By Jeremy Rose and Shay Muscarella
Streets of New Capenna is jam packed with powerful cards and some really good role
player upgrades for a lot of decks. As the Commander format shifts its attention to Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate, we at Foxy’s Proxys wanted to share some final thoughts about our favorite cards from SNC! It’s important to note that, while many of these cards have been great to play with in a variety of formats, we’ll be looking at them with a focus on Commander. Alright, let’s get into it!
Inspiring Overseer
Remember when one of the biggest complaints from Commander players was that white just wasn’t good enough to hang with the other colors? We’re not so sure that’s the case anymore and it’s due, in large part, to cards like this one. A three mana 2/1 flyer that draws a card is nothing new to a color like blue, but this is big game in white. Combined with all of white’s many flicker effects and affinity for aggressive creatures, this card goes into so many decks. It may not be an all-star in the format, but it’s a great role player and a sign that white might finally be getting somewhere.
An Offer You Can’t Refuse
While it will generally be compared unfavorably to Swan Song, this card is still a one mana counterspell that hits more card types. Giving an opponent two treasure is certainly a bigger downside than giving them a 2/2 bird, but if you’re playing a deck that wants a Swan Song, your deck probably also wants An Offer You Can’t Refuse. Only having to leave up one mana saves a ton of mana over the course of the game and, a lot of times, your opponent will be casting something that costs more than two mana, so they’ll still end up down on mana in the exchange. Additionally, the fact that this card is about $1 at the time of this article, most players are going to have an easier time acquiring this one over the Swan Song.
Void Rend / Endless Detour
We’re going to group these two cards together due to them both being mostly
unconditional removal. Removal spells are a staple of Magic decks and, even though
Commander players may not be the biggest fans of it at times, players should be running a
sufficient number in their Commander decks too. Aside from hyper efficient removal like
Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile, the best kind of removal in Commander is the
unconditional kind. Every game has a wide variety of threats that are deployed and no
sideboards means we don’t get to adjust what we have to deal with it on the fly like other
formats do. This makes removal spells that hit anything the ideal cards to be playing for that
purpose. Void Rend doesn’t interact on the stack but will remove anything once it’s hit the board and is uncounterable so will be far harder to stop. Endless Detour, while not uncounterable, does hit both spells on the stack and cards in graveyards so it gets the edge in versatility. Both of these cards are solid removal spells in those three-color combinations and most decks of those colors should be glad to add them to the toolbox.
Falco Spara, Pactweaver
Shield counters are way stronger in Commander than we ever thought they would be
which is pretty cool in and of itself. But Falco here doesn’t just care about removing shield
counters, he’ll allow you to remove any kind of counter from a creature you control to cast the top card of your library. And what’s more, he comes stocked with his own counter already so that you can fire off the top of your library in a pinch. Falco gets even more absurd when you start messing around with Undying and Persist counters or maybe flying counters from
Luminous Broodmoth. Sure, you still need the mana to cast those cards from your library, but
this card still seems to be pretty powerful in our format.
Henzie “Toolbox” Torre / Ziatora, the Incinerator
We grouped these two together because either one could be a sick commander for Jund
sacrifice themed deck. One that isn’t so boring as to just jam Korvold in the command zone and call it a day. Henzie has a big cost reduction applied to huge creatures that keep the hand full and trigger any sacrifice payoffs that may be lying around. Ziatora is great for threatening your opponents’ creatures and chucking them straight back into their faces. They provide some style distinctions but are both viable commanders for this strategy. And yeah, fine, Korvold can go in the 99.
Riveteers Ascendency
This is another piece that fits in the Jund sacrifice deck mentioned above. This
Ascendency allows for some cool shenanigans with sacrificing your creatures, with the blitz
ability from Henzie or flinging them with Ziatora and getting extra value out of it straight from your graveyard. Recurring creatures that provide value on ETB or on death triggers is going to push this card way over the top and even more so if you can manage to steal your opponents’ threats, sacrifice them, and then recur your own.
Brokers Charm
One of the toughest parts about playing a reactive deck that’s heavy on interaction is
not developing your own board so that you can interact with your opponents as needed.
Brokers Charm helps ease that burden in a number of ways. First, it provides some decent interaction itself. It can destroy an enchantment, of which
there are plenty of problematic ones in Commander, and it can kill a creature provided you
have managed to stick one of your own at some point. However, failing those first two options, you never have to worry about taking a turn off because you can always draw two cards on the end step before your turn so you don’t miss out on the value you would otherwise. It may not be a game winner or anything, but Brokers Charm is another great role player in interactive decks.
The New ‘Triomes’
We would be remiss if we didn’t at least mention the completion of ‘Triome’ cycle of
lands as these have become some of the best lands in Commander due to their having the basic land types for our fetch lands. They’re good and we should all be playing them. However, we are pretty bummed out that they are not called Triomes like the first half of the cycle was and we’re bummed the new borderless art doesn’t match up with the older ones either. It definitely feels like a miss from an aesthetics perspective, and we know we’re not the only ones feeling this way. Fixed Triome Secret Lair when?
That’ll do it for our favorite cards from the set! This organized crime themed set has
been really entertaining and full of sweet new cards! What are your favorite cards from the set?
Is there anything about the cards we listed that we may have forgotten to mention? Let us know what you think!
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