Last week we hit some of the most exciting Commanders coming from Wilds of Eldraine. This week, we’ll take a look some of the best individual cards from the set. Between adventurous enchantments, questing knights, and fae folk from deep in the woods, there are plenty of cards to want to jam into your decks.
Chancellor of Tales
An unassuming uncommon at first, Chancellor of Tales has the potential to do some positively wild things in the right deck. When you cast an adventure spell with Chancellor of Tales out, you get to copy the spell, picking new targets for it.
This effect only works on the adventure part of the card, and not the permanent portion of it. Even so, doubling up on your adventures makes this Chancellor a powerful addition to your adventure-themed deck.
Royal Treatment
Joining a long line of one-mana green protection spells, Royal Treatment gives one of your creatures hexproof for a turn, then attaches a Royal Role token to it. The Royal Role gives that creature +1/+1 as well as ward 1.
Royal Treatment separates itself from other protection spells by potentially protecting the creature thanks to the Royal Role’s ward effect. Even if your opponent can immediately pay the tax next turn, you’ve successfully cost them two spells to get rid of one creature and likely prevented them from doing anything else during their turn.
Werefox Bodyguard
While not quite as good as previous Standard all-star Skyclave Apparition, Werefox Bodyguard has some unique features which set it apart from other three-mana exile creatures. Since the Werefox has flash, you can bring it in at any time, removing another non-Fox creature at instant speed for as long as your Werefox is still in play.
Then, if an opponent goes to remove it or you have another way to deal with whatever threat is exiled under the Werefox, you can pay two mana to sacrifice it and gain two life, helping to sustain you later in the game.
Spellbook Vendor
A secretly powerful card, Spellbook Vendor can sit back and let you slowly build up your board over the course of a few turns. At the start of your combat step, you can pay one mana to create a Sorcerer Role attached to a creature you control
Sorcerer Roles give your enchanted creature +1/+1 and lets you scry 1 when it attacks. The longer Spellbook Vendor is in play, the more Roles you’ll get to dish out, giving you tons of scry triggers to help you find whatever card you need.
Virtue of Loyalty / Ardenvale Fealty
All the Virtues from Wilds of Eldraine are powerful cards, there’s no doubting it, but most of the other cards are either a little narrow in scope or have a higher mana cost. Virtue of Loyalty fits in the crossroads of versatility and high power. The adventure side, Ardenvale Fealty, creates a 2/2 Knight token with vigilance for just two mana.
A few turns later, you can play Virtue of Loyalty, which puts +1/+1 counters on each creature you control and untapped them, effectively giving all your creatures vigilance and helping them grow stronger than your opponents.
Decadent Dragon / Expensive Taste
This Dragon is incredibly powerful in practically any format, Decadent Dragon is both card advantage at first, and the mildly worse Goldspan Dragon once it’s in play. The Expensive Taste spell steals the top two cards of an opponent’s library, exiling them face down and letting only you look at them. So long as they’re exiled, you can cast them.
While you still have to respect mana costs of these two cards, Decadent Dragon then creates Treasure tokens when it attacks, giving you all the mana you need to cast your two new cards.
Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator
Wilds of Eldraine has the first planeswalker to be printed since the multiverse-sweeping ramifications of the New Phyrexian war. Already it seems Planeswalker cards might be getting a bit of a power boost. Ashiok comes with a neat ability to let you exile cards from the top of your library instead of paying life as a cost, helping you maintain your life total in the face of an opponent’s attacks.
Ashiok’s -2 ability creates two 1/1 Nightmare tokens that get stronger if you’ve exiled a card before your combat step, while their +1 ability lets you pick from the top two cards of your deck, putting one into your hand and the other into exile. Unfortunately, Ashiok’s -7 feels a little underpowered, but given how strong the other two are, it’s probably fine.
Virtue of Courage / Embereth Blaze
The second of two Virtues on this list, and while they’re all very good at something different, the Virtue of Courage seems to have the most raw power behind it. For five mana you get a red enchantment that whenever you deal noncombat damage to an opponent, you get to exile that many cards from your library, and are able to play them this turn.
The first way to make use of it is through effects that deal damage when things enter the battlefield, like Impact Tremors or Purphoros, God of the Forge and suddenly you impulse drew anywhere between three to six cards. Prosper, Tome-Bound seems like a natural home for Virtue of Courage, helping you cast more and more spells with Treasure tokens.
Moonshaker Cavalry
Heralded as the white Craterhoof Behemoth when it was first revealed, there’s no denying the power behind Moonshaker Calvalry. When it comes into play, all your creatures gain flying and get +X/+X until end of the turn, with X equal to the number of creatures you control.
While not getting trample removes some of the certainty that Crafterhoof Behemoth provides, giving your creatures flying often will have the same effect, flying over most blockers your opponents could reasonably set up to stop you.
Beseech the Mirror
Easily one of the most powerful spells to come out of Wilds of Eldraine is Beseech the Mirror. For just four mana you get to search your library for any card and put it into your hand. If you choose to bargain it by sacrificing an artifact, enchantment, or token, you get to cast it for free if that spell costs four mana or less.
You can go grab a copy of The One Ring, putting it directly into play if you paid the bargain cost, which you can also use a copy of The One Ring that’s been in play a little too long and has been whittling down your life a bit too much.
Ryan Hay (he/him) has been writing about Magic: The Gathering and video games for years, and loves absolutely terrible games. Send him your bad game takes over on Twitter where he won’t stop talking about Lord of the Rings.