Welcome to the first edition of Things Are About to Get Weird, the series of articles on the Magic: the Gathering format known as Commander (and Elder Dragon Highlander) where the cards are bad and winning doesn’t matter! Today we’re going to be looking at five cards, one for each of the five colors of Magic, that can be downright silly and definitely fun: Chamber of Manipulation, Forbidden Crypt, Impulsive Maneuvers, Oath of Druids, and Debt of Loyalty. Without further ado:

1. Chamber of Manipulation

Auras are, as a rule, bad. After all, it isn’t hard to get two-for-one’d, so we’re really only interested in putting auras on creatures that have hexproof or some other way to not end up in the graveyard asap, right?

But what about lands? We’ve definitely seen our fair share of land auras lately, with Return to Ravnica having more than its fair share. While we’ve all popped a land now and again, as well as had our own lands destroyed on occasion, it’s a rare occurrence, even for Commander.

(RIP Sylvan Primordial)

So we can pretty safely play land enchantments and not worry too much about it; heck, when your enchanted land is sitting next to something like a Kessig Wolf Run, Maze of Ith, Inkmoth Nexus, or Academy Ruins, I think we all know what will be the target of that Acidic Slime‘s slimey ire!

Which brings us to today’s only non-rare: Chamber of Manipulation.

Chamber is part of a cycle of land auras from Odyssey, and it is by far the most effective and interesting one. This was before the days when red established its tyrannical rule over what are called “threaten effects” — the ability to temporarily gain control of an opponent’s creature. No, this is old school Magic here — Ray of Command style!

So Chamber of Manipulation is just Ray of Command on a stick, right? Yes and no. Let’s look deeper.

The first thing we notice is that the Chamber costs a discarded card to activate; while, on the bright side, you aren’t paying mana to get this effect (aside from the land you’re already tapping), you are losing a card to recreate the effect of another card in the game, in true Spellshaper style! This balances it a bit; you can’t just infinitely tap — the Chamber of Manipulation is a limited resource. On the bright side, you can activate it immediately, assuming you didn’t tap the enchanted land to cast Chamber. Pretty cool, right?

Something else to note is the lack of haste on Chamber of Manipulation. You grab the creature, sure, but unless you have controlled it since the beginning of your turn, you can’t tap it or attack with it. Sucks, right? Well, not exactly. First, keep in mind that you can rob an opponent of a creature to temporarily use it as a blocker — something Blue loves to do as it plots and schemes to win through some ridiculous bullshit MaRo-never-intended-that way. Such is the life of a Blue mage!

[Note: Previously, I suggested that the end-of-turn use of Chamber of Manipulation could be used to hold on to your opponent’s creature for the duration of your next turn; however, note that the templating for Chamber of Manipulation is different fromw hat we see today; it is not controlling the creature “until the beginning of the next end step,” as in the case of Venser, the Soujourner. Instead, it reads “until end of turn.” So fun fact: the effect ends with the cleanup step, meaning that it is impossible for the turn to end without Chamber’s ability checking and being ended. Too bad, so sad! Thanks to Drilnoth for correcting me.]

Finally, the Chamber of Manipulation has another impact on the game: rattlesnaking. Follow that link to learn a lot more about it from someone wiser than I, but to be brief: you scare your opponents by having this card on the board. They know that if they play a creature, it can be stolen away and used against them. Yes… their fear is delicious.

2. Forbidden Crypt

Speaking of fear, let’s move on to the black card for today. Graveyards, as a friend of mine likes to point out, are like deck 2.0 — and in a singleton format like Commander, that’s pretty important, as when you lose key parts of your deck, they are gone — forever! Well, provisionally forever; many players run things like Regrowth, Archaeomancer, Animate Dead, Replenish, and Past in Flames to get a little more bang for their buck. After all, in a format where counterspells, targeted removal, sweep, and just plain ‘ole malice runs rampant, you can sometimes expect that awesome play to be stopped once, twice, three times or more!

So why not go the extra mile and just play your graveyard?

Forbidden Crypt does exactly that! By replacing your draws with pulling cards from your graveyard, you get two effects: first, you allow yourself to replay each and every card in your graveyard at least once (until you’re removed from the game, anyway); and second, you are essentially tutoring every turn, transforming your deck into a toolbox.

Also, you really rustle a Nekusar deck’s jimmies. Good luck dealing with that enchantment, Grixis!

Now, this card isn’t so great if you aren’t working with much of a graveyard; in fact, it’s an express ticket to lose town, population: you, in just a few turns if you haven’t been pitching cards left and right! That’s why this particular card is best paired with self-milling cards like Mesmeric Orb, Dreamborn Muse, and even a Traumatize targeting yourself. Once you’ve got a fat stack of a graveyard, you can let Forbidden Crypt do the work of being your own private Maralen of the Mornsong. Not bad, eh?

Of course… all it takes is a Relic of Progenitus, Bojuka Bog, Leyline of the Void, Ground Seal, Rest in Peace, Tormod’s Crypt, or Angel of Finality to put you out of the game and in the corner, but nobody ever said casting a free Demonic Tutor every turn would be easy.

3. Impulsive Maneuvers

Have you ever wanted to show up to a game of Commander, take out a roll of pennies for each player, and hand them out while saying, “You’ll need this”? Because that’s what you’ll find yourself doing every time you run this granddaddy of the coin flip, Impulsive Maneuvers.

This is the second Odyssey card on this list, and it won’t be the last in this series — that was a seriously weird set. Impulsive Maneuvers is one of those crazy Red enchantments that can make the game go either way, and which is hard to build around. Sure, you can try to play the odds, but in the end you’ve got a 50/50 chance of doubling your damage or preventing it, which just about evens out. In the end, it may be best at simply discouraging swarm decks (looking at you, Krenko…) from attacking out of pure laziness!

Of course, there are ways to break this baby. Why, come with me to Magical Christmasland, where you have imprinted a Krark’s Thumb onto a Prototype Portal, with a Gratuitous Violence and Furnace of Rath out. Alternatively, you can throw an Everlasting Torment or Leyline of Punishment on the field, and you’re guaranteed to get some damage on the board!

What Impulsive Maneuvers comes down to is this: do you like to flip coins? Do you like to make your opponents do ridiculous things just to advance their strategy? If you answered yes to both of these and you run red in a deck, then Impulsive Maneuvers is for you!

4. Oath of Druids

One of the many wonderful things about Commander is that what is acceptable and good in other formats is not necessarily so in this format. Tarmogoyf is, for example, one of the best creatures available in Modern and Legacy play. Yet who would want to run Tarmogoyf in a multiplayer game of Commander? In 1v1 “French,” or Duel Commander, it might make sense, but in a multiplayer game you’re wasting a valuable slot on what amounts to a relatively small, ineffective creature. That is a description that could also be applied to Oath of Druids:

At first glance, Oath of Druids is similar to Tarmogoyf: critical to certain competitive decks, the card can win you the game in the right circumstances, but in a format like multiplayer Commander? To the Spike, the Oath either won’t make a large enough impact or it will help your opponent win the game. With a singleton deck and without the resources to control your many opponents’ boards effectively, the Oath’s parallel effect becomes extremely chaotic, random, and potentially quite bad for you — something that is rare in mono-Green!

Ultimately, however, Oath of Druids makes games interesting. As it isn’t one-sided, it is more likely to stick around, something that can’t be said of cards like Defense of the Heart or Deadbridge Chant. You can be reasonably confident that everyone is going to get to trigger Oath of Druids, leading to games where creatures just randomly flop onto the battlefield, doing their thing, while obnoxious enchantments, artifacts, instants, sorceries, lands, and planeswalkers languish in the graveyard, where they belong!

Of course, there are ways to play Oath to your advantage, even in a multiplayer game; manipulating your top-deck using Soothsaying, Sensei’s Divining Top, Crystal Ball, Worldly Tutor, and other effects of that nature can help you get the creature you want and save your other toys. While you’re spitting out awesome creatures, your opponents are shedding card after card from the top of their deck. But at least they get a creature! Creatures are cool, right?

5. Debt of Loyalty

Commander is a casual format that most people only play with friends — I know that’s the case for me! As such, you don’t always make the optimal play; sometimes you choose the fun or merciful path, and all is right in the world. Even in pick-up games where friends aren’t present, you find Group Hug decks that just want everyone to get along and play nice.

In my experience, there is always poison in the wine and a dagger in the dark. The group hug deck is trying to win by some kind of combo that it is stalling for, or it is planning to mill everyone out, or it is just trying to force you to concede out of boredom. Meanwhile, whenever a friend offers to help, I presume they are planning to win by helping me. You may think I’m paranoid, but all you have to do is see Debt of Loyalty played a few times to understand that nothing is free…

This card is often prefaced by a single, simple question: “Do you want me to save your creature?” Remember that old saying about Greeks bearing gifts… Debt of Loyalty is one of the few cards that breaks the color pie restriction as far as stealing creatures is concerned. Evangelize lets you steal creatures as well, though just as with Debt of Loyalty, it has restrictions. In Debt’s case, the creature has to actually regenerate in order to be stolen; if you cast this on a creature and it never has cause to regenerate that turn, then Debt has effectively fizzled. Sad face.

In a color where wrath effects are abundant, making Debt happen at just the right time isn’t difficult at all. (Though, uh, try to avoid the “Can’t be regenerated” clause, yeah?) You can even snag an opponent’s commander with Debt of Loyalty! Targeting a creature with removal, Debting it, and then flipping it to your side to attack next turn can be pretty satisfying. Finally, you can Debt your own creature in a pinch! The card, of course, gets extra points for being woven into the story of the Weatherlight and its crew, one of the best Magic story lines in the history of the game.

Weird Wrap-Up

That’s all for the first Things Are About to Get Weird! A thousand thanks to the folks posting at reddit.com/r/EDH for feeding my addiction and encouraging/inspiring me to write this blog. I’m happy to discuss these and other cards in the comments below, and expect to hear from me again next weekend!