Commander decks

It surely do sounds good to go back to just 2 precons per most sets instead of the nightmare that are sets of 4s. Obviously things ain’t gonna be as good as back when they’re all 2 color decks, we’re doing 3 colors this time. Both decks have blue in them, and the other 2 colors are either blue’s common ally for Amonkhet or common enemy for Avishkar’s, which differs it from the two Jeskai Energy decks that came out last year, one of the reasons 4 precons per set were in fact excessive. It will make sense when 4 other sets follow this model and finish the cycle hopefully (just kidding, it won’t happen). And I guess this ain’t the time to try 3 decks because ain’t no way the Muraganda deck is gonna be vanilla matters.

Commanders

Each deck gets their typical 2 commanders both in the generic borderless frame, you shouldn’t be too surprised. The Kaladesh deck got two Kaladeshi women, surprise surprise, both of them has an engine to gain Energy and a once per turn way to spend said energy for a token. And the Amonkhet deck gets two Amonkhet zombie man, one a mummy (large set) and the other in lazotep (small set). The latter actually has an Orzhov mana cost with a blue triggered ability, kinda mirroring a certain backup commander back in a Brothers’ Wars precon that had a blue frame but an Esper activated ability. Truly, it will take a damn while to finish that cycle. But hey, it’s a one step commander that doesn’t actively generate value, unlike the two step value engine of the main commander.

Rares

Back to the cowardly, one thought that the set booster exclusives were gone for either 2 cards for each deck or one borderless reprint or some cards for a side variants. Now that’s just gone, back to the 10 new cards per deck.

And it’s the color distribution of 8 of those 10 cards that fills me with the most questions.

Starting off with the Esper deck, it starts with 4 white cards, 2 Zombie Clerics and 2 Enchantments that can both buff and create tokens. Then there’s two blue Zombie Wizards dealing with card draws. Next is one Zombie with afflict. And last is a colorless land that regenerates not just Zombies but a bunch of undead kindreds. Well I guess the focus on White makes sense considering some other sets already has their fair share of Black Zombies support.

Then there’s the Kaladesh deck. With the weirdest omission of blue cards. Yes, there is literally zero of them blue cards. It’s setting a strange new image for the energy land. Well, the Jeskai Energy deck from MH3 had a single blue card, something I just fact checked today and I used to got that wrong somehow. Well that deck did have 4 red cards, so this time there’s only 1 red card. Next is three green cards, two of them convert energy into +1/+1 counters and the last is Nissa converting landfalls into energy into a free spell, her art looks really weird for some reasons. Thought Magali was gonna do literally anything else but this in this set (cough cough any Kaladesh women really). Last are four colorless artifacts, I guess they never learnt to make artifacts colored, through the Jeskai deck did have quite a few of those so differentiation. Among these four, only one literally spells out Energy and another can double counters, it can be energy it just can’t be speed.

New arts

In what felt like the third set to embrace the new tradition, some things that originally came from other planes will now get a reskin to better fit in the deck they’re in. Definitely a good use of the fact that commander decks are tied to sets instead of just whichever character feels cool to exist.

The Amonkhet deck get a white card, a blue card, 7 whole black Zombies (one of them creates Zombies rather than being one itself, technicality), a draft signpost, 3 staples and 1 land. So total 14 cards, which is actually more than the amount of new cards.

The Avishkar deck get 2 blue cards (one of them is a land), 2 red cards, a green card, 3 artifacts, also 3 staples, so total to a lot less at 11 cards, still more than the amount of new cards but well how many other planes have energy too? Weirdly enough, among all these new arts, none of them uses Energy.

Recoloring the decks

I procrastinated on this thought experiment for too long for one simple reason: Tarkir, it has five wedge decks and I like that fact. So what’s left for three other sets? Do we do five shard decks, so one of them has to be the dreaded Naya? Do we do ten pair decks, like last year just this time the load will be heavier? I’ll do the latter. No mixing, that’s imbalance by definition.

So, let’s lay out our options. This year is especially Jund dense with two Golgari decks, one deck for each of Rakdos and Gruul. The last color pair is Simic, which goes to show how little Duskmourn’s effort towards less tricolor precons actually mattered in the grand scheme of things. Then there’s two Esper decks and the last three trios can all be cut from the same non-black quadrant, missing Naya thankfully. It’s a good thing you’ll be able to map this onto all 10 color pairs. So let’s try to solve pair by pair.

First off, like last year, let’s start by keeping color pairs. We’ll keep Gruul on Bloomburrow and Rakdos and Simic on Duskmourn. Golgari will be the last step to decide which set needs it more. In the meantime, we may solve for Aetherdrift. Let’s pretend in this timeline we shouldn’t really care about needing an actual Esper commander for all the Zombies, we just care about Amonkhet’s zombies and those are Orzhov. So we just cross out blue, if you want to splash you’re better off having a way. Well it’s also a discard deck, but well connive can be white too. Then there’s Kaladesh’s deck, which feels just as obviously should have been Izzet. Nissa can’t be here, but so does Saheeli’s green scraf.

Second run, back to Bloomburrow, you got a Jeskai deck, but after Izzet crossed out and Azorius about to be very contested, let’s have it be Boros, it’s weird a bird would lead that color pair but well red isn’t that strange to birds. Now back to Duskmourn with the Esper deck, turns out there’s a Dimir shaped slot it fits really well in, so here it goes. But wait, does that really fit the enchantments and miracles theme? You probably can’t use Aminatou anymore for this deck, but maybe that could be a blessing. Now you got three slots left, Bloomburrow will have to take two and Duskmourn will take the last. Just clue in, Bloomburrow has a Bant deck, so can it take Selesnya?

Now onto the last pair of color pairs, Azorius vs. Golgari, Bloomburrow and Duskmourn, which way? One way, keep the Golgari Winter in Duskmourn, so what’s left for Bloomburrow? Birds? More group hug and just make the Selesnya deck go wide? The other way, keep the Golgari Squirrels in Bloomburrow, so what’s left for Duskmourn? Enchantments spam? Basically what we ended up doing is having to split one of the tricolor precons to two dual colored ones. And they both don’t seem that great on the surface. Either option already would have Bloomburrow holding three whole Naya decks and the last deck can’t cover both of the missing colors. So what’s Duskmourn thinking? Well, one option would give three different blue decks in total, which frankly is Bloomburrow’s situation too. The other option would give the whole set of Sultai, and Black has three different decks, and White is missing. But both sets would be equal in not having one of the five colors. So let’s pick that out of irritation.