Game Night: Free-for-All — Commander Quick Look
If you haven’t heard of it before, the Game Night product line is Wizards of the Coast’s effort to make Magic more accessible to people who enjoy traditional board games. Each entry in the series features 5 ready-to-play decks that are designed for free-for-all multiplayer gameplay right out of the box.
The beginner-friendly and fun card selections make it easy for people to pick up and play without much help, so it’s easy to get in a few games during a board game night. Game Night: Free-for-All (GN3) is the newest entry in this series, slated for release on October 14. As with all Game Night releases, this product contains 5 brand new cards specifically created for these decks!
While cards from previous entries such as Inspired Sphinx, Rot Hulk, and Fiendish Duo have found a second home in Commander, Game Night: Free-for-All is the first time that these new cards have been legendary creatures.
That means you can pick up this product and get 5 brand new commanders that are ideal for your casual EDH table, or you can use the GN3 decks as a base to create 5 new decks. This is exciting for newer Magic players who are looking to break into the format. In this article, we (Chief and Exxaxl) will talk about each of these commanders, offer our advice, and provide a few quick card recommendations.
Quick note from Chief:
Our goal is to recommend some fun and synergistic cards for each of these commanders, which means that Exxaxl and I might be recommending cards that come with the product since we haven’t seen the decklists for GN3 yet!
Without further deliberation, let’s dive right into these commanders in classic WUBRG order!
Chief: Zamriel, Seraph of Steel has an interesting design, because she encourages you to equip multiple different creatures so they can all be indestructible during your turn. It almost feels like she wants to do something different than a straight voltron equipment strategy. A go-wide or angel tribal deck with some equipment support may be the answer.
These strategies tend to enjoy the combat step, so it probably won’t be too hard to make a cohesive and fun deck and take to the skies with your army of equipped angels. You can even use Zamriel’s ability to make your board wipes one-sided and keep the battlefield under control!
Chief: *Achoo!* Worldslayer.
Exxaxl: Bless you… what?
Chief: Oh, nothing. Zamriel wants you to equip your creatures to make them indestructible during your turn, so being able to cast equipment spells at instant speed and attach them to your creatures when they enter the battlefield makes Sigarda’s Aid feel like an essential card.
Lion Sash is a great multi-purpose card because it can play the role of an ever-growing body for other equipment, give graveyard decks headaches, and be used as an equipment to put on Zamriel to buff her up after putting a few +1/+1 counters on her.
Since you’re probably looking for backup bodies to finish off opponents if Zamriel gets removed, Heavenly Blademaster feels like a natural fit since it grabs all of your equipment when it enters the battlefield. It’s not uncommon for her to be able to take out a player in just a single combat step because she has double strike.
Exxaxl: If you want to make sure your creatures have equipment, an easy way of doing that is … getting some free equipment from dealing combat damage! Bloodforged Battle-Axe does just that. Since Zamriel is mono-white, we don’t have rocks to throw at our opponents - Sorry, Toggo.
Indomitable Archangel will provide your equipment with some much-desired protection from removal. While it won’t stop an overloaded Vandalblast, it does evade Disenchant, Resculpt, the black EDH staple that is Phyrexian Tribute - RIP black artifact removal, Abrade, and Return to Nature.
O-Naginata can equip to Zamriel without issues and I’m also predicting people are going to want to take this deck down the Angel tribal route as a backup package, so you shouldn’t have to struggle finding legal targets to equip it to. Having flying and indestructible is nice, but sometimes you need that extra trample push to get your damage across.
Exxaxl: Goad isn’t a mechanic we’ve often seen in mono-blue - it almost feels like Maeve, Insidious Singer got originally planned or designed to be in the Firkraag precon but in the end didn’t make it. I think the ‘expensive’ cost of 3 mana is what will keep Maeve relatively in check depending on what way you build her.
Her face value seems strong, until your playgroup will realize there are very few cards available in blue in regards to ‘whenever an opponent attacks (not you), something happens’. It’s worth remembering we are looking at these cards from an EDH point of view - I’m curious to see what the blue deck in GN3 will do.
Exxaxl: With Maeve costing 3 mana to activate, cards like Curse of Verbosity that incentivizes your opponents to hit someone else without having to repeatedly sink resources into your commander are a boon.
I feel we haven’t seen a lot of blue ‘mess with combat’ cards yet, but one I immediately thought about playing in a Maeve deck would be Fatespinner. You control the permanent and the trigger so you will have to remind people when their turn starts that you have a Fatespinner in play. Rarely will people choose to skip draw or main phase, leaving them with no opportunity to attack, saving you the ‘trouble’ of having to sink mana into Maeve. It’s worth mentioning Fatespinner makes your opponents skip both of their main phases if they choose to skip that phase. Make sure people understand the card when you play it.
There’s a funny card not many people play called Crown of Doom which could be neat in a multiplayer setting. Your opponents will often shift aggro to whoever is in control of the Crown, rather than whoever brought the Crown to the table. Now everyone is sinking mana into combat tricks, not just you. It’s a nice way to strip your opponents of some mana and/or ensure they’re swinging someone else's way.
Chief: Maeve is going to allow you to sit back and control the combat step a bit, but there might be times where things get too hairy—this is where cards like Aetherspouts and Reins of Power come in! These cards will allow you to get rid of pesky attackers or even use them to finish off their controller.
Adding in targeted spells such as Witness Protection that minimize creature threats while leaving them around on the board so you can continue to goad them and draw cards is also a direction that this commander can go if you want.
The fact that Maeve only draws cards if you goad the creature on the same turn that it attacks is certainly an interesting way to encourage you to be strategic with your goad choices. I look forward to seeing how this plays out in Commander tables.
Exxaxl: Vogar, Necropolis Tyrant is a little weird to me. One one hand, it feels like he has a lot of abilities, on the other I’d have maybe preferred this card to have one of those abilities gated behind a ‘once per turn tap down sacrifice a creature’-type ability line instead, so that Vogar itself could sacrifice a creature.
Chief: I like that Vogar gets really big and then draws you a lot of cards when he dies, but it feels like he doesn’t do a whole lot unless he dies. We’ll need to find some ways to make sure that he dies when you need to refill your hand.
Exxaxl: Shoot down your own board of tiny tokens at instant speed before combat damage and hope to hit lethal that way? It’s unclear to me whether Vogar wants to be a beat-face commander or a go-wide token commander, or both at the same time. If he’s a draw piece, he’s certainly slow.
Chief: Honestly, this would feel really good if black had access to Greater Good. There are always the one-shot effects that work similarly in mono-black.
Exxaxl: Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar is a recent card that fills the same slot.
Chief: I guess you could always sacrifice him to Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools…
Chief: Vogar wants creatures to die during your turn, so cards like Body Snatcher that allow you to recycle another creature from your graveyard when they die will go a long way towards helping you get more value by bringing back creatures like Fleshbag Marauder to get even more triggers for Vogar. This can quickly grow Vogar into a serious threat that’s hard to block due to menace.
If you just want to refill your hand and don’t need Vogar to stick around, you can always sacrifice him to Disciple of Bolas to draw tons of cards! There’s definitely a lot that you can do to get a ton of value out of this commander.
I feel like the most important thing for piloting Vogar successfully will be figuring out when it’s okay to just let him die in order to refill your hand and keep things going. After all, a giant beater can only take you so far in a Commander game.
Exxaxl: Body Launderer seems like a natural fit since you want creatures to die to trigger Vogar - you might as well turn that into a card advantage. His on death clause helps with reanimating the cards you discard from conniving or sacrifice to trigger Vogar too.
Since ‘potential voltron’ is on the table a card like Cultist of the Absolute can make Vogar way harder to block or remove and you’re ensuring you get his ‘another creature dies’ trigger without having to slot a higher mana value sacrifice outlet. Vogar + Cultist means without any additional +1/+1 counters, Vogar is now a 3-turn lethal Commander as well.
I didn’t want to mention an ‘easy auto-include’ like Viscera Seer or Carrion Feeder - those seem like obvious cards in Vogar’s colors - instead, I’d like to highlight Culling Dais. It’s similar in function to Vogar, and if you’re looking to go on a proliferation-path, it seems like a decent choice to add some card draw to your deck.
Chief: Nogi, Draco-Zealot definitely feels like a strange design, because kobolds are typically not so beefy! This commander discounts the cost of your dragon spells and encourages you to build up a draconic army so that he can achieve his dreams of becoming a dragon himself. That’s wild!
While you’re limited to mono-red, there are still a lot of fun dragons that you can play. Red also has plenty of other cards that naturally synergize with dragons, so you’ll find plenty of support to make this into a fun and cohesive casual aggro deck. Dragons are also a constant favorite in Magic, so there are always new and exciting cards coming out for a deck like this one.
Chief: You’ll probably be playing a lot of powerful dragon cards in your Nogi deck, so you can always call on another kobold in the form of Minion of the Mighty. This inconspicuous 0/1 will allow you to bring out even more threats because of the ease with which you can meet the requirements to cheat something into play.
Sarkhan’s Unsealing is a card that will probably trigger for almost every single creature in your deck, allowing you to deal tons of damage to opposing creatures, planeswalkers, and even opponents themselves! Think of the value to be had.
Red sweepers like Breath Weapon will probably leave your creatures safe and sound while clearing out smaller creatures like elves, humans, and goblins on your opponents’ boards. This card will also not kill Nogi even if he has yet to ascend to his draconic form.
Exxaxl: I feel Nesting Dragon is often overlooked in dragon tribal decks, especially here where body-count matters. Nesting Dragon + 2 lands provides you with enough dragons to trigger Nogi’s attack clause. What I like about its design is that after a board wipe, you’ll probably still have some dragons left over.
Nogi becoming a 5/5 until end of turn, and assuming people build him as a dedicated dragon commander means Dragon Cultist shouldn’t have any issues triggering in each of your end steps - which now provides you with another free dragon token to ensure you can keep your dragon count stable, even after combat.
Draconic Intervention is a card I feel should see more play in EDH. Too often will people go for a Blasphemous Act or a Chain Reaction. It didn’t get printed in a dragon focused set so maybe that’s why it’s often overlooked? It’s a one sided board wipe that shouldn’t hit your own creatures and allows you to selectively wipe on top.
Exxaxl: Imaryll, Elfhame Elite fills a weird slot in elfball that we haven’t seen too often yet and opens up the possibility of voltron on top of a go wide strategy. We previously saw this in Abomination of Llanowar which has vigilance and menace.
What makes Imaryll unique is that you assign your combat damage as though Imaryll weren’t blocked - which can matter a whole lot when 21 commander damage is lethal. This avoids the need of giving Imaryll trample to be relevant, and instead you can focus on pumping up your commander’s power and toughness instead.
Exxaxl: With Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth becoming increasingly more popular, if you’re already committing to playing a mono-green elf deck, Blanchwood Armor is sure to pump up Imaryll nicely to be a more viable threat, especially after a board wipe when several of your elves may have already died.
Primal Bellow fills the same slot but at instant speed, and for one mana definitely shouldn’t be overlooked. I feel pumping Imaryll at instant speed - before combat damage is done - is likely the way to go, because that makes him less of a visible threat.
A card like Choose your Weapon could be a potential game-ender too, doubling Imaryll’s power after blockers are declared. This modal spell also allows you to deal with a flying threat if need be, which is always welcome in mono-green.
Chief: Imaryll wants you to play a lot of elves, so this will likely influence your card choices. Priest of Titania is a classic mana dork that taps for green mana equal to the number of elves you control, which means that you can make a ton of mana while doing what your commander already wants you to do.
Elven Ambush allows you to double the amount of elves you control at instant speed, which can make for a really unpleasant surprise for your opponents! Being able to double Imaryll’s power and hold back an army of blockers for 4 mana seems very strong.
If you’re running out of gas, Hunter’s Insight can quickly refill your hand since Imaryll will always be able to assign damage to your opponent even if they have blockers. Cards like this one will help balance the normal go-wide strategy of mono-green elves with Imaryll’s ability to go tall.
We hope that you’ve enjoyed this quick look into these new commanders! The simple, charming designs make them a perfect entry point for new players looking to build their first casual Commander decks to play with friends. We’ll be looking forward to the official release of Game Night: Free-for-All on October 14. You can find more information about this product and its release on the official Wizards Play Network website.
Are you going to build any of these commanders? What cards are you going to include in the decks? Let us know on Twitter! We’d love to hear from you. Articles like these are made possible by our Patreon supporters. You can find more of our articles here.
You can also find the PlayEDH Radio 903.1 podcast here! If you’re looking to play curated webcam EDH online or just want to chat with us, come join us on our Discord server.
“This article is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.”
