Sometimes the best ideas for an article are the topics people casually talk about between games or Magic or during a backyard barbecue with a lot of Magic personalities. These topics never get the digital ink dedicated to them so they can see publication to a wider audience. My article two weeks ago felt like one of those articles. I wrote about a few cards I personally wished could be legendary for the purposes of Commander. Rather unsurprisingly, this proved to be a popular topic that had me responding to dozens of tweets, messages and reddit posts of people presenting their one or two cards off of their heads they too wish were legendary.
When I wrote that article, I was already making lists that could fill multiple articles going forward. As I stated last time, it’s possible that the cards as they are currently templated or costed would ultimately be too good. I’m just concerned more with their function, whether it be as an answer a tribe’s shortcomings or offer something new to the color identity. My list is in no particular order.
Sage of the Inward Eye
Sage of the Inward Eye was one of the cards I personally felt I overlooked the most. When the card was printed in Khans of Tarkir, my first reaction was that this was the Jeskai general I wanted to build around. I ended up building a Narset, Enlightened Master deck that lacked the high saturation of Time Warp spells, but still felt overly repetitive and was dismantled very quickly.
The Sage is probably done better in the form of Tamanoa, but what captured my attention was the option to build either a tribal Djinn deck or to have a spells-matter deck that still required creatures as a win condition. I think the biggest factor is that the block was not structured in a way that allowed for a lot of legendary creatures, like our visits to Ravnica. But even then, I don’t know that it would have even been on anyone’s list to make legendary.
This deck would have improved with Fate Reforged and the printing Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest as a secondary general and win condition—a combination I have played in the past and felt very impressed by. We didn’t yet know that prowess was going to (temporarily) become an evergreen keyword. As prowess came into vogue for the next few years, this would have been a fine open-ended general to play with all our spells matter toys.
Kulrath Knight
Next up we have a card that came back into the forefront of my brain when I saw The Scorpion God. I had been out of Magic during the Lorwyn and Alara blocks, but i can remember seeing wither and thinking that it was such a cool idea. Kulrath Knight quickly jumped out to me as a great blend of the mechanic and an open-ended upside to those creative enough to build around it. Turning the clock forward nine years, and now creatures constantly have tokens on them for any number of reasons, but mostly in the form of +1/+1 counters.
Kulrath Knight prevents evolve, bloodthirst, or unleashed creatures from attacking and blocking. You can lock down an entire player’s creature base with Contagion Engine. Here’s a reason to play Amok, Fevered Convulsions, and Midnight Banshee all as underplayed cards that would gain new stock. Kulrath Knight doesn’t stray too far from Rakdos’s general mentality to win through aggressive combat, but I feel that it goes about playing the game in a different way that would open up the color identity to a deck that might play better in longer games. Besides, if we can bring back mechanics like phasing or manifest on one card in an entire Commander expansion, I think wither could easily sneak in.
A Shadow General
Speaking of mechanics in need of generals to be their torchbearers—shadow, you have me in your corner. I would like to see something in the mold of Soltari Emissary, Thalakos Deceiver, and Dauthi Warlord. In the Emissary I see a general who can walk in both worlds, not explicitly having shadow, but being a white creature who could have evasion in an on-flavor way. White is the color of small aggressive creatures, so it would make sense that they would have low to the ground threat that who didn’t get to attack freely without a price, even if it might be only one mana of dedication. Giving a home to Strata Scythe and Blackblade Reforged, this would be a fine Voltron commander for when you’ve grown tired of Isamaru, Hound of Konda.
While still being an aggressive threat that would pair well with equipment like the Emissary, I feel that Thalakos Deceiver would be a fun general to use for creature stealing game plans. This could be a deck that looks a lot like Empress Galina without the legendary clause, stealing creatures and being scaled in power with the rest of the table. I get some use of Helm of the Host in my Clone-themed deck, but this would give it new purpose and context.
Going a bit against the current-day color pie, Dauthi Warlord can be the model for a different kind of shadow commander deck as well. In contrast to Soltari Emissary focusing its attention on one creature, the Warlord would be looking to have a table with as many creatures with shadow as it could and going wide for its win conditions. Black feels like the color that should benefit the most to dedicating itself to shadow creatures, much like how it was in the running for the best place to focus devotion in Theros along with green. The color hasn’t ever had a notable go-wide deck, and I think this would be a stellar space to build around.
Knight of New Alara
Sometimes creatures just have a cool effect that you’d like to see reexamined. When I first talked about this topic I hit on the Liege cycle coming out of Shadowmoor block.Knight of New Alara might not be optimal in just two colors—sharing too much with the Wilt-Leaf Liege—but I think if this template was spread into three or more colors it would offer something we simply don’t have at the moment but could have around as a valuable tool.
Even if Knight of New Alara 2.0 was just a color-unifying Knight tribal deck that didn’t directly call out the tribe, I think there is merit to be found.
Progenitor Mimic
If there was one creature that I overlooked, it’s Progenitor Mimic. So many people mentioned Progenitor Mimic in the first six hours of the last article going up and I immediately realized just how much of an oversight that was. In a world where we have Helm of the Host and Jace, Cunning Castaway, we have the technology to make it work and a need for a Progenitor Mimic with legendary status. I think that in Dragon’s Maze we had an acceptable Simic maze runner in the form of Vorel of the Hull Clade, but almost instantly when I saw this card in 2013, I wanted this to be legendary so bad.
Setting aside the Biovisionary win condition, I envision this deck would take advantage of enter the battlefield abilities like Guardian of Cloverdell or Mycoloth to keep my board progressing in fun ways. Even on the simple side, sometimes all you need is a Pilgrim’s Eye every turn. And like my Thalakos Deceiver proposal, this deck could also scale with the table since we have the ability to clone our opponents creatures and take advantage of multiple copies of whatever game-breaking creatures they have. Multiple copies of Dragon Broodmother or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite sounds like a grand old time.
With a game that is widespread is Magic, I can only imagine that eventually we will get options similar to one or two of the ideas that I have proposed today. Once again I turn the focus to my audience and ask: what would you like to see given the legendary type and what would you do with them?
Join me next week when we can discuss something altogether different and join me on my Twitch stream at HipsterSainio every Tuesday night at 8 CST. The first few weeks that I’ve been streaming have already been enlightening for me, but I hope that I can also be entertaining.
Ryan Sainio is a Graphic Designer who writes about EDH, the EDH community, and streams on Twitch in his down time. He has been playing Magic: The Gathering since 7th Edition in 2002 and values flavorful and fun gameplay over competitively optimized decks. Join him for a stream at twitch.tv/hipstersainio on Tuesday nights.
Pet Decks – Shattergang Eldrazi & Doran, the Siege Tower