono-blue. Still not bad, and I do think he's neat, but I think the power level is probably a bit lacking.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Iron Fist, Hero for Hire Front half does nothing, back half is overpriced garbage. Power: F Design: F Final Judgment: Bad
Well crap, my formula apparently doesn't work on Tony because he's actually pretty good, even if he's just a rip-off of Zuko, Avatar Hunter. Zuko was already borderline though, so giving the tokens flying, plus a boost from attacking? I think that gets over the line.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Reminiscent of Ryusei, the Falling Star, who kinda sucks, but this guy is much better for a couple reasons. He's got haste, he can be a CA generator, and the option to cast him cheap and then buff him to create board wipes is much more efficient and versatile than Ryusei's static 5. Unfortunately, being in red is a major nerf here, since there aren't many ways to really exploit any graveyard loops. Put this guy in black and we've got a party, white's not bad either, and green or blue could put something together, but red's got nothing. So he still sucks, but less than Ryusei. I guess that's something.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
A commander that both relies on opponents having lots of artifacts, but still trades badly? Sounds atrocious!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This doesn't do nearly enough for 6 mana. You're trading whatever you cast for something random, which sure, you can cast a cheap spell to maximize the chances of getting an upgrade while throwing some damage around, but you've probably got good odds to hit another cheap spell and do nothing. If this cost less maybe that'd be forgiveable, but at 6, definitely not. Yuriko makes her look like a joke even if she cost half as much.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
When you're getting crushed by Ivora, Insatiable Heir that's probably not a good sign.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This sorta plays out like Nekusar, the Mindrazer, encouraging wheels to deal damage to your opponents. In theory getting 4 damage per discard is a pretty good rate, but you need to get through blockers plus the original is at high risk of dying, and you're in mono-red. At a lower cost maybe, but at 5 mana, nah. Too many negatives stacked up against him.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Charge him back down.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Temporary theft effects are fun, and the rate here is really strong. I could see this becoming a bit repetitive, particularly with a sac outlet and sufficient CA to keep sacrificing everything off the field, but I want to hope that the build will be more fun and effective if you use Loki as a wincon first and control piece second. Just load up a bunch of cheap cantrips and combat buffs.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
I love how there's so many forsaken legends in this set that they just gave up on all the nicknames and started just giving them duplicates because screw it, who cares. Nobody is playing this guy. He makes a treasure every turn? We got 2-drops that do that, buddy. Get lost.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Speaking of, what are we up to now, our third "runaway"? And hey it also does nothing, cool. I hope all the Molly Hayes fans feel seen or whatever.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
And another runaway! It's almost like there are seven of these things! And hey, she cheats things into play, I'm sure that won't be used to slam down eldrazis like it always is every time. I love how they throw the "cast from exile" trigger in there as if anyone's going to bother filling their deck with Wrenn's Resolves and risk missing their Blightsteel Colossus.
Final Judgment: Ugly
Final Judgment: Ugly
Meh, we've already got Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient and Old Gnawbone. Sure, you gotta ramp them out a little bit, but it's not like Photon does anything very interesting until you've buffed her power. So if I'm doing some setup work for my ramp piece anyway, I'll take the giant dragon, thanks.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Only getting 1 goad per turn, plus only getting a treasure as a payoff, isn't really doing it for me. Maybe this hits the 99 in a Firkraag, Cunning Instigator deck, but not the command zone.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see…
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Because I'm easy come, easy go
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Little high, little low…ok fine I'll actually talk about this one since it kinda does something. Mostly what it does is suck compared to Brallin, Skyshark Rider, who costs 1 more but hits each opponent, plus grows, plus has a partner, plus has 2 more colors. The only real upside here is that you can shoot creatures with Spider-Man, but that feels like a pretty mediocre payoff for playing a wheel, and you can't even split the damage.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
The number of spider-men in this game is truly ridiculous, especially considering most of them are trash. This guy looks like he'd be a bruiser in limited and maybe standard playable, but as a commander, meh. Haste isn't that exciting for a voltron build since you want another turn to suit him up first anyway. The pseudo-evasion is nice, but for an extra mana over dozens of other options and being mono-red, pass.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This is actually kind of decent because it can trigger each turn, but the cards persist until the end of your next turn. So if you can ping yourself on each of your opponents turns, it's potentially a draw 4 on a 2-drop that already has decent stats. Actually pulling that off is a tall order, and probably requires cards like manabarbs, which kinda kills the efficiency of the whole thing. And unlike Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence, there's not a clean way to regain the life you've lost by packing the deck with symmetrical damage effects. So my bet is that this ends up being pretty difficult to balance, between self-damaging, keeping yourself alive, and actually doing something useful with the CA you're accruing. But I'd love to be proven wrong.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I like the effect here, but the setup cost I have concerns about. A 4/2 reach isn't really ideal combat material, and (as always) there aren't many strong villains in mono-color. On top of that, being in red you have limited ability to protect your vulnerable villains as they try to connect. So high marks for effort, but in terms of power, I think it's a bit lacking.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Decent etb, but after that, pretty meh. The cast trigger is alright I guess, but I don't think the package comes together for 5 mana.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Birgi, God of Storytelling is a pretty easy infinite combo with Grinning Ignus, but that at least requires some storm card or something to actually win the game. This card costs a little more, but it does provide a built-in wincon by becoming a massive flyer to OTK people. Even outside the hyper linear build (which, to be fair, is somewhat hard to pull of reliably in red), the commanders pulls towards storm archetypes, which are among the least fun archetypes to ever exist in any format. So clever readers may guess where this is going.
Final Judgment: Ugly
Final Judgment: Ugly
Any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me, to me
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This can do some stuff, but I'm not sure why you'd ever play it over Torbran, Thane of Red Fell.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Syr Carah, the Bold powercrept to infinity. This is obviously an insane CA tool, turning lightning bolt into a temporary ancestral recall, and even working with permanent-based damage like guttersnipe. Being in red and costing 5 should probably rein it in a bit, but still, this is a very threatening commander for your life total.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Pretty much a straight upgrade of Adriana, Captain of the Guard, except for losing white. White is probably the best token color (and the best anthem color), but red is no slouch either, so this is still workable. Adriana isn't very popular at this point, and I don't think this will be either, but it's not terrible.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Is Arsenal doing badly enough that it needs to be avenged? I don't really follow football. This seems like a lot of setup to give your board double strike. Raphael, the Nightwatcher has no setup and costs 3-4 mana instead of 5. I can't believe I'm advocating for a turtle…
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
That's a lot of words to say that you suck.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This is a pretty decent CA engine, but being limited to your next endstep means you can't really keep the party rolling past the current turn. Once you hit the endstep, anything you haven't cast is gone and you'll have to start over. So if you're only casting a couple spells per turn, you're probably losing most of your value here. What that says to me is that this is most likely either a piece of another deck, or it's a storm deck that doesn't care about the end of the turn because it's going to combo off now or die trying. Either way I don't have high hopes for this guy. My guess looking at him is that he doesn't get there as a storm commander because he's in mono-red and doesn't provide any tempo, but I definitely wouldn't get too comfortable sitting down against him.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Green! Thank god we're done with red. Unlikely to be worth running any other gammas or villains, when you could run equipment or auras to help him punch through. He can grow quickly when unopposed, but adding extra turns of setup just to get your voltron going—not for value, but just to present an actual threat—isn't a deal I'm too interested in.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
And now we have…whatever this abomination is. I can't tell if it's body-positive or fat-phobic. Either way, though, it doesn't do anything interesting as a commander.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Well that name is just a lie, for one thing. For a second thing, a 2-mana dork isn't terribly exciting commander material (and we've already got plenty of superior options).
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Kinda good for a common I guess, but that's still a disaster.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Mama, just killed a man…
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger, now he's dead…
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Why is this legendary? Anyway, it's got reasonably good stats and a decent tribal bonus, but the existing dinosaur tribal commanders are much, much stronger. Will see 99 play for sure though.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Mama, life had just begun!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This design is cute, but I'm not convinced it's better than just running Terrian, World Tyrant or whatever. You can boost his toughness more easily than buffing power, but that 3 mana activation cost kinda kills the efficiency on offer. Even if you're unopposed, you're spending 7 mana for that 10-damage hit, compared to 5 mana for 9 damage from Terrian (and Terrian isn't even good). Plus he's awful without some kind of evasion.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Triggering on first main mostly precludes doing any buffs to get a sudden surge of mana. Needing to sit there with a big board of fatties and hope it doesn't get interacted with feels dicey. Too much setup, too much risk, not enough payoff. And he's not big enough to be interesting on that front.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Probably more interesting than Giant-Man, since he's got more control over when he pops off. Still not great or anything, but at least it's something.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
That's a lot of keywords, but most of them are crap. Hexproof is really the only A-tier one. I guess he's arguably better than Thrun, the Last Troll, but not by much.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Not awful, but we've got better options for a similar effect. The forced attack with no evasion is also a bit of a drag. You can suit him up so he's protected, but then you might as well just go voltron. Finneas, Ace Archer probably works well as a replacement for most go-wide decks, Iron Spider, Stark Upgrade if you're ok going colorless, or there are tons of tribal and synergy-based options.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
There's barely any other gamma creatures in mono-green, so this is mostly just a growing threat. He is a nicely self-contained threat, but on his own he's pretty slow and predictable, and green isn't the best color to play a control game using him as a finisher. So most likely the deck runs a bunch of ways to protect him and accelerate his clock with additional counters. Seems functional, but pretty linear, and can get shut down pretty easily.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I really thought that lifegain payoff was going to be more exciting. Getting some food tokens isn't really my idea of a reward for playing a weak tribal deck. Hate to say it, Lucky, but you're a bad dog.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I wonder what relation he is to Sidar Jabari? He seems surprisingly awful, giving away the monarch but only on endstep so you have to wait a turn cycle to get it back, and for what payoff? The world's tiniest overrun? It's cute that it helps opponents smack each other around, but in terms of power, this is pretty abysmal.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
She has the potential to grow pretty quickly, but vigilance + reach aren't really the keywords I'm looking for. It also gives too many options for your opponents for my taste. At the end of the day, I'm just never going to love a beater, even if she's reasonably efficient.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Nice to have a reassembling skeleton always available, but green isn't the color where I'm most interested in that, and three mana is kinda steep.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
But now I've gone and thrown it all away
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Wow, that's boring. Getting monarch is fine I guess, but that activated ability is so mediocre for commander, and doesn't really support the monarch thing in any substantial way. This looks like draft chaff but it's in a precon. Why?
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
He's actually a pretty good trampler, not terrible at all. He is pretty mediocre overall, though. Too expensive, and I'm not that interested in giving other creatures trample when I already paid 6 mana for a fat commander.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Outside of occasionally nerfing enemies, this mostly gives your random saproling tokens +4/+4 I suspect. Which seems kinda slow for a 5-drop. I think I'd rather play that hulk from a while back, and at least grow my whole team at once. At least the meme is good.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
It's a decent effect, but 5 seems too steep to me. Branching Evolution is 3. Plus being a creature makes him vulnerable to whatever wipe is about to kill the creatures you're putting counters on. Might appeal to some people, but it's a bit vanilla to me.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Mama, ooh, didn't mean to make you cry…
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow…
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
If I was squirrel girl, I'd take any random mana dork over this thing. It's not awful, being a reasonably easy way to draw a card each turn plus food generation, so I could definitely see it in the 99 of a food deck. Doesn't really look like command zone material, though—I want something that actually makes the food interesting. Plus it doesn't even have partner, so…unplayable.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This looks fairly efficient, but it's really two setup costs: getting a 4+ mv artifact in play, and helping a 2/3 to attack safely. Neither of those are too difficult to solve, but they do put a major knock on efficiency, by which point the payoff is not that exciting anymore, considering it's difficult to get more than one per turn. There's plenty of more potent token producers in green.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Too late, my time has come
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I guess they must be saving x-men for another set, because the wolverines we got here are trash. Mutants are a pretty nothing tribe, so this is essentially just a beater, and not a particularly interesting one. Super-trample is often worse than regular trample, since if you choose to go face, you won't take out any of their blockers. With some work he could present a lethal threat, but there are about a million commanders I'd pick first.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Actually a pretty strong trigger, but yeah…mutants aren't a real tribe. Sorry.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Low cost and decent trigger value, but casting 4+ mana value artifacts is a fairly stringent requirement that's difficult to trigger more than once per turn, especially when you also need to have a wide board to make the trigger worthwhile. It's more viable than the other green Wakandan commanders, but that's a pretty low bar.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
A very simple ability, but a pretty potent one. We've seen similar options in Obosh, the Preypiercer, Lightning, Army of One, and Solphim, Mayhem Dominus, though they're all a bit different. For my sensibilities, Solphim is more interesting, but getting double combat damage is clearly a major bonus here, and red-green tends to be very combat-focused. They do seem a bit generic, but simple isn't always bad.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Gregor, Shrewd Magistrate but for treasure instead of cards. Personally I'm a lot less excited for treasures, especially if you're only getting one per turn. Red does provide more instant-speed buffs, which is nice for making more treasure than expected, but between buffing his power, keeping him evasive, and actually using the treasure to good effect, this seems like a messy voltron build to me.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
That's a lot of complicated text that ultimately boils down to an Ophidian. Not command zone material.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Hey, we finally got a new Spider-Man that doesn't suck! Was that something we actually needed? Who knows. Anyway, this is a pretty potent effect when combined with other types of cycling, or particularly with extra combat steps. There are a couple moving parts here, since he's not a great natural attacker, so I'm dubious of trying to go full-on Narset, Enlightened Master infinite combats via rituals. But I do think he's a powerful CA-engine given some effort.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Too late, my time has come
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
At least this god has some kind of protection built-in. This kind of buff sounds better than it is: when you think about it, in terms of how much total additional power you're getting, it's basically the same as "creatures you control get +1/+1", but only on attacks. It's a bit spicier if you're going for commander damage, but when I'm building a voltron deck, I'm not that eager to stick a bunch of other creatures in: I'd rather jam equipment or auras or something that gives my commander a better bonus than +1/+1. Presumably you want a build here that uses a bunch of utility dorks to stand around looking pretty while the panther is your wincon, but that sounds kinda weak to me compared to a more focused voltron plan.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Double-prowess is a decent pump ability, and his pseudo-ward is pretty potent, so this isn't a terrible spell-voltron option. Ultimately he's still just a beater, but a beater with protection that pumps itself can't be tooooo bad.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Hey wow, a playable black widow card! And it's…just a weaker King T'Challa. Maybe that's a little unfair—it does draw a lot fewer cards since it doesn't trigger off yourself, but it can grow and has menace. Putting all its payoffs in the hands of your opponents is a bit rough, though, since it means it's a lot less likely to do anything useful if your opponents decide you're getting too threatening. Not terrible, but not exciting either.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
A 2 mana cantrip creature is a nice card for the 99. That's mostly where this ends, though. Getting big is an ok bonus, but it doesn't do anything else, and it doesn't even have evasion.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Three colors and heroes start to look like a plausible tribe, but I don't think this payoff is really enough to make it compelling. He's basically just an anthem that grows himself, which is a decent rate for 3 mana, but not enough to make me want to go all-in.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I'm not sure how much I rate the counter ability. Typically with a giant threatening commander like this, I don't really care about getting counters on my other creatures, so I might as well just put them onto Captain Marvel and skip the middle-man. On the other hand, a card like Stonecoil Serpent might be an efficient way to buff Marvel while getting a free body, and Patrolling Peacemaker might be even more efficient. This is still mostly just a big beater, though, and at 7 mana, I'm not too excited. I'd much rather play something cheaper that can start accruing damage and value early, rather than waiting until 7 mana to start my game plan.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This does dish out a decent amount of damage, but unlike something like Purphoros, God of the Forge it doesn't seem very explosive. For the most part, you're still constrained by the amount of mana you can spend, so you'd be hard pressed to deal more than 1 damage per mana. Not a terrible rate, but a symmetrical damage effect like this tends to draw a fair amount of removal, and she doesn't have Purphoros's protection either. Decent but not amazing.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Another mediocre hero payoff. A little card draw, a little mana…nice things to have, but again, not enough to convince me to go all-in on a new tribe.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Pretty unimpressive. The second ability is pretty low-impact, so it's mostly the first ability that's interesting, as another pseudo-Neuksar, the Mindrazer. Unfortunately, the "one or more" bit really lowers the potential of that build—you can still make it work if you have a one-at-a-time discard outlet before you wheel, but you'll do more damage with Nekusar with less setup, so why bother with the extra steps?
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I like the recursion ability, and with the right support it can become pretty powerful (hello, Blinkmoth Infusion) but it's still just a beater. Sorry.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Into your HAND?
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
The setup is pretty reasonable, but this is mostly capped out at drawing 1 card per turn, which isn't very exciting for a 4-drop. Technically you could maybe do better with untaps or Rabid Gnaw-type effects, but that doesn't seem worth the effort.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
For WURG, his triggered ability hardly seems worth the effort, but a 3/2 flying double-striking haste isn't the worst for 4 mana and the setup is fairly low, especially if you're planning to play equipment. I'd still rather have a cheaper double striker without the extra keywords, though. Haste isn't very useful when you need to take time to equip things anyway (and casting a noncreature the same turn is difficult unless it's a ritual), and flying isn't worth the extra mana and lack of other relevant abilities to me. Its still Kellan, the Fae-Blooded all the way for me.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Besides the old-school Tibor and Lumia vibes, this does nothing.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Making walls is a pretty low-impact payoff for a pretty minimal setup. It's obviously intended to fuel her second ability, but I'm not too enthused about that one either. The obvious target is herself, but if I'm going with a voltron build, I'm not that interested in making a bunch of additional tokens, nor in paying 4 mana for unblockability. And it's even worse because it targets, so any of the white swords will prevent it from functioning on her. Maybe the intention is to run cards like Ant-Man, Elusive Avenger and target him instead, which is at least more interesting, but it still seems pretty weak to only buff one creature at such a steep price.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Could be worse I guess.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Between the 5mv, the random nature of the hit, and the time counters, I'm unimpressed. Not that I wanted to be impressed, really—if it was easier to cheat big things into play, he'd get an ugly. As-is, he just seems kinda mediocre.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
That's a lot of mana for a 4-drop, even if it does have some restrictions on it. Considering she enables 5c "cast from exile", I imagine she will see some play at least. Getting a lot of mana is a good payoff for the archetype, since the biggest downside is losing cards you can't afford to cast that turn. If Prosper, Tome-Bound is as popular as he is, I think she'll do fine, even if she's a bit boring.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
There's been a lot of mediocre tribal payoffs for villains and heroes, but I think Loki just manages to make it over the line. There are quite a few worthwhile ETBs on offer, and the card draw is also a big bonus for the deck. It's still awkward to need to get Loki into combat safely, but since you only really need one good ETB, I think it's workable. Congratulations, Loki, you achieved what no other villain tribal deck could: playability.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Sends shivers down my spine, body's aching all the time
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Not sure what went wrong with the previous two members of the fantastic four, but this guy has two strong abilities where the others had, at best, one between both of them. Drawing a card for that same minimal setup is a strong CA engine for a 3-drop, and copying a triggered ability twice has lots of potential while being broad enough to allow for multiple interesting builds.Sphinx of the Second Sun, maybe? Go infinite with mana rocks + Unstoppable Plan? He provides both consistent CA and a splashy late-game payoff. Hard to ask for more than that.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
I'm sure there's some arcane reason for this, but if Ms. Marvel can just stick the "once per turn" limiter on her ability, and it doesn't matter which instance of a creature hitting is the one that counted, then why does Evin, Waterdeep Opportunist need to have that incredibly clumsy "one or more players, one or more creatures" nonsense? Couldn't it just say "whenever a player sacrifices a creature make a treasure, triggers only once per turn"? Anyway, once per turn means this card sucks.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Getting a token for every noncreature is a pretty solid game, particularly in white-blue that can run a lot of reactive spells and make tokens while doing it. The buff is also nice to have, while somewhat limited—I suspect you'll want additional ways to pump your board in order to create a serious wincon. But for just 3 mana, getting both a token generator AND an anthem is already a lot of value, even if the anthem isn't anything too crazy.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
I kinda like this one. Major Queen Marchesa vibes, except you at least get a +1 counter even if you retain the monarchy, in addition to being able to beat the crap out of anyone who takes it from you. Nothing too crazy, but the combination of card draw + counters + big swings is enough of a melange to come together. Plus I just think throwing the monarch around is fun.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I can think of a couple ways to go with this. On one hand, you can just run a lot of solid utility spells and get some free value and call it a day. On the other hand, you can discard big haymakers while avoiding utility spells and go for a big swing. I kinda like this design because it punishes the haymaker build, since they can't defend their commander as easily. If you counterspell your opponents' removal, you might hit that useless counterspell from your saboteur trigger instead of your bomb and ruin your plan. I could still see it becoming a bit oppressive, particularly being 4-color commander, but I'm hoping that the random aspect makes it more fun than annoying.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Flash is a fun keyword that can often be less useful than you'd expect. Most types of spells don't get a huge boost from flash, and those that do often already can be cast as instants. The biggest exception is board wipes, but the good options in red and blue are somewhat scant. There's also the issue that, while a 3/4 double-striker is a reasonable attacker for 5 mana, it's not exactly guaranteed, pushing the deck towards voltron, and equipment is usually best to play during first main anyway. As a result, the flash aspect feels a bit too weak, and as a voltron option, he seems outclassed by cheaper options. He's still not awful as a control voltron, since flashing him in EOT is a nice way to keep mana up for a control build, but he doesn't quite get there for me.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I don't get why this random 2-power 4-drop is unblockable, but the bigger draw is the token production. A 3/3 is a decently-statted token, but even so, getting 1 per turn cycle isn't exciting, and the effort required to get more than 1-2 is pretty significant—and you should probably have better ways to win the game with all those cards than attacking with some monkeys.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I love how they always throw "hero" in there alongside "noncreature spell" as though some 5-drop is going to compete with Expropriate. I'm not entirely sure where to come down here: on one hand, she incentivizes running nothing but absurd haymakers, which is boring and lame. On the other hand, only hitting the top 2 makes the odds fairly low of getting anything too crazy, and a deck with 40+ 7 drops will be pretty nonfunctional against even mild interaction. So most likely this will be a bit of a gambler's deck, sometimes hitting absurd bombs and more often hitting nothing or some mild utility spells. I don't think I'll be thrilled to play against that, but I guess it's tolerable.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
He doesn't really do anything interesting until you've gotten him to 10 counters, and since white and blue aren't amazing at +1 counters that probably just means drawing 10 cards. At which point, five more cards is definitely strong, but it's kinda win-more. It'd be a lot stronger if you could remove the counters easily to keep chaining more draw (which you can do, at least a bit, with sage of fables and Ray Filley, Man Ray, to stack up a couple instances of draw-five). Overall, though, this seems pretty slow, telegraphed and uninteresting.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
For a 2-drop, this thing comes with a lot of gas. The setup cost is significant, but drawing a card and buffing your whole team (plus a little lifegain as a treat) is a hell of a payoff. White-green isn't generally the best artifact synergy colors, but jamming some servo tokens and treasure shouldn't be too hard to hit the threshold, and then you've got access to the two best token producing colors with a global +2/+2 and a free card every turn. Seems pretty good.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
What is she designing, a jet-ski?
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Mama, oooOOOOOOoooo (any way the wind blows)
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Mediocre buff ability that's cross-purposes with voltron, and a niche defensive ability that nobody will walk into unaware. For five? Please.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Man, they REALLY don't want you to use this guy as your commander, do they?
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
The cast trigger is pretty unimpressive, but I don't hate getting an extra mana for every etb and attack. Even if he just chump-attacks, you're getting a 2-point ramp for your three drop. Them entering tapped slows things down a bit, though, and being restricted to artifact spells or abilities is awkward for white-green. Seems decent, but not amazing. How many times have I said that, now? It feels like a lot.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
The setup here is a little tricky. Most creatures with 4 power are going to cost at least 3 mana, and most creatures with 4 toughness are either going to be crappy walls, or cost at least 3 mana (though Exploration Broodship is pretty sweet). That means we're mostly spending 3-4 mana to trigger. Looking to the payoff, the rewards are decent but not incredible (deja-freaking-vu, man). A wall can be situationally useful, damage is also pretty situationally useful, the counters are kinda weak, leaving the draw as the best default option. Compared to Aragorn, the Uniter this just seems a lot weaker to me. His abilities aren't much weaker, and instead of casting a 3-4 mana spell, he can cast a cantrip, or cast a multicolor spell to trigger multiple things at once. This obviously isn't terrible, since it's a 4c commander that cantrips and then rewards you for playing a wide swath of spells, but it's also…y'know…not amazing. Or perhaps, not fantastic.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Pretty big buff to villains, but for 7 mana, meh. Plus they're a primo choice for "my extremely telegraphed anthem commander got killed mid-combat, and then my entire board got eaten by blockers". And yeah, mayhem I guess. Lmao.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
He's definitely a heavy-hitter, but 6 mana plus setup loses my interest quickly. If he cost less but was smaller, maybe he'd be a good enabler for counters on other creatures, but paying 10 mana to double your counters the first time is way too much. Plus being forced to attack to get his trigger means that he can't fly under the radar either.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I was just going to hand the mic to Queen, but I have to comment: 5 mana for unblockability? What the actual hell?
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Even with no discard/randomness and no attack requirement, none of those abilities are really interesting enough to see the command zone.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Connive is a pretty jank archetype, particularly when your commander is going to the red zone. What value are you getting from your other random villains conniving? Paying 1 to get the token is also a major slowdown. Probably the best version of the deck is to ignore other connive cards, and just have a growing, flying commander that makes tokens. Which is…decent but not amazing.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Last try for War Machine to get a decent card. Will he make it? Well, personally, I'd just say (and I say this from the heart) I don't wanna die.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I'm a big fan of Orzhov Advokist-type effects, since they force your opponents to essentially reveal their game plan to you. Unless they plan to attack you, why wouldn't they take the card? Willie is somewhat weaker since he only applies to one person, but he also gives you a free card, only costs 2, and wears equipment pretty well. Honestly he seems pretty overpowered for a postal employee. Maybe he should be moved to the military.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
Colorless? We're so close I can taste it! Freedom! Sweet Freedom! Hey check it out, it's Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre at home!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Sorry, I'm not going into colorless for a glorified Manakin.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Y'know, I really don't think this was intended to be your commander.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Not going colorless for a dumb beater, either.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
This is definitely more powerful, and obviously there are a lot of bombs worth miracle-ing in colorless. This sorta equates to an even less reliable version of Scarlet Witch, Chaotic Avenger, for more mana and no colors, but at least it can hit creatures. In theory it could cast things on enemy turns with the right draw engine, but that's a tall order in colorless. And all this is on top of the fact that he costs 6 and has no protection, and in fact basically cannot trigger the turn he comes down. He might be scary in the 99 somewhere, in decks that can run colored topdeck tutors and stronger draw, but at the helm of his deck, he seems inconsistent.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Galactus doesn't impress me, and this doesn't offer much that he doesn't, except paying 5 more mana for a weak beater. And it's even worse considering that once Galactus gets swords to plowsharesed, he's out of a job.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Surprisingly, the car ends up being more interesting than most of the actual "Fantastic" Four. Casting four noncreatures is pretty easy in a dedicated deck (and the car itself can count), and swinging for sixteen flying haste is a hell of a payoff. If I'm going to consider colorless, I want a payoff like this.
Final Judgment: Good
Final Judgment: Good
This is what we call a trap. Vehicles are already a shaky permanent type, and this thing incentivizes you to run a bunch of them without creatures to crew them, since it can crew them on etb. But then what are you going to do on subsequent turns when you actually need to crew your vehicles? And all this for a 6 mana highly-conditional Coastal Piracy? And your commander is a freaking helicopter? Get a grip, man! This is no way to live your life!
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Seven mana for a glorified lightning bolt. Incredible.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
Weak types to buff, and a boring buff on top of that, plus one that'll get you sniped mid-combat if you're ever a threat (which you probably won't be).
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all :(
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
What a weird card. He's got pseudo-invisibility, but not against sorcery-speed removal. The biggest issue is being colorless: if he was in any given color, there'd be a million instants to grow him and protect him. But in colorless, there are 13 instants total, and only a few decent cards with flash. Even with support he'd be kinda boring, but without support he's a trash fire.
Final Judgment: Bad
Final Judgment: Bad
…
Is it finally over? Am I free?
Well that took a while. I guess that explains the police coming around to check that I wasn't a missing person.
While doing this, I did have a realization about why UB end up with so many legends, and why they aren't necessarily great fodder for magic sets. Most popular IPs are based around stories, and stories are usually focused on characters. Marvel in particular, at least in the movies I've seen, don't have a crazy amount of worldbuilding. Usually it's pretty generic. Not to say there's none, obviously, but compared to a magic set like, for example, Secrets of Strixhaven, there's so few interesting background characters. SOS has five factions, each with dozens of invented archetypes of people and creatures. And they can invent however many they need to fill out the set. But for Marvel, they aren't allowed to expound on the IP, so they have to fill in the creatures with generic agents and henchmen, because the only characters with story prominence are the ones with names. Which also means that, to represent what people actually enjoy about the IP, they need to pump the set full of legendary creatures, because the background characters don't get anyone's interest.
All that to say that, while I do think commander is a major driving force in a lot of designs, I don't think it's the reason we get SO MANY legends in UB. There's no way that WotC is dumb enough to think that Black Widow as a vanilla Grizzly Bear is going to inspire anyone to build a commander deck. It's there so the set FEELS like Marvel, because while Strixhaven still feels like Strixhaven without any legends, Marvel without the named characters feels like nothing.
But personally I think creating so many different versions of every character ultimately makes them feel less and less like characters. When there are eight different versions of Iron Man, Iron Man, Modern Marvel doesn't feel like THE Iron Man. It feels like AN Iron Man. Instead of making generic characters to fill in the set, instead the once-unique characters have become generic.
All that said, with numbers this high, there are bound to be a lot of interesting commanders. I know I've got a few that have caught my interest. At the end of the day, character or not, cards are just cards. And sometimes they do cool things.
Anyway, time to ride off into the sunset. At least, I think that's what that blinding ball outside is. I haven't been out there in a while.
Until next time, cowpokes.
Mainset Doctor Doom had a thing going for him where it appeared he was designed specifically to synergize/enable the black Plan enchantments; sadly there are only four of them in monoblack.
I understand the need to fit a lot of limited fodder legends in packs, they serve their purpose in limited, but why are there so many limited fodder legends in the commander decks? They're filled with garbage!