Monday, August 21, 2017

Commander 2017 Set Review and Top Picks.

Commander 2017 has been revealed and will hit stores soon. Here is my review of the product and my favorite new cards in the set.


Anyone who has read my blog knows this: I love tribal! I'm completely excited to add these decks to my collection as soon as possible.

The colors

The 5 color dragon deck was spoiled early and many (myself included) figured every deck would be 5 color. I'm glad it was not. Going against their norm of cycles is somewhat good. They also said that in development they wanted every color to be equally represented. If that is the case where is the UG deck? We have A GW and a UBR, and we have a RWB but no UG. It seems kind of like it's missing. Was there really a 5th deck that didn't make the cut (but too late to replace)? Is there a 5th deck surprise coming out (yeah I'm a dreamer)?

The Tribes chosen and the colors used for them:

Dragons- An amazing choice! Dragons have been scientifically proven to be the favorite magic the gathering tribe out there. Give me 4 dragon decks and I'd still be happy. 5 color dragons is probably the right choice. This allowed them to showcase the less used dragon colors. I love my RB dragon tribal deck, but I don't feel like this deck steps on its toes in any way.

Vampires- Vampires has become an increasingly popular tribe since our first trip to innistrad. I've tried repeatedly to build a RB vampire tribal deck, but never could get it where I wanted it. White adds so much to this deck. There were 6 white vampires (now 9). It opens up better removal, better lifegain (which is a subtheme that works with vamps), and gives us access to every Sorin (the vampire planeswalker). Mardu Vampires is an excellent choice.

Cats- Ok, they wanted a surprise tribe out of nowhere. And this probably was prior to adding a few cat lords in recent sets. It was not a terrible choice of a tribe, but not where I would have gone (knights). GW is the proper choice for cats though. It fits the aggression that this deck wants very well, and most importantly, it gives us access to Ajani.

Wizards- I'm Not happy with this one. Wizards always felt like a cop out tribe to me. This is the tribe that people pick when they don't want to play tribal and have to in order to fulfill a theme day requirement. I understand why they chose wizards though (they wanted a tribe that wasn't combat based) and can respect their decision. I would probably have slotted another tribe to fulfill this (specters? Faeries?). That being said UBR is the correct choice for a wizard deck.

The decks:

Dragons- As a precon this is good, perhaps too good. The deck seems really streamlined (all of these ones do, but this one most) and I'm kind of worried about its power level when played against other precons. Getting this precon and making a solid commander deck will not be hard.

Vampires- This deck seems to play out very well. I'm less worried about the power level out of the box, but it still seems like it will be a valid precon choice. Upgrading this one will be easy as well.

Cats- I like how this deck goes against the grain of most commander decks and wants to attack early and close out games fast. That being said, I hope you like the deck right out of the box as there are not a lot of choices to upgrade without changing the direction entirely.

Wizards- Out of the box it looks like this deck fails. Not surprisingly, as most of the blue focused precons have been misses. Unfortunately this deck feels like it does nothing. That being said there is the most room for upgrading this deck out of any of this years decks.

Top new cards: (no particular order)

Edgar Markov- I like all of the eminence commanders, but will only list this one as it's my favorite of the cycle. This card shows me that whoever was designing this deck actually played a vampire tribal deck. Vampires are small and need numbers to get the advantage over opponents. Free tokens does that. Putting +1/+1 counters on a bunch of creatures isn't exactly my favorite mechanic.

Fractured Identity- This card can be used as a simple dethroner or as part of a cool combo piece (leveler, phage, etc). I really like the design space this card uses.

Heralds Horn- Making things cheaper is great, but the card advantage this will give in any deck that should play it will make it worth inclusion. Also it's one of those under the radar cards that should avoid removal spells.

Hungry Lynx- Not only is this card an amazing flavor masterpiece, it's also the type of political card I love.

Kindred Charge- This card is going to be bonkers in my giant deck. Magic wonderland says copying then attacking with 3 titans in play will be crazy. Just think about copying multiple lords or the crazy stuff that a sliver deck will do with this.

Wasitora, Nekoru Queen- The perfect generic jund commander. Not that one was really needed, but this feels like the commander for the old shards of alara jund deck. Also she makes the cutest tokens ever!

Overall this set of commander looks like a huge boon to commader, esp tribal commander. I hope to make some posts in the next few days about how to upgrade these decks. I have some different opinions from those of some of the popular voices in our community.

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