Commander 2014 Review: Answers

Welcome back to The General Zone's Review of Commander 2014. If you missed any of the previous action, make sure you take a look here to catch up on what you missed: Threats, Legends.

Today we are covering the answer cards. Answers are what you use to counteract your opponent's threats. This can take many forms. Discard, removal, counters, sideboard cards, etc. Many things can be an answer, but the most important question you need to ask to evaluate these cards is: "what is this meant to stop?" With that in mind we can decide whether it does a good job or if we even need to dedicate resources to solving that problem. Let's begin:

This is one of my favorite cards from the set. It is also the card with the worst name BY FAR. This is essentially an Instant-speed, focused Wrath effect. It is sure to 'get' a lot of people and turn around some very unfavorable board states in a hurry. I would recommend including this in all your control decks. Aggressive equipment based builds or token decks don't need or want this, but the Yosei decks of the world should be making space for this asap.

Comeuppance also clearly defines the upper bound for how much text can be on a card. Any more than this and it will run right off the page. They even had to shrink the font.



Hate bears have been taking a turn in recent years. They are getting more and more niche, but they are also getting more and more hateful, if that is even possible. Flash really drives these Creatures over the top. You were expecting to reanimate a fatty and pass with the shields up? Sorry bro. Counter your dude and next turn I am cracking in for two. This is a sick little beater than cleverly answers some of the formats most popular victory conditions.

I expect this card to see a fair amount of play in other formats as well, so be prepared for this card to command a high price and hold value over time.



This is why I constantly feel justified for going on rants about how Wrath is the central card in the Commander metagame. Despite lip service to the idea that they want Creatures to be better and spells to be worse, R&D continues to print increasingly powerful sweep effects. Supreme Verdict and Duneblast at least had the decency to cost multiple colors. This card was specifically costed to be splash-able. Look forward to seeing this everywhere. Sigh.






Now before I even get started here I need to tell you: This card is light years ahead of Hex. Hex was bad. This card is good. I will now explain the difference:

Requiring six specific targets is a drawback, not a benefit, so you would expect a price reduction. We get that, even though it breaks the symmetry that made Hex such a cool design. Secondly, the targeting restriction on this card is much wider. Any nonland permanent? Sure, I bet there are tons of those lying around. Lastly, killing your own things is rarely a good idea. Bouncing your Creatures though, can have tons of benefits. Getting to re-buy the effects of an ETB trigger or Kicker cost is sweet. Cleaning off Aura-based removal is just a blowout.

I am quite certain that you will play against this card in Commander. Hopefully you are also playing with it. I am willing to bet that every time an opponent resolves this, I will be making a vomiting noise just to emphasize how brutal it is. It will make people physically uncomfortable.



Well you don't get to attack with them, but you get to chump block with somebody else's stuff. For clarification: that is awesome.

This is my favorite way to use Ray of Command. That was a common. How can we turn this into a playable rare? Well, I don't know...give you three of them? DING! We have got a winner.









The best spot removal spell that we have seen since Dismember. Period. If you don't know why it is good, you don't understand Magic.

So much has already been said about this card around the Magic blogosphere so I am going to leave it at that. Play it or lose to it. Your choice.










A Black Duneblast that lets you steal somebody's stuff AND retrigger enter the battlefield effects...WHERE DO I SIGN UP?!

It sucks that this costs so much and so much of it must be Black, but let's be honest. This would be pretty broken if you made it cheaper.








This card seems sweet to me. There are a handful of anti-Wrath cards out there, but most of them are too expensive to see serious play. This one has the perfect cost. I imagine this doing some serious work in a Ghave deck. Having a single card like Ghave that demands a Wrath all by itself sets you up very well to take advantage of your opponent's best answers. They play a Sorcery, you drop a fatty into play at the end of their turn and continue to smash. You can't beat that. Figuratively, at least.






This card is crazy. An Instant speed reanimate effect is already awesome. The only widely adopted comparable here is Necromancy, which also has an end of turn deadline. For a very small cost you get to bring back additional Creatures to ambush your opponent's attackers and also re-trigger ETB effects. That is a lot of value to get from one card and is very likely to result in a victory.

The obvious drawback of this card is that you don't get to keep the things you dig up and you can only use them to block incoming attackers, but the deal you are getting on this effect is just too good to pass up.



I love it. Tricky Red cards are something that we need more or. Red is at such a low power level in Commander because it lacks the ability to interact with important cards. This is an awesome addition to the color's toolbox. It is no Snapcaster Mage, but I think this guy will be doing some serious work in the format.










This does require set up, which is a quality that I am not fond of in my answers, but the leg work is so easy. Did you attack? Did they? Did anybody do anything useful this turn? Heck, even if you combine this with a Lightning Bolt you now have an Instant-speed Arc Lightning for 1R. I will take that deal every day of the week.









Both the effect and the templating of this card are kind of complex, but I don't think that makes it bad. Your opponent is going to have to read it a couple of times, but they will always arrive at the same result: this is bad for them.

My only problem with this card is that it hits you as well. If you are winning on board, you don't want to sweep away your own Creatures. If you are behind on board, you probably don't want to take any more damage than you have to. This is a powerful sweeper and great damage source, but it is also unique. It is a sweeper that you really don't want to be using on a full board. Combining this with something like a Goblin Bombardment will help improve the effect and break the symmetry.




Unlike the other 'offering' cards, this one is never bad for you and is also sick in one vs. one. Imagine playing this in a duel. Blow up your opponent's best and worst nonbasic then kill their best and worst Creature...as an Instant...for five? I think that is pretty hot. I am definitely going to be using this card to great effect in my Grixis all-spell deck.

If you are in a multiplayer game you are going to be doing even better, but it won't rain all over just one person's parade and you don't have to take all of the blame for the targeting choices. This is a stabilizing card that will put the game back into reach if you or another player fall behind early, which is something that we don't often see in a format full of game-winning hay makers.




Is music an Enchantment? This flavor concept has been utilized many times before, notably in Urza's block with the 'verse' cycle, but it just doesn't sit right with me.

This is an excellent removal spell and fits the color pie perfectly. I love the visceral, top-down design. We are turning this thing into a tree...how does that work on a card? Well, Wizards pretty much nailed it on this one. Green needs more high quality spot removal and this card will be embraced by the community.




Twitter is a wave of vitriol. Youtube comments are a wave of vitriol. This card is a joke.

I can't figure out whether you want to leverage this or not. I would rather my opponent have a Plains than a Umezawa's Jitte, but can I still win if I let everyone else search for 3+ basic lands while I get nothing? What if I have a ton stuff in play that this blows up...am I better off keeping my Doubling Season or tapping all my mana, discarding this card, and shoveling my own stuff into the graveyard?

This card is definitely puzzling, but I think in this case that isn't a good thing.



I debated whether or not I should include this in the threat article. It is here because it is more situational and the fact that it requires certain conditions from your opponent makes it feel like an answer to me. But if I may speak frankly, if you think you are going to 'answer' your opponent(s) full grip of cards with a wolf token or two you are sadly mistaken. In Commander I would always rather have seven cards than six and a 2/2.

This is the general plight of reactive threats: If you are going to include it in your deck, don't you want it to do something? I mean actually impact the game. Will it win? The answer for this is an unenthusiastic "potentially". I would rather have just cast Wolfbriar Elemental. Which, conveniently, is also in this set.

Well that is it for today folks. More of a mixed bag here. Mostly unexciting junk, but there are a few surefire gems that will see play all over. We will be back in a couple of days to finish up the Commander 2014 review action with the utility and mana cards.

-GG