Class of '23!
Hi there! I'm Brandon Amico, and normally you'd find me penning the Flavor of the Month articles for Commander's Herald, but today I'm taking a break from that column to bring you this Commander Set Review. Can you believe it's been four years since we first came to Eldraine in Throne of Eldraine? If our new world of ELD-skewed formats were a high school or a college, we'd be graduating right now. I wonder who'd be named "Most Likely to Succeed" in the Eldraine Yearbook...
Enough preamble (and setup for my little bonus schtick for this); you know how these work! Review article, great new set: let's talk about the allied color gold cards in Wilds of Eldraine!
Mythics
I have not seen nearly as much hype for Agatha as I have for other new commanders in this set, and I think people are sleeping on this card. This is Training Grounds you don't need to be in blue for, and while it starts at a one-mana discount instead of two, the ceiling is much, much higher. Gruul has so many +1/+1 counters and other buffs that it will be trivially easy to make almost any activated ability a single mana. Svella, Ice Shaper will spit out mana rocks and then start pulling free spells off the top four with ease. Captivating Crew will steal tons of creatures. And the "Invoker" cycle, like Bhaal's Invoker and Wildheart Invoker, normally relegated to mid-tier draft curve fillers and late-game mana sinks, suddenly become deadly with a pumped-up Agatha.
Plus, she's got a built-in finisher which will very quickly cost two mana. The cauldron may be vile, but this card leading your deck (or even fit into some 99s; she's brutal as a closer in Halana and Alena, Partners) will be pretty sweet.
Superlative: Most Likely to Give Everyone at the Family Cookout Food Poisoning
Hylda represents the culmination of a long tradition of tap-down effects in Magic, which have existed since Alpha (hello, Twiddle) and only recently started getting a little more development love from Wizards of the Coast as a flavorful way to mechanically represent ice and freezing abilities. We recently got stun counters, which give this archetype a little more oomph since it's not just a one-time tap, and now we have this tailor-made commander for the archetype.
The question to me is, is there enough out there to make Hylda worthwhile? Verity Circle is an unassuming card that does more work than many gave it credit for initially, but I wonder if there's enough support via cards that do things besides tap others down to make Hylda good--or, more importantly, make a fun deck. Don't get me wrong, the options Hylda provides for a single mana after tapping something down are impressive. A 4/4 is a beater, and many can take over a game (just ask God-Eternal Oketra). The go-wide +1/+1 counter mode seems weird in this color combination and tap-down strategy, but white can make a lot of creatures, so it's not undoable. Hylda can make those creatures herself, but at a pretty slow rate; the effective difference between a 4/4 and a 5/5 is small, so you'd probably just make more Elementals. Scry 2 and draw is so much better than just drawing a card, as well, so no complaints there.
To me, I'm not (yet) convinced the sum of these parts will be satisfying to play, but some folks seem very excited for Hylda, so I'm willing to be proven wrong. There's no doubting her potential power, though. At the least, slamming Opposition and then using every mana from there on to make more 4/4s, draw cards and make even more Elementals as you use them to keep all of your opponents' creatures at bay. Eventually, you'll have so many creatures you can start dumping counters on them and end the rest of the table's slow torment. Hm. Actually, maybe that is kinda fun.
Superlative: Most Likely to Tell You a Lot About People By Whether They Sing "Let It Go" or "Ice Ice Baby" When Casting Her.
"Coming to a commander table near you!"
Seriously, expect to see Rowan a lot. Her ability is, frankly, ludicrous, and there's plenty of ways to give her haste so you can start the fun right away. Rowan lets you turn pain into gain, and it turns out "lose your own life" in Rakdos colors is exceptionally easy. Unspeakable Symbol, Fire Covenant, Doom Whisperer, even Phyrexian Purge will allow you to easily get a monumental discount on an X spell to close out the game like Torment of Hailfire, Crackle with Power, Exsanguinate, and so on. Treasonous Ogre pulls double duty here, providing life loss and colored mana to cover the pips in Storm King's Thunder.
Rowan is an archetype unto herself, and I personally am very excited to build with her. The temptation of "how much of myself can I give away for gain" is extremely in keeping with black's color identity, and the recklessness of the endeavor is fitting for red.
Superlative: Okay, Rowan is the Most Likely to Succeed. Not even a joke here--I can't imagine a world where she isn't a frequent participant and oftentimes winner at Commander tables.
What an odd card: even if you're probably choosing an even number more often than not with her, since I think two mana is the sweet spot for Talion. Two snags the most-played mana rocks, some of the most reliable interaction like Counterspell and Assassin's Trophy, both sets of boots...in fact, 20 of the top 32 cards played in the format according to EDHREC have a mana value of two.
But what do we do with Talion besides wait for our opponents to play their Demonic Tutors and Rampant Growths? They don't do anything other than draw cards and drain a little life--not impeding the gameplan of our opponents on their own--so Talion reads to me like a very open-ended commander despite having a highly specific ability.
Talion could be a fun alternative to other Faerie commanders or fit into the 99 of Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor or one of the Alelas as a way to draw extra cards and take some heat off of the commander. You could also go all-in on this effect and make Spark Double or Sakashima copies of Talion, choosing a different number each time so that you're basically playing a one-sided Liesa, Shroud of Dusk that also draws you cards.
Superlative: Most Likely to Pick Up the Check One Time and Never Let You Forget It
The inverse of Rowan, Scion of War, Will is no slouch either. While his sister has grabbed the headlines, it's still very easy to incidentally gain swaths of life and make his activated ability dangerous. At the very least, Will should be an auto-include in any Azorius-inclusive lifegain deck, or even just decks with a lifegain subtheme. Go ahead and try not to giggle when you activate Will in your Shanna, Purifying Blade deck and cast an enormous Hydroid Krasis.
If you just had to reread Will's text to confirm that would work, you're surely not alone; I don't think it's sunk in for everyone that he and Rowan discount all spells in their colors that turn, not just instants and sorceries. Those are just going to be some of the most commonly used payoffs, and if you have Will in your command zone you have access to some doozies. Finale of Revelation and other draw-X spells, Finale of Glory, Mass Manipulation, and the like. Or you could just use Will in a mid-game turn to speed out a Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur or Expropriate.
Cheating on mana is one of the most powerful things you can do in Magic, and the rate for lifegain-to-mana largely skews in lifegain's favor. That means an ability like Will's that equates the two is not to be underestimated. He may not have access to Torment of Hailfire, but he'll still put in the work.
Superlative: Most Likely to Be Overshadowed by a More Ambitious and Successful Sibling
The second iteration of Alela loses white and a power buff to flyers but gains goading and a potentially easier way to make the tokens that will get that goading going. The original Alela is one of the most popular commanders of all time, so I don't foresee this one supplanting it anytime soon, but that doesn't mean there isn't merit to its strategy.
Goad is a powerful ability, and when you add it to the Faerie type's penchant for disruption like countering, bouncing, tapping, and...city-wide mayhem, you're going to be forcing opponents into many disadvantageous moves and cutting off avenues for them to escape. I imagine this will be a good inclusion in Nymris, Oona's Trickster decks or an alternative commander if you want to play on the board more. Just be sure to pack your trusty Wavebreak Hippocamp and your Naiad of Hidden Coves for the journey.
Superlative: Most Likely to Win Prom Queen at Someone Else's Prom
Finally, we get to see the clever artisan behind those gingerbread people from the incredible Throne of Eldraine teaser video! Although, if we look at how the card works mechanically, it's a little more grim than the video suggests. Bernard is...turning dead creatures into gingerbread versions of themselves?!
Regardless, this madman looks incredibly fun and (sorry) flavorful to build around. Golems have lacked a proper commander forever--Ich-Tekik, Salvage Splicer never cut it--or you could go in on Food tokens with Trail of Crumbs, Night of the Sweets' Revenge, and the like. Food naturally leads to lifegain strategies if you want--where did I put that Will, Scion of Peace?! Or you can abuse enter-the-battlefield and death effects by bringing your Meteor Golem (hey, a Golem!) or Triplicate Titan (wait, that's ALSO a Golem) back to do their thing again.
Or you can do all of the above under the banner of artifact and token generation, since it all works so synergistically together. Check out this version from friend of the site--and person who has said "Why are you like this?" to me more than anyone else during games of Commander--Chase Carroll (@ManaCurves on Twitter), who built this incredibly fun-looking Bernard list.
Superlative: Most Likely to Fail a Routine Health Inspection
The face commander of the second enchantress precon in as many months, no one seems too pumped to sleeve up Ellivere, but she's ready to pump up lots of your creatures. The "Virtuous Role" token she gives upon entering or attacking is just Ethereal Armor minus the first strike, and those are excellent in multiples. I'd be more excited about the second ability--drawing for each enchanted creature that hits, not just one per combat or player!--if we didn't recently get Calix, Guided by Fate, which though capped, has a way more interesting ability than just drawing cards. Especially when Selesnya enchantment decks are already overflowing with card draw via its many enchantresses.
Superlative: Most Likely to Not Be Remembered Despite Sitting Behind You in Algebra Class Junior Year
Now this seems fun. Gylwain lets every nontoken creature you have choose if it wants to play the part of a royal, a sorcerer, or a monster, and sticks the appropriate Role token onto that creature. Which means you're getting two permanents for one with every creature (important for cards that care about enchantments entering or just a critical mass of permanents--I'm looking at you, Regal Bunnicorn), plus a buff and a little extra bonus to each.
The more I think about it, the more this seems like it could play as a variant of Grumgully, the Generous, a longtime favorite of mine, but with auras instead of +1/+1 counters. This is a very efficient way to make sure each of your creatures has an enchantment on it, and there are cards that can take advantage of that--Winds of Rath, Sage's Reverie, and Halvar, God of Battle come to mind. Jaheira, Friend of the Forest is incredible with this deck, too--I've never tapped an aura for mana before, but it seems like a pretty fun way to make your table go "Wait, you can do that?"
Is Gylwain as powerful as Ellivere of the Wild Court? Probably not; Ellivere can provide raw card advantage and turns dorks into giant threats with ease. But does he open up a lot more creative deckbuilding opportunities? I believe so.
Superlative: Most Likely to Host a Tony Awards Watch Party
I'm getting Baba Lysaga, Night Witch vibes from the New Coke version of Korvold. Creatures are easy to sacrifice, as are artifacts with Treasure tokens everywhere you look, but other permanent types are much more difficult to reliably sac, so most often Korvold is coming down for six mana. Sagas are a thing--remember you sacrifice the ones that don't flip into creatures after their last chapter--but having to plan two or more turns ahead is tricky in a format where board states can change so much in that time.
These decks need to be built with a varied split of card types to get the most out of his triggered ability. Korvold also needs protection, because you can invest a lot into getting him on the battlefield only to have him eat a Swords to Plowshares and all you're left with is less of your board than you had before the turn, an additional two commander tax--oh, and four life. He also asks you to have a stocked graveyard, requiring self mill--or a way to reliably sac artifacts that aren't treasures and get other permanent types into your 'yard. Baba Lysaga and Vraska, Golgari Queen are the best ways to do that, but you need them and the right setup pieces for it all to come together. This guy's asking a lot, and while the upside of drawing three or more cards and some counters upon connecting with an opponent is significant, there are easier ways to get those cards.
If we didn't have old Korvold, this one would be exciting. The Gleeful Glutton can easily slot into the tried-and-true Korvold decks--as it is, I think he's fine, and less broken. But this is Commander, baby--broken is what we're here for!
Superlative: Most Likely to Have Peaked in High School
If you're the kind of person who finds themselves building the same type of deck no matter the color combination, and that deck is an "aristocrats" deck, good news--you can run Tegwyll and shrug when people call you out for building that deck yet again. Tegwyll just wants you to go that route, why else would they reward you for your Faeries dying? Faerie decks are popular, as are sacrifice strategies, so I expect to see Tegwyll across the table from me pretty frequently.
This is the most efficient aristocrats payoff for the Dimir color combination to sit in the command zone; it's Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver if Wilhelt wasn't capped to one more card per turn. It's not too hard to spit out Faerie tokens, either, with Bitterblossom, Notorious Throng, and the new Archmage of Echoes. The buff on Tegwyll for your Faerie hordes isn't incidental like it is for most sacrifice commanders; Faeries almost universally fly, so it's pretty nice upside to get in a few more points of damage flying over defenders before you feed your tokens to a Viscera Seer.
Yes, you can play the Duke of Splendor as a straightforward Faerie commander, and I'm sure some people will, but there are multiple better options to lead that charge out there (and two of them start with "Alela"), so if you want to sleeve up Tegwyll, best to just give in to the darker side and murder your darlings.
Superlative: Most Likely to Leave Inexplicable Amounts of Glitter Wherever They Go
Rares
Mortivore sees only a smattering of play, and it can regenerate itself. That said, the Somnophage costs half as much mana and tacks on a small mill spell to boot. I think Dimir mill decks want this, not so much for the milling Adventure spell (four cards is not much unless it's also tacking onto a Fraying Sanity or something) but because this could get huge from all the other milling and start beating face on turn three. That's not the mill deck's M.O., but it's a nice extra angle of attack or at the least a solid blocker for an archetype that can sometimes be a little soft to aggression.
By the way, Somnophage is just about the most badass word they've invented in Magic for some time now; "somno" meaning sleep and "-phage" being the suffix for an eater of something. It also just feels great to say aloud--go ahead, give it a try.
Superlative: Most Likely to Call My Name and Save Me From the Dark
Goldspan Dragon this is not, sorry. No haste, no Treasure on target, and no doubling all your Treasure's mana production--the latter being the biggest reason decks play Goldspan. What do we get for this one, though? An instant-speed Divination...off an opponent's deck. I wouldn't be surprised to see this card appear in some Standard lists, but in Commander, I think it's a trap. Even though the treasures can help you cast those cards, unless you get a generically good card like a Rhystic Study, the contents of your opponents' decks are probably not too helpful to you and those two cards will likely sit in your exile zone until you take out your deck next Friday and realize you scooped them up with your own cards.
Four mana for a 4/4 flying trampler that makes treasures isn't bad. But in 2023, we have much more impactful dragons to be playing.
Superlative: Most Likely to Be On an Episode of Hoarders
Dang, this thing does it all. It draws you cards, puts Toxrill, the Corrosive in the graveyard--I mean, some other creature--and then transforms into Toxrill, the Corrosive--oops, again, sorry, definitely some other creature. No one would be that mean.
Yes, people will be exactly that mean, and I expect to see this transform into some nasty beasts. This a great utility card for any graveyard strategy, from Muldrotha, the Gravetide to Sefris of the Hidden Ways, as setup and payoff. The fact that you can turn it into whatever the best thing in your graveyard is on any given turn, even if you've done so already, pushes this beyond a simple Merfolk Looter--and I still think looters are underplayed as utility cards in general. Sign me up.
Superlative: Most Likely to Go to Jail for Identity Theft
An anthem on a two-drop creature is nothing to sneeze at (unless you have an allergy to pollen), even if it's only for token creatures. Hey, you know what color combination is fantastic at making creature tokens?
Tack onto that a Might of the Masses, which works perfectly with go-wide token decks, and this seems like a wabbit you'll want to bring home to your Rhys the Redeemed or Trostani, Selesnya's Voice deck. Or hey, just because there's no support for the creature type doesn't mean you can't make a Rabbit deck with this and Cadira, Caller of the Small. You do you.
Superlative: Most Likely to Not Be Hypoallergenic
This guy is looking for his Beast friend, can we help him?
Reckless Impulse and Wrenn's Resolve are two of red's best "draw" spells in recent memory, and now Wizards has gone and made that effect an instant--and done stuck it on a creature that scales throughout the game. Add in some counter synergies and relevant typing, and there's potential here. I'm not sure any color combinations beyond Gruul and maybe Naya particularly need the Adventure half of this--blue and black just have better card draw options--but if you're in many colors and want a card-advantage beater, you could do far worse.
Superlative: Most Likely to Have Someone in Your Pod Excitedly Point Out the Staff He's Carrying and Its Three Heads
Dang, this is our second four-mana 4/4 flier with multiple bits of upside so far, after Decadent Dragon. They're really pushing rate in the sky, eh? What differentiates this from the dragon, and why I'm a little higher on this in comparison, is that the Adventure half is something many decks will want. And given that blink decks often have ways to get creatures back to hand, you will probably be able to reuse Swift Spiral a few times, accruing value along the way. I'll take multiple copies of a spell I'd run anyway over two of my opponents' cards at random every time when it comes to picking my add-on to a Wendy's 4/4 for 4.
I say this knowing that the Dragon will see more play anyway because people like Dragons and two unknown cards are a little more exciting than reliable synergy. Oh well. Twining Twins is a Faerie Wizard, too, so it could find a home in Faerie and Wizard lists beyond dedicated blink decks, and that's where I expect to see it most.
Superlative: Most Likely to Have An Inexplicably Successful Sibling TikTok Account
Though people like me will try to use Yenna as a fair value play (remember when I said some people build the same decks over and over? That's me too, every deck I build is just Value Town), I have to recognize that this is meant to be a combo machine. Even with the safety valve that the designers added in (not being able to target something you already have a copy of ), I'm sure better brewers than I will find ways to break this. In fact, if we look over at Commander Spellbook, there are 21 combos at time of writing that use Yenna to get infinite life, infinite scry, pull all basics from your deck and onto the board, or make Auratog infinitely large--and she's been on the scene for, like, half a second.
If you're not going the combo route, she still fits perfectly into enchantress decks as a way to double up your most impactful enchantments. What's better than one Boon of the Spirit Realm? Two! Or tag another problematic creature with yet another Kenrith's Transformation. Add in cards like Doubling Season or Parallel Lives--conveniently found in the same packs as Yenna, natch--and it can get silly pretty fast.
Superlative: Most Likely to Have a Google Alert Set Up for "Buy One Get One Anthropologie"
Uncommons & Commons
Thud is already played in nearly 8,000 decks according to EDHREC. There's almost no reason why any of those decks with access to black shouldn't swap in the Sell-Sword for Thud; it's even safer in the case of a counterspell, since you don't lose the creature until the spell resolves. More decks (about 30,000) run Fling, which costs one more mana but has the huge advantage of being an instant. The question then is, is it a bigger upside to have a potentially large creature in addition to the damage, or to have instant-speed flexibility? It will vary deck to deck, but Adventure cards being two spells in one slot of your 99 is a bigger upside than we often give them credit for.
Superlative: Most Likely to Make a "Splat" Sound
The natural counterpart to Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor--Faerie enter, you lose a life. Faerie leave, I lose a life but also draw a card. Isn't symmetry fun? Faerie decks are adept at spitting out small fliers, so adding a type-specific Impact Tremors is a welcome sight.
I expect to see Obyra take a backseat when it comes to the command zone; better to stick to the token generation of the Alelas or the card advantage of Tegwyll is my feeling. But Obyra makes perfect sense in the 99 of any Faerie list, so expect her to be a staple for pretty much any such deck going forward.
Superlative: Most Likely to Be the Reason the Word "Most" is Used in this ABC News Quote: "Most sleepwalkers don't kill people"
This looks like textbook draft fodder at first glance, but buffing three separate creatures with its adventure in a world of seventy different Hardened Scales effects and "modified" support via Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty cards like Akki Battle Squad and Jugan Defends the Temple is worth a second look. These effects already exist, but usually not attached to a creature that can benefit from a +1/+1 counter strategy you're already certainly in. Being a Goblin doesn't hurt, either. Four mana and sorcery speed on the spell half might be too much to ask, but I'm willing to give this a try in my Grumgully, the Generous deck.
Superlative: Most Likely to Find a Reason to Scream "Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants!"
Four mana is a lot, but Sharae replaces herself, ices down a threat, and is a tempting blink target. I'm just not convinced the "tapping" archetype has enough going for it yet. If you're rolling with Hylda of the Icy Crown, Sharae should come along for the ride, but otherwise she doesn't do enough on her own. And as a commander, Hylda just does so much more in the same archetype (without even costing any more mana!).
Superlative: Most Likely to Be Vice Chair of Some Municipal Bureaucratic Committee
If you play this in Aminatou, the Fateshifter, you're committing a war crime. Seriously, the combination of (soft) counterspell that can actually remove a Hullbreaker Horror from the stack with the shredding of your opponents' hands via repeated blinks is bad enough. But when you bring it back to your hand to do it all again, at a whim (as Aminatou decks often have the capability to do with ease), you've crossed a line. Thank goodness the creature half of this thing costs four, but I'm still not convinced that's enough of a roadblock for people who want to be the Big Bad at their table some night soon.
Superlative: Most Likely to Get You Tried in The Hague
The Pied Piper here is "Totes" the best opportunity for those who want to add red to their Rat decks, but turning one creature (presumably a Rat) into another 1/1 Rat is...not something impressive enough to write a song about. His activated ability seems like it would be effectively threatening, but most rats will be small enough that they won't be worth blocking, and if they are large enough--think a board of Rat Colonys, a block will probably cause both creatures to die anyway. You have to really want access to cards like Goblin Bombardment and Impact Tremors to run this guy, and fair--those are great cards. But at that point, why not use a type better at going wide and play some Goblins? You can even stick to the black and red color pairing!
Superlative: Most Likely to Get a DMCA Takedown Order
See you next year!
That's it for today--phew, quite a few cards, especially commanders, to go through! I hope you enjoyed and found this primer useful. Tell me in the comments below, or on social media, what cards from Wilds of Eldraine you're most excited to build around or stick into your current decks!
Until next time, be well, friends.
