Commander Decks New Cards

[kaiserruhsam]

Since there are new cards in the product, and they'll be legal in eternal formats, we should probably talk about them...

MTGS Spoiler

The three new cards (below) are discussed in this thread and I'd prefer keeping the discussion in this thread on legacy applications, since we can get plenty about the cards in EDH everywhere else.

Depending on who you listen to, offical commander previews start next monday, or the one after, the earlier date comes from Sheldon (I think) and the later one from the mothership.

Anyway, the new ones are:

Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter 4WBB
Legendary Creature - Vampire (R)
Flying, lifelink
Sacrifice a creature: Put X +1/+1 counters on Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter, where X is the sacrificed creature's power.
Remove all +1/+1 counters from Vish Kal: Target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn for each +1/+1 counter removed this way.
5/5

Edric, Spymaster of Trest 1GU
Legendary Creature - Elf Rogue (R)
Whenever a creature deals combat damage to one of your opponents, its controller may draw a card.
"I am not at liberty to reveal my sources, but I can assure you, the price on your head is high."
2/2

Skullbriar, the Walking Grave GB
Legendary Creature - Zombie Elemental (R)
Haste
Whenever Skullbriar, the Walking Grave deals combat damage to a player, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
Counters remain on Skullbriar as it moves to any zone other than a player's hand or library.
1/1

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Vish is almost certainly too expensive.

Edric has potential. He's a discount on costal piracy, and might fit in a sort of non-merfolk fish deck. It's probably terrible, but "aggro elves" has a ton of lords, and you can run skyfolk to up the blue count and pretend you're merfolk.

Skullbriar is interesting, but other than unearth (the card) I can't think of a way to take advantage of him, and he probably gets sworded anyway. Too bad rift sweeper puts it into your library.

[Nidd]

Edric pretty much screams "BANT! BANT! BANT!" to me. You can even GSZ for him - a build with plenty of evasive beaters would be your best bet.
Maybe it's time to bust out those SSS again...?

[AngryTroll]

It looks to me like those legendary creatures are foil. I thought only the tri-color legends were going to be foil? It'd be awesome if the potential generals were all foil.

[Aggro_zombies]

It looks to me like those legendary creatures are foil. I thought only the tri-color legends were going to be foil? It'd be awesome if the potential generals were all foil.

You'll be able to get the foil versions of the two-color guys at the Release event, where they'll be given out as promos. As I understand it, all five two-color guys will be available and you'll get to pick one, although it's possible there are also foil versions of them in the decks.

[Darkenslight]

Skullbriar looks like it could spawn a new deck for sure. IT keeps its counters in the field/exile/Grave? Sign me up! A Nice GB Stompy variant seems like it could be in the works.

[Barook]

Skullbriar seems like an interesting design, but I can't really see a way to break it.

Rules question:

Let's say you reanimate Skullbriar from the graveyard with two counters on it - are those counters "added" to it when it enters play? E.g. would it trigger Doubling Season or not?

[jjjoness']

There is no rule that cards in graveyards etc. can't have counters. There is however a rule that counters "cease to exist" when an object changes zones.

121.2. Counters on an object are not retained if that object moves from one zone to another. The
counters are not “removed”; they simply cease to exist. See rule 400.7.

I guess the easiest way to get the effect (rules-wise) is to simply not apply the state based effect of removing counters when changing zones. Thus there wouldn't be an effect that puts counters anywhere, they simply would still "be there".

[Barook]

Seems interesting, but 4 mana is alot for something that is basically a vanilla beater, even with the potential to grow to a ridiculous size.

Looks like a fun target for Sutured Ghoul, though.

[Gheizen64]

The */* is defined only after it entered into play, so i'm pretty sure Sutured Ghoul with him wouldn't work (differently from Goyf).

[dahcmai]

It is interesting in the fact that you can finally have a card that you can target yourself with. Gitaxian Probe in Dredge might be interesting. Though Dredge doesn't cast 4 mana duders reliably of course.

[Barook]

Makes Defense of the Heart suck a bit less. Still not all that great, though.

Are there any good ways to punish your opponent for putting/having creatures in play?

[(nameless one)]

You can fetch Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite with Defense of the Heart.

[kaiserruhsam]

snip

Makes Defense of the Heart suck a bit less. Still not all that great, though.

Are there any good ways to punish your opponent for putting/having creatures in play?

You can fetch Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite with Defense of the Heart.

So I assume a hypothetical DotH deck would be like a weird mushup of reanimator, s&t, and oath since you can use guys with anti-reanimation clauses and with defense you might run orchard. Norn would probably usually be one of the creatures, but since both players get the same number of tokens, painter+iona might be an option.

To what extent can the weaknesses be mitigated? Defense is slow, and alliance being a sorcery doesn't help, but like I mentioned above, could borrow some oath tech and run Forbidden Orchard. NO/S&t is probably the existing deck that would run defense, but I don't see it benefitting.

[lorddotm]

It is interesting in the fact that you can finally have a card that you can target yourself with. Gitaxian Probe in Dredge might be interesting. Though Dredge doesn't cast 4 mana duders reliably of course.

He only mills one, definitely not worth it in any form of any deck in Legacy.

So I assume a hypothetical DotH deck would be like a weird mushup of reanimator, s&t, and oath since you can use guys with anti-reanimation clauses and with defense you might run orchard. Norn would probably usually be one of the creatures, but since both players get the same number of tokens, painter+iona might be an option.

To what extent can the weaknesses be mitigated? Defense is slow, and alliance being a sorcery doesn't help, but like I mentioned above, could borrow some oath tech and run Forbidden Orchard. NO/S&t is probably the existing deck that would run defense, but I don't see it benefitting.

What happens if you cast this, and they choose not to put any dudes in to play?

[Barook]

What happens if you cast this, and they choose not to put any dudes in to play?

They don't have to pay mana, but they're still forced to put the tokens into play that you paid for.

[Barook]

What happens if you cast this, and they choose not to put any dudes in to play?

They don't have to pay mana, but they're still forced to put the tokens into play that you paid for.

[kaiserruhsam]

He only mills one, definitely not worth it in any form of any deck in Legacy.



What happens if you cast this, and they choose not to put any dudes in to play?

They don't have to pay mana, but they're still forced to put the tokens into play that you paid for.

You tell them to read the card again. :P

Double massacre wurm might be a legit defense plan if you can reliably make 5 tokens(4, if they can't kill any of yours, 4*2*2 = 16 plus attack for 4, or even fewer if they have orchard spirits or their own creatures). Turn 3 defense is probably reliable, and you could just trigger it on your turn 4 upkeep with orchard. Which makes me wonder if orchard-defense was ever seriously attempted.

[rufus]

You can fetch Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite with Defense of the Heart.

'cause that makes more sense than fetching e.g. Lighting Crafter+Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or some other 2-card win?

[dahcmai]

Even more amusing is having a Suture priest in play at the time.

[Sims]

Even more amusing is having a Suture priest in play at the time.

Quick! Build W/G Soul-Sister/Defense of the Win!