Our Top 10 Cards of The Brothers’ War
Hey it’s us (Exxaxl, Scrying Cards Into Exile and Chief, Sylex Enjoyer) again. The Brothers’ War (BRO) is filled with exciting stuff and we’re here to deliver our top 10 cards! In the past, we used to put our prediction results from the previous set in the upcoming sets predictions article - which worked for a while, given the release schedule of the past year. If we were to keep doing that, we’d be writing about our prediction results of BRO late December, right before Dominaria Remastered preview season would start.
We both felt that was a little too late for our predictions to still be relevant so we’ve decided to put our previous prediction result in the Top 10 articles moving forward. The ‘make predictions’ articles always do a recap of information we already have on the upcoming set, and putting our prediction results in there sometimes makes those articles too long in our eyes.
So, before we get to our BRO top 10 - well, 12, but more on that later - let’s see how we did predictions-wise.
Prediction results: Exxaxl
1. A healthy amount of color in the Commander decks:✅
Exxaxl: You have no idea how happy I am to see 36 creatures in the Urza precon and only 7 of those costing just generic mana. The Mishra precon does have quite a lot of colorless artifacts, some of them I’m not really sure why they’re in that deck, but I’ve got one pre-ordered so I’ll see how it plays out of the box.
Chief: I definitely prefer the deck construction of the Mishra deck, but I’m glad that they were more adventurous and included a lot of cards that aren’t colorless.
2. Urza’s Guilt reprint in the Commander precons:❌
Exxaxl: No multiplayer Magus of the Bazaar for me.
Chief: I guess that Urza didn’t feel guilty until later in his life.
3. A solid new journeyman artifact ramp card for Commander:❌
Exxaxl: Machine God’s Effigy and Energy Refractor are definitely not what I had in mind.
Chief: No, but Machine God’s Effigy is a pretty cool card design.
4. Amulet of Vigor in the Retro Frame Artifacts series:❌
Exxaxl: I’m still rooting for you for a future set, Prime Time friends.
5. Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist ability predictions:❌
Exxaxl: I was correct in thinking it wasn’t going to be just Rakdos, we got the card in Grixis instead… time to look at what red cards I own for a new deck I guess.
Chief: The actual Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist card turned out pretty weird. I’m not really sure what to make of the design right now. Ashnod the Uncaring has an interesting design, so I’m looking forward to how you approach brewing around her.
Exxaxl: Her instant card, Ashnod’s Intervention doesn’t generate mana or sacrifice creatures or anything like that related to Ashnod’s Altar either. We’ve had the altar since since Antiquities, by the way. Definitely not what I expected any of the cards to be.
Prediction results: Chief
1. Meld card where the two melded cards together aren’t a creature or planeswalker:❌
Exxaxl: Titania, Gaea Incarnate is most definitely a creature.
Chief: Yeah, I definitely missed this one. That’s okay, because I enjoy the design that we did get.
2. A vision of Gix informed by the past: ❌
From our prediction article: ‘expecting abilities that reference his earlier cards such as Claws of Gix and Ring of Gix … very unlikely he would be mono-color Phyrexian praetor … expecting him to be Dimir based … might even have the demon creature type as well’
Exxaxl: Wow. Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor really isn’t what you expected it to be, huh.
Chief: No, not at all. He’s actually kind of like a mono-black group hug commander. I wonder how people will build him for Commander.
3. Tawnos doing Tawnos things:❌
Exxaxl: We did see two new Tawnos cards and they were indeed in a different color than Tawnos, Urza’s Apprentice but I’m not sure these ended up being what you were hoping for.
Chief: That’s correct. Neither of these cards referenced earlier cards associated with Tawnos in their mechanics. It was still nice to see the big differences between younger and older Tawnos.
4. Mono-white commander that interacts with low CMC or P/T creatures:❌
Exxaxl: While I think Myrel, Shield of Argive is cool, I’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant in your prediction.
Chief: That’s correct. None of the mono-white commanders are focused on small creatures.
5. Retro frame Walking Ballista:❌
Exxaxl: Can I interest you into this old border Metalwork Colossus as a participation prize ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)?
Chief: There’s no need to bully me. It looks like Historic on MTG Arena influenced these card choices, which likely led to Walking Ballista and some other cards not showing up.
Final score: Exxaxl: 1 / 5 - Chief: 0 / 5
Exxaxl: We’re never going to top our Baldur’s Gate predictions are we?
Chief: I did predict that would be the case! It was one of my most accurate predictions to date.
Exxaxl: Let’s get to our Top 10 shall we? For this set, we thought we’d pick 5 new cards each and then one ‘retro schematics’ card on top. No, I will not rename just one article in the series to ‘top 12’ instead. Hide your pitchforks.
I feel like people are calling it ‘this set’s Mystical Archive’ and I can’t blame them. It sort of tells you all you need to know. ‘Special art reprints of cards that won’t be Standard legal in this set but that can be found in boosters’ certainly is a whole lot longer. Strixhaven’s Mystical Archive has made such an impact on future sets.
Chief: I love the old frame style, so I don’t have any real complaints. I do hope that these cards are as affordable as Mystical Archive wound up being. There’s a lot of great cards here that should benefit greatly from an accessible reprint like this one.
Top 5 Exxaxl:
Deathbloom Ritualist
It’s nice to have a new ‘mana relevant to graveyard’ card and it feels like between Crypt of Agadeem and Songs of the Damned, we don’t really see this effect often. Plenty of decks with black and green will want this effect, and if just like me your new goal is being able to pull off a ‘Culling Ritual, floating 15, tap Deathbloom Ritualist, floating 30, Torment of Hailfire?’ play, then you’re speaking my language. Whoever came up with that amazing flavor text deserves a raise too.
Defabricate
Finally, a new two mana (conditional) counterspell that also hits activated or triggered abilities. As someone who plays Tale’s End and Whirlwind Denial I’m beyond excited to have another one of these cards. I’m not sure if I’d count it as a ‘true counterspell’ in my deck, but it hits artifacts or enchantments and exiles them so it’s more than OK in my book.
Have you ever countered the ability of someone’s 50 life activation of Aetherflux Reservoir? I can highly recommend you try to do this at least once (and yes, this works, since them paying 50 life is the cost to activate the ability, they will still lose the life even if you counter the ability. Enjoy!)
The Temporal Anchor
This is one of those ‘that’s not very good is it?’ “right, exactly why I like it”-type cards. I enjoy weird effects or cards that have no true ‘home’ in the format. The playstyle and power level I enjoy totally has room for something like this. It’s 6 mana, requires 3 blue pips and turns your scry into a weird secondary exile-hand that will simply cease to exist the moment someone destroys this artifact … the suspense!
In reality this will likely not do much, but in that one 3 hour game where it gets cast early and sticks around for several turns and never gets destroyed, BEHOLD, my mediocre second exile hand that’s visible to everyone … Muahahahaha!! Yes, I’m well aware that in some games I play I turn back into 14-year-old me who played Magic in my friend’s living room wearing a wizard hat, thank you. He had a papier-mâché staff, it’s fine, we were both weird OK.
Hostile Negotiations
It’s finally here, black’s alternative to Fact or Fiction. Just like Feed the Swarm upon release, I’ve buylisted several of these for when the set actually releases. I’m a big idiot for ‘opponents choice’ cards and this card can join my other ‘you choose’ cards I already run like Burning-Rune Demon, Fatespinner, Manifold Insights and Truth or Tale. Dimir players rejoice!
Now, can we please get a Fact or Fiction reprint in a non-specialty product without Jace on it? Thank you :)!
Misery’s Shadow
Denying death triggers can be a powerful tool and if you’re someone who already plays Dauthi Voidwalker, Leyline of the Void or Valentin, Dean of the Vein then make sure to pick up a Misery’s Shadow. To me it’s ‘somewhat fair’ since it doesn’t stop opponents who are on a self mill plan - unlike Rest in Peace, for example. It only cares for creatures dying from the battlefield, so while it won’t completely turn off your opponents Chainer, Meren or Muldrotha plans, it will make them play more carefully or have them adapt to play around this card.
I’m a firm believer that playing against cards like these if you’ve never had to do it before makes you see lines of play you’ve never considered and in the long run, you as a player grow into someone who has a better understanding of the possibilities of your own deck.
Retro Schematics - Mesmeric Orb
I mean, what did you expect? I think it’s absolutely stunning. The reflective surface on the orb, a small peek inside into something that hints at something otherworldly brain-like living inside - I love it a lot. Time to bling out Araumi some more. I will say Ashnod’s Altar came in close second.
Chief: It’s a top 13 now.
Exxaxl: Don’t. Your go.
Top 5 Chief:
Awaken the Woods:
This card basically makes Dryad Arbor tokens, so you’re guaranteed to see some weird interactions when this gets cast! This almost feels like an auto-include in landfall decks. Imagine casting this in a Tatyova, Benthic Druid or Omnath, Locus of Rage deck! Outside of landfall, this spell should make for a solid ramp option if you don’t mind waiting a turn to be able to tap the tokens for mana.
Brotherhood’s End:
I love a good modal spell. While most of my decks are quite terrified of this card, I’m happy to see an efficient red sweeper that can help out with different situations for just 3 mana. Unlike a lot of other modal spells, neither of these options feels significantly better than the other as I frequently see Commander games where either one would be a good option to have. Keep an eye on this one because it’s so versatile.
Calamity’s Wake:
This spell feels crazy at uncommon. While it also prevents its caster from casting noncreature spells, being able to blow out graveyard decks at instant speed feels so good! I expect to see this card quite often in Commander as a one-shot graveyard hate effect that also stops storm and other combos. In cEDH, this should even be quite effective against Underworld Breach and similar strategies.
Myrel, Shield of Argive:
At 4 mana, this isn’t quite a power crept Grand Abolisher. I still think that their abilities are quite good at that mana cost, so I’m expecting to see Myrel in a lot of decks that want to go wide and protect turns from interlopers. My Adeline, Resplendent Cathar deck will be quite happy with them. I’m also expecting them to be an immediate inclusion in decks such as Winota, Joiner of Forces in cEDH.
Tocasia’s Welcome:
Making this enchantment care about mana value rather than power opens up some interesting possibilities. You can’t accidentally buff your creatures out of range with anthems. It also means that common tokens such as 4/4 Angels will be able to trigger the card draw ability, which makes cards such as Luminarch Ascension feel like very effective ways to take advantage of this effect to draw multiple cards per turn cycle.
Retro Schematics - Thorn of Amethyst
This is unsurprisingly one of my favorite cards of all time, so I was naturally very excited to see it get a reprint in this series. This version will look great alongside my older cards such as Sphere of Resistance and Lotus Petal. This is a much-needed reprint that will hopefully make this card more affordable too.
Exxaxl: PODCAST AND TWITTER AND DISCORD AND PATREON.
Chief: You good?
Exxaxl: You told me I forgot about them last time. Oh! To all the people that read our articles through Reddit, we’ve been trying to adapt our content to be more mobile friendly the past few months. Ensuring all images are tap to zoom, making sure everything aligns nicely on mobile, having the entire page load in ‘chunks’ so that it doesn’t immediately eat all your data if you’re not scrolling all the way to the bottom, those sort of things. Chief has also been replying to questions and comments you had in the Reddit posts - I myself do not have a Reddit account. If you ever want to provide feedback in regards to anything article related, Chief’s got your back.
Chief: I do my best to be out there and available for everyone who reads these articles. I hope that you’ve enjoyed our selections from The Brothers’ War. I’m looking forward to dunking on some graveyard decks with Calamity’s Wake. See you next time!
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