Our Top 10 Cards from Wilds of Eldraine for Commander
Chief: Uhhhh…hello! It’s that time again. Wilds of Eldraine preview season is winding down and the set’s release is just around the corner and we’ve seen some cool and interesting cards that should make a splash in a number of different formats. In this article, we (Chief, Gallant Pie-Wielder and Exxaxl Eliana, Experimental Confectioner) have rounded up our top picks from Wilds of Eldraine (WOE) that we’re excited to see in Commander. Unfortunately, Exxaxl couldn’t make it because he was a bit tied up.
Eliana, why don’t you introduce yourself to our readers?
Eliana: TALLY HO, CATHARS! I'm El, I do Magic on the internet and you can find me on most forms of social media as defiantcathar doing charity work with Praetors for Change and streaming with PlayEDH. I'm also an MTG Ambassador and like my friend Chief here, a mono-white stax enthusiast. Unlike Chief, I'm also well known for my mono-black proclivities as well. Nice to meet y'all!
Chief: Now that we’re through introductions, let’s get started!
Agatha’s Soul Cauldron
Chief: For just two mana, you get an artifact that color-fixes the mana for activated abilities on your creatures and a piece of graveyard hate that can put +1/+1 counters on creatures when you exile creature cards. That actually doesn’t sound like a bad deal on its own, but it gets even better with the addition of the ability to steal activated abilities for yourself. If your commander works with +1/+1 counters, all the better.
I’m expecting Agatha’s Soul Cauldron to show up in a lot of decks, because it’s powerful and fun. I’m personally looking forward to playing it in my Heliod, Sun-Crowned deck, where it offers the ability to win the game even when things go awry and has plenty of extra utility that’s far from irrelevant. I think that one of the biggest winners with this card is Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy because it offers a line where you don’t always need colored mana to make Kinnan work.
Rowan, Scion of War
Eliana: All right. Anyone who marginally knows me also knows I have an extreme distaste for the color red in Magic, but this card is just so cool that I can't help myself. Rowan makes cards that are already extremely strong such as Ad Nauseam and Bolas's Citadel EVEN STRONGER by making each drop of blood you pour into them discount your eventual game-winning spells, or even value pieces or tutors you might play along the way to secure your winning lines.
One of the coolest things about her is that in addition to taking advantage of cards such as these, she can use them completely differently than they are traditionally used, you can Naus for far fewer cards and not even need to hit your win cons in order to generate massive advantage off of far fewer cards, or you can just go for broke. Peer into the Abyss is another great card to abuse with Rowan, and honestly the list just goes on. Flavorfully, Crackle With Power is also a great wincon for a Rowan deck. Not to mention the showcase art by the amazing Abigail Larson is amazing. 😙👌
Kellan, the Fae-Blooded // Birthright Boon
Chief: Contrary to Eliana, I actually enjoy red quite a bit, especially when paired with white. We’ve seen a lot of Boros commanders that care about Equipment over the last few years, and all of my favorites offer a good mix of Equipment synergy and incentives to go wide with multiple creatures. I’m not a big fan of putting all my eggs in one basket, so I enjoy decks that encourage you to use Equipment while also building up a board presence.
If you’re in Boros and you’re playing Open the Armory, there isn’t much reason not to play this card since the Adventure spell is identical in all but name while also offering you an extra body that can prove useful for buffing your team. Kellan is also good with cards such as Sword of Hearth and Home because he has double strike and can get you multiple triggers per attack. I also have to talk about the fantastic borderless version of this card with art by Andreas Zafiratos. Beautiful.
Blossoming Tortoise
Eliana: This card already fits nicely into a lot of Golgari and Abzan lands archetypes well, but the coolest line of text in my opinion is after the first more lengthy paragraph. Discounting activated abilities of of lands you control by 1 is pretty significant and makes cards like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx (currently ruining lives in Pioneer in a mono-green deck, coincidentally) and Cabal Coffers that much easier to abuse.
Additionally, combining this … dog? with cards like Deserted Temple and Rings of Brighthearth in combination with the aforementioned outlets can reduce the startup cost in your recipe for infinite mana, albeit quite unnecessary most of the time. I think this card will see a fair amount of play in more than a few decks. Also nifty support for man-lands and cards that turn your lands into creatures, of which green has plenty.
Chief: I love me some Deserted Temple. On the subject of Odyssey lands, this card looks like it would also be pretty good with the filter lands from that set. Praise the dog!
Talion, the Kindly Lord
Chief: Exxaxl isn’t here, so I had to pick at least one Dimir card. This commander grabbed my attention early because of the unique card design and fantastic art by Olena Richards. There was a lot of theorycrafting in the cEDH community that focused on how to know what number to pick in order to draw the most cards. I’m a big fan of cards that offer choices like these, so I even wrote an article of my own on the subject.
While Talion may not prove to be as good as having a Rhystic Study in the command zone, you can definitely draw a lot of cards if you choose the correct number. I can definitely see this commander occupying a similar space as Nymris, Oona’s Trickster, offering you a way to maintain a healthy amount of cards in hand in a Dimir control shell. I’ll definitely be looking forward to seeing what this commander can do.
Rankle’s Prank
Eliana: 1-800-ARE-YOU-PRANKLIN? No but seriously, it's cool to see another Pox-lite effect printed back into Standard, and unlike the last time a good card like this was printed in a set for the Standard rotation, this one is actually Commander-playable since it hits everyone and not just a target opponent.
Rankle's Prankle also has the dreaded line of text "Choose one or more" so you can always customize it. Decks that people already dread to sit across from like Tergrid, God of Fright and Tinybones, Trinket Thief will love this card. It just really drives home the fact that Rankle is kind of a sadistic SOB.
Virtue of Knowledge // Vantress Visions
Chief: I like all of the cards in this cycle, but this one just stands out to me because enters-the-battlefield triggers (ETBs) are just incredibly strong and it seems like most sets have multiple powerful cards that fit that theme. Getting another card that doubles them on a card that can easily slot into any deck featuring blue only adds to the archetype.
While it’s more expensive than Panharmonicon, the addition of an instant spell that can copy your activated or triggered abilities is quite nice and I think it helps justify the increased cost. Any time that I talk about ETBs and copying abilities, it almost feels obligatory to mention Dockside Extortionist but there are plenty of other great choices too. Being an enchantment might also make it more relevant for enchantress lists.
Eliana: We did it. We broke Dockside Extortionist.
Court of Ardenvale
Eliana: While not as outright powerful as many other cards on my list, it still can provide a lot of value in the right deck. I always like cards that introduce the monarch to the game anyway, but this one provides some solid recursion for a lot of potent cards that people will want to remove. All of the Swords and many stax pieces can be brought back, forcing your opponents to work twice as hard to keep them off the board. I also think a very important thing to note is that this card merely cares about permanents, not nonland permanents.
This means you can reuse all your fetches and value lands like Roadside Reliquary. As long as you can maintain the monarchy, you're doubling up on value and drawing additional cards at the same time. The only drawback here is it does mean that you probably aren't on universal grave hate pieces like Rest in Peace, but many of the targeted ones are still fair game and can often be recurred by this card.
Chief: This card reminds me of something 🤔.
Moonshaker Cavalry
Chief: White is so heavily focused on aggro in most formats, but it hasn’t always had an easy time closing out games via combat in Commander. It’s only within the last few years that we’ve started to see a bigger emphasis on reliable combat finishers that scale well to games with 40 life and multiple opponents. This is the latest card in that vein and one of the best to date.
Yes, this is white’s Craterhoof Behemoth. With white’s tendency to focus on the whole group, it isn’t particularly surprising to see a card like this one. I’m definitely looking forward to playing Moonshaker Cavalry in several of my own Commander decks and I expect it to be one of the most popular cards in the set. I also can’t wait to snag that slick textless version whenever it becomes available.
Beseech the Mirror
Eliana: I imagine this pick is far less surprising coming from me. Black has always been the best color for tutoring, and this neat new spell is no exception. The floor of this card is a more pip-intensive Diabolic Tutor, which doesn't sound great, unless it sounds amazing (Hi K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth), but is still not bad. If the card you tutor up is four mana value or less and you bargained the spell, you can choose to cast it from exile FOR FREE.
I can think of more than a few wincons in black that cost four mana value or less that I'd love to essentially run a second copy of—like Aetherflux Reservoir. Generating extra bodies that you want to sacrifice for additional value for that bargain cost shouldn't be very hard in this color. Something that could be both a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective and whether you’re the one casting the spell, is that this card can be stopped by a card like Drannith Magistrate.
Conclusion
Chief: Well, there you have it. We hope that you’ve enjoyed our selections for our top 10 cards from Wilds of Eldraine. Why do I feel like I’m forgetting something?
Eliana: That’s because you are! Like in the past few sets, we are getting a reprint sheet that isn't part of the Standard set, instead being tasty little bonuses. This time, befitting of Eldraine, it's enchantments!
Chief: I’m a huge fan of Sneak Attack in Commander. Cheating big creatures into play on the cheap is always a lot of fun. I’d also imagine that this card will be a solid pick for creature decks in Wilds of Eldraine Limited. I’m a huge fan of the Shafer Brown artwork for this card. It’s delightfully goofy while also truly capturing how it feels to play Sneak Attack. The flavor text for the card is also top-notch. I just hope that Korlag manages to stay safe, because he must be protected at all costs.
Eliana: Here we go. Necropotence is one of my favorite cards ever printed in the game, and it just got amazing new artwork by the super talented Abigail Larson that rivals the original Mark Tedin piece. This card's legacy honestly speaks for itself, being the main impetus behind the infamous Black Summer and it’s a powerhouse card in any deck that can run it and reliably cast it. Pay 20 life, get 20 cards. Win at instant speed in your end step. Do it bestie, go off.
Chief: Okay, that’s a wrap. I’m definitely looking forward to this set. Thank you for sticking with us. I hope that Wilds of Eldraine brings you plenty of excitement for Commander and any other Magic formats that you enjoy playing.
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