Commander Masters Second Looks: Part 2
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Once More, With Feeling
Welcome to the second half of our tour through commanders seeing their first reprints in Commander Masters. We're highlighting the cards printed in the interim between their first appearance and today that slot into these classics. Let's see what might capture the public's attention now that these commanders are getting their long-overdue second chance in the spotlight.
Fifteen more commanders are on the docket for discussion today; if you missed the first fifteen, head over to the first article to check them out.
Rules recap: We're highlighting legendary creatures (and planeswalkers that can be your commander) whose printing in Commander Masters marks the second time they are appearing in a widely available set. Things like judge promo printings don't count, but Secret Lair printings, The List reprints, and so on will disqualify a card for examination.
Rakka Mar
File this one under cards I did not know existed until it was reprinted in Commander Masters, and given that it's been 14 years since the first time we took a dip in the Rakka Sea (that's a little joke for our Spanish-speaking readers out there), I'm sure I'm not the only one. Obviously, Rakka Mar wants to make Elementals and fling them at your opponents. This lends itself not only to Elemental typal lists, but also decks that want to go wide or make disposable bodies: one mana per turn for a Lightning Bolt on legs is not a bad rate.
With a more recent iteration of this type of commander, Lagomos, Hand of Hatred, the token comes free every turn, which is nice, but it's easy to overlook a major upside of Rakka Mar in comparison: the tokens stick around. In most cases, you'd expect red to do its thing and give you a burst of damage that goes away quickly. Not here. Rakka screams City on Fire to me: convoke the enchantment out quickly, then every turn you're adding nine more haste damage onto the battlefield. Even more when you throw in Terror of the Peaks, Warstorm Surge, and Torbran, Thane of Red Fell. Elemental cards in recent years are great at going wide--see Tilonalli's Summoner, Chandra, Acolyte of Flame, and Scampering Scorcher--so it's my obligation to remind you that when we first got Rakka Mar, Impact Tremors did not yet exist. Proceed accordingly.
Rankle, Master of Pranks
Ah, one of those planeswalkers that can be your commander! These are always fun.
What's that? I'm being told Rankle is not, in fact, a planeswalker, just a creature that basically functions like one, getting to choose between three different options (or, technically, eight options, since you can do as many or as few of his modes as you want) once per turn, including on the turn he's cast. The chances of all three players having a flying blocker are pretty slim, so you can count on him connecting early and often.
It hasn't been all that long since Throne of Eldraine, so what's new for this group-mug commander? Getting the best out of Rankle is making his symmetrical effects benefit you far more than others. His sacrifice mode seems like a great way to make sure your Barad-dûr is online, and Tergrid, God of Fright will scoop up any nontoken creatures that opponents let go (which you can then use or sacrifice yourself next turn).
Tinybones, Trinket Thief will help you break parity if you're making the whole table discard (and again, Tergrid). And as for the card draw mode, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is here to make sure it never feels that good for your opponents.
Rankle is a very flexible and fun commander, so there are myriad new ways to utilize him with every new set. And yes, he synergizes perfectly with Orcish Bowmasters, but what doesn't?
Sakiko, Mother of Summer
18 years (!!!) since Sakiko was printed in Betrayers of Kamigawa, and now she's back. Here's the thing about eighteen years: it's a long f*****g time. Children born around the time Sakiko arrived graduated high school this June. Episode III of Star Wars came out that year, which as of today is the 4,706th most recent Star Wars film. A lot of stuff has happened since 2005. In fact:
List: 10 interesting things that have occurred since Sakiko first saw print:
10. Kamigawa went from one of the worst-received sets to a fan-favorite
9. Adam Sandler starred in over 30 movies, two or three of which are actually palatable
8. Roughly 130 new Magic sets were released (not a joke)
7. Your back started hurting; like, not all the time, but way more often than you thought it would at this age
6. Five Men's and five Women's World Cup tournaments were held, and at some point Americans started actually giving a crap about soccer football
5. Masters sets were introduced, discontinued, then restarted
4. The Chicago Cubs broke their 108-year curse and won a World Series, and now are perfectly mediocre once more
3. Core sets were discontinued, restarted, and then discontinued again
2. Elon Musk lost two-thirds of the $44 billion he spent on Twitter (though to be fair, that happened in less than a year's time)
1. The average Magic deck size increased 66.7%, from 60 cards to 100 cards
If Sakiko was just a mana or two cheaper, she might be very, very powerful, but if you're at six mana, you're already well into the game and you're beginning to look for ways to pull out a win rather than get your main setup piece on the board. That said, her effect is real, and strong; if you can accelerate her out and then start connecting with creatures, there's a real snowball effect at play here (despite the fact she's the mother of summer and snowballs don't tend to stick around long in that season). Utilizing that mana to search out a big finisher via a card like Finale of Devastation (also in CMM), Green Sun's Zenith, or Last March of the Ents, though the last needs a little bit more setup, is definitely doable. Omnath, Locus of Mana, another Commander Masters card that you'd be happy to snap up in draft alongside Sakiko, will help store that mana until you're ready for a big turn.
Additionally, given that green is now secondary in deathtouch after black, it's not hard to find creatures that will frequently connect with opponents. Saryth, the Viper's Fang will help all your attackers likely go unblocked while also protecting Sakiko (or at least eating the first kill spell that would have been pointed at her). Oakhame Adversary and Keeper of Fables help draw you into spells to use the mana that Sakiko provides.
Fittingly, Sakiko is a Snake, a creature type that happens to frequently come ready to touch death upon other creatures. While there's nothing in her text that specifically benefits only Snakes, it's possible to make the deck flavorfully consistent and mechanically effective as a result.
Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner
Oh hey, it's Grenzo's buddy!
It's entirely possible that getting to use Subira's ability to make Gimli of the Glittering Caves unblockable a few times is entirely enough to take over a game. Subira, Gimli, and Professional Face-Breaker make you four Treasures per turn off Gimli alone, and the Face-Breaker can exchange those for cards as needed. Pair this engine with a wide board of small creatures, like Goblins or Thopters or Elementals, and Subira's second activated ability can net you a fresh hand to use all that mana on just about every turn.
Don't forget that discarding your hand can be turned into an upside with cards such as Conspiracy Theorist and Containment Construct, Subira should have no lack of spells to cast, and plenty of mana to cast them.
I feel like we're going back and forth between very recent commanders and very old ones this article. Whatever, I'm sure that trend won't continue beyond Subira.
Sun Quan, Lord of Wu
"But Brandon," I hear you saying, "didn't Sun Quan already get a small reprint in From the Vault: Legends?" That's correct! But even before that, it was only in Portal Three Kingdoms, a set so limited in its print run that I'm going to bend the rules and talk about the card here. I don't have official numbers on me, but I'm willing to bet more copies of Sun Quan, Lord of Wu will be printed in Commander Masters than its prior two appearances combined and then doubled. And then doubled again. This is the first time the card is going to be reasonably available to most payers.
Sun Quan does one thing, and one thing only: he gives your board horsemanship. How good is horsemanship, anyway? As it turns out, pretty good. It might as well read "unblockable," and blue is a color that is excellent at rewarding you for connecting with your opponents in combat. Coastal Piracy and its strictly-better-but-one-eighth-the-price sibling (hint, hint) Reconnaissance Mission are no-brainers for a Sun Quan deck, as are a number of the many, many blue creatures that draw a card when they themselves hit face.
If you're excited to finally get to put Sun Quan in your command zone, don't shuffle up without Schema Thief in your 99; that's an incredibly powerful effect in EDH, and will likely net you at least a Sol Ring or other mana rock every turn, excellent in a color that has trouble ramping but will want more and more mana to play the many cards it draws. Or Schema Thief could snag you an impactful board piece, like The Great Henge or a Shadowspear.
Speaking of Equipment, Sun Quan is an ideal commander to lead an army of equipped creatures; the various Swords Of ____ (like Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of Light and Shadow) are even better when you don't have to try and line up their protection colors with the player you can get through. With Sun Quan, just equip, turn sideways, and profit.
Surrak, the Hunt Caller
Surrak's ability is so laughably easy to enable since it counts his five power, which gets you 62.5% of the way there already; they probably should have just said he gives something haste on your combat. Checking power is pretty much a formality.
Surrak can target himself, so as long as you have one mid-sized creature on the battlefield already (I wonder if green has those, and at reasonable rates?), he can come down swinging for five commander damage early; you can definitely Voltron him up easily (see above mentions of all the pretty swords we now have!).
Since Surrak made his first surreptitious survey of the scene back in 2015, green creatures have gotten much bigger, and WotC has started rewarding green mages just for having big green things. Ilysian Caryatid sees that you have big stuff and helps you make even bigger stuff, just for one example off the top of my head. Of course, every color needs to have a weakness, so the downside to green mages being able to play gigantic beasties, and fast, is that they can quickly run out of gas and risk over-committing to the board to try and close out a game.
Just kidding! It's green, which means that in 2023 your big creatures all come with their own replacement card thanks to Garruk's Uprising, The Great Henge, Elemental Bond, Colossal Majesty, or Tribute to the World Tree, the last of which whips your dorks into fighting shape as a bonus.
Between the trampling buff of Garruk's Uprising and the heaps of power you can stack on your team with recent cards Defiler of Vigor and Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus, Surrak's haste ability has the ability to K.O. opponents seemingly out of nowhere. For those of you who have nightmares of Ghalta, Primal Hunger hitting the board, I'm sorry to report that in this scenario, Ghalta's coming down with haste.
Sythis, Harvest's Hand
What can we say about Sythis that hasn't been said about a commander from two years ago that has become the most popular Selesnya commander by a healthy margin? She took a popular archetype (enchantress) and made it even more popular, distilling its essence into a single, simple, and brutally efficient commander. She's Selesnya's Tatyova, and she comes down on turn two.
I do think Sythis is the most recently printed commander on this list besides Gorex, the Tombshell, which means she's been on people's minds lately and has still been picking up a lot of the recent enchantment pieces from recent sets, which have been quite good, honestly. Hallowed Haunting is a standout, as it lets enchantment decks quickly and effectively end games, something it's struggled with in the past. Calix, Guided by Fate gets out of hand fast, and I'm willing to bet Composer of Spring from the Commander Masters precons will, too.
Sagas have seen several more appearances since Sythis, and fit perfectly with the enchantress ethos of "accrue value and cardboard over time." Jugan Defends the Temple, for example, accelerates you and buffs your board a bit, and then flips to a creature that lets you sink mana and finish the game, and while you don't cast the Saga side of them and thus won't get Sythis's draw trigger, the constellation mechanic synergies combined with the raw power of the flip-prateors Vorinclex and Elesh Norn are worth considering.
Weaver of Harmony is a perfect fit for these decks, letting you double up on an enchantment effect once per go around the table, whether that be an enter-the-battlefield effect, a Saga chapter, or nearly anything else. At its floor, Weaver lets you draw an extra card when your commander triggers; don't forget that Sythis herself is an enchantment. This card has been putting in work in Standard for a year and a half, and it's time it starts flexing its muscles in EDH. Trust me when I say it's a house.
Taborax, Hope's Demise
Clerics and lifegain, eh? Well, more Clerics and incidental lifegain to offset the pain of drawing a bunch of extra cards over the course of the game. Boo hoo, poor Taborax player discarding to hand-size. Must be hard.
Seriously, this thing not capping to once per turn on the draw ability gets out of hand, fast. It looks like about four out of every five decks in the EDHREC database with Taborax at the helm are Shadowborn Apostle decks, with good reason. But what else can we do?
What other Clerics have we gotten in the past few years? Sanguinary Priest looks like a standout to me; a bit more costly on the mana side, but give us some extra lifegain/death-damage consistency with the usual suspects of Zulaport Cutthroat and Blood Artist, and if we're not doing the Shadowborn Apostle combo thing like 80% of Taborax decks, I think that's where Taborax goes; sacrifice creatures for value, draining opponents and drawing more creatures to ritualistically fling back and forth between graveyard and battlefield. A lot of Clerics are also Humans, meaning Jerren, Corrupted Bishop is a good option for keeping sacrificial resources at hand.
Drivnod, Carnage Dominus is a must in these kinds of builds, as he's a Teysa Karlov you can run in mono-black and easily turn indestructible. Did you know he's a five-mana creature with eight power as well? That's not something you want to see hurtling across the battlefield against you after you've been drained consistently of life thanks to doubled Zulaport Cutthroat effects.
Taigam, Sidisi's Hand
There's a pretty good chance your play group has never played against a Taigam, Sidisi's Hand deck before. And if they did, they may have repressed it; this is a mean, mean dude to have running the show. He gets you consistently better draws, fills the graveyard with no additional mana investment, and then sits there every turn just waiting for someone to play a juicy target for removal, all the while, setting up your graveyard for a key reanimator piece. A control commander through and through.
Sauron's Ransom is a nice addition to a deck that wants every Fact or Fiction variant it can get its hands on. Ransom and Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths are additions to the Taigam suite of win-win effects where you get some cards to hand and some to the graveyard (which, in decks like these, is like a second hand). Both of them make your opponents assemble the piles into one face-up and one face-down, an enjoyable little mini-game that would be fun to build around. Let's get as Fact or Fiction-y as possible, adding Fortune's Favor and Epiphany at the Drownyard, piling up both our hands and our graveyards while making our opponents think way more about our own game plan than their own.
The Prismatic Piper
This is worth mentioning on the list solely so I can point out that currently, no one has registered a deck on the EDHREC database with partner commanders The Prismatic Piper and The Prismatic Piper. Cowards, all of you; get back to me when you're serious about Magic: the Gathering.
Thryx, the Sudden Storm
I always liked Thryx and felt he never got a fair shake the first time around, so despite the insult that is a downshift to uncommon, I'm still excited. He's got flash, but he's not flashy, and that's exactly the kind of unassuming commander I like: playing around normal timing restrictions and accruing value (in this case by shaving mana off our bigger spells) in a way that won't attract too much attention... well, until you're casting things like Storm of Saruman and Brinelin, the Moon Kraken without fear of countermagic. The latter still sees six-mana spells that you spend only five on with Thryx's restriction, and those disruptive bounce spells are more impactful than they look, especially when they come along for free as you're busy taking care of business.
Speaking of the business this deck gets up to, it got a major powerhouse in a recent set: Jin-Gitaxias. Jin also wants you to play big spells, specifically of the noncreature variety, and rewards you by keeping the cards flowing. What are we doing with all those cards? Controlling the game (Filter Out should slow down opponents, and Jin will see it even if Thryx doesn't) and finding some big sea monsters for Spawning Kraken to capitalize on. Hullbreaker Horror is a Kraken for various sea monster synergies and an incredibly disruptive card that can throw a game on its ear, and it comes down at the end step the turn after Thryx so you can untap and take over the game.
Tuya Bearclaw
I look forward to the CBS buddy-cop primetime dramadey of Tuya Bearclaw and Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus where the two fight crime by... well, just bashing everything in sight with no remose. Gruul stompy, indeed.
Perhaps the only card that better pairs with Tuya is Halana and Alena, Partners, an Innistrad: Crimson Vow legend that I will scream about from the rooftops until I am struck by lightning. The deck here is called "Third Grade" because it's all about learning multiplication, stacking buffs that double and double until you're blasting opponents right out of their seat and into your LGS's snack shelves.
For example, let's walk through a pretty good turn with this deck. You have Tuya, Zopandrel, Halana and Alena and another doubler, say Unnatural Growth, plus a small creature: Almighty Brushwagg.
As you move to combat, let the triggers all stack up (Halana and Alena targeting the Brushwagg), but before they resolve, cast a buff spell, let's call it a simple Giant Growth, on Halana and Alena, who become a 5/6. Unnatural Growth and Zopandrel both resolve next, doubling everything's power and toughness two times--so Halana and Alena are 20/24, Tuya's an 8/8, Zopandrel is a 16/24, and the Brushwagg's a 4/4. Then Halana and Alena's trigger dumps 20 +1/+1 counters on the Brushwagg, making it a 24/24 trampler (permanently). You attack with everything, and Tyua gets an additional +24/+24, now a 32/32 commander on the offensive alongside 68 other power in those other three creatures.
Once your opponent has stood up and brushed off the Pringles and bags of single-serve trail mix that cascaded on top of them after they soared across the room, make sure to shake hands and say good game.
Whisper, Blood Liturgist
Again, a simple, clean, and very powerful design here. Legends don't need three paragraphs of text to be good, they just need to know what they're about and to do their thing consistently and preferably efficiently.
Now, a manaless (and instant-speed) reanimation ability is certainly notable, though the rate of two-for-one will catch up with us before long...unless we're playing things that come with extra bodies, such as Underworld Hermit, or can come back repeatedly, like Cult Conscript.
Whisper has picked up a lot of enablers in the years since her first appearance in Dominaria, like the above and Tormod, the Desecrator, who makes all our exchanges two-for-two, so cycling through reanimation targets that have good enter-the-battlefield or dies effects every turn will be a piece of cake.
And we've gotten some pretty excellent targets that fit that criteria in the last five years, even just in black: Junji, the Midnight Sky, Burning-Rune Demon, and Sheoldred are just a few. Hey, that's the fourth of those March of the Machine flip-Praetors I've mentioned in this article alone--that cycle might just be really, really good.
Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign
Yennett returns for what is almost exactly the five-year anniversary of her first release (August 10th, 2018). Yennett decks often fall into the generic "goodstuff" trap of simply having too many high-value cards that get stuck in the hand if drawn too early, but she's gotten a handful of new toys to help out with that.
Both Cavalier of Gales and Hidetsugu and Kairi fulfill multiple roles for the deck, being both odd-mana-value hits for Yennett's attack trigger while also helping set up the top of your library on their Brainstorm-esque ETBs for future triggers. These also allow you to put your inevitable earlier brick draws back in the library; no more waiting to hard-cast that Expropriate that was in your opening hand! Both also have relevant death triggers, with Cavalier helping to rig yet another attack trigger in Yennett's favor, while Hidetsugu and Kairi allow a secondary way to free-cast off the top of your library.
Other good gets for our Sphinx friend are Vesuvan Drifter and Mystic Forge, which give you information about what's atop your library at all times. Vesuvan Drifter can copy a big creature from the top before Yennett casts it (the best way to stop a Counterspell aimed at your Void Winnower is to simply have an extra Void Winnower already on the battlefield) while Mystic Forge can help churn through mana rocks and other support artifacts while clearing lands and low-impact spells off the top to hopefully reveal something nicer for Yennett to cast.
Perhaps the best piece of support Yennett has gotten since her release, however, comes in the form of Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire. Yet another creature of multiple talents for both its odd mana value and its useful ability, which lets you Vampiric Tutor on every turn it gets to attack. Since Boast can be activated as early as immediately after attackers are declared, simply put Varragoth's boast ability on the stack before Yennett's attack trigger resolves, and their combined text may as well read "whenever you attack, cast whatever odd-mana card you want from your library for 1B." It's filthy, and I'm here for it.
Zilortha, Strength Incarnate
If you're wondering why you've never seen this giant dino before, and are thinking this might be a mistake because this is clearly a first-time reprint, this can be excused. Zilortha was printed in May 2020, when we, um, had other things distracting us, and you can be forgiven for not realizing this is the buy-a-box promo, Godzilla, King of Monsters, finally sporting its "in-universe" name.
This is an entirely unique effect in Magic, as far as I know. The opposite of the "toughness-matters" cards you see in Bant lists, this "power-matters" mechanic has some interesting applications. Cards like Rising of the Day read close to a combination of Glorious Anthem and Fervor if you're heavy on legends, and otherwise punchy but somewhat fragile creatures become more menacing. Oliphaunt, already playable for its early utility and reasonable late-game body, now is a 6/6 that is heartier and is handing out extra toughness to attackers as well. Crimson Fleet Commodore doesn't just make you the monarch, it does a better job at helping you keep that title. And Gilded Assault Cart goes from unplayable to a pretty safe swing for a low crew cost. Is 2023 the year of the Gigapede? Only time will tell.
That's All, Folks
Phew... that's the lot of 'em. Thirty commanders getting their second shot in Commander Masters. There were more commanders that got me itching to build in this bunch than I anticipated going in; I'm actually excited to build a Rakka Mar deck now!
What about you, do any of these commanders spark joy? What do you think about the first Masters set dedicated to Commander (at least nominally; let's not pretend Double Masters 2022 wasn't a Commander set with a couple of Modern cards thrown in)? Sound off in the comments below.
