Our Top 10 Cards of Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate
You find yourself on the streets of Baldur’s Gate, the largest city on the Sword Coast. Everywhere around you is the hustle and bustle of city life, but you realize that you’re not the only adventurer looking to make a name for themselves here.
This city attracts all manner of folk from everywhere in the realm and not all of them are friendly. Will you be able to make allies and survive the intrigues of the viper’s nest of schemes and schemers that is Baldur’s Gate?
Your companions are Chief and Exxaxl. You first encountered them in a shady tavern as you became unlikely allies when you were all caught in the crossfire during a brawl between a group of surly orcish barbarians and a squadron of off-duty halfling artificers.
You’re initially unsure whether or not you can trust them, but you eventually decide to defer to their experience and check out their favorites for Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate.
Chief, the lawful good human cleric with a heart of gold and a love of fine smoked meats:
Author’s note: My list is in alphabetical order, so you’ll notice a high density of white cards at the beginning. This is because there are several spicy new white cards with names that start with the first few letters of the alphabet!
Archivist of Oghma
I definitely didn’t have this on my bingo card while writing the Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate predictions article, but I’m ecstatic to see the continued efforts to give white help in Commander! People are constantly searching their libraries in Commander. This halfling will draw you a card and gain you 1 life every time that your opponents do this, regardless of whether they’re casting a Cultivate, cracking a Misty Rainforest, or casting a Demonic Tutor!
The fact that it has flash means that you will almost always be able to catch your opponents by surprise and draw at least 1 card, at which point it already feels like you’ve gotten your money’s worth. In all likelihood, you’ll draw multiple cards if Archivist of Oghma sticks around for a few turn cycles. If you’re playing a deck helmed by a commander such as Heliod, Sun-Crowned, the life gain might actually be relevant too!
This card does nothing to hinder searches like Aven Mindcensor or allow you to steal them like Opposition Agent, which means that it’s both less likely to draw ire from the table and more likely to not actually prevent your opponents from carrying out their plans and winning games. With that in mind, it’s likely best to view this card as a form of card advantage as opposed to a hatebear that will keep your opponents in check.
Ascend from Avernus
White reanimation spells are often fairly limited, typically by the mana value of the permanents that they can bring back. This card gets around that by limiting the mana value of the creatures and planeswalkers that it brings back with an X cost. Since most of my favorite creatures have a mana value of 3 or less, Ascend from Avernus can easily outperform most other options available for white in my decks.
I’m already running Storm of Souls as a way to bring back all of my small creatures in my Adeline, Resplendent Cathar deck, so I can see this card slotting in immediately as a secondary way to recover from a devastating board wipe. While there are a few creatures such as Sun Titan and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite that are more difficult to bring back with Ascend from Avernus, it has the upside of not reducing the power and toughness of every creature and makes it potentially profitable to leave Adeline herself in the graveyard to be reanimated without hindering her power and toughness and making her mostly useless.
This card is also super cool just as a mirrored pair with the iconic Descent into Avernus and I love that so very much. To me, this is one of the biggest flavor wins in the set.
Battle Angels of Tyr
Myriad is one of those abilities that always felt like a cool mechanic that was just not put onto interesting cards, but it really feels like they finally got it right this time around. You can see how far things have come if you compare Battle Angels of Tyr with Herald of the Host from Commander 2013. For one less mana, we’re gaining a ton and all that we’re missing out on is vigilance. That’s a trade I’ll gladly take in order to see white aggro strategies receive effective tools that help them in Commander.
The combat damage triggers are what really help myriad shine on this card. If you hit an opponent who has more cards in hand than anyone else, you draw a card. If you hit an opponent who has more lands than anyone else, you create a treasure token. If you hit an opponent who has more life than anyone else, you gain 3 life. Since you'll likely be hitting multiple opponents, you have a pretty good chance of getting something whenever you attack with this creature.
I have to admit that I'd also really love to use Guardian of Faith to phase out the myriad tokens and the original Battle Angels of Tyr in response to the exile ability at the end of combat. This is just a fun little interaction that doesn't even require you to leave the Forgotten Realms. You'll get to keep the tokens and they'll also be ready to trigger even more instances of myriad on your next turn!
Deep Gnome Terramancer
I’m loving all these new white flash creatures. You’ll most likely see opponents casting green ramp spells or cracking fetchlands during any given Commander game, so you might as well get some profit out of it with Deep Gnome Terramancer. The first time that a land enters the battlefield under an opponent’s control outside of normal land plays, you’re able to search for any plains card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. It’s obvious that the gnomes did not want to be outdone by the halflings!
Just having flash naturally makes it extremely easy to get a trigger the same thing that you can this spell and it also allows for it to play very nicely with cards such as Archon of Emeria since you can cast it outside of your own turn. This card has already done its job if you get even one land out of it, but it’s very likely that Deep Gnome Terramancer will stick around and net you multiple lands if there are green decks or color-intensive decks that might run fetchlands at the table.
This card feels almost like the natural evolution of white from cards such as Knight of the White Orchid or Loyal Warhound, although it doesn’t care who has the most lands! It merely cares that your opponent is getting lands onto the battlefield without using their normal land plays to do it. Much like Archivist of Oghma, this card won’t stop your opponents, but it can help you keep up with them. Being able to fetch dual lands and other nonbasic plains cards is quite fantastic as well.
Delayed Blast Fireball
Foretell was a really cool design space with some interesting cards on offer, but I always felt like it was a bit limited at the same time. Delayed Blast Fireball is an interesting take on foretell because you get the enhanced spell if you cast it from exile, regardless of whether it was foretold or not!
If you simply cast this spell from your hand for 3 mana, it will deal 2 damage to each opponent and each creature they control. This is honestly a pretty good effect for that cost. If you cast it from exile, no matter how it got there, it instead deals 5 damage to each opponent and each creature they control! That seems insane to me. I also want to point out something important: this spell is an instant, as opposed to most red damage based wipes. That’s spicy!
If you're playing a commander such as Prosper, Tome-Bound or Eruth, Tormented Prophet, it won't even be hard to just cast this from exile for 3 mana. Red also has a ton of other effects that will let you do this, such as Jeska's Will and March of Reckless Joy. This feels like an immediate staple for decks that can reliably impulse and cast spells from exile.
Displacer Kitten
I did a double take the first time that I read this card because it's kind of an insane value engine. While it isn’t quite as crazy, Displacer Kitten almost gives me fixed Paradox Engine vibes. It can even do a few new tricks. My initial assessment is that this might be the strongest card in the set.
Every time that you cast a noncreature spell, you can flicker a nonland permanent that you control. This means that you can effectively untap mana rocks such as Sol Ring or Mana Vault or loop powerful enters-the-battlefield triggers such as Dockside Extortionist or Spellseeker. That's a whole lot of value for 4 mana. Displacer Kitten can even protect itself from targeted removal if you have something to cast in response!
While I'm expecting to see this card used in a lot of different decks, one commander that I'm really interested in seeing it with is Veyran, Voice of Duality. Doubling each of its triggers just sounds like a fun time. I'm looking forward to seeing Displacer Kitten used to pull off a lot of unique tricks at both casual and competitive Commander tables.
Legion Loyalty
I like to play Commander at all power levels, so I always love a good Timmy card. This one is perhaps my favorite ridiculous bomb finisher that has ever been printed for white. Wizards of the Coast has been doing a lot in recent sets to give white good ways to close out Commander games and maintain its identity as the de facto go-wide aggro color. The original Commander Legends had Akroma’s Will as white’s own unique version of an Overrun style finisher, and this card evokes a similar feeling despite doing something new and interesting.
Giving all of your creatures, including tokens, the myriad ability is very powerful! I’ve heard a lot of people saying that this shouldn’t cost 8 mana, but I don’t think that there is any way to justify an effect that multiplies all of your attacking creatures by the amount of opponents that you have being any cheaper than this. If you’ve already amassed a decent board state, this is likely enough to push you over the top in nearly any game. I’ve already mentioned my Adeline, Resplendent Cathar deck, and this is an immediate inclusion there.
I can see this card going absolutely insane in decks with a lot of enters-the-battlefield triggers based around creatures. It will be almost impossible to compete with the amount of value that you’ll be able to get in the right shell. I’m predicting that Legion Loyalty will become a mainstay of casual mono-white and Boros aggro decks and I look forward to all of the memorable combat steps that this will allow me to take with my own decks.
Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm
There are two intertwining dragon draft archetypes in Battle for Baldur’s Gate, one based in blue and green and the other based in blue and red. Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm is a commander that can help bridge the gap between the two and it can also just net you a ton of value in the process by making copies of all of your nontoken dragons. Beyond the draft setting, having access to this ability in the command zone for 6 mana is just kind of bonkers.
There are tons of powerful dragons in Magic’s history that can warp a Commander game as soon as they hit the table. Why wouldn’t you want to make a second copy of each of them? Miirym even removes the legendary supertype from the token copies of legendary dragons, so you can double up on powerful dragons such as Old Gnawbone and Niv-Mizzet, Parun and really dominate the skies.
Naturally, this also makes Miirym into another commander that can win the game using a Worldgorger Dragon. You just need some type of outlet that allows you to win off of constantly flickering all of your permanents. Cards such as Terror of the Peaks and Dragon Tempest can probably finish the job as long as you’re able to protect the combo. Worldgorger Dragon combos are notoriously all-in and properly timed removal from an opponent can spell disaster!
Reflecting Pool (Reprint)
If you’ve been paying attention in previous articles, you may be aware of the massive love that I have for the Tempest Block. Reflecting Pool is a classic card from this era of Magic that can really help out in multicolor decks, but it comes with a downside: it can only tap for colors of mana that your other lands can already produce. This makes it a powerful card, but not something that every deck will be able to play. As far as this reprint goes, I’m a huge fan of the new art by Alayna Danner and the flavor text because they really help Reflecting Pool fit into the Baldur’s Gate setting.
I’m over the moon seeing one of my favorite classic lands reprinted in a set in 2022. Tempest Block was when I really got serious about Magic and there are so many cards from that era that I adore. This card continues the unofficial tradition of reprinting my favorite Tempest Block classics in Commander Legends sets, after the spicy inclusion of Scroll Rack in the first Commander Legends.
Wizards of Thay
Okay, so we’ve already established that I like myriad. Unlike most other myriad cards, this one is designed to help cast instants and sorceries. I guess that makes sense for blue. Wizards of Thay reduces the cost of your instants and sorceries, and myriad allows you to get even bigger discounts because it also allows you to cast your sorcery spells as though they had flash, which is huge for spell slinging decks of all types!
Not only can you get a big discount on your sorcery spells during your combat step, but you can also keep mana open to cast powerful sorcery spells on your opponents’ turns, allowing you to cast counterspells or other interaction if necessary. This means that you can respond to the green player’s Craterhoof Behemoth with a sorcery speed sweeper such as Wash Out or River’s Rebuke—or you can cast an instant speed Expropriate during combat with a big discount!
This card reminds me of a card from the recent New Capenna Commander product called Spellbinding Soprano, but it feels like a much more powerful and more repeatable version of that card with the addition of myriad to replace encore and the ability to flash in sorcery spells. Of course, some decks may want to run both of them. The cool thing about Commander is that you can run a lot of different cards depending on what you personally want out of the game.
Exxaxl, the chaotic evil rogue, infested by an illithid tadpole but he’s at peace with it:
Author’s note: Chief likes to sort his cards by name - I sort them by color first, just like I do with my actual card collection so mine will follow a different structure. I will also not apologize for liking blue cards. Yay blue, go blue. B L U E.
Stoneskin
Will Stoneskin be a versatile card that goes into every EDH deck? Absolutely not. Is it going to be hilarious when you flash this in when someone declares no blockers when you’re playing Arcades, The Strategist or Rasaad yn Bashir or Doran, The Siege Tower infect tribal? Yes. This card feels like it was designed for CLB draft/sealed mostly, but there are some very niche cases in already existing EDH decks that want to run this card.
There’s not a lack of support for ‘damage equal to toughness cards’ - Ancient Lumberknot; Assault Formation; Belligerent Brontodon; High Alert; Huatli, the Sun’s Heart; Treefolk Umbra - if these are cards you play already, Stoneskin should fit your deck nicely. The interaction between Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper, flash in Stoneskin after (no) blockers have been declared, before combat damage is dealt seems quite fun to pull off at least once too.
In regards to DnD I would have loved this aura to lose some toughness per damage taken to be more in line with the actual spell in the game (and to give it a chance in draft/sealed to be removed by swinging into it rather than having to wait for someone to remove the actual aura or creature).
Aboleth Spawn
I’ll be honest that this card had to grow on me a little bit first. When it was originally previewed, all I could think of was ‘but it doesn’t stop the trigger from happening to your opponent, you just copy it’. I wanted it to be more of a Containment Priest effect where it denied my opponent the trigger, and on top gave it to me. Maybe flat out denial is more into white’s ballpark for an effect like this.
I then tried to recall situations where I’d love to have had this in my hand in my Battlecruiser and Low Power decks - in response to: Diluvian or Sepulchral Primordial; Gray Merchant of Asphodel; Rune-Scarred Demon; Terastodon… the list goes on. My Umbris deck with a Maskwood Nexus would certainly want to flash this out in response to an Avenger of Zendikar.
I initially thought about flashing out an Aboleth Spawn in response to a Bane of Progress but then couldn’t figure out how they would interact. Bane of Progress doesn’t target, so I can’t choose a new target with Aboleth. My trigger would be on the stack before their Bane of Progress trigger could resolve, so would I then put the counters on the Bane of Progress? What exactly happens here? JUDGE?
Reyemile
You have to respond with Aboleth before the Bane of Progress enters the battlefield - with the creature spell still on the stack. If you flash Aboleth in response to the ETB, it's too late at that point. Aboleth would copy the ability of Bane of Progress and said ability you create would still be linked back to Bane of Progress, so Bane would still get the counters.
Aboleth does not prevent the counters getting put onto Bane of Progress, nor does it put the counters on Aboleth itself.
Exxaxl: So cast Aboleth with the creature spell still on the stack, and sadly it doesn’t work with Bane of Progress the way I’d like. In that case, I'll stick to copying Agent of Treachery and Peregrine Drake triggers.
Chief: I’m sure some more competitive lists are going to use this to steal a Thassa’s Oracle trigger with Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact in hand. I’m always in favor of more counterplay for that card.
Bane’s Contingency
Another three mana in response. I don’t often include counterspells at three mana or more - I feel there are plenty of options for two mana or less, as highlighted in the ‘Two mana counterspells you aren’t running but could’ article a few months ago - and when I do they have to come with some serious benefits.
‘Counter target spell, if it targets your commander Deliberate’ seems quite good in certain situations. I have a ‘scrying is drawing’ deck helmed by Eligeth, Crossroads Augur and Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix. Counter your generous gift pointed at Eligeth and draw 3 cards? I’m not saying no to that.
‘Looks like Cancel is officially … cancelled 😎’ YEAAHHHHHHHHH!
Cone of Cold
Since I mostly play in Low and Battlecruiser, Sleep makes it into many of my decks as a potential ‘and I hope to win the game after I swing out after Sleep resolves’. Cone of Cold taps all creatures your opponents control, not just one opponent. While Sleep always leaves them tapped for a turn, it also only targets one opponent. Cone of Cold potentially taps down everyone for a whole turn and also hits new creatures as they come in. It’s a shame there was no space left for some flavor text.
I’m not entirely convinced we’ll see this card get played a lot. If your recurring pods are mostly creature heavy beatdown then this can obviously help you out. If you’re already on a ‘play at instant speed’ plan with Vedalkan Orrery or Leyline of Anticipation or you’re playing a tap down deck like Rhoda//Timin, this card should find it’s way into your deck quite easily.
Kindred Discovery (Reprint)
It’s finally back! We last saw this in a precon with Commander 2017 in the Ur-Dragon deck. It’s been on ‘The List’ after that which to me might as well mean it didn’t get reprinted. If you can tell me what cards are on The List and what their pull rates are by heart, please let me know. To me ‘The List’ is an excuse to claim something got reprinted while in reality nobody knows exactly how rare a find the cards actually are.
The art on this new version feels weird but in a good way. Just like the card Lucid Dreams, this art is very reminiscent of the board game Dixit. For those unaware, Dixit is a game with a distinct artstyle where the game is supposed to convey stories or feelings without written text. It’s definitely worth looking into if you haven’t played it before!
Ancient Brass Dragon
There’s no lack of ‘expensive dragon that can potentially whiff hard but when it doesn’t…’ in this set. Each color got their own new toy to play around with and it’s been great seeing people try to come up with plans on how to best utilize these new cards.
Reanimate between 1 and 20 total mana value worth of creatures from any graveyard and hope you roll well on a 7 drop is just about silly enough to consider in some graveyard recursion decks. Note how the graveyard doesn’t have to be your own! ‘Risky Command the Dreadhorde on a beatstick, maybe, depends on the roll’. Something worth considering for Araumi of the Dead Tide? Three hasted copies of Ancient Brass Dragon doesn’t sound bad.
Uchuulon
The illithids in this set are certainly showing that they are masters of their craft. ‘It’s like Scute Swarm but it exiles creature cards from graveyards’. That’s how people interpreted and explained the card on our Discord when it got previewed. 1 Uchuulon becomes 2 becomes 4 becomes 8 - if there are creature cards in graveyards to exile.
This is the first black creature with the subtype Crab, and while we’ve had some black oozes printed before, I don’t think there’s enough cards out just yet to make a ‘crab ooze horror’ tribal list so I don’t think people will run this card for its ‘power is equal to’ effect too often.
Spectacular Showdown
I want this card to work in my favor but I’m well aware this has a high chance of resolving and exploding in my own face shortly after. In a 4-person pod there’s 3 whole players turns that are going to happen with a doublestrike goaded board. You don’t know what those players still have in hand and you could be indirectly helping out one of your opponents massively.
This feels like a very high risk hope you get a high reward type spell which is right at home in lower power EDH. I’ve always loved miracle and overload as a mechanic and I hope we can get more ‘big dumb spells’ like these in the future. EDH feels like it’s been speeding up a lot lately, and maybe 7 mana value and up sorceries and creature spells with weird splashy effects is exactly what some people need to remind themselves that it’s OK for your deck to not immediately win with such a high mana investment.
Jaheira’s Respite
While it’s no Inkshield, there are plenty of effects that could make it work that way. Rampaging Baloths; Emeria Shepherd - it’s not too hard to turn these land ETB’s into something that works well for you. The fact that it also acts like a fog makes this quite versatile. If only it wasn’t worded ‘attacking you’ so you could use this in response to any combat, not just creatures heading your way.
I’m very happy that Jaheira’s named card was done well - she was very openly anti-cities and pro-nature in the first Baldur’s Gate game leaving us with quotes such as ‘If a tree falls in the forest... I'll kill the bastard what done it!’ and ‘Tread lightly. You must show respect in nature's house.’ Tying her personality into a green card that interacts with lands made me quite happy when it got previewed.
Blade of Selves (Reprint)
Another ‘I kind of want this card but not for 30 dollars’ reprint, just like Kindred Discovery. Clones, copies and ‘having more than one of’ in a singleton format will always speak to me, and clearly speaks to others, or Sakashima of a Thousand Faces would see less play. Not counting special products like Commander Anthology, we last saw this in Commander 2015 in the Kalemne Precon.
Myriad seems to be well represented in this set so I was quite glad to see Blade of Selves did get a reprint here and they didn’t go out of their way to print something ‘similar but different and kinda worse’ instead. Lord Xander, the Collector will definitely not mind this reprint, and Wulfgar of Icewind Dale or Ao, the Dawn Sky won’t be sad about it either.
Chief: I, for one, have always wanted to equip a Blade of Selves to Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Absolutely disgusting!
Thank you for accompanying us on this journey through our favorite cards in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate. There are still plenty of other adventures to be had with this set, and we look forward to venturing into the Undercity and playing with all of the fantastic new cards in this set.
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What are your favorite cards in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate? Let us know on Twitter! We'd love to hear from you. Until next time, don't forget to feed your Miniature Giant Space Hamsters!
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