4. Commander set

This is the very last set for quite a while to coincide with a set of five color balanced commander precons. Granted, with one exception of a set of starter commander decks of allied pairs that have just a new art in etched foil for the commander, everything else is normal reprints. It’s also the last set to feature the full fleet of 15 new designs per deck.

Also this set introduced collectors’ boosters sample pack, something that has died just recently. Because frankly, it’s kinda nefarious, like can’t you put a normal booster for that price?

4.1. Commanders

Each deck has two commanders that are both very wordy. Par for the course of these value engines, I guess. Maestros’ commander managed the only piece of flavor text of this whole subset. Granted, his daughter has two entire abilities that are this really strange twist on the NEO Jin-Gitaxias, or I’m just having a stroke reading a lesbian’s artwork.

The amount of keywords used is certainly a way to explain this mess. Both Brokers’ cards use shield counters and explain what they do. All three green families each have a card that goads, one can’t even explain what it does. Each black family also have a commander that have their keyword, which leaves Cabaretti to not use any. They, along with Obscura, goes for Conspiracy mechanics instead. Which requires quite the instruction manual for all players.

Outside of the cards that grant set mechanics to everything (two of them), I feel like all of these cards would really appreciate bullet points to each of the steps of their value engines. Or hell, also maybe cut the secondary ability and replace that with some flavor text.

When will I have enough energy to tell you the minimum color combinations for these cards?

4.2. Rares

Each deck gets a whopping 15 rares in addition to their commanders, totaling a whopping 17 cards. Part of the reason seems to be because of the whopping four cycles between each deck:

First off, we have five tricolored confluences. This is a twist on the original cycle of monocolored confluence from C15, blue the one of which even got reprinted here. These basically serves as charms for the gigantic messy game of commanders where you pay 5 mana deviated by 1 get 19 different options (27 if you count different orders) of how to use three different abilities three times with repetition. Let’s analyze these abilities, assuming once again each color has one ability:

• The easiest one are the two Rakdos ones. Goad does look silly in this bunch through.
• Caberetti: The mobilize clone is obviously red. The naturalize mode is Selesnya hybrid, the board pump mode with first strike is Boros hybrid if I want to overthink, otherwise it’s just mono white I guess, then the order makes sense.
• Brokers: Proliferate is another hybrid Simic thing. Phase out used to be in Blue but now has a White card, so Azorius in total? The counter is actu ally hybrid Simic, believe it or not. I gotta assume that the monocolor order on this card is still correct.
• Obscura: The shrink silence is Azorius hybrid, connive is connive, and the recurse hand a creature is easily black. I guess I still have to believe the order.

Compared to the original Confluences, we’re obviously more willing to use keywords now (especially Brokers), and now let’s see how many modes are repeated and changed. Please note, these things don’t have the same mana value so take the power comparisons with a grian of salt.

• We’ve gotten better at removing enchantments and artifacts (R + W -> G), shrinking creatures (B), sweeping 1 damage (R).
• We’ve literally repeated the draw 1 lose 1 clause and recursing hand a creature, both in black and makes the black card completely cut for parts.
• While we’ve unfortunately regressed in land ramp and countering stuff (abilities are narrower than spells, even with a rhystic option for the latter).
• The sidegrades are frankly easier to list, recurse hand magecraft instead permanent, silence shrink instead of bouncing, connive instead of support,…