Commander 2019 Speculation

[bobthefunny]

Do you think that there's a possibility for adding twists in those mechanics? For example adding the ability to copy nonland permants in the populate deck in order to add more colors and make it more interesting?

Doubtful as populate is a static keyword, as are madness and flashback. Morphs have existed in more than one flavor.

Announcing a new keyword! Mega-madness! (/sarcasm)

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I do have to say that I am intrigued by the concepts of these lists. Populate is one of the major themes of my Trostani (sorry for MTGS link, haven't transfered everything over yet) deck, using cards like Séance, God-Pharaoh's Gift, and Mirrorpool (among others), to make token copies of powerful creatures - which I then get to populate. Helm of the Host on Trostani gets absurd quickly. As well as on Oketra.

So the concept is very solid even in two color, but adding blue (Rite of replication, Stolen Identity), or red (Flameshadow Conjuring, Feldon of the third path), would be cool.

Populate itself though is actually a fairly minor find in my deck, since most cards with the ability... aren't great. Here's hoping for a few upgrades.

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My Tibor and Lumia deck also went through a phase of GY matters and flashback, using Secrets of the dead and River Kelpie as powerful draw engines with flashback (Past in flames), retrace (Flame Jab), and Spellweaver Volute.

While I sadly doubt they'll reprint the Volute, that is one of the most fun cards in this style of play, and gets super crazy insane very fast.

[DrSeaMonster]

I was theorizing with some friends and we got to this potential color breakdown.

Abzan Populate
Temur Morph
Jeskai Flashback
Rakdos Madness

This is based on a few things.

1,These color combinations haven't had a deck in at least two years.
2.this spread of colors lets four colors appear twice and one color appear three times, which is the same color spread as last year's decks.
3.These are the colors that have in the past done and can potentially do the most with these keywords.

[Sinis]

Rakdos Madness

I can all but guarantee you, by the way, that we will see a Neheb, the Worthy reprint.

[DrSeaMonster]

Rakdos Madness

I can all but guarantee you, by the way, that we will see a Neheb, the Worthy reprint.

Not unlikely! But I've got a friend who's convinced it'll be Olivia, Mobilized for War

[Sinis]

Not unlikely! But I've got a friend who's convinced it'll be Olivia, Mobilized for War

Maybe!

I find they tend to make new mythics with some scattered reprints.

[MRHblue]

WhyNotBoth.jpg

But a new commander that adds madness or flashback to cards from the Command zone could be interesting.
Hopefully good like Ur-Dragon, not broken like Edgar.

[bobthefunny]

They usually do 2 new commanders, plus one old one for the Commander slot lineup.

[Serenade]

When do these previews start?

[ISBPathfinder]

When do these previews start?

Generally speaking 2-3 weeks before the product drops. Given that M2020 dropped a week ago and the next set is announced for October 4thish release I would guess that means that this product will hit somewhere about mid to late August which means early august is really all the more we should expect for official spoiler season. All this said, its possible we see some early spoils outside of a spoiler season at some upcoming event (I want to say I heard about some event this weekend or next but didn't pay very close attention).

[Istarkano]

All this said, its possible we see some early spoils outside of a spoiler season at some upcoming event (I want to say I heard about some event this weekend or next but didn't pay very close attention).

Maro said he will announce when C19 previews will start at SDCC during the panel. He also said last Friday or the Friday before that he was writing his C19 preview article. He is usually 3-4 weeks ahead of his articles. So I would guess previews would start in 1 or 2 weeks.

[ConstantMists]

C19 drops August 23. Previews should start August 5th if they go with a 2 week season or 12th for 1 week

[Istarkano]

According to Maro's SDCC panel, C19 Previews will start at GenCon, August 1-4.

[TheGildedGoose]

Desperately hoping the Flashback deck is Grixis. I'm gonna try to convince my buddy to buy one to reintroduce him to the hobby and since Flashback is one of my favorite mechanics I think I would have the most fun with it. Alternatively, if the Populate deck ends up being Abzan, I might go for that one. Black has a lot of support for tokens and I think making the deck Selesnya just because that's where the mechanic started would be boring.

On the other hand, there's no way that the Madness deck is going to be anything besides BR, and I don't think it's likely that they'll print three precons with black in them.

Will the new commanders this year have their own new mechanics, or will they be ones already used like Eminence or Experience?

[Cyberium]

Story wise, Temur Frontier is the closest to Ugin ands spirits, perhaps the Morph deck would have the Dragonclaw twins as their commander? Younger sister Baishya turns cards into face-down morphs, allow you to exile/play them at instant speed, while Naiva is the warrior/hunter who gets pumped by # of morph creatures.

[bobthefunny]

Story wise, Temur Frontier is the closest to Ugin ands spirits, perhaps the Morph deck would have the Dragonclaw twins as their commander? Younger sister Baishya turns cards into face-down morphs, allow you to exile/play them at instant speed, while Naiva is the warrior/hunter who gets pumped by # of morph creatures.

That's cool, and very thematic. Got any links for further reading?

[Sinis]

None of those mechanics really excite me, but I predict flashback being the rare, expensive deck with four decks worth of reprint value,

Inb4 Snapcaster Mage reprint.

[MRHblue]

Inb4 Snapcaster Mage reprint.

I think they have learned they cannot do one deck that has a known large dollar card.

[Sinis]

I think they have learned they cannot do one deck that has a known large dollar card.

It was mostly in jest.

We all know their Flashback creature is going to have to be Dralnu, Lich Lord.

[FoxOfWar]

I hope they at least slightly look beyond the expected obvious color pairs, even if the decks mostly are those colors. The mechanics all have at least indirect support in all colors, and the commander decks have been relatively open-ended theme-wise anyway.

As always, mostly looking forward for new legendaries to mess around with. Wouldn't mind a Rakdos commander that struck me as something I want to build, as I've yet to really see one. (Or an Azorius one, but that's maybe not in the books this time around.)

[Rasputin101]

I really would like to see another range of partner commanders but they need to tweak the rule a bit.
Maybe errata partner to say:
Partner (You can have two commanders if both have partner and both have the same expansion symbol)

Or something to that effect, I'm not a game designer!

[TheTuna]

I really would like to see another range of partner commanders but they need to tweak the rule a bit.
Maybe errata partner to say:
Partner (You can have two commanders if both have partner and both have the same expansion symbol)

Or something to that effect, I'm not a game designer!

For my money, "Partners with" already perfected (and solved) the Partner mechanic. The original Partners ended up being extremely powerful while also a massive flavor fail (why can these people work together? What do they have in common?) while "Partners with" is one of the most flavorful Commander abilities out there and avoids generic 4c goodstuff piles.

Adding more original Partners seems quite difficult given that the collective power level of the Partner pool expands geometrically with each new Partner added. I'd be thrilled to see more "Partners with" commanders, though.

[Myllior]

For my money, "Partners with" already perfected (and solved) the Partner mechanic.

I think the Battlebond partners being monocoloured is their greatest improvement over the original partner commanders, as opposed to their partner mechanics being restricted to only one other legend. (Also not putting an infinite mana sink on a commander whose colour identity is the best for producing infinite mana). I think monocoloured partners with the general version of the mechanic would lead to much more variation in the decks that could then be built with them. How much more interesting these additional variations would be, over just focusing the pairs directly on one another for a single deck, is another question altogether.

That all being said, if the decks are mechanically themed and any of them are beyond two colours, then I wouldn't expect partner commanders in any form.

[Sinis]

If we're talking wishlists instead of predictions, I would dearly love to see more of the original partner mechanic. I've seen some really interesting decks, and some strategies for which there is no appropriate three-colour general (like Tymna/Sidar Kondo hatebears, or Silas Renn + Ludevic Saboteur/Artifact shenanigans, or Vial Smasher + third/fourth colour big-spell action).

Honestly, I really appreciated the modular design and powerlevel.

[ilovesaprolings]

Abzan Populate
Temur Morph
Jeskai Flashback
Rakdos Madness

This is the most likely one. Maybe Sultai morph and Naya populate.
But honestly the Eldraine brawl decks are confusing. We know they are 4 and one is bant. The other ones are probably esper, grixis and jund (no naya since m20 gave us Rienne).
So... does the existence of these brawl deck make the appearance of the same color combination in commander decks unlikely?

[DrSeaMonster]

My line of thinking was that either this year's commander decks will be wedge, or eldraine will be wedge. But the brawl deck has a bant legendary, which disinclines me to think that eldraine will be wedge, which makes wedge commander decks more likely.