This time around I’ll be reviewing the significantly smaller Commander 2019 set. These preconstructed decks almost always have a bunch of highlander playable and sometimes even new staples. The deck themes for this Commander product are Flashback, Morph, Populate and Madness. I do not have high hopes for any of these decks, aside from possibly the Flashback themed precon, to have a substantial impact on the format, but I would love to be wrong as these keywords all have the potential to be very interesting. Unfortunately Commander products often include a large number of cards that are either reprints or reference Commander cards directly, this means that this set review is likely to be quite a bit shorter than the last two I’ve written.

Rating Scheme

1: The card is interesting or notable in some way, but probably not playable.

2: The card doesn’t have an obvious home, but could be worth keeping in mind for future builds of decks or perhaps new archetypes that form later down the line.

3: It’s a solid card that slots into currently established decks or provides a solid option for developing ones.

4: A good card, is competitive with existing top tier staples.

5: A fantastic card, demands new archetypes be created around it or replaces existing top tier staples outright.

White

Mandate of Peace

This is a similar effect to a kicked Orim’s Chant, although it clearly has some downsides in comparison, giving your opponents a chance to do things in the precombat main phase. I think Mandate of Peace will have some niche applications in decks that would also be interested in strapping an Orim’s Chant or other disruptive spell to an Isochron Scepter.

Rating: 2

Sevinne’s Reclamation

There have been a few Highlander decks that have sought to abuse the ETB/Attack trigger of Sun Titan in the past. Having that ability as a standalone card may be appealing enough for some decks that would like some resilience against grindy midrange or control decks. Another application I can see this card having is a proactive use in some sort of graveyard-centric combo deck that tries to mill itself out with an Hermit Druid -esque effect and reanimate two permanents that can do the job from there. I don’t know if that style of kill would be more or less resilient than other established Hermit Druid kills, and the high Flashback mana cost might prohibit it from even being considered.

Rating: 2

Blue

Wall of Stolen Identity

Podding into removal spells is generally pretty attractive in a lot of midrange mirrors, at the same time, podding into Phantasmal Image or other <Clone> effects is also pretty common. Having access to both of these effects seems incredibly powerful, but unfortunately it has its drawbacks. Not being a true removal spell and not being able to remove a static effect is bound to come up, but is mitigated by potentially copying a powerful ETB effect and negating a LTB or “dies” trigger. Another downside of the effect is adding defender to the copied creature, making this card challenging to win the game with. I remain a bit skeptical on the applications of this card in the Highlander format, but I’m excited by the possibilities.

Rating: 2

Black

K’rrik, son of Yawgmoth

This card has a pretty phenomenal power level, turning every black symbol into a Phyrexian mana is ludicrous. It may be important to note that this is not limited to the costs of spells; it works for any cost, including activated or triggered abilities. As a 7 drop, this might have been relegated to the realm of EDH and probably wouldn’t have had a hope of seeing play, but as luck would have it, it can be a 4 drop if you want it to be. K’rrik’s body leaves a bit to be desired, almost demanding that it is followed up by a flurry of black spells . I expect K’rrik will see some fringe play in mono black control decks and I’m sure someone will try to pod it into Griselbrand eventually.

Rating: 3

Mire in Misery

Black has been lacking effective enchantment removal for decades. I’m glad to see the effect being added, even if only in this limited, inefficient way. I’m not sure that this will be quite good enough to see play in the sideboards of Highlander decks, but it does allow Grixis coloured decks to have an answer to effects such as Blood Moon and Sylvan Library which would otherwise signal the end of the game.

Rating: 2

Red

Anje’s Ravager

I have seen a dedicated madness deck played in highlander in the past, it was a lumbering, untuned pile of old payoffs that didn’t quite cut the mustard a decade or so later, it could however, be improved upon greatly by the addition of new, powerful madness cards.

We saw some payoffs in the Shadows over Innistrad block a few years ago, but none of them held a candle to this particular vampire. If you can get this into play on turn 2 and have the material and resources to get value off its discard trigger, you’re probably going to have a fantastic time, being able to do so consistently is the main difficulty, and I think the only real thing holding this card back from being a staple in aggressive decks in the format.

Rating: 3

Green

Apex Altisaur

As far as big dumb idiots go, this one is pretty big and pretty dumb. This card reads to me like a Wrath of God effect that Reanimator decks can play without much effort. Being able to kill every one of your opponent’s creatures and retain a 10/10 after the dust settles is a huge swing in the game state. I expect to see this crop up as a common inclusion in Reanimator and Sneak Attack focused sideboards.

Rating: 4

Multicoloured

Elsha of the Infinite

Elsha reminds me a lot of Kess, Dissident Mage, but is less susceptible to incidental graveyard hate, more aggressive and easier to do something unfair with. All this comes at the cost of lacking evasion, being more susceptible to removal spells and requiring a much bigger upfront investment of mana. As I mentioned earlier, Elsha has a pretty high ceiling, it combines with Sensei’s Divining Top to draw a ton of cards and make Elsha very big indeed, but I’m unsure if this is enough to hang a deck on or even justify Elsha’s place in an otherwise powerful deck. Regardless, I’m very interested to see what people do with it.

Rating: 3

Ghired, Conclave Exile

Ghired is, I believe, the only one of the Commander face cards to have some applications in the highlander format. Ghired’s high toughness, combined with its token friend, makes it a compact and resilient threat that lends itself to being Birthing Pod-ed into and out of play, if making a bunch of Rhinos (or other tokens) just won’t get the job done.

Rating: 2

Volrath, the Shapestealer

Volrath quite simply has an outrageously large body, with an incredibly attractive activated ability that will work wonders in Birthing Pod style decks. Combined with it’s triggered ability which can pick off small mana dorks or greatly influence combat math, I imagine we’ll be seeing quite a bit of Volrath in the highlander format over the coming months.

My pick for the best place to play it is in Dark Bant, with so many creatures with beneficial “dies” triggers; Volrath will almost always be guaranteed to get value. It may be worth mentioning that if a creature with undying or persist is copied with Volrath’s activated ability in response to a removal spell, Volrath will return with the appropriate counter, if you chose an undying creature, you can remove the +1/+1 counter at the beginning of your combat step, which might be enough to demolish your midrange opponent if you get it going.

Rating: 3

Artifact

Empowered Autogenerator

Untapping artifacts and proliferating or otherwise generating charge counters are pretty trivial things to do if you feel it’s worth the trouble. This particular card can be quite the enabler to any number of unfair things if you get it going, but the deckbuilding cost (as well as the high up front investment of 4 mana) might make it a bit too much work in the current metagame.

Rating: 2

Idol of Oblivion

Aggro decks sometimes have to dig pretty deep to get card advantage. In Tokens decks, Skullclamp is usually the main go-to. This card is clearly a significant downgrade, but also comes with the bonus feature of strengthening your board instead of tearing it apart.

I don’t imagine that the second ability will be activated all too often, but it’s a nice tool to have access to if the game goes long. I expect that this card will see play only in tokens focused strategies, it pairs excellently with planeswalkers that can repeatedly make tokens such as Gideon, Ally of Zendikar or enchantments like Bitterblossom

Rating: 2

Conclusion

Overall I think Commander 2019 will not be a very impactful set to highlander as well or other eternal formats due to the lack of high power level cards, i feel this set likely lacks those powerful and competitively costed effects that we have come to expect from Commander products because all that design space was used up in Modern Horizons. Hopefully this doesn not become a trend, as this round of Commander products was rather uninspiring.

Special thanks to Aidan Frisch and Angus McKay for helping me to edit and upload this.

– James O’Rourke