MoM commander breakdown

[DirkGently]

It's that time again. To the pain.

Elesh Norn

I already talked about the flip praetors, but I'll do it again I suppose. The front half has a few legs that Norn's Annex doesn't have, insofar as it makes blocking potentially painful for your opponents, but it's also easier to pay for on the offense and annex isn't that good to begin with. So the front side is pretty mid. The flip is really painful if it gets responded to, so probably pack some protection or at least wait until the coast is clear. Of course you recoup your losses right away, but it's not a huge add considering what you gave up - just +2 creatures for 3 mana, which is fair but not incredible, especially with the risk. The big advantage is the second mode, though both it and the third mode being pretty telegraphed makes them significantly weaker.

I'd assume your strategy is pretty deep in tokens to mitigate the flip, but then it makes her stage 3 painful so maybe you focus more on artifact creature tokens, though that's much more limiting. Maybe a mix of both. With all the praetors, proliferate becomes somewhat interesting to speed things along, and if you can proliferate from 2-3 then you dramatically improve your alpha strike (provided you have mostly artifact/phyrexian tokens). Overall a slightly different token commander that focuses more on alpha strikes and board wipes.

Power: C+
Design: B-

Heliod, the Radiant Dawn // Heliod, the Warped Eclipse

The front half is pretty boring - a 4/4 for 4 that gives you +1 card isn't exciting and it's not trivial to enable either. So the back half is almost certainly your main plan. That makes it fairly expensive to get going, though at least it's broken up. While I like the design of benefitting from your opponents drawing cards by having cheaper flash spells, it's let down by the existence of wheels which will undoubtedly become the focal point of most heliod decks since they reduce colorless costs for basically anything to zero. Luckily blue white doesn't have full access to them (even fewer if you're poor), but I still think it's likely to play out like a boring combo deck most of the time. I doubt it's cEDH tier, but it's likely to be a bit of a groaner. Though I'd love to be proven wrong.

Power: B+
Design: D

Jin-Gitaxias // The Great Synthesis

The front half is fairly strong but fairly boring. The back half is %$#%$#% and the flip condition is way too easy. This will be a "you must kill this every time it hits the field" commander and I'm very much not into it. Doubt it's cEDH because of the mana costs involved but it will ruin many a casual game.

Power: A-
Design: F-

Rona, Herald of Invasion

Merfolk looter is a decent starting point, and enables madness and other strats, thought it competes with Vohar, Vodalian Desecrator. The legendary untap trigger is fine but probably doesn't change many deckbuilding decisions. The transformed side just seems okay to me - there are a few colors in UB that force your opponents to damage it, but it seems like a lot of work compared to plenty of other card-stealing engines. Plus a 5/5 doesn't really rumble very well at that point in the game. Vohar got decent play - this might steal a few from him, but overall I think I prefer vohar's trigger over a fairly useless back side, and I don't think there's enough motivation to play legends for the untap.

edit: forgot about the option to self-damage to freecast stuff. Being random makes most interaction in your deck much worse, though, and there's a lot of setup to pull it off. So it doesn't move the needle that much for me.

Power: C
Design: C

Ayara, Widow of the Realm

Front half is a mostly-improved Brion Stoutarm in colors that support it better, though mana value is probably harder to cheat on than power. The flip side is a bit more interesting - I doubt you'll be feeding itself in commander, but more likely dredging or discarding to fill your yard. 8 is a lot for that sort of effect, and you're pretty locked into one side or the other so the flexibility doesn't go too far imo. The fact that you can sac the creature to keep it in your yard makes it a lot easier to play, though, and there is plenty of nasty etb/ltb/attack/damage triggers that will play nicely with the back half. Front half seems hard to really abuse - I don't think the battle option makes much difference and I don't think cheated mana costs help enough to make it good. If you can copy the front half and then flip to the back half, she plays nicely with herself though.

Power: C
Design: B

Sheoldred

Front half is decent though unimpressive. Her etb is only worth about 2 mana and her body isn't very exciting, but I wouldn't say she's a waste of mana - she's pretty much a C. The flip condition could be easy or difficult depending on your meta, more fetches etc make it easier. You could play some mill (though mono-black doesn't have amazing options) or just play some removal and be a little patient - my vote is on the latter. From the flip side, the first mode is roughly worth the mana cost, while the second mode is pretty backbreaking and the third is a game winner. The main difficulty will be resolving such a telegraphed wincon. Personally I'd lean control and try to avoid being too threatening, with some proliferate to speed up the ult. Not sure how people will react to the front half being played - you might be able to resolve it early and then bide your time. Overall she looks fairly fun, and reanimating enemy creatures is among the more fun ways to win imo. However big discard and removal etb + flip might annoy your opponents a fair bit. Feels black man.

Power: B-
Design: B+

Etali, Primal Conqueror

Compared to Etali, Primal Storm, the front half saves you needing haste and guarantees hits, but having played etali myself I can attest that not all hits are HITS. Beyond that, the front half is just a dude. The back half is still kinda just a dude, albeit a very large and scary one...pretty much just blightsteel colossus, though if they're low on life I guess it can still kill them normally. I'm not super into paying 9 mana and just hoping for no interaction, especially when it provides no immediate benefit, and I don't think the true hit rate on the front half is going to be high enough to make you feel amazing about spending 7 either. I suspect your play pattern is ramp → play him → cast some free ramp and maybe other stuff → flip him → swing for the fences → if he connects, win → if he does, you already ramped so try it again. Overall I think OG etali is more fun since it's the random spells that are fun, not swinging with BSC, and skipping 2 full turns to eat an STP feels pretty rough.

Power: C-
Design: C

Urabrask

I'm scared that urabrask will become a cEDH spellslinger deck, but I still think he seems like a lot of fun. The front half does a really good job of setting up the flip condition - with 3 1-mana spells you can play him flipped on 5 mana, which is pretty nuts. The first mode isn't amazing, though at least it comes out fast enough to be surprising. The fact that it's targeted is a little bit of a bummer, but most likely some players won't be vulnerable to it anyway so it's not that bad. Second mode is mostly a setup for the third mode, which I love not fixing mana on its own. Way more fun to jam in off-color sources imo. I think he'll be really fun as he both enables some spellslinging of your own, while also the ability to take advantage of your opponents spells. Enemy spells can definitely be hit or miss - lots of decks don't play many, or only play ramp and/or removal which isn't necessarily exciting - but it can definitely generate great stories. The only big question to me is whether he'll be known as a storm combo BS commander or a fun spell thief commander.

Power: B- (potentially A)
Design: A

Polukranos Reborn

Front half is above rate but certainly boring. Back half is a weaker wurmcoil at a steep price on its own, so I think you really need to run other hydras to make it any good. Considering it's a death trigger, you're almost certainly looking to play changelings and/or very cheap hydras - anything with an X cost can likely be cast as a 1-2 mana "make 2 3/3s" spell. Add some triggers off things entering etc and you can probably make a lot of tokens very quickly, and your commander has built-in protection in the form of making tokens for itself. So it's probably not an awful deck, but it's definitely the sort of tribal deck I find very stupid. You're not even trying to keep your hydras alive FFS, you're casting them as 0/0s so they die immediately, how does that make any logical sense?

Power: B-
Design: D

Vorinclex

The front half is a great rate but not exciting in commander. Not a lot of value from nonbasic forests in mono-green either. The back half costs a ton to flip so it's pretty vulnerable to removal. Mode 1 kinda requires running fatties in significant density to be very good, but it does have a high ceiling. Kinda locks you into the "ramp + fatties" plan. Mode 2 is pretty underwhelming for commander really. Mode 3 is okay but predictable. Could be nice as a combo with an indestructible deathtoucher...hello Rhonas the Indomitable, your time has come. Or you can just have some 12/12 much a bunch of utility creatures. Overall seems reasonable fun in a timmyish sort of way, not overly oppressive or obnoxious, which is potentially unique among the praetors, so well done on that one.

Power: C
Design: B

Baral and Kari Zev

Menace and first strike on a 2/4 is pretty mid lol, neither synergizes terribly well with a large butt. The trigger is really interesting though. It could be used as a mana cheat, though if you're casting 1-drop spells it's not very interesting. I guess you could run a bunch of 4-drops and always get double mana on them, that's kinda interesting. Alternately, you can just treat them like an Ophiomancer that you have to sling spells for, which is my preference. Add in some stuff that triggers on creatures entering and you've got a stew going (hello Warstorm Surge). I'm also being reminded by EDHrec that the free suspend spells synergize quite nicely here, though none of them seem TOO crazy busted early. I guess a Inevitable Betrayal could break some games but that's about it. Anyway they all fit well into the 1-mv cantrip version so it's kind of a freebie.

Power: B-
Design: A-

Borborygmos and Fblthp

5 for a dude who draws on etb/attack is fairly low impact, and the ability to self-tuck is pretty rarely useful, basically only if it's going to get stolen or the tax has gotten really painful and your draw is going well. So a lot of the judgment rests on the discard ability, and...I'm pretty off it? Discarding lands can be set up with a Life from the Loam etc, but it's hard to get value from the discard (as compared to a nonland with madness or self-recursion or whatever). Even if you have no limitation on discardable lands, you're still just attacking to kill a creature and draw a card. Good, yes, but worth creating a whole deck around, not really imo. You could mass-recur the lands for value, but then you've still gotta draw them somehow if you aren't just recurring the same ones over and over with loam. It's not uninteresting and the floor isn't awful, but I don't quite see it. Something like Armix, Filigree Thrasher seems a lot easier to abuse since you only need to discard one card, and you can discard stuff that wants to be discarded on its own, without other cards to recur it or get value from it.

Power: D+
Design: C+

Djeru and Hazoret

I like getting a bonus for being hellbent-ish, rather than needing it to do much of anything. But unfortunately I think the ceiling is too low here. It's a Fire Elemental that maybe draws a card when it attacks. And emptying your hand is potentially difficult with a lot of legendaries, plus ill-advised, so outside of late-game desperation I don't see it happening very often. Really hard to imagine anyone playing this over, idk, Captain Sisay.

Edit: oops, misread it. Getting into play for free obviously adds a lot of value. But from a design perspective it makes me like it less, since it just incentivizes playing the biggest stupidest legends you can find, whereas putting them into hand is more versatile in terms of its potential, even if it's a lot weaker.

Power: C
Design: C

Drana and Linvala

Probably a lot less fun than it initially looks like. In the CZ this being face up means your opponents will either plan to kill her ASAP, or just hold back their relevant creatures, which isn't fun for anyone. I think it'd be a lot more fun and probably more effective without Linvala's half of the card - your opponents might be okay with letting you have benefits, but not when you're disabling theirs at the same time. So functionally we just have Linvala, Keeper of Silence with black in the CI. Oh and free color fixing is boring.

Power: D
Design: D

Errant and Giada

Flash is fun. Flying is, y'know, a basic building block of the game, so it's fine. I'm glad they have a Future Sight commander that doesn't look busted, as the density of strong flash/flying cards isn't super high and prevents any instants/sorceries, as well as most non-creatures, from qualifying. The cost is nice and low too. I suspect I'll want to play this mostly around flash, as flash cards make other flash cards better by enabling you to hold up mana more comfortably, though flying has a lot more density so it's probably stronger overall. Or you could do a mix of course. Either way, it looks fair and reasonably fun.

Power: C+
Design: B+

Ghalta and Mavren

Rate really has gotten ridiculous these days. A 12/12 trample with upside for 7, sheesh. Not even a difficult mana cost. Anyway, there's obviously two ways to focus with this deck - either make big creature, or make a lot of little creatures. Unfortunately for the first option, it's way worse than the second - for one thing, while trample is nice and all, lifelink as a way to play defense AND offense is much better balanced. Plus it can trigger a lot more things. But most importantly, the second ability keeps doubling as long as you don't lose creatures - and even if you do, your new ones aren't attacking, so you'll have the same number even if every attack was suicidal. Whereas the first ability will just keep making the same size of creature until you play something bigger (tbf, with an anthem you'll keep making slightly larger creatures, but the 1/1s double every combat without any extra work and an anthem makes them a lot better too). So it's really no choice at all, imo. The only real advantage is that the dino comes in attacking, so it might be worthwhile on an alpha strike, but I can't see building a deck to exploit it over the lifelink tokens. Amusingly, the commander itself, despite being a rate monster, has little reason to risk itself in combat, though ofc it's an option and a good one when pushing lethal. Anyway, very vanilla build - just make a bunch of tokens, some anthems to make them better, swing them around and make a bunch of extras with your commander. Casual-powerful but boring.

Power: B
Design: D+

Glissa, Herald of Predation

Look how they massacred my girl. I do like options, but these are all really boring tbh. Making 2 2/2s would just be okay (compare to the option above and it's a joke...I mean I know G&M cost 2 more and have more setup but still), but paying 4 for the privilege is awful. Of course you can just wait and use mode 2, but then you've only produced 1 token per turn, which is abysmal. And then the third mode is an anthem for those tokens, but since it doesn't make them deal more damage to players it's not that exciting imo. I think the best way to play her will probably be to choose mode 1 a bunch of times while grinding out a control game, then flip them all at once for an alpha strike. Even that isn't trivial, though, because you can't play any sorcery-speed overruns after they flip. It's nice that they remain noncreatures until flipped, which enables some artifacts-matters stuff or creature-only board wipes (too bad glissa is pricey and a creature...), but overall she seems very mid for a token commander. I think they want you to play more incubate stuff, but I don't think it'll really be worth it.

Power: D+
Design: D+

Hidetsugu and Kairi

Of course you can set this up with other cards, but given that the etb is pretty weak on its own, I think these guys were born to die. So I think the natural play pattern is to play them, set themselves up with a good target, then sacrifice them immediately to cast it. The best targets are probably ways to copy them - so you play them, leave the original up, then copy them, let the copy die to legend rule, and then keep chaining copy spells until you run out of them (drawing 2 deeper every cycle). And of course there's the usual nonsense of Expropriate or other big spells to cast for free. Yuck.

Actually let me do a double take here...if you copy them with Fated Infatuation or whatever, the copy will put etb on the stack and then die, putting its death trigger on top of the etb. So you'll need to have already set yourself up with the next spell. Which, if it's another copy spell...well, you've got the same problem. You never actually get the draw trigger until all the death triggers have resolved, making it much much more difficult to combo. Even just doing fair-ish stuff when you copy them for a single big spell is difficult since you need to have set them up ahead of time unless you're happy to just roll the dice on the topdeck. So I guess they're probably a fair bit weaker than I initially though. Still, when I see blue + cast big spells my brain goes "time magic, hard pass".

Power: C
Design: D+

Inga and Esika

Hello we are blue and green and we ramp and draw cards how are you? Tbf the cast trigger splits this a bit as tokens go strongest with the first part but don't synergize with the second (and the mana can be tricky to use on them), so I suspect your best bet is creatures that also create tokens, i.e. Avenger of Zendikar and co. Power-wise, I don't think this will be TOO crazy, but it's definitely not my kind of thing, I can barely keep my eyes open reading it.

Power: B-
Design: C-

Kogla and Yidaro

Very limited focused tbh. Discard is borderline useless and neither etb mode is very exciting, plus they aren't in great colors to blink. Rate is certainly less exciting than ghalta as well. I feel no animus towards them but I really can't imagine anyone wanting to build them either. They're just boring.

Power: F
Design: C-

Kroxa and Kunoros

Boy that is a steep cost to use that effect. And he costs 6 too? Oof. Those keywords are pretty low-impact too tbh, I'd take flying over all of them put together I think. I honestly think I'd rather use old Teneb, the Harvester - sure, he doesn't get the trigger on etb, but he doesn't require so many cards to activate and he can choose from enemy graves too, and he's a lot more evasive to make him safer to trigger. I can certainly see the argument that K&K is stronger since it doesn't require mana and doesn't need to connect, but the fact that there's even a comparison with something as out-of-date as teneb tells me that this is just not that impressive. Getting 5 cards in the yard, plus needing viable reanimator targets, plus getting to 6 in a reasonable time frame...it's all a lot of work. Plus just costing 6 means you aren't even getting huge tempo by the time it triggers. Yeah, sorry, I'm just off it.

Power: D
Design: C

Omnath, Locus of All

Okay, so let's think about the baseline here. He's a 4/4 for 4 that draws a card every turn and gives you Upwelling. That's a pretty solid start. Add onto that the fact that he gives you 3 mana if you flip a 3c card. That part is probably less exciting than I think it sounds. For one thing, 35%+ of your deck is lands. For a second thing, a lot of your strong utility spells - your ramp, your removal, etc - is just better if its monocolor. Abzan Charm is not better than Swords to Plowshares even if you get 3 mana to cast it. And ofc very few casts with mv < 3 will have 3+ colors. And honestly I don't think the payoff is THAT good, not good enough to gimp your deck over it, plus it reveals what you have, which sucks. I think an optimal version of this dude probably has something like 20% 3c cards tbh. That said, he's still not bad because his baseline is still quite solid. Free cards never hurt and upwelling can do strong things in the right context, though that UG god whose name I forget is probably more reliable for it. I'm glad he's actually killable, though, I hate playing against that stupid god.

Power: B-
Design: C

Quintorius, Loremaster

Cheating costs is annoying, but given that he costs 5, 3 to activate, and the card needs to be in the grave already I don't think it's going to be a huge issue. Also I can't think of any horrifically broken RW cards to cast with him tbh, most of them are board dependent. He's not even terrible as just a token producer with a bunch of random cantrips, which you can sometimes cash in if you're running out of stuff to do or if a spirit is dying in combat. So most likely mix together some cheap cantrips and token producers, some looting spells like Tormenting Voice, a little interaction, and some sweet board buffs like Eldrazi Monument, and you've probably got a pretty cute and fun deck, though I doubt it will be too powerful.

Power: C-
Design: B

Rankle and Torbran

Another first striker with a big butt, why bother? Anyway, flaste makes them easy to connect with, but we're paying 5 so what are we getting for our trouble? The first mode seems deeply middling. Barely has any synergy with the other modes as far as I can tell. Second mode is fine, but we already had that on Rankle, Master of Pranks for less mana. So we're really relying on that third mode to get us over the line. And...yeah, I'm pretty sure I'd rather just play Torbran, Thane of Red Fell. Haste is kinda pointless since it'll be hard to take huge advantage the turn you cast it. I guess a token swarm plays into the second and third modes a bit, but you're really relying on your opponents doing absolutely nothing for that to work out. Also, that ability is symmetrical unlike torbran, so Pyrohemia etc are a lot less effeective. Having black and red together is nice but I think red had most of the best bases covered anyway, and the downgrade of costing 1 more and needing to connect and only working on your turn and being symmetrical...yeah, it seems pretty bad tbh. The flexibility of the other two modes will sometimes be useful I suppose but the first is very low-impact and the second wants a build-around that doesn't gel with the third, most impactful ability.

Power: D
Design: D+

Thalia and The Gitrog Monster

Time to anger the Goose. I'm pretty uninterested in this. Stax effects on my commander is really not worth the attention imo. I'd consider that ability potentially a downside tbh. The other abilties are all fine but they don't really have a very high ceiling imo. The attack trigger barely seems worth enabling - just a second ago, omnath was drawing a card for free every turn. FS+DT is nice but this is commander so it's not that exciting imo. If we care enough about combat to buff our commander it becomes fairly irrelevant, and if we don't then clearly we don't care that much about combat. It does save us the trouble of protecting it while attacking, but that's about it. So to me, a lot of the question lies upon the extra land per turn clause. And I do like that clause, but overall the commander just feels like a lot of random value without doing anything very interesting. It's kind of a mini Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait that wants sac fodder, and I'm pretty bored of sac decks.

Power: C
Design: C-

Yargle and Multani

I like the joke, but this guy either wins in a fairly predictable fashion or does nothing, so my interest is also nothing.

Power: D+
Design: F (but in a good way)

Zimone and Dina

Another sac-focused commander. The triggered ability is obviously easy to turn on with the activated, so your baseline is to sac a creature, draw a card, and play an extra land....deja freaking vu...and then drain 2. Pretty okay baseline, albeit boring. Once you get to 8 lands you get an extra card/land and so can activate on enemy turns while still draining, but in either case you haven't added to the drain unless you have other ways to draw cards. You could theoretically have a bunch of draw engines going off on ech players turn, however, drawing 2 cards is a hell of a lot stronger than draining for 2, so honestly the drain feels pretty low-impact if you're already that big on draw. Maybe some Merfolk Looter pseudo-draw could make the drain more exciting without just winning through card advantage, but meh, I'm more inclined to view the drain as a fairly vestigial feature of the card and think of it as Thalia + Gitrog version 2. Which is to say...eh, I like activated abilities more than attack triggers and I like 3 drops more than 4 drops, but it's still very vanilla.

Power: C+
Design: C+

Zurgo and Ojutai

I love how this pretends to be dragon tribal when it basically does nothing for your additional dragons. I'm just going to ignore that aspect because I can't see a good reason to bother. In comparison to Dragonlord Ojutai, it adds a color and haste, switches the hexproof from untapped to only for the first turn, and provides the ability to bounce itself after connecting. Outside of the bounce this feels weaker to me - dragonlord not having haste is a bummer, but he's protected until your next turn and with vigilance is basically fully hexproof. Recasting this guy just to re-hexproof seems really expensive and probably not worth it unless your meta is bananas over removal. However, it is definitely useful to be able to bounce him in order to set up your future board wipes, and maybe there's a little mileage in getting cast triggers or whatever. Overall I still think this is probably worse than dragonlord because of the intense mana involved, but he's very hard to kill outside of counterspells if you keep bouncing him, so he's a pretty stable wincon for a control deck.

Power: B-
Design: B

Wait, wtf is this %$#%?

Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink

Oh god what is this even from? Jumpstart again? I don't even know. Anyway, he's another (fixed) Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, except this time with a big payoff on 9 mana. I guess that's fine, but honestly it's gotten kinda repetitive.

Power: C+
Design: D

Surrak and Goreclaw

Boring meet boringer. And the abilities are, no surprise, very boring. Haste, trample, and +1/+1 for your nontoken creatures. Maybe it would be okay if they didn't cost 6 to start and restrict you to mono-green. Really not selling me on the...jumpstart?...packs here, guys.

Power: D-
Design: F

On to the commander precons. I ain't even broke a sweat.

Bright-Palm, Soul Awakener

Ookay, so you have some random hydra or whatever with 5 counters on it, slam this down, then swing for 12? Kinda interesting that it's a pretty weak effect on itself, at least without a lot of support, and I like the pseudo-haste. Not my kinda thing but it's not a bad design.

Power: C
Design: C+

Brimaz, Blight of Oreskos

Dude, you gotta chill with the gym, Jesus. Much like polukranos from several hours ago, brimaz doesn't really care about the quality of your dudes-with-type-tag, just the quantity. Technically he cares about the mana values, but because of the proliferate I think you'll just want to have as many on the board as possible even if they're fairly small to start with. The fact that it triggers every end step also means he's pretty strong with everyone's favorite, superfriends, especially if you have a sac outlet. Personally I'd tend towards running the cheapest, cantrippy-est artifact boys I could find, alongside payoffs for proliferate, though ofc playing phyrexians gives you twice as many potential proliferate triggers so at least a couple of them is likely worth it. The different directions make this a bit more interesting than a typical tribal commander, and I think he'll probably play a fairly interesting way, so I'm a bit more forgiving with his shortcomings than the hydra.

Power: B-
Design: B-

Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy

Why would you let a gremlin start using your tools anyway? Is this an elf and the shoemaker situation? If I was building this guy, the first thing I'd do is go to EDHrec because trying to identify the different artifact tokens on your own sounds pretty difficult via scryfall. As such, I'm guessing most people's decks will look about the same, with a bunch of stuff that makes obscure artifact tokens or copies of things as artifacts etc. So it's a bit on-rails, but at least it's a fairly cute and unique rail, and the power level looks pretty reasonable to me.

Power: C
Design: C

Kasla, the Broken Halo

Does it say "X"? If so then it's good in this deck. I dunno why I just complained about Gimbal being on rails when this is 1000x worse. Funny enough this lady's combat proficiency sorta hampers her slow value plan since she can just start killing people pretty quickly tbh. Also convoke gets worse in multiples since you run out of creatures with which to discount and they're generally overcosted innately. So I suspect this will be significantly clunkier than people expect it to be. That said, the payoff trigger is pretty strong, I just think it'll be hard to trigger it too many times, especially if anyone in your meta has heard of board wipes.

Power: C
Design: D

sidar jabari of Zhalfir

Oh great, eminence is back. Tbf it is both tribal-only and extremely middling. On the board, his combat abilities are pretty strong, he's hard to profitably block and his combat trigger is potentially quite strong. There aren't very many expensive knights that don't suck, but that's why you're getting it at such a good rate. Knights overall are pretty weak as a tribe in commander and this guy doesn't really provide a ton of justification for going all-in on them since both abilities only trigger once per turn generally. There are some good standalone knights that fit into particular archetypes, but I don't think this guy will bring them together very effectively. I am glad he's a tribal commander that actually gives a crap about what his tribal cards do, though, that's pretty rad. And I do think the way he supports is interesting and knights are a fun classic type, so I'm feeling a bit lenient, despite the m&m-ence.

Power: C-
Design: B-

Elenda and Azor

I hate Azor, the Lawbringer's trigger. The last thing I wanna do in reactive colors is tap myself out at the beginning of combat while sending my commander into the red zone. There's a fair bit of power here, but it's really slow and, to me, reads like "things that will feel awesome and then you'll lose". I guess you can just fire off an instant-speed draw spell on endstep instead, but that feels like a bit of a waste.

Power: C-
Design: D+

Moira and Teshar

Man do I hate Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle. I hope the unearth-esque clause on this thing prevents it from comboing. Of course you can recur any permanent type, but there are fewer moving parts if you're recurring mostly historic spells, given that historic spells are basically all permanents. Cards like Obzedat, Ghost Council have some good interactions here where they can come back permanently. Planeswalkers also seem potentially powerful to recur if you're only getting one turn out of them, and ofc they're historic. Kaya, Ghost Assassin is for sure going into this build if I ever make it. It does seem potentially pretty fun, but I am cautious given how Teshar tends to play out.

Power: B-
Design: B

Rashmi and Ragavan

Blech @ "each of YOUR turns". Come on ffs, let us have some fun. That clause REALLY limits the ceiling on this. The artifact part is potentially pretty strong, but it's hard to really get very excited about this sort of thing when Etali, Primal Storm exists and will let you cast a spell off EACH player's deck for free. The ceiling is just so much lower here. I think wotc is too conservative with some of the stealing stuff, especially when it's random, because it's really hard to get good hits in this day and age. So many decks are really focused on doing something specific that won't be useful to you, so in addition to whiffing with lands you've also gotta dodge synergy pieces and low-impact early-game stuff. I really want to like her, but DAMN do I wish they would have left off that your-turn-only crap. Puts such a low ceiling on the card, and it's already prevented from ez-gaming by hitting an eldrazi on turn 3 since you won't have the artifacts to freecast it and can't even save it for later. Original Rashmi, Eternities Crafter was a bit of an abomination but this is way too limited imo.

Power: D
Design: C+

Saint Traft and Rem Karolus

I like this more as a payoff for convoke since at least it actually assists with what convoke does instead of just braindead "do X get card". And it comes out early and doesn't have an aggro body that wants to just voltron people out of the game instead of accruing value with its abilities. There's also some wiggle room to try tapping/untapping by other means, which gives some more creative angles. This makes me want to build a convoke-heavy deck a lot more, even if it's still pretty on-rails. Also I love the hat.

Power: C+
Design: B

Shalai and Halar

Bleh, feels win-more to me. If it could hit creatures it would provide some more versatility to the +1 counter plan, but counters are already good for punching people in the face, punching them again seems kinda redundant and not very interesting. I am glad that it's single-target, though, symmetrical damage is really frustrating when another player is the real threat and you're inadvertently killing your allies.

Power: C-
Design: D+

Goro-Goro and Satoru

Ugh I hate that activated ability. It's like "hey, you should try doing this thing....or not, if you don't want to, it's fine." It's cute that it ties together haste and ninjutsu, but the ability is so broad that especially with the activated it's kinda just play anything, make dragons. Besides that, the only big synergy I see is first/double strike to make more dragons. And of course, once you've made dragons, there are a solid number of dragon buffs, though I'd be more concerned with ensuring I succeed in making the dragons rather than buffing them up. Dash and ninjutsu are particular nice since they can help themselves retrigger on subsequent turns, but there's really not very many with evasion. I guess Reckless Imp has finally made its way into commander, congrats buddy. Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury is definitely an all-star here as well.

Power: C+
Design: C-

Katilda and Lier

Unfortunate that most humans are sorcery-speed, as most of the spells I'd like to flashback are instants. I'm sure there are enough humans with flash to get some mileage, though the easier road to walk is probably...everyone say it with me...time magic. I do like casting stuff out of graves, but human tribal is one of my least favorite tribals, feels very "I'm playing creature tribal!" since 99% of all creatures are humans but whatever. It is nice that casting the human itself puts a tax on the spell which makes expensive spells more difficult. But we do have another tribal commander that doesn't really care about the creature itself, just the type. Idk I'm getting tired.

Power: C+
Design: C

Slimefoot and Squee

Kinda wild that he creates a saproling on etb since it basically guarantees he's just going to live life as a Recurring Nightmare instead of a real creature. Play him, have a sac outlet on board, and then you've just got 4: reanimate a creature for the rest of the game. I guess there's potential for him to get locked out if you don't have a saproling in play, so you'll want at least a few ways to make them for protection. I do like this sort of zone nonsense, but it's also the sort of thing that often leads to horrible degenerate garbage so who knows. I'm so tired of analyzing magic cards. Time....to die.

Power: A-
Design: B+

Finally, I am at peace....

Until I have a serious argument about pizza. Then the real guns come out.

[Dragoon]

Djeru and Hazoret

I like getting a bonus for being hellbent-ish, rather than needing it to do much of anything. But unfortunately I think the ceiling is too low here. It's a Fire Elemental that maybe draws a card when it attacks. And emptying your hand is potentially difficult with a lot of legendaries, plus ill-advised, so outside of late-game desperation I don't see it happening very often. Really hard to imagine anyone playing this over, idk, Captain Sisay.

Power: D-
Design: C+

You should probably reread the last sentence of the card.

[Chromaticus]

Wow - I had completely overlooked that Slimefoot and Squee brought a friend with him to party. That card is bananas!

[Hawk]

Nice review

I and others seem more excited about Rona, Herald of Invasion because she can combine with Pestilence effects to build your own Omniscience. That seemed to be missing from your estimation of her, and to me it bumps her up a bit. I definitely think she's better than Vohar, Vodalian Desecrator although still not great. I think that she's likely to break "The 600" club but unlikely to break the 1000s as her plan is ultimately very slow, mana intensive, and fragile. You're looking at a minimum of 10-11 mana to get your first omnicience trigger alongside Cuombajj Witches, Withering Wisps or Noxious Field (the cheapest pestilence/ping effects) and while you can do that in installment plans as early as turn six, it's still janky as all get out.

[RedCheese]

God i wished we got The Scarab God + The Locust God teamup

[duducrash]

Yes, free suspend spells work very well with Baral and Khari Zev. And every once in a while they will release a couple. It will be good eventually. You can even run As Foretold , or cards like expertise's and thay one X card from ravnica and cast them, right? But there are like maybe 4 or 5 free suspend cards in UR

[PrimevalCommander]

The cards that interest me most are
Slimefoot and Squee for the reasons already mentioned. Repeatable zombify is my jam.
Thalia and The Gitrog Monster + Zimone and Dina for a 5 color lands deck I'm brewing. Need creatures that draw cards while interacting with lands.

[DirkGently]

@Dragoon lol I realized that after I posted it (while watching the limited resources rare review), but too slow for you to call me out. Ratings have been adjusted accordingly.

@Hawk Yep, I forgot about that angle. Can't say I like it that much though. It being random, needing to pump mana into it, limited to toughness etc make is very limited. And from a design perspective I dislike anything that vaguely resembles omniscience.

How was y'all's prerelease?

[Hawk]

@Dragoon lol I realized that after I posted it (while watching the limited resources rare review), but too slow for you to call me out. Ratings have been adjusted accordingly.

@Hawk Yep, I forgot about that angle. Can't say I like it that much though. It being random, needing to pump mana into it, limited to toughness etc make is very limited. And from a design perspective I dislike anything that vaguely resembles omniscience.

How was y'all's prerelease?

Prerelease at home here - my wife, my sister-in-law, our friend and I just did a four person Swiss tournament. Honestly I know that's not a "real prerelease" but it was way more fun to just take all the time we needed around the kitchen table and get to actually play together.

I thought I had the killer deck with Chandra, Hope's Beacon, Invasion of Innistrad, Invasion of Fiora, Voldaren Thrillseeker, Bloodfeather Phoenix, and Obosh, the Preypiercer as the leads on a bomby B/R sealed deck that also had multiple Final Flourishs and a Shatter the Source for even more removal.

My wife posted the best results with two Chrome Host Seedsharks and an Archangel Elspeth as her bombs in a Bant deck exploiting both Knight and Phyrexian synergies. She completely ignored battles; she played Invasion of Zendikar and Invasion of Vryn as advantage spells that trigger Seedshark and then ignored them to focus on killing people.

Not part of this thread but I will just note that all the land cycling creatures like Alabaster Host Intercessor seemed so great in sealed I'm almost tempted to consider them in EDH.

[JovialJovian]

A note about Omnath: he cares about 3-or-more colored mana symbols, they do not have to be different colors. He triggers from an Abzan Charm or an Archmage's Charm equally.