The Brothers’ War Review, Part 2 of 4: The Multicolor Cards

Magic’s newest expansion has us journeying to what many consider the home of Magic, Dominaria, to see familiar faces and pick up old plot threads. A new set means new cards to examine, and in this article we’ll talk about the multicolor, what they mean for the game, and how they’ll play.

Last time we covered the monocolor cards, and this time as usual we won’t be looking at everything, and we’ll be doing this mostly with an eye for Commander play.

As always, this set offers a bunch of new commanders. Many of these are references to some very old cards, from the earliest sets in Magic’s existence, or the first set with Legendary cards, the eponymous Legends.

 

Multicolor Cards

 

Harbin, Vanguard Aviator

FromTheShire: Starting off very strong lore wise here with Urza’s (or Mishra’s – like…. he’s definitely Mishra’s right?) son with Kayla bin-Kroog, who is also a distant ancestor of Jodah’s. We see him here with his ornithopter as in Crosswinds, having a complex about not being an artificer like his dad. I have a mono white go wide Soldiers deck that is a bunch of fun, and I’m looking forward to building another version with all of the extra tools that having access to blue gives you. He gives you an anthem effect as well as evasion, and has flying himself so you don’t have to suicide him to get the combat trigger, excellent.

Loxi: I’m such a sucker for tribal support, and seeing a way to give soldiers a better way to close out games is always a plus. Aggressive Azorious strategies are always welcome. I’ve seen some discussion about some being sad this isn’t in red as well, but I enjoy the idea of it being exclusive to blue and white for soldiers to get quality, reliable evasion. For a 2 CMC commander, I can’t imagine this won’t be a popular one, but I’m really curious if there are any existing decks this will slot in the 99 for.

Rocco Gest: Azorius weenies isn’t an archetype I’m usually thinking about, but this guy makes a strong argument. A swarm of flying Soldiers, a decently represented archetype with decently good support, sounds absolutely terrifying, A nice cheap commander is something I like, and like Loxi said, he’s pretty cool in the 99.

 

Urza, Lord Protector

BPhillipYork: Glad to see meld return, it’s a fun, kind of goofy over-the-top mechanic. Urza turning into a planeswalker by melding with The Mightstone and Weakstone (okay the names of those are lame). Anyway, it’s a powerstone that taps for 2 colorless, so you can drop Urza, next turn drop your powerstone, and hopefully the turn after meld them, and then turn around and reduce a lot of costs by a lot. Which hits 11 loyalty really fast and will then let you hopefully ultimate right away. This is actually pretty playable in commander in my opinion, a lot of planeswalkers suffer from being worded in ways that don’t make them particularly valuable in 4-player games (lot of target opponent stuff) this really isn’t. This should be a kind of fun, goofy card(s) to run a deck around.

FromTheShire: God I love this set, and this card in particular. We see Urza blasting away with the Mightstone and carrying the Golgothian Sylex he will shortly be using to blow up most of a continent, then with his eyes replaced by the stones when his planeswalker spark ignites in the explosion. This is pre-Mending as well, and both the art and his abilities do a great job of conveying how fucking terrifying and strong the godwalkers were. The abilities are thematic and great, reducing the costs of spells and artifacts as befits an artificer, creating constructs, gathering knowledge, and exiling/ destroying everything in his path.

Loxi: Meld is really cool, but I feel like struggled before in the payoffs not always being worth the investment in a singleton format. They absolutely killed it in this set fixing that. I really like that this card also is designed in a way that makes it not always a planeswalker that just wants to rush to an ultimate. Sure, in the type of decks that want him, Urza probably will want to let that ultimate rip pretty often if you can, but he provides so much long term value that keeping him at high loyalty and just grinding out card advantage with him seems great in some games. Pancoast also slam-dunked this artwork, super cool card.

Rocco Gest: I’m an absolute mark for meld cards. Urza being relatively cheap and The Mightstone and Weakstone being a decent 5 drop ramps spell that gives 2 mana for nonartifact SPELLS, means that you can meld these two with 13 mana in one turn. Yes that sounds like a lot, but it’s less mana than I’d have assumed it’d take to get this meld off in one turn. Not to mention the pay-off is insane! Thankfully WotC had the foresight to not let Urza’s -10 go off in one turn, but that shouldn’t be an issue in a dedicated planeswalker deck.

 

Urza, Prince of Kroog

BPhillipYork: There’s some strange things you can do with the ability to copy of an artifact you control. For example copying a Precursor Golem will net you 3 Golems, things like that. I’m not sure it’s amazingly good, but it’s neat. And it can get abusive, if you have say a Clock of Omens and a Mana Vault, or an even bigger artifact source, you can probably go infinite with something like this.

FromTheShire: Another one I really like both on flavor and on his abilities. Solid anthem effect, lets you animate artifacts, love it. Bonus points for knowing that he is making Yotian Soldiers. Depending on how degenerate you want to be this can range from fun value to bonkers.

Loxi: Of all the Urzas in the set, I expect this one to probably be the least popular just based on uniqueness, but he’s powerful nonetheless. He’s open ended in regards to being able to both be a stat-stick anthem as well as a combo piece, but I worry that he might be too split on how you’d want to build him for him to catch ground. I like the card itself, since he allows for some silly doubling up on powerful artifacts, but I’ll be interested to see how the community builds him.

Rocco Gest: This is fun. I like the idea of taking an artifact and slapping a creature type on it.

 

Junkyard Genius

BPhillipYork: There’s a lot of ETBs making powerstones, which can get abusive, but handing out menace isn’t particularly meaningful, haste on the other hand is a powerful enabler, and obviously this guy creates his own token to eat, in decks that want to sacrifice or create artifacts and maybe part it with ETB or death punishments for artifacts it can be a useful piece.

FromTheShire: Nice little ramp piece that gives you an anthem effect, menace to take advantage of it, and the extremely nice haste.

Loxi: I wish his activated ability was a touch cheaper or less color intensive. Aside from making an artifact in general, in the right deck this is a psuedo ramp piece as well as a utility card, so I think the versatility makes up for the two not-as-powerful combined abilities.

 

Mishra, Claimed by Gix

BPhillipYork: The original dragon engine was so corny looking, this one, not corny looking. Ramming out a 9/9 like this that triggers when it attacks is fairly brutal. Handing out -2/-2 to all creatures and giving menace and trample and some other utility thing is mean. And Mishra, Claimed by Gix will still count as your Commander for Commander damage if he melds into Mishra, Lost to Phyrexia.

FromTheShire: Helllll yes. I will absolutely be building this deck because it’s going to be fun as hell, the colors are great for giving you tutoring and recursion to get your dragon engine out, and then once you meld Mishra is a tremendous beater with an amazing set of abilities. Can’t wait.

Loxi: This is the type of card that will be a “protect at all costs” type commander, since the minute it melds it’ll be public enemy number one. He also provides a huge array of abilities, although its interesting that the un-melded version wants you to go creature-wide while the melded version is arguably better suited for a board of larger creatures or a controlling strategy by forcing lots of discards. Regardless, a lot of value on one card and will for sure be a home run for a lot of players.

Rocco Gest: Hell yeah! More meld! Mishra himself isn’t amazing apart from the ease of access for the meld effect. The lack of haste means Mishra needs to live, but Phyrexian Dragon Engine has Unearth, so you can get that on the field from grave with haste, swing in, and get the meld. Thankfully you don’t get Lost to Phyrexia’s trigger twice because of how attack triggers work. After that the attack trigger is an absolute bonkers amount of value.

 

Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa

BPhillipYork: Mass handing out unearth is a scary powerful ability. There’s a lot of potentials for that to be game-ending as you ram cards into your grave, unearth and eat them. I’m thinking of things like Triplicate Titan which will have a really nice payoff and can be eaten in turn to generate mana to keep fueling your unearthing.

FromTheShire: On the whole I don’t LOVE unearth in Commander because you have to get everything done right away and frequently the cost is pretty high, but Mishra giving it to all of your artifacts for only 3 is a bit of a different story. The ward can really help you out as well. I DO love Mishra in the desert accidentally learning the Weakstone will let him control the monstrous dragon engine that erupts from beneath the sands, and how well that tracks with his abilities mechanically.

Loxi: That ward effect will give interesting matchups for Mishra, since some decks will not care at all about that and others might struggle big time with it. Recursion is always strong though, and aside from combo potential I feel like this will just be a commander taking the train to value town every game. It’s real tough to beat down a player who can play cards multiple times regularly, and with built in protection on the commander there’s not a lot to hate.

Rocco Gest: 5 CMV might not be enough for this. Giving all of your permanents that Ward cost is astounding. Giving everything in grave unearth is astounding. He becomes a target as soon as he drops, but he creates a good buffer between your opponent’s spells and your combo pieces,

Hajar, Loyal Bodyguard

BPhillipYork: 2 mana for a 3/3 with a useful ability is a good gut-check for how pushed creatures have gotten. That being said, Hajar is largely an enabler, but for some neat things. In Gruul there’s the potential for lots of mana-based payoffs to generate more combats and thus generate more and more and… making those creatures indestructible may be the key to ending a game.  But I probably wouldn’t run this guy as a Commander, neat as he is.

FromTheShire: Definitely a piece for the 99 but an extremely good one for protecting your board in your Legends matters deck.

Loxi: I think this is a really neat card, but I only can imagine this getting played in 5 Color Humans or Shrines or something. It’s strong for sure, but also in such a niche spot between its colors and typings. I also want to just make note that this card is an absolute bomb in limited formats and maybe standard, which I imagine is more what this card was designed for.

 

Yotian Dissident

BPhillipYork: Sometimes you end up with a lot of artifacts entering play, Smothering Tithe I’m looking at you. When decks want this and want to go tall, this could be a powerful enabler. Selesnya colors definitely have a sub-theme of +1/+1 counters from time to time, and this will play really nicely into that. Imagine pumping these counters onto a Kyler, Sigardian Emissary.

FromTheShire: I love seeing pieces that push people towards non-traditional archetypes, and this can be a very powerful one. I think if you modify a standard counters matters deck, which these colors do have a bunch of support for, into more of an artifact heavy shell, you can come up with something fun and unique.

Loxi: This is one of those cards that has a very specific niche, but in that niche you’ll always want it. If you have both artifacts and counters in the same deck, this will be an auto-include. At first glance, I can see this going in any of the artifact-focused “Friends Forever” partners that go with Othelm, Sigardian Outcast as well as Perrie, The Pulvarizer who also tends to just coincidentally have a lot of artifacts often.

Rocco Gest: Why is WotC trying to push Selesnya artifacts?

 

Hero of the Dunes

BPhillipYork: The return an artifact or creature 3 or less payoff is pretty pricy at 5 mana, so unless you’ve got a way to generate these easily it’s probably not too good. Though there are some necromancers that themselves return things so you can easily loop these.

FromTheShire: It’s expensive, but recurring something important and handing out an anthem effect to all of your tokens seems like has some decent utility.

Loxi: Can replace Karmic Guide in a combo with Fiend Hunter and a sac outlet, so if you want that combo in a deck but want an anthem or a Human/Soldier for that, could be an interesting choice.

 

Saheeli, Filigree Master

BPhillipYork: I like these new, easier-to-obtain, but less swingy emblems. Stacking these up could be interesting, and it’s not a must stop kind of effect that your opponents absolutely must get in the way of.

FromTheShire: Not bad but the bar for planeswalkers to be worth it in Commander is pretty high, and I don’t think this does enough against 3 other players.

Loxi: I don’t have much to say about this card that I feel like Saheeli planeswalkers haven’t already had said about them. I don’t think any decks want specifically this card for any reason, but all of the effects are useful in most artifact focused decks in the colors. It doesn’t have any protection for itself, but I guess if you can ult after one turn cycle that makes sense as to why.

Rocco Gest: Just a good Saheeli. Can’t be mad at this planeswalker.

 

Third Path Iconoclast

BPhillipYork: This is pretty bonkers in my opinion. It’s any noncreature spell, we’re just talking tons of 1/1s, what makes it so big IMO is that it’s flexible being soldiers that are also artifacts, so you can use it to trigger a lot of things.

FromTheShire: Very powerful payoff card for a slightly non-standard spellslinger deck. For instance, I have an old Mizzix of the Igmagnus deck that uses all of the instants and sorceries you’re reducing to go wide with tokens, and I’m stoked to add this to it. Making artifacts as it does so is even better.

Loxi: Spellslinger payoff that works for artifacts too, pretty neat. We’ve seen this effect before and we all know exactly what kind of decks will want it, but some more to the repertoire is never a bad thing. The fact that the tokens are artifacts is a unique touch.

Rocco Gest: Oh good more synergy for Magnus the Red! Izzet weenies is goin’ NUTS.

 

Deathbloom Ritualist

BPhillipYork: All the ways to really abuse this are going to struggle from how expensive it is and what colors it generates, but a creature that taps for more than 3 mana potentially is totally abusable. There’s also some good Golgari ways to get creatures into your yard and so this is an okay enabler/payoff. Also, Elf is definitely a valuable creature type. This fits really well into solid black and green elf reanimator decks for a mid-range type feel.

FromTheShire: On paper, this could make you tons of mana even if it’s a bit expensive to cast it, and Elf is both a great type and something that is already built to have mana sinks to use said mana. In reality, I think that most of the time you’re going to be just fine with the Priest of Titania you’re already running. When was the last time you saw someone play a Crypt of Agadeem and actually make mana with it?

Loxi: Mana dork that provides a lot of mana and has a big butt. Llanowar Abomination might really like this card, but I’m not really a fan of ramping that late in to the game, especially in a graveyard-focused deck where you also have to be milling yourself and setting your board/hand up. That is a LOT of mana though…

Rocco Gest: Hey fuck this.

 

Skyfisher Spider

BPhillipYork: This is really built for standard, and I think it’s definitely relevant there. The exile payoff doesn’t seem sufficient in commander.

FromTheShire: Really worth highlighting that this hits any nonland permanent. It’s already solid as a one off piece of removal, but in a deck like Meren of Clan Nel Toth where you can be recurring it turn after turn after turn and blowing up the most problematic permanent for you, this can put in a ton of work.

Loxi: Ishkanah, Grafwidow getting a new toy this set: that wasn’t on my bingo card.

Rocco Gest: Don’t hate this. More spiders is cool. A spider tribal deck is always something I keep in the back of my mind. There are a lot of cool spiders in the game.

 

Queen Kayla bin-Kroog

BPhillipYork: This is uh… bonkers. As a value engine this is absolutely really strong, probably a cEDH archetype in the making. There are many ways this could be looped, and it just does it’s thing, cycling through your deck. The cost of it all is pretty high, and sorcery speed makes it less absolutely abusable. Cycling your hand and getting 3 things for it is amazing though, and there’s tons of ways to turn discarding into even more cards, or you may want to fill your yard for reanimation or to win off Underworld Breach.

FromTheShire: Another lore character that I’m excited to see, Kayla is more than just Urza’s wife and is here to lay the smack down on her own. Boros artifacts has some great support, and boy is this a powerful piece to command them. She ‘only’ gets you up to 3 drops, but that is more than enough if you build right.

Loxi: BPhillip summed it up well. I think this will be super popular in cEDH and provides a super cool and unique archetype, and I can’t wait to see what people do with her. However, I can’t see her getting used as much at typical commander pods as much over some of the flashier commanders for the set. I could eat my words, and she might be amazing in already existing decks like Osgir, the Reconstructor or even as a replacement for him, but I feel like without combo setup she might not be as popular as some other new legendaries.

Rocco Gest: Holy crap. Oh my God. This is awesome! Free shit in Boros? Sign me up! I keep looking for ways to get more draw power and better efficiency out of my Iroas deck and this is a home run.

 

Tawnos, the Toymaker

BPhillipYork: Fun and flavorful, there’s a lot of really solid low CMV birds that would be fun to clone. There might be some way to abuse this, but at 5 mana getting the payoff going is rough. Mostly seems like it is going to see play in some kind of deck that really wants to make a lot of birds, maybe a “the birds” themed Hitchcock deck.

FromTheShire: Long time readers will know that I frequently gas on about pieces for the three (3!) Bird decks I own, and I am beyond stoked to have a sweet new Commander to build around. Most people will get way more mileage out of the Beast half of his ability, but I am beyond pleased to be able to do my own spin. Tawnos’s Weaponry was a card I had a real affinity for way back in the day as well, so getting another Tawnos card tickles me.

Loxi: Ok. Wizards, we need to talk. Ever since Volo, Guide to Monsters y’all have just been making Simic the colors for weird Bestiary commanders. I’m cool with new tribal support, but I honestly am SO disappointed this wasn’t in Bant colors! White has a bunch of extra birds and beasts that would make this a super cool deck to run, but alas. Still seems cool regardless and isn’t a bad payoff for a fun tribal list.

Rocco Gest: Add to the pile of Simic combo decks with no real wincon! I like this guy a lot. Making beast and bird artifacts is cool and there aren’t enough bird payoffs in colors other than Azorius. You could slot him into the 99 in Bant running Derevi as the commander.

 

Tocasia, Dig Site Mentor

BPhillipYork: Giving your creatures surveil 1 is neato, can definitely do a lot with that and the exile from the yard return ability. More a fun thematic ability than something to really build a competitive deck about, but the idea of an archeology deck is a pretty neat one. Potentially you could do something crazy with this by returning as many 0-cost artifacts as you want in some kind of way that ends the game.

FromTheShire: Regardless of the usefulness of the actual card, this is another character that I’m extremely glad to see get their own treatment. Urza and Mishra’s mentor makes her debut, and honestly she’s more fun than super powerful, but she’s still solid. Vigilance is a very underrated ability on its own, and if you start getting wide, you can do some serious digging with this much Surveil. Cool that her ability is activated from your graveyard as well.

Loxi: Bant reanimator with an artifact focus? Interesting. I want to note that a lot of the surveil payoffs that specifically mention “Surveil” from Ravnica Allegience tend to have black, so sadly she can’t use a lot of them. That aside, vigilance will let you still attack normally and still benefit from this effect, which is a nice touch. I worry that Tocasia also suffers from having too many strategies in one, since she wants you to have a go-wide strategy to best benefit from her effect, reanimation  or some sort of graveyard payoff, and artifacts for her activated ability. Excited to see what direction people take her.

Rocco Gest: I’ve been looking for an interesting Bant commander for a long time and I think this is the ticket. Running a pseudo-mill strategy in a color combo without black is the right kind of weird that I usually look for.

 

Next Time: Monocolored

That wraps up our look at the set’s multicolored cards. Join us next time as we review the sets colored cards, picking out our favorites, and talking about the future build-arounds. In the meantime, if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.