Hostile Hostel // Creeping Inn by Daniel Ljunggren

Alright people and zombies of all genders and limb compositions, settle in as I tell you the tale of one midnight dreary; lands of grey and artifacts spherey.

Let's look at some colorless junk!

We're taking a look at new cards from the set and how they fit into Commander, so I'm not going to be covering Pithing Needle or any other reprints because much smarter people have definitely analyzed them before. Also note that I like giving a little score at the end in terms of 1 to 5, with 1 being garbage I'd never play and 5 being so powerful I'd try to slot it into any deck in its colors. This scoring system is 100% arbitrary my opinion bull$%&# and probably detracts more than it adds, but also I like numbers so ehhhh let's keep at it.

Mythic/s?

Hostile Hostel

I love this land, but I don't think it's very good, which sucks. It's the Spiderman 3 of creature lands. Hostile Hostel is sort of saved by having a super low opportunity cost to play, since it's much easier to slot it in for a basic land than for an actual Magic the Gathering card. Just playing it as a High Market that costs a little isn't too bad, but the fact that you can only ever do it thrice kinda irks me.

When it flips, it's still kinda bad. The body is alright and having a beefcake on the board that can sort of protect itself is nice. What stops me from wanting to play it is the fact that it's so slooowwwwwwwwwwwww

We're talking three turns to flip it, then a few turns until it actually starts to become any sort of threat. Not to mention the fact that you keep having to throw your graveyard away to make it work. I really wish Wizards had made the Sac side exile your own creatures so Creeping Inn could start with a little bit of oomph. As is, it's a second High Market that turns into an underwhelming creature later on. If you can protect it for five turns, after the three required to flip it, it might do something cool.

The only times I'd play this would be in a deck desperate for sac outlets or in a multiple combat steps one that could speed this slow ass house up a little. 2 out of 5, great concept, weak delivery, bad AirBnB.

Rares

The Celestus

The Celestus is a Manalith that can change the clock in your Nintendo DS so you can get daily rewards more quickly. While the obvious point of this card is to run it alongside stuff that actually cares about lunar cycles, I do want to point out how powerful the last line of text on there is. Once Day and Night have been introduced to the game, much like The Monarch, they're here to stay. If you're in a 4 player pod, that clock's going to tick a lot, and being able to passively loot every time it does seems very powerful. I'm viewing this as less of a tribe enabler and more of a chill value engine that doubles as a mana rock. 4 out of 5, does cool stuff outside of its niche.

Dual Lands

Hey look at that, dual lands that don't suck in EDH. I've been playing with tri-color decks a lot lately, and let me tell you, there are some real stinkers out there. Sunken Hollow is pretty much always a fetchable guildgate if you're only running a handful of basics, same with Frostboil Snarl. Having duals that come in untapped without requiring Basics might seem minor like a minor upside, but in 3 color and up decks that's a huge boon. 5 out of 5 very good proud of you. 

Uncommons

Moonsilver Key

Moonsilver Key is a weird way to fetch out mana rocks, or lands if you really need them I guess. It has a very specific role to play in helping you curve out, and it does that job in a very fine alright decent ok way. I don't see too many broken synergies like there are with Urza's Saga, but it's a nice boost regardless for colors that need any extra ramp they can get. Outside of combo decks that really need specific mana rocks, I'm not a huge fan. 3 out of 5, seems ok, is probably super broken and I'm dumb.

Mystic Skull

I'm gonna be real with ya'll for a sec here, I loathe filter cards that don't gain any mana. I don't play them under any circumstance and would gladly slot in any plain ol' signet in their place. I don't see Mystic Skull changing that point of view any time soon. If you're playing this, you're playing it because you want to run a 5 color deck but don't have any money. This thing is super expensive mana wise to the point where I'm shark tank out. It's probably one of the better filter artifacts out there if you can save up the 7 mana required to flip it & drip it, but I hate their entire species so I'm giving this one a thumbs down out of 5.

Commons

Crossroads Candleguide

Hey look, another crummy filter card! This one at least does some stuff for less than 7 mana so that's a step up.

Silver Bolt

Silver Bolt is another very okay Magic card. It's not premium removal, but 3 damage for 4 mana is perfectly slightly below average. In decks that recur 1 mana artifacts with Scrap Trawlers and the like, this is far from the worst option. But I mean also it's 4 mana to deal 3 damage in a format where people don't even run 1 mana 3 damage cards, so outside of randomly hosing Changeling decks it's gotta be a 2 out of 5, okay in very specific builds don't slot this in if your friend builds Werewolf tribal that's a dick move.

Jack-o'-Lantern

Oh thank god an artifact that's objectively good praise Avacyn. Jack-o'-Lantern is quite similar to Crossroads Candleguide, both aesthetically and mechanically. Here you're trading out a body and a terrible filter for a significantly cheaper pumpkin that replaces itself and lets you do some cool filtering from the graveyard where the mechanic belongs. I'm not sure if it's because I just reviewed so many terrible artifacts and my brain is leaking, but Jack-o'-Lantern is a solid alternative for traditional graveyard hating artifacts that I could actually see running in a multicolor deck. 3 out of 5 thank you Santa.

Stuffed Bear

It's a crappy vehicle that crews itself for mana. I don't have much to say here, it's a cute idea but I don't see myself ever playing it. Believe it or not, the difference between tapping a creature to crew and having to pay mana to do it every turn is pretty significant, and consistently activating this teddy bear means you'll be sinking a ton of resources into it over the course of a game. That's all for a vanilla 4/4 that dodges sorcery speed removal, so that's gonna be a no from me dog.  2 out of 5 mechanically, 5 out of 5 cuddly.

Final Thoughts

Welp, most of those artifacts sure did suck. Obviously most of these cards are designed for Limited/Standard, and this is far from an Artifact-focused plane, but geeze I wish those filters weren't so actively disappointing. At least those dual lands are getting popped into every deck I own in their colors, and The Celestus seems like a legitimately great card. No new robot werewolves though so all in all 2 out of 7 bad plane stop coming back here for the love of all that is holy. Oh yeah, there's gonna be another one in a few weeks...yayyyy.