#legendary commentary

[jones-friend]

Legendary Commentary: Rakdos

FUCK YOU ITS RAKDOS TIME

DOES THIS LOOK LIKE THE FACE OF A MAN WHO CARES THEY’RE LOSING HALF THEIR PERMANENTS? NOT WHEN I GOT HASTE DOUBLESTRIKE! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE WITH THAT WEAK ASS 1/1 BIRD SHIT ITS PAIN TIME, ASSHOLE WE GOT ALL 7 POWER OF DEMON ASS COMING YOUR WAY

YOU THINK THESE CREATURES ARE HERE FOR COMBAT? FUCK YOU I KILL ALL MY OWN CREATURES MYSELF! SHOWSTOPPER IT UP TO MAKE EVERYONE TINY EXPLOSIONS OF BLOOD AND MUSCLE. KICK THOSE SIMIC FUCKERS BEFORE THEY GET BIG

GREVEN BROUGHT US RAKDOS MASOCHISM. FUCK THAT ITS TIME FOR RAKDOS SADISM. YOU THINK I’M COMING IN WITH A COHERENT STRATEGY? ALL I WANT IS TO BREAK UP MY TOTAL DAMAGE HIGH SCORE WIDE OPEN LIKE MY ASS AFTER A NIGHT WITH RAKDOS. IN THIS HOUSE WE HEARTLESS HIGETSU INTO STONECOIL WITHOUT DROPPING A SINGLE COLOR OF MANA THEN CHANDRA’S IGNITION FOR TOTAL CARNAGE

FUCK

BEEP BEEP HERE COMES THE BOMB ENGINE YOU ORZHOV PRICKS ITS TIME TO SLING DAMAGE AND WHATEVER. EVERYTHING IS FULL OF KNIVES AND WE’RE TOSSING THAT OUT LIKE A DRUNK’S LAST MEAL ON RAGING BULL

WE ALL GET FUCKED DOWN HERE. FLIPPING COINS LIKE SOME KIND OF FRESH FUCKER TO LET CHANCE DECIDE WHO LIVES OR DIES BECAUSE ITS NOT A PARTY WITHOUT SOME SHRED OF HOPE. ENDLESS WHISPERS FOR ENDLESS FUCKERY

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Safe planeswalking.

[jones-friend]

Legendary Commentary 5c

Today we’re going to explore other tribes in 5c and how they work. 5c tribes feel so good because not only do you have access to any creature in that tribe you have access to any removal, counter magic, or miscellaneous tribal support you want. Lets take a look.

Elementals are a joy, and if you’ve never built an elemental deck before I highly recommend it. Its one of the few decks that really feels like you’re flavorwise using every single color in MTG. Horde is an excellent reanimator, making your 8 mana forces 5 mana. The recent Nyxborn Ancient gears you up to recur 3 creatures for 5 lands. There’s a pet card I have that’s Elemental Resonance, letting you get a free 5 mana/recur as long as its on Horde of Notions. Discard with Thoughtflare or Faithless Looting, sac with Doomgape, get em in the yard and recur.

Reaper King is a KNOWN bastard because scarecrows aren’t really a tribe. What happens is people run changelings because they blow up anything you hate on ETB. That’s it! Bastard!

Dragons got serious boons with C17’s dragon precon. We saw a lot of fun commanders that will pop up later on, for now lets see the tribal ones. While both use dragons you have two different strategies. Scion is a showstopper who demands the spotlight. Packing cards like Quicksilver Dragon, Keiga, and Kokusho you have responses to your opponent’s removal. Then with Balefire, Dromar, Hellkite Tyrant, and Nicol Bolas if Scion connects its going to hurt. You’ll lose in whatever way hurts most.

The Ur-Dragon is about consistent acceleration. Your dragons always come out a turn faster and among Dragonspeaker Shaman and Dragonlord’s Servant you’ll have dragons being cast incredibly cheap. Once you’ve cast Ur-Dragon you can drop permanents for free on top of the discount that’s still there. You can survive longer without your commander and tutor restrictions hurt you much less.

Allies. Allies don’t have the clout they used to. Maybe we’ll see a return to them in a few months. Allies as a tribe have ETB’s that trigger like a stack of dominoes every time you drop one. That’s where Tazri fits in. Search up your best buddy ally and then her activated ability makes your allies battle ready, thematic with unifying all the colors against the eldrazi threat. Run some flicker, Soul Foundry, Mimic Vat for extra ETB’s and with Panharmonicon you get even more triggers. Getting the clutch ally you need helps so much for playing the way you need to each game. If you’ve never explored allies give them a try, they’re fun.

Warrior tribal is difficult to run. Like human tribal, most humans don’t support the tribe while a small number do. What you can really take advantage of in Najeela is her 1/1 warrior ETB trigger. Valor of Akros, Cathars’ Crusade, Warstorm Surge, In the Web of War, Primal Forcemage, and Ogre Battledriver. Druid’s Repository unfortunately goes infinite if that’s a route you want to go, but if you trigger it your creatures gain lifelink to trigger off effects like Cliffhaven Vampire.

Changeling Tribal. I absolutely love this commander, its awkward in every category but so so fun. The combo of the day was use Fist of Suns to make all your creatures cost WURBRG that got discounted to 0 making them all free. The +1/+1 is less important, but the discount can do work in tribes with varying cost colors. Remember, when brewing Morphon stay away from tribes with heavy devotion in a single color.

That covers the tribal 5c’s. There’s a lot of flexibility for 5c these days, a lot of routes to go. What routes have you taken? Feel free to drop a message. Safe planeswalking.

[jones-friend]

Legendary Commentary: 5c

“Slivers are evil and slivers are sly; And if you get eaten, then no one will cry”

Its time to explore one of the most depraved but most iconic creature typings in MTG’s history. If you haven’t had the pleasure of playing against slivers what you need to know is slivers are hive minded. Each new sliver you play to the board grants all your slivers the same boon. They generall have “all slivers gain flying” or “slivers you control get +2/+2”. The more slivers that get played the worse the board becomes.

All six of these commanders are really variations on the same theme. We’re going to take a look into how running this commander changes the way your deck plays.

Sliver Queen was recently subject to buyouts and as part of the reserved list is sitting at $96.90 market value at the time of writing this. If you can make it past the price tag a 7/7 tribal for 5 is very good. On top of that she spawns more 1/1 sliver tokens. With sliver synergy this is different than spawning zombies or soldiers because all your slivers are equally terrible. You can have more attackers and faster using excess mana to make buffed up slivers.

Sliver Overlord has two things going for it. Like Queen we have a 7/7 tribal for 5. The first ability lets you tutor for the sliver you need, which means you can tutor for the relevant sliver ability you want to give ALL your slivers. The second ability can be worked over with Ameboid Changeling and other forced Changeling effects to steal your opponent’s creatures. Its a much more oppressive build that helps your slivers choke everyone else out of the game.

Slivers big.

Sliver Hivelord was M15’s attempt to make slivers more balanced. A recent spike sets this card at about $30 at time of writing. Here your slivers are harder to kill so you can swing with what would normally kill them, using “damage to creature” effects are safer. Boardwipes become one sided as well for added bastardly actions.

The First Sliver is my favorite on the list here. Slivers have varying CMC’s and The First Sliver puts your deckbuilding skills to the test. This isn’t Maelstrom Nexus, this is EVERY sliver spell so you can pack Wheel of Fate cards with the intent to cascade into them off your small drop slivers. With careful cmc tuning and proper sliver choices one 6 drop sliver can play several more. Like a terrible nesting doll filled with horror. Disgusting.

Hah! Fuck you!

And that wraps up slivers! 5c doesn’t host a wide array of tribes but it does have a lot of tribes in it. I’d love to hear your most slivered thoughts. Safe planeswalking.

[jones-friend]

Legendary Commentary: Commander 17

C17 saw the expansion of four tribes. Today we’re going to look at vampires.

“Vampires only got three new cards!?”

You have to remember, this was around the time of Ixalan. Vampires gained traction in OG Zendikar under monoblack. Then in Innistrad as rakdos. Ixalan opened them up to orzhov colors, and C17 brought them together under a mardu banner. They did get offcolor legendaries, they’re just accounted for in other places.

Eddie. Eddie my boy. Getting two vampires for one is INCREDIBLE. Making them all bigger on swing is FANTASTIC. The precon and shadows over innistrad come with a lot to make the deck incredible. Cordial Vampire from MH1 with Indulgent Aristocrat from SoI give 2 +1/+1 counters per sacrifice. Small drops gain value fast here, lifelinkers like Vampire Nighthawk, Vampire of the Dire Moon, and Gifted Aetherborn all make combat an issue. Remember, you get vampires on cast so returning to hand is more preferable than returning to the field.

Licia is a departure from vampire tribal into a kind of pain tribal. She can come down a 3 drop 7/7 first strike lifelinker and that’s crazy value. While red doesn’t have a lot of life manipulation the boros and rakdos synergy pulls rank. Here we want ways to dump our life into abilities for Licia to rally it back. This is a life as a resource deck so Greed, Unspeakable Symbol, and Promise of Power. Heartless Summoning can help you with Licia and big drops like Vilis. Stunning Reversal lets you empty your life out to draw 7 cards. Lastly, Treasonous Ogre into Repay in Kind can result in lethal combat. Dangerous, but lethal. Children of Korlis and Tainted Sigil can cause huge lifegains.

Mathas is a multiplayer centric commander. As is such, toss in all the multiplayer cards like vows, curses, all that good stuff. Tainted Remedy can reverse the lifegain here. Your plan is to have things die so be ready with mass recursion like Exhume, Twilight’s Call, and Living Death. Keep draws lime Howling Mine and Reforge the Soul to keep the game from grinding to a halt. Your gameplan can be to win through graveyard theft so Thrilling Encore, Grim Return, Sepurchal Primordial, and Minion’s Return all get the job done and help bounty counters make your opponents play into your hands.

And that’s all for vampires of C17! There’s a lot of good ones to pick from. Which are your favorites? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Safe planeswalking.

[jones-friend]

Legendary Commentary: Commander 17

Commander 17 got into a lot of interesting things. While dragons and vampires feel like obvious tribal picks, cats and wizards fill out niches both new and old. Personally I liked the angle of grixis wizards, it really united the tribe and made them fun.

Inalla is exacty where a commander for wizard tribal should be. Many wizards have activated abilities having haste helps use. Making a token lets sacrificing with Apprentice Necromancer more worthwhile, especially when using ETB wizards to fill out the roster to use in tap effects. Tapping 5 wizards for 7 loss of life lets you stay active in the game without risking flimsy wizards in combat. Dualcaster Mage is solid as heck paying (2)RR for two copies of any spell. Dramatic Reversal helps untap your creatures for all the wizard tap effects too.

Grixis loves instants and sorceries and Kess is incredible. She avoids bolt, flies, and comes in as a nice four drop. Cards with bonuses for casting from the graveyard don’t need to have a bloated flashback cost paid for, and loot effects like Forgotten Creation and any number of wheels do work here since you can tap into your graveyard as necessary. Kess makes an excellent control or politics commander letting you take steps as you need to.

Mairsil works off the many activated abilities wizards have. Grixis artificer is entirely viable. Lux Cannon taps to add one charge counter, if you have that and say Titan Forge you can rack up charge counters faster. You can only use each ability once. An old strat was to use Quicksilver Elemental to replicate all the abilities with none of the one downside.

Dimir control is... prevalent. So here’s another! The filtered upkeep is really the key draw to playing this Taigam. Making sure cards can be played from your hand OR the gy is important: Dread Return, Sever the Bloodline, and Commit//Memory all help. Each “draw” you look at three times the options and stow two of those in your graveyard. Paradox Haze will give you a second upkeep to look through six cards a turn too.

That covers wizards! Interesting choices and additions all around. I’d love to hear your thoughts on these and what your builds are. Safe planeswalking friends.

[jones-friend]

Legendary Commentary: Commander 17

ITS DRAGON TIME

C17 made the bold choice to make a 5c precon and they handled it perfectly. Five new dragon related commanders are coming down the pipe, lets take a look.

BIG MOMMA DRAGON. The Ur-Dragon fits the bill for the ultimate dragon. The (1) discout really makes a difference for larger drops, Territorial Hellkite becomes (1)RR for a 6/5 flying haste. Further discounts like Herald’s Horn and Urza’s Incubator can reduce your dragons to just their color costs. Dropping permanents for free on attack means you can drop Ur-Dragon AND something else on your turn.

If we were ever to get a 5c combat tribal commander this is it! A flying 6/6 for 6 is potent and the defensive ability is great. Grappling Hook lets you toss out two of those damage triggers while mauling a flier. Forced combat effects are strong here too, and O-Kagachi makes use of one of my favorite quirkier cards Trove of Temptation.

I love 5c cards with costs that aren’t WUBRG. Ramos doesn’t ramp out on ETB but the surplus of casting you’ll be doing will keep you hitting that activation every turn. It can be used for a free removal spell when necessary too. Turning that kind of mana flips into Progenitus or Door to Nothingness activations, and the sheer amount of counter power keeps Ramos a terrifying force on the battlefield. Ramos fits into many kinds of 5c decks.

Oh hey you’re familiar. Having a human commander for an azorius dragon deck that focuses on rebounding tricks is.. really cool. I’m hoping azorius gets more support (and we get one (1) boros dragon someday). Uncounterable means you can focus less on counterspells for defense and more on how your instants and sorceries provide evasion through combat. Cast triggers will help too. Its an interesting direction and I’m glad they tried it out.

Cat dragon time!! We want to make sure Wasitora gets through combat safe right? Double strike is good, Berserkers’ Onslaught and Temur Battlerage. Plague Wind effects will lead the way for you to get cat dragons. Chewing through your opponents’ creatures is likely the direction to go.

And that’s the dragon deck, and C17! Its a potent cycle, powerful reprints and intense synergy. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Safe planeswalking.

[jones-friend]

Legendary Commentary: 5c

Five color commanders are absolutely some of my favorites. The first time I had all five land types on my board I felt UNLIMITED POWER. Over the next few days we’ll be looking into all the 5 color commanders available to us.

If you see anyone running Atogatog as their commander you should feel fear. This is someone with intense knowledge of the game and is pulling something silly. Now, Atogs were an old creature type based on sacrificing a type of permanent for P/T (auratog, etc). Atogatog lets you get huge gains by sacrificing into your atogs then into Atogatog. As we’ll see with another 5c commander later on the Changeling ability ARE Atogs. You can also make your things into Atogs with Xenograft, Arcane Adaptation, and Conspiracy to sacrifice and transfer their P/T onto Atog to fuel Overwhelming Stampede, Pathbreaker Ibex, or Dragon Throne of Tarkir. Phenax lets you tap Atog to turn toughness into mill. Using Xenograft style effects you can load up a huge Atogatog, Fungal Sprouting to make 1/1 saproling atogs, then sac them all into your commander. You can do WEIRD stuff with this one.

Have some respect for the grandpappy of five color EDH. For a long time this was one of the few options if you wanted a 5c deck that didn’t fit an available theme. Cromat’s activated abilities are wonderfully defensive letting them survive boardwipes or blow up attackers. Chromatic Lantern effects make having two mana open super versatile. Not too much to build on with this one, Cromat mostly becomes your commander instead of choosing them to begin with. And with recent 5c options there are often better options.

Karona has an Assault Suit style ability that also buffs a tribe a solid amount. You can run any tribe you want in 5c and get gains on attack, soldiers can have every color, so can zombies. Tribes that go wide get the best gains. Now most people would see that pass the Karona around as a downside, but with a few tricks we can make it an upside. Assault Suit, Spectral Grasp, and Vows of Duty, Flight, Malice, Lightning, and Wildness keep Karona from hitting you letting your opponents throw around commander damage for you. Its a lovely and fun chaos build worth looking into.

We have a few older cards that will be saved for another post. Don’t worry, it’s hard to forget about Slivers. Safe planeswalking.

[jones-friend]

Legendary Commentary: Izzet

Are you ready to see the SAME dragon MULTIPLE times? Then you’ve come to the right guild!

Izzet made spellslinging exciting, with untap triggers, buffs to power, and the conversion of draw to damage. If you like rebounding off clutch spellwork this is the guild for you.

Cyclonic Rifts do not interact

OG Niv is meant to be the high costed commander of the guild. Niv was an original combo commander because it doesn’t take much to go off. Just pack some kind of Curiosity styled effect and draw one (1) card. That aside, Izzet colors have access to lots of powerful draw including Blue Sun’s Zenith, Expansion/Explosion. By drawing cards you advance your strategy so wheel effects are very good. Windfall, Reforge the Soul, Magus of the Wheel, Time Reversal, Commit/Memory, reset your deck and rip into new draw with support from Psychosis Crawler and you’re good to go!

Tibor and Lumia take a very particular set of spells to sling. The trick is to pop creatures into the air to make good creatures more evasive like Kiln Fiend while clearing out any small threats. Honestly, dealing 1-2 damage to each nonflier can be really strong, and be a good way to peel away support like Mother of Runes. Just keep playing cantrips and minor draw like Izzet Charm, Brainstorm, Electrickery, Mizzium Mortars also becomes 5 damage instead of 4. Adding Torban, you can deal 3 damage per red spell played. Just make sure to trick them into the air.

Niv 2.0 is not well liked, he has problems. Its not as intense as his original version but he does have merits. Here’s the thing, in Izzet control you will have turns you did not need to spring on control magic. If you don’t, each UR you spend draws you a card. That’s not bad to pocket, and most people will disregard your 5/5 flier you’ll often use to ward off attackers since your UR ability can whittle toughness. Blight Sickle gives a creature Wither, letting you place -1/-1 counters on targets. Again, this card isn’t bad. It just takes a new mindset to really get value out of.

Melek really does champion this theme of Izzet topdecking and honestly, there’s great synergy for it. God-Eternal Kefnet works well with manipulating the top of your deck. Free copies are also sweet for cards like Stolen Goods, Blatant Thievery, and Epic Experiment. Brainstorm, Ponder, Cavalier of Gales, there’s a lot of ways to manipulate the top of your deck to spill into crazy value.

Oh look. Dragon Elon Musk AGAIN. This time for MORE IZZET MANA. Uncounterable makes me feel all safe and happy, but what makes me interested in this card is its very last ability. Getting draw triggers off your opponents’ casts in multiplayer can be very good, cards like Arcane Melee can encourage this casting. In my original build I made a kind of hug that encouraged players to cast instants and sorceries, then profited off them with cards like Diluvian Primordial and Spelltwine. The more spells you cast that trigger into other spells with recursion and cascade effects the better.

And that covers three dragons and some other dudes. I’d love to hear your most UR thoughts on these. Safe planeswalking out there.