How They Brew It - 2023 Jank Rank
It's Time to Rank the Jank
Happy holidays, everyone. I'm Michael Celani. You might know me from that deckbuilding series How They Brew It, or from co-hosting on Am I the Bolcast?, or as the voice of The Merpinator on Merp Merp, It's the Merpinator.
Today is Boxing Day, otherwise known as Armistice Day for the War on Christmas, and I'm ready to celebrate. I'm in fuzzy socks, a luxurious white robe, and it's nice and warm in here now that I've thrown a fresh tank of propane on the gas-burning fireplace. Time to put my feet up! Ah, but a brewer's work is never done. You all need to know the jankiest generals yet printed so you can start your New Year off right.
To that end, I've obsessively poured over all Jesus Christ three hundred and ninety-eight new commanders they created this year to find the ten with the most potential for jank. Here we go:
10: Quintorius, Loremaster
Quintorius, Loremaster's trumpeting bwaaaahhhaaaaampphh kicks off today's list, as this pachyderm stomps all his competition when it comes to the noncreature reanimator strategy. Pitch your expensive artifact, enchantment, and even sorcery cards to red's bevy of rummage effects, then queue up those targets from the graveyard via Quintorius, Loremaster's end step trigger. When you're ready to pull the trigger by sacrificing a Spirit, you'll find yourself capable of casting almost any spell for pennies on the dollar. It's a bit of a labyrinthine endeavor, bogged down by a slow start and a combo-killing tap cost, but Quintorius is a repeatable, self-contained reanimation engine that can cheat out a wide berth of options, and he even deigns to put nonpermanent spells back on the bottom of your library instead shunting it to exile, in case you wanted to do something disgusting like take infinite turns.
Previously, the chrome standard for reviving noncreatures was Shorikai, Genesis Engine, whose (broken) activated ability protected you, stocked the graveyard, and drew you the reanimation spells necessary to realize your latest war crimes. Thanks to Azorious' additional support, Quintorius isn't quite as adept as Shorikai when it comes to specifically reanimating artifacts and enchantments, but no other commander even approaches the sheer flexibility Quintorius offers on the other fronts. You can reanimate planeswalkers, everybody. Battles. There's even the angle where you actually attack with the 3/2 Spirits you're getting every turn. The jank factor here is only limited by what you decide is worth rescuing from the annals of history.
9: Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists
Discover has been described as a fixed cascade, and I'm flabbergasted that fixing it actually entails making it stronger and more difficult to interact with. Of course, one of its generals had to make the list, and out of what's been printed so far, Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists seem best equipped to take advantage of the new keyword. They're capable of not only controlling what mana value you'll discover for, but also when to actually go spelunking for that free card. With green in their color identity, they're perfect when it comes to a big creature-focused strategy, too.
My immediate thought upon seeing these two for the first time was to cheat out those you-can't-cast-me-from-hand-so-don't-try-Mom suspend spells, such as Ancestral Vision, by throwing zero-cost cards, like Walking Ballista, into their ability, but an even more evil version would run this as a cycling deck. Cycle away overcosted creatures, like Titanoth Rex, exile them to Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists, and hope you hit a game-winning spell on the flip. If you discover another cycling creature, don't despair: simply put the discovered card into your hand, cycle that, and try again next time. If you add in copious amounts of twiddling, looting, and top-deck manipulation, you'll find yourself in a great position to take over the board with a carefully selected strike-team of powerful permanents that you'll find way more consistently than this deck has any business being.
8: Rukarumel, Biologist
There's no way I'd pass up ranking an Arcane Adaptation in the command zone on a jank list, and that's exactly what Rukarumel, Biologist is. Making absolutely every creature card in your deck share a type is absurd on the face of it, thanks to effects like Coat of Arms or Herald's Horn, and that's not even getting into the type-specific strategies. I think the ultimate dream here is to name Insect and tutor out Zask, Skittering Swarmlord, which would let you to cast any creature spell from your graveyard with absolutely no restrictions. Imagine turning Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath into your own personal value Sisyphus, or reusing cascade creatures to dump your entire deck onto the field. That's just the starting point, though: I can also see the case for types like Zombies (insanely synergistic death triggers, Rooftop Storm), Elves (Elvish Archdruid, Priest of Titania), or even Pirates (Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator shenanigans).
There's two especially Johnny moves I can see here, though: the first is to name Sliver with Rukarumel to weave Slivers into another more traditional creature-theme deck. A Sliver/Elf deck seems disgusting, as your Slivers would end up pumping up your forestwalking mana dorks into terrifying monsters. Or go ahead and create the Slivdrazi Monstrosity that was never meant to be. The second move is to find a way to create tons of nonlegendary copies of Rukarumel, aiming for the ultimate goal of making all your creatures every creature type... except Brushwagg.
7. Leori, Sparktouched Hunter
I usually hate doubling commanders, as any quick jaunt through my various set reviews would tell you, but Leori, Sparktouched Hunter wins seventh on this list simply because this planeswalker-doubler forgot to limit its doubling to loyalty abilities. If you were to somehow animate a planeswalker (maybe because their name is Gideon) and give it an ability through something like an Aura, that granted ability is a planeswalker's activated ability and therefore subject to being Xeroxed.
Bonus points if you decide to torture Magic's resident Chad even further by turning him into a Sliver. Include hilarious junk like Scuttling Sliver to double untap him for even more shenanigans and revel in the glow of your opponents' confusion.
6. King of the Oathbreakers
King of the Oathbreakers is the game's first real phasing-matters commander (yes, I know Taniwha is a thing, stop asking). As long as it's on the field, it and other Spirits you control phase out instead of eating the Swords to Plowshares that your cousin across the table is itching to use. Then, they make up for their temporary lapse in existence by coming back next turn with a friend.
Putting aside the idea that King of the Oathbreakers makes a terrific Equipment Voltron commander, you don't have to wait for your opponents to try and kill you to gain extra value. White actually has tons of ways to phase creatures out on its own. Whether it's a wide-ranging protection spell, like Guardian of Faith, a simpler single-target affair, such as Robe of Stars, or even offensive techniques, like The Pandorica, if you find an opportunity you can easily phase out any of your own creatures for a while to recruit more Frighteners later. Add to that the simple fact that spells like Eerie Interlude and Semester's End still work (as your tokens will phase out before being sent into oblivion), and there's a decent go-wide engine to be built here.
If only King of the Oathbreakers had a color identity that included blue: if it was Esper, it would skyrocket up this list to at least top three, as Teferi's Realm, Teferi's Veil, Vanishing, and even Spatial Binding find new homes away from Esper Satan.
5. Idris, Soul of the TARDIS
Idris, Soul of the TARDIS envelops any artifact of your choice when she enters the battlefield, basically leaving you with a creature copy of it that's at least a 3/3. At first glance, this seems pointless aside from being a flavorful way to animate an artifact, but thanks to the fact that your commander is always within reach in the Commander format, the possibilities here are staggering.
The key concept here is that Idris, Soul of the TARDIS only temporarily removes the underlying artifact from play instead of exiling it forever, meaning you can reuse the abilities of certain artifacts through Idris that you really shouldn't be able to. For example, Idris can become The Stasis Coffin, exile herself to grant you protection until your next turn, and then do it all over again next turn as the original Stasis Coffin remains untouched. Aetherflux Resovoir is another great target, as your opponents will have to remove it twice to get that loaded gun off the table. Even something as simple as keeping a Nevinyrral's Disk on the board consistently is enough to shut down the game and allow you to proceed at your own pace.
And if this avenue doesn't appeal to you, there's an entirely separate Idris strategy available that's easily summed up in the phrase "artifact blink." Use Idris to store your target artifact in exile, then flicker her to return the original copy to the battlefield and get its enters-the-battlefield triggers again. This extends every creature flicker blue has access to into an artifact flicker, vastly increasing the potential for this strategy to work. And all of this isn't even touching what's possible when you consider Encroaching Mycosynth.
4. Agatha of the Vile Cauldron
Agatha of the Vile Cauldron is absurd when it comes to discounting the activated abilities of creatures you control, to the point that I wouldn't even consider it jank in the first place. All you have to do is spread around a few +1/+1 counters, and suddenly you're activating Bhaal's Invoker for nothing or discovering 10 for a tenth what that's worth. No, the reason Agatha makes the list here is not because she reduces the cost of creature activated abilities. It's because of animation, that classic method of turning noncreatures into creatures and mice into terrible multinational media conglomerates, that we have pathways into infinite combos so magical Christmasland that even Commander Spellbook has put me on their naughty list.
There's obvious utility there when you bring something like a Staff of Domination to life, but what I'm most interested in is the fact that Agatha of the Vile Cauldron forgot to exclude mana abilities from her Honda Ford In-It-To-Win-It Summer Sales Event. All you have to do is find a filtering mana ability that produces at least two mana to go positive. One method would be to animate a Cascading Cataracts and pump some of that delicious magical energy into a Malachite Talisman with each spell you cast to keep your chain going. Another (far more hilarious) method is to simply play a Prismite. Normally, it would only go down to a cost of one, being mana even, but if you make it a Forest through Ashaya, Soul of the Wild and then add in a Blossoming Tortoise to the mix, you can get it down to free. I love messing with card types!
3. Sharkey, Tyrant of the Shire
Well, that's the last of the in-universe cards that are in the top ten, because for whatever reason Wizards decided to save all their interesting designs for the third-party crossovers. I don't understand why; I wouldn't expect complicated game mechanics to excite Magic newcomers in the same way that it appeals to deckbuilding mistakes like me, but I digress. Let's talk about Sharkey, Tyrant of the Shire, who straight-up steals the utility off all your opponents' nonbasic lands the same way that adult website stole my credit card number from me.
I'm going to be honest, even I have absolutely no idea how to make this work outside of "hope your opponent is playing utility lands," but I feel like that fact only heightens the mystique of this Sauruman-at-home. If you crack the code, send it to me and I'll credit you in the How They Brew It I make out of it.
2. River Song
The draw-from-the-bottom thing isn't actually what interests me the most about River Song. It's an enabler, sure: it makes Junktroller and Reito Sentinel spectacular, and it also does strange, treasonous things to cards like Brainstorm and Timestream Navigator. It would be foolish to say that isn't a major factor why River Song is so high up on this list; it's important, but I care more about that second clause, because we finally have an Ob Nixilis, Unshackled that actually works.
Not only does River Song passively punish players for trying unfair Magic, she also has access to absurd removal spells that are usually balanced by letting their victims search out a replacement. Cleansing Wildfire, Geomancer's Gambit and From the Ashes destroy lands and give your opponents the Faustian bargain of taking some damage to replace them. Arcum Dagsson combined with a Liquimetal Torque can shut down creatures for days, and that's not even getting started on stuff like Field of Ruin, which forces your opponents to search even if they don't want to. Combined with her unique method of bottom-of-the-deck recursion, she can pump her power and kill the table without ever caring about combat. The only thing keeping her from number one here is the color identity: green would have really pushed this aspect of her play to the maximum, with cards that allow everyone to search for lands.
1. The Master, Multiplied
Who else could it have been, other than The Master, Multiplied? Knowing that he enables himself with that stupid myriad trigger definitely takes the Johnny factor down a few pegs from where a truly perfect version of the card could sit, but even with that hiccup, this man kills not only the Legend Rule, but also the concept of triggered abilities sacrificing or even exiling your creature tokens? The obvious combos are cards like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink, who no longer have to stop time to have any friends that last longer than their current employment stint. Alternatively, reanimate anything permanently with Footsteps of the Goryo, even though it really shouldn't work that way. Breath of Fury, attached to a suitably evasive threat, gives you infinite combats all on its own. Clone a Myriad Construct via Prototype Portal and throw spells at it to make tons of Constructs.
These are all, strictly speaking, excellent. But the true jank is something deeper, more insidious. You and I both know that spawning creature tokens from noncreature permanents isn't hard. Just copy it, then animate it, and thanks to catch-all artifacts like Lithoform Engine, we can make tokens out of anything. Copy a Monkey Cage on the stack and then Toymaker it to create an endless barrel of Monkeys with The Master, Multiplied. Or get five point counters on an animated Contested Game Ball token to draw your deck and make all the Treasure you could hope for. And if you're outside the confines of just red and black, you can do absurd things like take infinite turns or counter every spell. For this reason, I have to award 2023's Most Jank Commander to The Master, Multiplied.
Now that the definitive How They Brew It Jank Rankings are in, it's time to hear from you. Do you think I missed anything on the list of most jank commanders this year? Do you agree with my rankings? What noncommander cards have you found to be the most jank? Let me know in the comments below, and have happy holidays, everyone!
