Commander 2014 Review: Utility and Mana

Welcome to the fourth and final installment of The General Zone's Review of Commander 2014. We have been very excited about this set, both because of the cards and the establishment of a pattern that signals yearly releases for Commander products in the future. If you have missed any of the previous segments of the review please check them out here: Threats, Legends, Answers.

In this segment we will finish up the review by taking a look at the mana and utility cards. A mana card is simple to define: it produces mana, fixes colors, or puts lands into play. Utility cards is a much broader category. Generally speaking, they expand the options and functionality of your deck. They might allow you access to new lines of play or increase your resource base. This category is essentially a catch-all for everything that doesn't fit anywhere else. Check the individual card descriptions for details.

Our first offering is a spin-off of an old theme. The 'siren' mechanic is flavorful and powerful, but has often been relegated to limited-only play. The ability to sing someone's Creature to shipwreck in a suicide charge is useful, but highly situational. This card would have similar problems if it weren't for the ability to direct attackers elsewhere around the table. In a multiplayer game this really can't go wrong, unless the opposition chooses to gang up on you for your abuse of their attack steps.

Realistically, this is going to get removed by the first person who gets pissed off by it, but I don't think that is so bad. Getting them to spend removal on your cheaper, low-end cards is a good way to save your game-enders from getting immediately killed. Most of the time though, this is either going to paint a target on your back or get swept up in a Wrath. As interesting as this twist on a limited favorite may be, I can't recommend it for serious players.



I only have one question: why doesn't this untap lands? That is a real bummer. Picture this scenario: The game has moved into the sunset stages; what Uncle Landdrops affectionately terms the late-late game. Somebody topdecks a nightmare card, but everyone is out of gas. You know that you don't have a counterspell, but it doesn't seem like anyone else is going to be able to do anything either. So you draw a bunch of cards to dig toward and answer, but you spent a ton of mana trying to do it. You can let someone else do the same, but they may not have the land to cast the counterspell that they find either. You're stuck.

The above situation might seem like a narrowing of the card's potential, but if I may speak honestly: that kind of desperation is the only reason I could see myself casting this card. For the same mana cost you can get the same amount of cards or more and NOT give any extra advantages to an opponent. You need a reason to cooperate with the people who are trying to defeat you, like a cheaper price tag or a unique effect. This card really has nothing that I want.


Perhaps someone can take this opportunity to explain the point of group hug decks to me. The goal of the game is to win. If you are not trying to win the game you are really just an obstacle to the people who are taking the game seriously. If you look at Magic as a means to socialize, you picked a great hobby, but that doesn't mean that you need to go so far as ignoring the strategy of the game. I like close games. Grindy games. I don't like it when somebody plays weird crap like this and just enables another player to combo off instantly. That is not 'in the spirit of the format' or in the spirit of stuff Grandpa likes either.

A separate argument: Do you know how many cards you could get yourself for this amount of mana? I mean without giving anyone else any. Because that number is big. Convincingly big, if you will. Big enough to make me never want to play Pheldagriff.



This card is pretty lame. It is pretty much a hundred percent worse than other Furnace effects. Why the design team thought that this was the direction they wanted to take things, I can only guess. Quite frankly, I find this kind of stuff offensive. This is chaff and should have been omitted from the product entirely. The only reason I choose to comment on it here is that it opens up avenues for future development in this design space. Below I have submitted a sample design for review by our readership:

--
Bitter-er Feud
4{R}
Enchantment

As Bitter-er Feud enters the battlefield, choose two players.

Creatures controlled by one of the chosen players may only attack the other chosen player or a planeswalker that player controls.

If one of the chosen players leaves the game, sacrifice Bitter-er Feud and the other player may draw a card.
--


This card is going to lead to some incredibly one-sided victories. Some people are going to say that this is bad. They are going to try it out and have it under-perform their expectations. These people are bad at Magic, bad at deck building, and generally don't understand the concept of strategy. This is one of the best cards in the set and it is totally broken. You can quote me on that. Troll on my minions.






I would love for other people to beat the crap out of each other for my personal gain, but I am just not interested in investing a card and SEVEN mana in making that happen. There is another way to achieve this outcome: be less obnoxious than at least one other player in the game.

I am the type of guy in my play group where, when we all shuffle up to play, I am the number one target from the jump. People don't need any excuse to come after me because they know that I am packing heat and I play to win. I could easily see equipping this onto a Creature and then everyone else in the game just refuses to attack with it because they know that if it is part of my game plan, they are better off not playing along.



It is pretty unfortunate that they keep printing mana rocks that cost more mana than I want to pay. You see, I shy away from Artifact mana because it is so fragile. Commander's Sphere actually deals with this problem nicely by letting me cash it in for a fresh card with no activation cost. However, I have completely stopped playing mana rocks that cost more than two.

When I make my mulligan decision, I am not going to keep a hand that features two lands and an accelerator that I can't cast. I have lost too many games that way. I prefer to have more real lands in play and keep land heavy hands with the expectation that the game will go on for many turns. This happens to be the case in most Commander matches anyway.

I do especially enjoy the juicy irony that a Commander-specific card is basically unplayable in all of my Commander decks. I would really look forward to playing this in Pauper Cube if the templating weren't so decidedly asinine.


Masterwork of Ingenuity is another in the not-so-long line of Legacy-staple cards that have been specifically introduced in Commander sets for the purpose of intentionally bypassing Standard legality. Remember True-Name Nemesis...yea...that was fun.

I have some serious gripes about the design of this card though. It has the equipment subtype, but no equip ability. It is, I believe, the first card designed this way. It seems as though the design team created it with the sole purpose of combining it with Stoneforge Mystic in Legacy. I like that they made this card, but I have serious misgivings about the way that they chose to implement this idea and the impact that  choice could have on other formats besides Commander.

It is an overly expensive mana rock that doesn't even produce a single color. This card is stone unplayable. Or rock unplayable if you enjoy puns. People are going to retort that this card is good because it has extra value later in the game...here is an idea:

Why don't you add value by DOING YOUR FREAKING JOB! 'Added' value means going above and beyond the call of duty. Going before and below said call and also stopping to pick up a snack on the way home is not adding value.





My friends, I believe that we finally have the answer.

Just kidding, we don't have a damn thing. Remember Homeward Path and how sweet it was when it first came out? Everyone was playing it and thinking it was so great. And for a while it actually was pretty good, but there is an upper limit on how much pollution you can poor into your mana base before your deck is completely unplayable.

I don't play Homeward Path because I am not worried about people stealing my stuff. I hardly have anything of my own anyway. I have more Control Magics in my decks than I do actual threats. The same logic will keep me from sleeving up Arcane Lighthouse. I just play more Wraths and less Paths. Seems like an easier way to defeat Geist of Saint Traft than getting color screwed.


This card is pretty hot. I don't think I am ever going to be able to reveal an Elemental. I am going to be revealing so many Mulldrifters in my Maelstrom Wanderer deck!

Many decks want hasty threats. Actually, all of them do, but some people don't understand the value of it. This card has the potential to come into play untapped a nonzero percentage of the time AND it produces colored mana. That makes it a huge upgrade to Hall of the Bandit Lord. Oh and also you don't have to pay a chunk of life every time you tap it. That's kind of nice too. The trade off is that it makes your guy cost two more for the privilege, which could be a genuinely prohibitive expense. This card certainly isn't going to break the format and probably won't even see wide scale play, but it is worth a second look and is sure to catch people off guard.

I saved the best for last. This is my personal favorite card from the set. Krosan Verge has long been overlooked in the format. With so many flashy rares and Legendary lands running around it seems to get lost in the shuffle, but Verge has quietly been one of the most powerful lands in the entire game. Maybe now with the printing of an OBVIOUSLY INFERIOR VERSION of the card people will start to remember why it is so good and jam it back into their decks.

Note: despite not being able to fix multiple colors or fetch dual lands, I will still be playing this card in every deck with 16+ basics. Spell lands are insanely good. Rampant Growth is insanely good. A Rampant Growth land is thereby insanely good.

Well it was a long journey, but we finally reached the end. What do you think about the new cards? Are these pre-constructed decks everything that you had been hoping for? As always, remember to leave your feedback in the comments below. We read and respond without fail.

Things will be back to normal starting on Tuesday again so be sure to check back and see what UL has cooking up to take advantage of the new goodies from CMDR14.

Till next time Zoners.

-GG