Commander 2013 Review: Threats

Hello and welcome to The General Zone's Review of Commander 2013. I am Grandpa Growth and I will be walking along with you through the new goodies in the set. First, let's discuss the ground rules:

• Were going to be breaking it down like this: the review is split into three parts: threats, answers, and utility/mana. In today's section we will be talking threats. A threat is something you use to win the game. Most of the time these are creatures, planeswalkers, flashy spells, and some engine cards, but good threats often serve multiple functions.
• We are not going to talk about any of the reprints. IF those cards are important to Commander, then we already know about them anyway. Although I may come back around in the future and do an article just about all the new art. There sure is a bunch.
• We are not going to talk about any of the new legendary creatures. That may seem like we are skipping the most important part, but you can check out Uncle Landdrops and the others for discussion of the new generals. That is all citizens. Let's jump right on in.

I like me some graveyard hate. I love it when targeted hate cards come with extra value. I really love when your extra value can attack and block. There are plenty of other good graveyard hate cards that you can choose from to be sure, but the value of colored permanents is at an all-time high right now. Devotion is so powerful and is going to have such a large impact on Commander that just having a mana symbol on your creature is going to make it worth more than Tormod's Crypt in many decks. Previously, this format was largely defined by colorless permanents (mainly Artifact mana) and Sorceries (Kodama's Reach, Bribery, etc.), but this is changing rapidly.



What in the world? Have you read Treachery? Bribery? Azami? Tamiyo? This is not what you want to be doing with your five mana in a Blue deck. Everything about this is bad...including its flavor text, but the worst part:

IT DOESN'T FLY? Are you serious? How does it get around? It isn't an ooze. It isn't a snake. You tell me guys. I literally have no idea.

FLAVOR FAIL PART II: This is called Diviner Spirit. So it should tell you something about the future right? The flavor text however, points to a completely separate interpretation of the flavor behind drawing cards, i.e. experiencing a stream of consciousness. This card repulses me. Considered in terms of flavor, mechanics, design, art, playability, and general flashyness factor, this is the worst card I have seen in the last ten years.



This ability is crazy powerful. Left unchecked you will probably win the game and the closer the board state was to parity, the more valuable this is going to be, which is a good quality for a game-winning card to have, sadly though, I don't think this is going to make it into any real decklists. Too expensive, too risky, too vulnerable, and worst of all it is a 2/7 for SIX. Where is the beef?

I dig the art and the flavor text here, but the name seems a little bit over the top. INFINITE DECEITS? Come on. Nobody likes a braggart.

Commander 2013 brings us the resolution of a super cycle that is more than a decade in the making, beginning with Verdant Force all the way back in Tempest. He was a powerhouse. One of the first true fatties. The O.G. of the overgrown. The Sultan of Saprolings. His legacy is one of glory in battle. His backwards Blue cousin seems to have his head up his keister though. Unfortunately nowadays, this effect simply isn't worth eight mana. There are much scarier things you can do. In multiplayer this does allow you the advantage of locking down several threats throughout each turn cycle, but this will work out in such a way that it isn't great for promoting attacks...except against you. Without evasion or protection from removal this cycle is bound to languish in mediocrity while the real work gets done by more impressive threats...except for maybe the Black guy. Or the Red one. That card is pretty good.

So...this is obviously the SECOND most powerful card in the set. For three you get a three power attacker that can't be blocked, can't be targeted, and can't be damaged. It basically just dances around on the board yelling "CAN'T TOUCH THIS" at your opponent. In an FFA this card really isn't all that bad either. What incentive does a third party have to waste a kill spell on a threat that can't really do anything to them? This is eventually going to force the named player to Wrath or try to race, but since this can carry a Sword (and they can't do anything about it) they are most likely going to have to pull the trigger. Overall, this is an excellent card. This has a high power level, interacts favorably in almost every board state, isn't susceptible to the common answers, and is priced aggressively.

I do have one question though...why Blue and why a Merfolk? I guess that is technically two questions, but I feel like this is a Black or Black/White card and probably a Horror or a Demon/Angel. What do you guys think?



The aforementioned Black guy. So, here is one way to think about this: You love Phyrexian Arena. This is like getting two for the price of one and you get a 7/7 for four extra mana. That sounds like a sick deal right? Now here is another way to evaluate it. It is more expensive than Consecrated Sphinx, draws less cards than Consecrated Sphinx, doesn't have a 'may' trigger, causes you to lose a bunch of life for no real benefit, and it doesn't Fly. Will it see play? Sure. Is it tier 1 Gosu tech? No.



 All things considered this isn't a half bad token generator. Every turn you get a 2/2 for a three mana down payment? I can live with that. Sure, you have to battle them and it comes into play tapped, but whats the difference if you have a bunch of zom-buds to hang out with? I can't recommend playing this card in multiplayer. Even though the cycle was specifically designed to be used for that purpose. There is no real benefit to giving your opponents free tokens. Yes it incentivizes people to attack other players, but you have a token generator! You should have more stuff than your opponents if you are playing a token deck.




So the dream is to sac all your dudes to kill all their dudes and then bash to get all your dudes back. Cool. This card can certainly provide ongoing advantage in a grindy game, but it seems like an awful lot of work. It has decent stats for a seven drop and the ability means it will likely trade favorably in every combat situation, but something about this still rubs me the wrong way. It could be the art, which looks like it was ripped straight out of a promo for Outlast, but I just don't see this happening in big boy Commander, but what do I know? It's not like I write about it for a living.



In the hood, this is how we roll. So let me get this straight: When you are behind on board, your guy becomes unblockable, so you can attack...and fall further behind in the race? But what if you have this and Empyrial Archangel...you're like...totally unstoppable...

Not much of a surprise, but I think we can do better for five mana.





Okay, compared to the Curse of Shallow Graves we get: a 2/2 body to battle or block with, the tokens are smaller and have a less relevant creature type BUT have Deathtouch, and we only ever get one if we don't have one...wait what? What is that jank all about? We don't just get a bunch of snakes like we wanted, we only get to keep one? This is b.s. Sorin would not be fascinated with this garbage. He can make a bunch of tokens and still be home in time to blow up their best threats for dinner. This is sketch tech at best.



I am tempted to play the absolute snot out of this card. You get the best threat from your bin and if they choose to get their best guy you get your second best guy too? Deal. If that game state doesn't favor you then you are playing a pretty horrible reanimator deck. Try to get your skills up and come back later.

Keep in mind that this doesn't target. You make the choice on resolution, so it can't be foiled by targeted removal like Surgical Extraction. Just like the other Tempting Offer cards, all the Creatures come into play as part of the resolution of the spell so any related effects will trigger at the same time for all creatures.

This falls way short of my expectations. You can pay a bunch of mana for a equally sized bunch of silly 1/1 tokens at Sorcery speed. Maybe you end up with a truly bananas amount of tokens if your opponents are bad and/or bad at math, but that still doesn't seem like that great of a deal for 8+ mana. Storm Herd will probably give you an equivalent number of tokens, but they will Fly and, importantly, your opponents won't get anything but a beating.

Now imagine this: This card just costs one Red mana and you got one token plus another for every person who takes one too. Then we would have a card that ACTUALLY plays well in multiplayer and scales to the amount of people in the game instead of the amount of mana we pump into it. Keep in mind that having a bunch of creatures is way cooler BEFORE your opponent(s) have mana for a Wrath of God.



I think it is funny (sad) that the design team on this product, which included several prominent Commander players by the way, managed to come up with half a dozen new cards that will NEVER get played in Commander. The experience and expertise of their dojo is in question.

It doesn't look like this card is an elemental. It looks like this is a cow that is:
1. Falling off a mountain.
2. Actually on fire and more than a little upset about it.



I don't even know what this is so I am just going to leave it here in the threat article. Technically, it can kill an opponent, it just never will. This is another plant for multiplayer and, once again, it is horrible, even in multiplayer.



Ehhh, this isn't so bad. You smashed a Grizzly Bears onto a Shatterstorm...type thing...and then you get to make it big. YAAAAAY. Don't get me wrong, this is powerful and probably undercosted, but blowing up your own things is too much of a cost. You don't want to be killing your opponents mana rocks on turn six...you want to be the guy with the mana rocks. Preferably on turn one or two.



Shout out to all my James Brown fans. This card has got soul and it is SUPER BAD.

I have a rewrite for this card. Each player reveals until they see a nonland card. All the lands go back on top of those libraries and you exile the nonland cards. This thing gets counters equal to the converted mana costs just like before, but this new card gets Trample AND the non-green pseudo-shroud. For eight mana? Come on, this thing should at least buy you dinner before it screws you.




Oh boy...what do I even say about this? After that tasteless rant I just finished about Naya Soulbeast being a horrible 8 drop I don't think I have it in me. Just do me a favor: destroy every copy of this that you see so I never have to talk about it again. My legacy will be this card reaching $100 dollars because I have burnt all but two copies.

Well there you have it folks. All the shiny new toys from Commander 2013 have arrived and are ready to get sleeved up. Grab yourself a True Name Nemesis and get the beatdowns on. In the words of Vicente Valtieri: "Spill some blood for me, brother."

-GG