Legendary Commentary: Shadows Over Innistrad
Surprise! The best way to follow up Innistrad’s legendaries is with more Innistrad legendaries. I was incredibly hype to return to Innistrad and the fusion of Lovecraftian flavor was absolutely the best way to do it. I also loved Investigate and I’m hoping for a return to that mechanic in the new commanders to come.
AVACYN’S GONE MAD!
This is absolutely one of my favorite cards this set. A commander with Flash can be so incredibly potent and being an ETB you can flicker post transformation to re-indestructible your field. Evoke creatures like Ingot Chewer are great for forcing the flip. Damage redirectors and doublers can do work in this deck too, Stuffy Doll and Coalhauler Swine can be bonkers powerful. With Furnace of Wrath out your opponent takes 6 from the flip then Coalhauler deals another 12.
New Odric puts a fun ability on a legendary. Auras, equipment that grant kewords become anthems. This legendary works exceedingly well in decks with other gods like the Amonkhet gods. Oketra and Odric give their field double strike indestructible.
New Olivia puts much more emphasis on bolstering your own fields over stealing from others. The cost is fantastic and with rakdos vampires having Madness this set you can set off a chain of Madness casts that all have haste and a counter. Like a juiced Unleash. Vampires but with accelerated self discard. Great for reanimator too.
New Sigarda also is an inverse in design choices from Olivia. Things BUT Sigarda have Hexproof. Selesnya human tribal has a good deal of support since Humans are generally in sets and get good abilities. Being able to mulch your graveyard for tokens is great with Lambholt Champion type creatures too. Put that Evolving Wilds to greater use. She can also curve into Soldier tribal with the token types, and that a good deal of soldiers are humans.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I LOVE the Gitrog Monster. In golgari lands you’ll get this out T4 every game, sometimes T3. No one is ready for a 6/6 deathtouch T4 or T5, so you can just start swining away. Voltron builds are so goofy, any amount of trample gives you a death trample where only one point of damage is assigned per creature. That, and its draw on land discard/sac/mill is incredible with Dakmor Salvage and the like. It is absolutely busted with Underrealm Lich from the new Ravnica sets.
And that’s Shadows Over Innistrad! The legendary quota feels upped compared to the first set, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There’s just more. What experiences have you had with these? I’d love to hear it. And as always, safe planeswalking.
