Our Top 10 Commander Cards from Unfinity
This latest preview Magic season has certainly been a strange one. As you probably already know, Unfinity (UNF) marks the first time that an Un set has had entirely new cards that are legal in Eternal formats. This means that there are cards in this set that are completely legal in Commander without the need for any type of Rule 0 discussion, while other cards that don’t work properly within the normal rules of Magic are still restricted to the new acorn holo-stamp that’s tied the modern equivalent of silver-bordered cards.
In this article, I’ll be going over my top 10 cards from Unfinity for the Commander format. This set is packed full of quirky card designs, strange new mechanics, and other assorted weirdness. There may even be some cards that use stickers and attractions in my top 10, but you’ll have to read on to find out. As a bonus, I’ll rattle off a quick list of 5 cards that I wish could have worked properly without the acorn holo-stamp at the end of the article. Okay, let’s get this show on the road!
Captain Rex Nebula
Vehicles have been getting plenty of love recently, so it’s no surprise that we’d see more vehicle support in this set. The thing that sets this commander apart from other prospective commanders for a vehicle deck is that he actually doesn’t need you to run a single vehicle in order for him to do his thing. He’s ready to go for a joyride each combat as long as you’re willing to hand him the keys for whatever nonland permanent you’re looking to turn into a vehicle. Surely nothing could possibly go wrong here…
My favorite thing about Captain Rex Nebula is that you can tell that he’s doing something that you wouldn’t see in a normal Magic set, but he operates perfectly within the normal rules for Magic. He also doesn’t rely on any parasitic mechanics from within UNF itself, so you’re free to run whatever you like in the 99 of your deck. I’m sure that he’ll do his best not to get into any fender benders while he’s piloting your sick ride directly into your opponents’ faces.
Comet, Stellar Pup
I’ve never been the biggest fan of planeswalkers and I rarely run them in my Commander decks. Many of them feel samey and I’ve seldom felt that they feel like anything more than enchantments that can only be activated once per turn cycle while also being vulnerable to being removed through combat. That said, some of the more recent planeswalker designs have done a better job making them feel distinctive. This adorable puppy is certainly one of those designs.
This loyalty ability is wild. Depending on your roll, you could get anything from 1/1 Squirrel tokens to the ability to activate the ability 2 more times this turn. With enough luck, you could even repeat this process a few times and gain tons of value. This quirky design makes Comet, Stellar Pup really stand out to me as a truly unique planeswalker design. This may not be the strongest planeswalker card around, but it’s definitely a lot of fun.
Exchange of Words
You’ve most likely found yourself in a situation where you had a creature around that wasn’t really doing much of anything while an opponent was getting tons of value out of some powerful utility creature. With a unique take on classic blue theft cards such as Gilded Drake, this enchantment can help you solve that problem by completely swapping the text box of two target creatures for as long as it remains on the battlefield. This has the potential to be a completely back-breaking effect.
Sure, your opponent can destroy this enchantment in order to undo the damage, but you’ll hopefully have already managed to turn the tides in your own favor by the time that they find an answer. I’m looking forward to seeing some of the crazy swaps that happen during Commander games. Imagine seeing Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger having his text swapped with a Mulldrifter that’s already gotten the extra value out of the enters-the-battlefield ability. I’m expecting a lot of wonderful weirdness out of this one.
_____ Goblin
This is red’s card in the cycle of creatures that use name stickers to fill in the blanks, Mad Libs style. While Wizards of the Coast did an admirable job of restraining the power of stickers, this particular card is subtly extremely powerful in the right deck. The real strength of this card lies in the consistent ability to use this as a mana-positive ritual on a body alongside a pile of sticker sheets that have enough unique vowels. This makes for a frighteningly consistent ritual that can equal or even outperform Seething Song!
There are more than enough sticker sheets with the right words on them for this creature to always be able to produce at least 4 mana if you want it to. In fact, there’s even a sheet that has a Delusionary sticker on it. That’s right—there’s a sticker sheet that can provide 6 unique vowels. _____ Goblin will probably see play as a mana-positive ritual in decks that want to chain spells together or in decks built around Grenzo, Dungeon Warden that are already running cards like Priest of Urabrask as enablers.
Author’s note: I like to make things easy for my readers, so I’ll give you a list of the best sticker sheets to run if this is the only sticker card that you’re playing. You’re required to play 10 sticker sheets, so you do have a 100% chance of making this card go mana-positive. You’d probably want to run the following 9 sheets: 1, 5, 12, 13, 18, 23, 30, 36, and 45. These are the ones that let this card go mana-positive. That leaves just 1 sticker sheet that doesn’t matter much since you’ll always randomly pick 3 at the beginning of the game. I predict that 44 will be a popular pick for the throwaway sticker sheet in this instance.
Magar of the Magic Strings
If you’ve been looking at building a new spellslinger deck, this may just be the perfect commander for you. Turning your spells into face-down creatures that allow you to cast copies of them when they deal combat damage is a pretty wild design space, but it feels very at home in Rakdos colors. It’s usually not too hard to get combat damage through now and then during the course of a Commander game, which means that he can probably help you cast a lot of spells under the right circumstances.
Magar of the Magic Strings can even help mitigate one of the weaknesses that some spellslinger decks have by putting bodies into play to help protect you from aggro decks. Rakdos colors also provide easy access to double strike, menace, and other helpful abilities that can help damage get through. You’ll also have access to self-mill and cards like Entomb to help make sure that your deck is consistently able to do its thing. I’m excited to see this commander in action.
Myra the Magnificent
The key to making unique set mechanics work well in Commander is designing cards that work well with them without relying on a bunch of narrow support cards. In the case of attractions, it turns out that stapling them onto a competent Izzet spellslinger commander is a surprisingly viable way to pull that off. With easy access to opening new attractions, and the means to recur spells whenever you visit one, she makes them feel like a nice diversion rather than the main event.
While you’re free to run as many attraction support cards as you desire in the 99, it certainly doesn’t feel obligatory to include them in order to get your money’s worth out of this commander. As long as you have plenty of attractions on hand, you should be able to consistently churn out free spells as you pay them a visit. The awesome instant and sorcery spells are the real stars of any good spellslinger deck, but Myra the Magnificent is more than capable of playing the role of ringmaster.
Pair o’ Dice Lost
I love a good pun as much as the next guy, but I love solid uncommons that are very playable even in Commander even more. As the name implies, you’ll roll a pair of dice in order to retrieve some lost trinkets from your graveyard. If your curve is low enough, you should be able to reliably get back quite a few cards if you’ve been filling your graveyard throughout the game with self-mill or other means. Like most big green spells of its kind, it exiles itself as part of the spell’s resolution.
I definitely expect to see this card quite often, because it’s consistent enough to pull its weight despite the mana cost. Unless your deck is packed full of high-cost spells, you’re a lot more likely to be able to get back multiple different cards than you are to completely whiff even if you don’t roll particularly well. While there’s certainly no requirement, playing a commander like Vrondiss, Rage of Ancients or Wyll, Blade of Frontiers (alongside a green background) makes this even more enticing.
Saw in Half
This was one of the earliest cards that we saw from UNF, and it really set the stage for the rest of the set. While this card has a wacky and unique design that feels totally new for a black kill spell, it certainly feels like something that can easily work within the normal rules for the game. Folks were quick to figure out this card’s powerful interactions with cards like Dockside Extortionist and Dualcaster Mage, so it really set a high bar for the rest of the set. There are a lot of creatures that can really benefit from a card like this one.
I’m honestly most excited about the unique interaction between Saw in Half and Cormela, Glamour Thief, giving you access to some interesting loops right out of the command zone. She was the PlayEDH team’s preview card from Streets of New Capenna, so you can hardly blame me for being happy that she’s getting a huge boost from this set! You can expect a lot of wild gameplay with this card, and it’s highly likely that we’ll continue to see powerful enters-the-battlefield abilities on creatures to further cement its status as an instant Commander staple.
Starlight Spectacular
There’s definitely been a push to boost the ability for white to close out Commander games via combat within the past few years with cards such as Akroma’s Will and Paladin Class proving to be successful card designs. This enchantment is another example that really plays well into go-wide decks. If you’ve mustered up an impressive number of creatures, this card can provide a massive boost. Even an army of 1/1 tokens can become a significant threat with this card on your side.
I’m looking forward to adding this card to my casual Adeline, Resplendent Cathar deck, but it should play well in any go-wide strategy that includes white. Being able to get this power boost during each of your combat steps can really shorten the clock that’s usually associated with decks of this type. You must be prepared to do a little bit of extra math during your combat step, but this likely won’t be a long-term problem when you can swiftly crush your enemies with a magnificent parade of formidable attackers.
Strength-Testing Hammer
This goofy equipment does an excellent job at simulating a carnival strength tester game in a way that translates well onto a Magic card. While the power buff is random and won’t be consistent, it shouldn’t be too hard for an equipment-based voltron deck to reliably draw a card even if the dice gods aren’t favoring you. This provides a strong case for this card to be one of the better equipment options that you can get for just 1 mana, especially on an uncommon.
The first commander that I thought of when I saw this card was Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist. Being able to ignore equipment costs and put all of your equipment onto a suitable combatant without investing mana makes drawing a card with Strength-Testing Hammer during each attack into a trivial matter. While equipment support is one of the easiest ways to draw cards in white, I certainly won’t complain about having another good option that isn’t likely to break the bank.
As promised, I’ll also provide a list of my favorite acorn cards that I think would have been interesting additions to eternal Magic if the normal game rules allowed them to function. These are my 5 favorites that you may enjoy playing with your playgroup using an appropriate Rule 0 discussion.
Far Out
Being able to choose all of the modes is a great way to overcome decision paralysis during a casual game of Magic. While I was disappointed that this is an acorn card, I can definitely see why given the gray areas that it opens up.
Mobile Clone
Nobody can tell you to put your phone away if you can convince your playgroup to let you play this goofy card. This functions like a very strong version of Clone, but I don’t expect phones to become a mandatory part of the game any time soon.
Sole Performer
This card could open up some pretty bizarre and broken shenanigans with tap abilities. This is a fantastic example of a card that really feels like it needs the restriction of only being activated once per turn.
Standard Procedure
It’s just a card from Standard. How broken could it possibly be? Let’s not think too hard about any of the broken Standard environments from the past. The restrictions on this card likely keep it from being too broken (most of the time).
Trigger Happy
This is probably the most broken card on this list, but it’s also the most fun. It turns out that there are actually too many powerful cards that use triggered abilities to even name all of the likely suspects here!
This concludes our list of the top 10 Commander cards from Unfinity. What are your thoughts on this set? Are there any new commanders or other cards that you’re interested in? Let us know on Twitter! We’d love to hear from you. If you’d like to check out more PlayEDH content, you can find more articles here or tune into the PlayEDH Radio 903.1 podcast here.
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