Foundations Set Review - White | Commander's Herald

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Founding Fathers

Hello, everyone! It's me, Michael Celani. You might know me for my deck brewing series, How They Brew It, which invented the concept of dealing combat damage to players while blocking.

Like a lady dressing up for the Renaissance Faire for the first time in ten years, Wizards of the Coast recently realized they've been neglecting their Core Sets. To apologize to us, the loyal fans, they made us a really, really big Core Set, that's much corier and settier than ever before. It's going to be a part of Standard for five hundred years, but that's of no concern to us, the humble Commander players, because we rotate decks every five seconds.

Now you get to hear my opinions on them, which, thanks to contracts, are the express written opinions of everyone on Commander's Herald and EDHREC. Let's get started!

Mythics

Herald of Eternal Dawn

Forget Murders at Karlov Manor; the real Magic mystery we have to solve is figuring out who stole all the platinum off my Platinum Angel. Compared to its 2000s-era everything-is-chrome-in-the-future forebearer, Herald of Eternal Dawn gains flash and a +2/+2 buff in exchange for being picky about wanting at least when you cast it.

Being more challenging to cast sounds like a downside, but I've always maintained that it doesn't really matter for spells with higher mana values.¹ Once you've played Herald of Eternal Dawn, you're not (realistically) casting anything else that turn, so it's less a question of how you're gonna hold up to cast a Counterspell after doing a bunch of stuff and more a question of if you can make at all. By the time you have seven mana, the answer should be yes, and if it isn't, your mana base sucks and that's a damning indictment of your value as a human being.

So since it's so similar to a card that already exists, the real question here is whether or not Platinum Angel effects are even good in the first place. They fall into that tricky category of deterrent that many players fail to properly assess. I mean, I get it: it's tempting to conclude that a Platinum Angel is only ever worth playing if you would have actively lost the game without it. After all, why waste seven mana on a vanilla flyer if my life total never went negative the entire time it was out?

No, the true power of a Platinum Angel is that savvy players are unwilling to engage with game-winning plays until it leaves the battlefield. It forces your opponents to gaze longingly at the Thassa's Oracle in their hands, cursing that their love is now forbidden by an overbearing society that would never understand, so they'll bide their time, protecting themselves from other threats while they wait for the removal spell that renders their game winnable again.

One of Herald's big advantages here is that it's not an artifact and it has substantially more toughness. That makes it much more resilient to removal, especially against red and green, whose Abrades and Resistances are rather flaccid in the face of this terrifying new threat. You still have to pray that your opponents haven't been saving their Infernal Grasp, but this change dramatically narrows the range of valid responses.

It's certainly an improvement, but, like Platinum Angel before it, relying on Herald of Eternal Dawn purely defensively is foolish. Now comes the part where I warn you about Herald's flash, because new players will read it as an endorsement to skip their whole turn to cast it like a Cyclonic Rift that's content with merely not losing the game instead of winning it. Trust me, there will be times where you throw Herald down defensively and it's immediately removed, doing nothing. I'm aware that this is the "dies to removal" argument, but defensive plays shouldn't die to removal.

Defensive plays are fundamentally reactive, and you want them to work, dammit. If you're about to be killed by a gigantic Craterhoof'd flunge and you plop this down only for another opponent to bounce it back to your hand, then you really should have been playing some sort of fog or protection spell, which not only are more difficult to interact with but also much, much cheaper. There's even better options for dealing with combos, like Angel's Grace, which is practically impossible to counter.

If your plan was to wait to flash in Herald of Eternal Dawn when a game-winning combo is on the stack, then you are playing Herald of Eternal Dawn wrong. Take advantage of the fact that it's a flying 6/6. Take advantage of the fact that it's an Angel, one of the most aggressive attacking types in white. Knock your opponents upside the head with it, safe in the knowledge that you've added another piece to every combo player's to-do list before they walk out the door with the game. Alternatively, flash it in as (gasp) an actual blocker. Holding up seven to not die sounds far worse to me than paying seven to get closer to winning.

Thurid, Mare of Destiny

Thurid rides onto the battlefield with an extra pair of legs, meaning this equine enhancer is fifty percent more horse per horse. Unfortunately for Thurid, Magic: The Gathering isn't the mystical land of Equestria, and... oh, goddammit. Let me try that again.

Unfortunately, like a glue factory that needs to bump up production for the end of the fiscal year, Magic: The Gathering is not kind to its ponies. The best mono-white equine I can think of is Crested Sunmare, who, to be fair, is genuinely great when copied. Both Horses render the other neigh-unkillable, and all you have to do is gain a life every turn to create a constant stream of horsey nukes.

But what is there for Thurid past that? The only other actual nonlegendary Horse-alike worth playing on its own merit is Regal Bunnicorn, and that's just a pile of stats. It's already a bad sign when changelings like Irregular Cohort are showing up in the top twenty of your Scryfall search, but to be a full fifty percent of that top twenty is a serious problem. It's actually a fun game to play: search for creatures that are of a given type versus changelings, sorted by EDHREC rank. If Bloodline Pretender is near the top of that list, turn and run as fast as you can.

But maybe this doesn't matter. I mean, come on, it doubles your creature spells and it's an anthem! That's got to be something, even if what you're casting is terrible, right? First of all, if that's the play pattern you're looking for, run Volo, Guide to Monsters. You'll have far more options to create something unique.

Second of all, it's not even good at leveraging the core strengths of white. You might think to take advantage of Thurid's Shadowfax machine to abuse white's token-foublers, but remember that copied spells merely resolve into tokens and aren't considered "created" for the purpose of something like Mondrak, Glory Dominus.

The +1/+1 buff Thurid grants also makes it substantially more difficult to use low-power synergy pieces, like Welcoming Vampire. Just about the only huge value piece I can think of that works well is Delney, Streetwise Lookout, and only by the twist of fate that Thurid itself happens to be a 2-power creature. If your goal is to just make a bunch of creatures so that you can pump them up with anthems, there are frankly scores of much better token commanders you could be playing instead.

Just about the only real place for Thurid is in one of those changeling-heavy decks that leverage the overpowered abilities of commanders like this, abilities which are balanced out by the fact that the type they're supporting sucks really bad. If you really want a less, well, dishonest place to put this Horse, I suppose it's a flying lifelinker that happens to buff Unicorns, which might be worth a slot in Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn.

Valkyrie's Call

No, Wizards, when people die, they go to sleep with the angels, they don't turn into one.

Not to say that such a transformation is unprecedented. White has a surprising number of enchantments that care about turning things into Angels. Divine Visitation replaces all your creature tokens with Angels; Sigarda's Summons turns everything with a +1/+1 counter on it into Angels; and now Valkyrie's Call rips the dead from their peaceful slumber to return to the battlefield as Angels. Maybe there's a How They Brew It in my future where I make an Angel-free Shilgengar, Sire of Famine deck with effects like this, but I digress. You're not here for type-changing shenanigans: you're here for combos.

Valkyrie's Call is a harder-to-kill version of Luminous Broodmoth, a card that nobody in the history of Commander has ever played fairly. Like Mothra before it, what Valkyrie's Call truly does is grant your creatures a variant of undying that Wizards hopes in vain isn't so trivial to circumvent and go infinite. It didn't work.

To be fair, it is easier to deal with Luminous Broodmoth's flying counter than handling this new type-changing effect. You can't Nesting Grounds or Solemnity away your Redwood Treefolk's newfound divinity.

It doesn't really matter, though: a lot of combos that worked with the Moth port over pretty cleanly to Valkyrie's Call, and it makes up for the counter-removal synergy by being compatible with creatures that have discovered the secrets of flight.²

If you're trying to combo out with a sacrifice outlet, the big thing to note is that there's no finality counters to deal with. If your creature can naturally come back from the graveyard a different way, like Gravecrawler, then you can flip-flop between reviving your creature the normal way and ascending them into heaven. Phyrexian Altar is especially useful for combos of this type, since they tend to cost some mana, but if you're feeling particularly obnoxious, any persist creature can easily die forever in your name, never resting in peace for a single second. Feels good to be the shining beacon of light.

Rares

Arahbo, the First Fang

I'm sorry, I can't look at Arahbo's mane in this art without thinking of Davy Jones' face tentacles from Pirates of the Caribbean. That's pretty impressive, honestly.

Anyway, I'm flabbergasted that Arahbo, the First Fang feels like a fixed Thurid, despite the both of them debuting in this very same set. He's cheaper, cares about a much better creature type, and although you're not getting a wholesale copy of whatever Cat you cast, you're still creating a creature token whenever you do.

The fact that you're creating tokens means Anointed Procession and friends are back on the menu, and even better, those Cat tokens are 1/1, so despite Arahbo's buff, they're still small enough to trigger Welcoming Vampire and Enduring Innocence on impact. It's kind of absurd how thoroughly Arahbo addressed all my complaints.

Cats are a pretty low-to-the-ground creature type, so the best way to take advantage of Arahbo, the First Fang in the command zone is to play a bunch of low-cost creatures, like Helpful Hunter and Lion Sash, to quickly build a board. Ocelot Pride and Prava of the Steel Legion both seem tailor made for this deck, since they're Cats that boost your token generation.

You can also take advantage of both individual and mass blinks, like Felidar Guardian and Lae'zel's Acrobatics to not only get more Cat per cat, but also protect Arahbo should he get targeted. Keep your energy going by including typical white draw engines, like Tocasia's Welcome, Mentor of the Meek, and Caretaker's Talent, and aim to build a big board before your opponents can respond.

From there, it's just buffing up your tokens and going for a quick kill. Your average lords, like King of the Pride and Skyhunter Strike Force, do work here, as well as Moonshaker Cavalry when you're ready to close out a game. Honestly, the deck builds itself, and if you're trying to get someone new into Commander, I'd consider giving them a list like this, because it kind of plays itself, too.

Brigone, Soldier of Meletis

More like begone, soldier of Meletis, because Brigone doesn't have much going for her in the command zone. Heroic has never been particularly popular, since the only way you can safely trigger the ability is with either a combat trick or an Aura, and Brigone is soundly trounced in both spaces.

If you're looking to build a deck about combat tricks, I struggle to come up with a reason to play Brigone over Feather, the Redeemed. Sure, it's true that every combat trick can cantrip in Brigone, but you're only doing that once per turn cycle. Feather can reuse combat tricks over and over again, and since most of them cantrip anyway, you're not really missing out on much.

If you care about Auras, you're certainly better off playing Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice or Sram, Senior Edificer. Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice is more all-in on Auras, but it can assemble devastating combos that make it impossible to kill, whereas Sram, Senior Edificer is a more general Voltron commander that can keep itself going with nothing but the types of spells the deck wants to cast anyway.

The smarter way to play Brigone, Soldier of Meletis is to ignore her heroics completely and instead include her in a deck that cares about buffing up its creatures with counters. She's a two-mana too-specific value permanent³ for +1/+1 counter strategies. Let me put it another way: if your deck would be happy running Stocking the Pantry, then it should be just as happy running Brigone.

Vigilance is no joke, either: she'll eventually get big enough that she can swing into enemy boards safely, live to block through the entire turn cycle, and only at your antecedent's end step do you tap her to draw a card. I do like her... just anywhere other than the command zone, please.

Celestial Armor

Celestial Armor is fairly comparable to Mithril Coat, another tricky Equipment and also certified good card, so let's take the time to actually compare the two to determine which is the better include.

Both spells cost three mana and have flash. They both attach themselves to a creature when they enter, but Celestial Armor can snap onto any creature while Mithril Coat can only target legendaries.
Both Equipment immediately protect their user that turn. Mithril Coat grants indestructible, while Celestial Armor gives both indestructible and hexproof, shielding their user from single-target exile spells like Swords to Plowshares.
Mithril Coat provides enduring protection, as its indestructibility comes from its static ability and not a triggered one. Celestial Armor acts more like a single-target protection spell stapled to an Equipment, which grants an unrelated +2/+0 and flying.

That last bullet is the main point of contention here, and it doesn't break very favorably for Celestial Armor. In terms of actually protecting something you control, Celestial Armor is kind of terrible at it. It's very expensive when compared to other cards in the genre, at three mana instead of the usual one, and it can only save creatures instead of anything you want.

As a combat trick, +2/+0 and flying isn't extremely helpful, either. I suppose you can use it to surprise-block a flying attacker, but if you're on offense, you're stuck between two terrible choices. You'd either have to cast it before blocks, which means you're not taking advantage of its indestructibility, or cast it after being blocked, which wastes the flying for a turn. Both are susceptible to being blown out by instant speed removal, too.

That just leaves its viability as an Equipment, and it's safe to say that after three strikes, it's out. Three-mana Equipment is the land of Swords, The Reaver Cleaver, Nettlecyst, and other gear that actually provides some degree of enduring protection. I can't see myself wanting to spent the to actually move it around to a different creature when my original target inevitably dies.

Celestial Armor is trying to fulfill too many roles at once and doesn't succeed at any of them for the mana cost. There are better protection spells, there are better combat tricks, and there are better Equipment. Yup, Celestial Armor falls prey to Fair Charm Syndrome.⁴ I don't think it's a bad card by any stretch of the imagination; there are definitely scenarios where it will get the job done. I'd rather just get more bang for my buck at the mana value.

Crystal Barricade

It's a shame that this creature's type and defender ability sentences it to the Arcades-zone for most people, because more decks need to include early-game deterrents like this. It's easy to jump on cards like Ghostly Prison and Crawlspace that completely shut down combat against you, but it's not a virtue to let perfect be the enemy of good.

Crystal Barricade discourages early opportunistic attacks, stops burn kills in their tracks, and also blanks red's mass removal spells, like Blasphemous Act. That's a lot of defense for just two mana, especially if you happen to be the one running a ton of mass damage. Firesong and Sunspeaker both sure love the fact that their dorks no longer melt when they open the door to their well-stocked pantry of Pyroclasms.

If your strategy requires you to make the game go long, then take the wall with you. Maybe you don't think you need all this protective stuff, and that's fine, but if that's the case, at least consider Wall of Omens, which replaces itself if nothing else.

Eidolon of Astral Winds

How good Eidolon of Astral Winds is depends pretty wholly on whether or not your commander starts out with big numbers in the bottom-right box or little numbers in the bottom-right box. I say commander and not creatures because if your deck wants to cast enchantments and go wide, you're strictly better off with an anthem.

No, if you're considering Eidolon of Astral Winds, you're playing Auras and stacking them on your commander, and in that case the biggest buff you can hope for Eidolon of Astral Winds to grant you is +4/+4. That's only if your commander is a 0/0, though; the reality is more likely closer to +2/+2, at which point you should probably just run another Aura instead.

Exemplar of Light

As Elenda's Hierophant taught us, giving flying to Ajani's Pridemate fixes one of its major problems: its weakness to getting chump blocked. That's apparently not enough, though, so Exemplar of Light apologizes for the sins of its fathers by also drawing you a card the first time you gain life every turn.

That's not just on your turn, by the way; if you've got something like a Soul Warden or Archivist of Oghma healing you on your opponents' turns, you can nab up to four cards a turn cycle, all while building up to a life-ending threat. I want to put this handsome lad into a cantrip-heavy Queza, Augur of Agonies deck alongside Danny Pink and watch my income go nuts.

Generous Pup

Upgrading an incidental +1/+1 counter into a free Basri's Solidarity every turn is stupid strong for two mana. Good boy!

If you're in the kind of go-wide counters deck that wants Generous Pup, then you're already running several different ways of putting a +1/+1 counter on all your creatures, like Felidar Retreat or Loyal Guardian.

Generous Pup is going to get swept up in one of those, trigger, and then put a +1/+1 counter on all your creatures again, like a free, miniature proliferate. In that sense, it reminds me a lot of Metastatic Evangel, another ridiculously powerful counter-generation engine at two mana. I'm seriously hard-pressed to find a reason not to include this little guy in your Hamza, Guardian of Arashin decks.

Raise the Past

This is the inevitable conclusion of us not shooting Lurrus of the Dream-Den when we had the chance. Raise the Past returns all creature cards with mana value 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield, no strings attached. It doesn't even exile itself after you play it like Ascend from Avernus did, so if your deck is sufficiently recursive you'll never be without your precious dorks for long.

Speaking of Lurrus, I'm convinced the deck archetype that wins the most from Raise the Past is aristocrats. Practically all the staple aristocrat payoffs, sacrifice outlets, and sacrifice targets are two mana or less. Just look at this short list of what you can get back, from the top of my head:

Cast Raise the Past, sacrifice your entire board in response, and get them all back none the worse for wear. I can't wait to slot this into my Athreos, God of Passage deck to bleed my opponents drier than my mouth after I got on that new medication.

Skyknight Squire

It's a bit of a shame that Skyknight Squire has to see the other creatures enter for it to get stronger, because that makes it rather bad if drawn late.

If you can consistently create a large number of creatures, like in Apothecary White or Darien, King of Kjeldor, I'm more on board, but if you're focused on using army-in-a-can spells to win the game, I'd pass.

Uncommons & Commons

Cat Collector

One day, Wizards.

You've been good so far, Wizards. But one day, you're going to slip up. You're going to forget to put that "first time" rider, or that "this ability only triggers once each turn" clause on one of these cards. You're going to forget, and you're going to make a token-generator that goes infinite with Soul Warden.

Mark my words, Wizards. It's only a matter of time.

Claws Out

Claws Out for Arahbo.

Divine Resilience

Indestructible only is a bit of a bummer, but if Divine Resilience also granted hexproof, it would suddenly become the most flexible creature-focused protection spell ever printed, so I get it.

If you're looking for a defensive spell to actually protect your board state, Divine Resilience ain't it. Most good single-target removal exiles now, and even board wipes are getting there. To truly shield your permanents, you need to get them off the battlefield temporarily, whether it be via Teferi's Protection, Clever Concealment, or a slow blink like Lae'zel's Acrobatics.

Where Divine Resilience does shine, however, is in combat-focused decks. In addition to blanking Infernal Grasp, you can use it to save yourself from a scenario where there's no good blocks, or hold it to back up your go-wide flunge. The kicked version also happens to target a bunch of things, so if you're in a Heroic or Valiant deck, that's a synergy worth pursuing. I'd consider slotting into Feather, the Redeemed, if nothing else, since it's a low-cost combat trick that can save your whole board in the event of a wipe.

Joust Through

One of these days they're gonna have to print a version of this effect that cantrips, right?

We have not one, but two variants of Joust Through that are effectively free to include in your deck because they're stapled to untapped lands. If that's not enough of a death knell, then consider that there's at least ten different single-target white removal spells that outclass it in every scenario. Give me some incentive to put this in my commander decks!

If you're afraid of printing it into Standard, just throw it in a precon. Have it deal four damage to an attacking or blocking creature, have it cost , and have it draw you a card. I would seriously consider running that in a combat-focused white deck, and its cantrip is balanced by the fact it won't always kill something swinging at me. Come on guys, you can take that one for free.

Psemilla, Meletian Poet

Hey, a bad Archon of Sun's Grace is still an Archon of Sun's Grace, and Psemilla, Meletian Poet fits the bill. This pan-flute paragon makes a 2/2 the first time you cast an enchantment every turn, and better yet, the 2/2 he makes is also an enchantment, so it effectively doubles your first Constellation trigger. It's by no means a necessary inclusion in your enchantress decks, but I think it's fun if you're playing a bunch of anthems.

It's a little weird that it doesn't just get +4/+4 and lifelink all the time when you reach enchantment nirvana, but hey, maybe good ol' Tim was feeling a little left out lately.

Qala, Ajani's Pridemate

Oh, how quaint. They made Ajani's Pridemate legendary! Let's see what they... good God, that is one hell of an attack trigger.

Qala, Ajani's Pridemate, pictured here reaching for the biggest offscreen burger, radiates the effect of all the counters on her to the rest of your attacking creatures by giving them +X/+0. Like most big anthems on commanders, you really only need to gain life three or four times before you're in kill range, and the types of decks that run Ajani's Pridemate in the first place usually go on to gain life three or four thousand more times past that.

It's completely ridiculous, and the most fascinating part of this to me is that she doesn't even care about +1/+1 counters specifically. Literally any counter is fair game.

Starnheim Memento

Ah, another in the series of three-cost single-color mana rocks with upside, and Starnheim Memento lets you jump a creature... at sorcery speed. Boo, I say, boo!

That means you can really only use this on offense, instead of being able to do stuff like screw with other people's combat steps or, y'know, block effectively. I suppose I like this in certain Voltron decks as a backup plan in case you don't draw your other evasion, but Wand of the Worldsoul this is not.

Urdnan, Dromoka Warrior

Wow! Urdnan, Dromoka Warrior upgrades all your creatures with counters into double-striking... wait, what's that? It's only target creature? Oh, okay.

But still, it makes a creature gain double-strike, and that's... wait, they have to have two counters before they're legally allowed to hit someone twice instead of just once? I suppose that's fair.

But hey, at least every turn I have a what do you mean it's only when I'm attacking?

At that point, why wouldn't you just run Duelist's Heritage, which can affect combats you're not even a part of? I give up.

Hare Apparent

Finally! White gets its own card that breaks the singleton restriction. Actually, let me clarify: white finally gets its own good card that breaks the singleton restriction.

When Hare Apparent enters, you create a number of Rabbits equal to the number of other Hares Apparent you control. In other words, the second Hare creates one Rabbit, the third creates two, and so on.

This not only gets out of hand fast if your deck contains nothin' but bunnies, but we're in white, the color of mass blink spells. The color of token doubling. The color of two or less. It's like these bunnies were grown in a lab to hit as many of white's synergies as possible, banishing this common to the Five-Dollar Zone. Hare Apparent is the rabbit Preston, the Vanisher wants to pull out of his hat, full stop.

Helpful Hunter

Here's another white creature that cantrips when it enters, and honestly, I'm gonna level with you: unless you're leveraging the fact that Helpful Hunter is a Cat, Wall of Omens has yet to be beat.

Why would it matter if Wall of Omens has defender if you're literally never going to attack with Helpful Hunter anyway? What's it gonna do, run into a 1/2 and die?

Both Wall of Omens and Inspiring Overseer are the only cantrippers that can actually do something, anything in combat and survive. The rest of 'em might as well not have power and toughness, because you're casting them only to blink them off your Soulherder.

In fact, let's go ahead and create the mono-White cantripping creature tier list right now:

S Tier: Wall of Omens, Inspiring Overseer
A Tier: Spirited Companion, Helpful Hunter
B Tier: Priest of Ancient Lore, Combat Thresher
C Tier: Roving Harper, Search Party Captain
D Tier: Resistance Squad, Settlement Blacksmith
F Tier: Splitskin Doll, Errand-Rider of Gondor
F- Tier: Farsight Adept

Squad Rallier

For three mana, Squad Rallier lets you look at the top four cards of your library to get a creature card with power 2 or less from among them.

That's a lot more broad of a category than mana value 2 or less, and if you build your deck right, this just draws you a card every time you activate it. It doesn't require Squad Rallier to tap, either, making it a perfect mana sink to have on board if you're holding up interaction. Please don't let this goofy little guy drown in the ever-expanding list of commons printed this year.

Found Out

What can I say? With this new Foundations set, there's a card for everyone, no matter what your favorite strategies are. It's a good time to get back to basics. Take a look through the full spoiler on Scryfall and get to know the fundamentals for your favorite colors; maybe you'll discover an angle you weren't so keen on before. And once you've done that, check out the other set reviews we've written up so you can isolate the new cards from the copious amounts of reprints. See you next set!

Barring creatures like Progenitus, where it's the whole point.
Well, okay, it doesn't revive any Angels, but that's a significantly less populous group of creatures than all fliers.
This is my term for two- mana permanents that consistently draw you cards, but only if you're in a specific strategy. There's typically a couple of them every set. For those of you out there with set review bingo, drink.
This is my term for spells with multiple modes that aren't worth the cost of entry for any of them. Most modal spells included in decks break parity in at least one of their modes.