My Top 10 Cards for Assassin’s Creed
The newest Universes Beyond entry is a small set that was purportedly designed with Modern in mind, but I can’t help but feel like much of the card design deliberately appeals to Commander players. In this article, I’ll showcase my top 10 cards from Assassin’s Creed (ACR) for the Commander format. Let’s get started!
Battlefield Improvisation
This is a fun combat trick for voltron and other equipment decks that can be used to bring an attacker right back into the fight and catch your opponents with their shields down. I’m really looking forward to playing it in a Halvar, God of Battle deck—using his combat trigger to attach Swiftboot Boots, then casting this after he attacks in order to buff him and attach all of my other equipment to swing for huge double strike damage.
Abstergo Entertainment
While the name sounds a bit silly to me as someone who has never played Assassin’s Creed, this is a very solid utility land that can be used to bring back an important historic card while exiling everything else in graveyards.. While it seems uncomfortable in decks with too many colors, tapping for colorless and filtering mana to any color should make it an easy inclusion in decks with one or two colors that want this effect on a land.
Excalibur, Sword of Eden
In a format where every deck is led by a historic permanent card, It doesn’t seem too challenging to reduce the cost of this equipment all the way down to zero and give your commander a huge buff by equipping it for two mana. I’m definitely looking forward to playing this big and goofy sword and using it to vanquish my enemies with commander damage. I will enjoy it every time that I’m on the receiving end, too.
What Must Be Done
I hate drawing a board wipe right after someone else just finished clearing the board, so the modality on this card is very appealing. A five-mana wipe that destroys artifacts and creatures is pretty reasonable, but you won’t be caught flat-footed with this spell when you’re in rebuild mode. If you’re already holding this when that Blasphemous Act goes off, you can even use it to reanimate your commander with two +1/+1 counters on it.
Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh
It might seem a bit awkward to have in-game versions of historical figures in Magic, but here we are. Cleopatra will allow you to draw tons of cards if you’re playing a deck that cares about putting counters on creatures and killing them. I think that she’ll play really well in the 99 of established decks led by commanders such as Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons or Ghave, Guru of Spores to help you draw all the cards.
Overpowering Attack
While I’m not the biggest fan of the freerunning mechanic working with commanders because I don’t think that every single mechanic has to be designed for Commander, I can hardly pass up an extra combat step that usually only costs three mana to cast. Commanders that care about attacking seldom have difficulty dealing combat damage to an opponent, which means that this card should be very consistent.
Layla Hassan
A white commander that can retrieve a historic card from the graveyard with her enters-the-battlefield ability (ETB) is pretty good, especially when she can do it again when she deals combat damage. She’ll even let you keep looping Urza’s Ruinous Blast every turn to keep the board clear. You can also keep casting Sculpting Steel as a copy of The One Ring that dies to the legend rule to get its ETB again and again. Fun stuff!
Apple of Eden, Isu Relic
While I’m not sure exactly how good it is, this artifact is definitely unique. I think that four mana and four life to access an entire extra hand worth of cards offers an extremely high ceiling, but you might be depending a little too much on your opponent having the cards that you’d like to play. I’m still looking forward to casting it in my own casual Commander games and using it to make my big turns even bigger.
Leonardo da Vinci
I love that he cares about Thopters. I’m excited to see him lead the way as I get crushed by a massive army of them after his controller generates infinite mana and makes them absolutely massive. Whether in the command zone or the 99, this commander offers a solid infinite mana outlet that can draw your deck and create a potential win condition or just operate as a fun value piece in your casual Commander deck.
Escape Detection
It’s hard to see the freerunning cost for this spell as anything other than an upside. There are so many great ETBs these days, so you’ll often just be buying something back in addition to bouncing another creature and drawing a card. It’s hard to believe that this card is an Uncommon, because I think that it’s one of the newest staples and it almost feels like an auto-include in decks that can reliably cast it for free.
I’d make an Assassin’s Creed reference here if I knew anything about the series. Thanks for sticking with me through the entire list. I’m sure that there are plenty of other great cards in this set. I hope that you also find things to enjoy in your own Commander decks, even if you’re not a fan of the source material.
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