Invent your tomorrow...today!

It's the Kaladesh pre-release this weekend so I thought I'd take a run through the set and see what cards I like for Commander/EDH

First up there's 4 planeswalkers (6 if you count the extra two but more about those later) to take a look at.  Two walkers we've never encountered before and two we have.

Meet Shaeeli Rai and Dovin Baan.

Saheeli lacks the ability to defend herself in anyway. Her -2 is strictly offensive not defensive. Unlike Dovin whose +1 is not only defensive but it's great for shutting down certain types of commander.

Being able to Sky is always nice and I can see people using Saheeli's +1 to scry until they get a large artifact creature to copy like one of the colossi (colosses) for example.

Both have decent ultimate abilities but the Emblem Dovin Baan gets will make you plenty of enemies in Commander, not that they'll be able to do much about it by that point.

Chandra and Nissa you should be already familiar with. Since the mistake Wizard's made with Jace, the Mind Sculpter they have stuck to Planeswalkers with 3 abilities.

All that changes with Chandra, Torch of Defiance. It's worth noting that you don't cast lands. So if you use Chandra's top +1 and draw a land you have to exile it and deal 2 damage to each opponent.

In mono red I can see Chandra's +1 being used to allow people to speed through their deck more easily in a colour that is starved for decent draw effects.

Her other +1 is self explanatory. Her -3 is very defensive and her ultimate is pretty nice.

Nissa, Vital Force is very much an archetypal planeswalker. Her +1 if for self defense, her -3 is nearly always going to be useful. Her ultimate is alright it's not exactly game breaking but it does give you plenty of extra cards.

So those are your Planeswalkers next up let's take a look at who you can use as a new commander, the legends of the set.

Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter isn't too bad she's cheep to cast but her abilities are not. It's her second ability that I think will see most use as creating giant creatures that can then be doubled with Populate for 5 mana is far more efficient that creating 1/1s for 3 mana.

I'm not sure Dwarf tribal is a thing yet but you can see Wizard's trying to kickstart it with Depala, Pilot Exemplar.

There's a few nice dwarves in the set and we should get more in the second set in the series. But there's scarce few dwarves otherwise with a few exceptions like Dwarven Blastminer.

There are also some very nice Vehicles in the set as well, a couple of which I'll talk about later on in this article. So you might see someone try a Depala deck but I'm not sure it'll work just yet.

I don't expect to see Padeem, Consul of Innovation as a commander. For me she has support card written all over her. Yes she'll make it into the 99 of a lot of artifact focused decks but I think there are better choices of commander for those types of decks.

Gonti, Lord of Luxury could be a lot of fun. The trick is, once you have cast the card you found in your opponent's library, to flicker him into exile so you can do it all over again.

Kambal is very straight forward. I'm guessing he'll also end up being one of the 99 rather than a commander.

Rashmi on the other hand is awesome and I'm going to build a deck around her sooner rather than later. She's either free draw or free cards in play. If you scry enough you can engineer perfect situations for yourself before casting your first spell. Also note it's each turn not just your turn.

Pia Nalaar again I'm not sure we'll see Pia much being run as a commander rather than as part of the 99. Nothing about her, for me at least, seems to say she'd be an exciting commander.

The set also contains a Legendary Land:

I Inventor's fair this to be played in decks that are heavily littered with artifacts such as Deretti, Scrap Savant decks. The life gain is not but it's the tutor ability that makes this really useful.

We also have a Legendary Artifact - Vehicle

Vehicles are arifacts that become creatures when they are Crewed. This means that Skysovereign, Consul Flagship cannot be your commander. Still it's nice card to play especially in those that don't usually have access to direct damage.

Another Vehicle that really stands out from the list is Demolition Stomper.

A 10/7 that specifically can't be chump blocked for 6 mana is a nice card and I can see it showing up in plenty of decks.

If people will pay 3 for Commander's Sphere then they will pay 3 for Cultivator's Caravan. After all you get mana of any colour on a possibly 5/5 body for 3.

This leads me nicely into a look at the other choice Artifacts in the set, and there are some gems in this set that's for sure.

Let's be honest someone, somewhere is trying to work out how to use Aetherflux Reservoir by reversing the loss of life. I know I am certainly going to look into it.  It's also a great way to abuse infinite life gain. Once you've got the life you can just sac as much as it takes to kill your opponents.

Energy counters are new for this set and provide a new method of paying for effects. In the case of Aetherworks Marvel it lets you look at the top six cards of your library and cast one of them.  It helps that it produces Energy counters to fuel itself and I can see it being used in token sacrifice decks and graveyard reanimation decks.

I'm considering putting Animation Module into my Ghave, Guru of Spores deck. It'll go infinite for sure with the right cards and doesn't need Ghave to do so which is always helpful if your commander is unavailable.

Infinite mana and an infinitely large Juniper Order Ranger.

It also gives you extra energy counters or your opponent extra poison counters should you be playing infect.

Oh look an artifact creature lord, fairly simple but oh so useful if you're creating masses of thopters, myrs or servos.

Not much needs to be said about Deadlock Trap. However, you do really need another source of energy counters in order to keep tapping your opponent's Planeswalker or Commander.

Doubling gets out of hand very quickly. So while Electrostatic Pummeler may look like a very expensive 1/1 if he gets a boost of toughness and your opponent has enough energy counters beware.

With 1 spell, giving him +4/+4 and trample and nine energy counters he'll go from 1/1 to 40/40 in the blink of an eye!

I expect to see Foundry Inspector in any artifact focused deck. It's no coincidence that he goes nicely together with Chief of the Foundry.

There are 5 Puzzleknots but for my money this one, the blue one, is the best of the bunch. Getting to Scry 2, twice and getting 4 energy counters as well I think is the most useful out of the five.

He's is big, bad and maybe a lot cheaper to cast. Let's be honest mana rocks and equipment cards abound in EDH. It's a shame Metalwork Colossus doesn't have trample or menace but does bounce back from the graveyard fairly easily.

I think Panharmonicon caused a lot of confusion when it was revealed. To clarify it triggers for both Enter The Battlefield (ETB) effects and effects generated when an artifact or creature enters the battlefield.

As a simple example you have Arbound Crusher in play and cast Solumn Simulacrum. You will search your library for 2 basic lands and put two +1/+1 counters on the Crusher as both abilities will trigger an additional time.

This is incredibly powerful in Commander I expect to see it in an awful lot of decks.

Kaladesh also comes with it's own cycle of large creatures like the Titans before them. In this case they are Constructs and are known as the Gearhulks.

As you can see they have varying costs, P/T and abilities but I want to save them for another post another time so I'll talk more about them then.

Yes you need another way to generate energy, see the Puzzleknot above, but if you've got it sat there then Aethersquall Ancient is a threat just waiting for you to trigger it. It's a sorcery which is a downside. Your opponents discount it at their peril.

Choices, choices, we all love cards with choices. I certainly do and Insidious Will ticks all the right boxes for me. Why counter when I can copy, why copy when I can redirect, why redirect when I can counter. You get the idea.

This card is an artifact token generator that gets all those lovely spells from your graveyard back into your hand. My Nekusar deck will love this.

Choices again, this time what to copy. In a game full of large creatures with game changing effects Saheeli's Artistry is serious fun.

Refurbish's main strength is the phrase 'from your graveyard to the battlefield'. It doesn't matter how the artifact got to your graveyard in the first place now does it....

Angel of Invention is an oddity that I expect to see in swarm decks where lots of small creatures get generated with lots of lord like creatures and other spells pumping them.  Although you get the option to bring her into play as a 4/3 I think most people will got for the servos.

Nothing like making life harder for your opponents and this is exactly what Authority of the Consuls does and it's only 1 white mana!

This is so cool. You lock down an opponents creature and effectively prevent all yours from being the target of the next removal spell an opponent casts or if they cast any other Arrest enchantments like this. It won't last forever but it's cool none-the-less.

This is just Wrath of God with life gain but it can be oh so sweet against token decks.

I see this and I think Feldon of the third path. If I'm thinking that then so will plenty of other people. It's not that you are drawing cards it's that you get to choose what to discard.  Draw then discard would be better but this'll do.

Any time something deals damage to all creatures I can't help but think it's a token hoser. Even better Incendiary Sabotage is an instant! Oh you created 5 million tokens? Bye bye.....

This is one of those card people are going to build decks around, you need a way to mitigate the damage but this can go fetch you all sorts of creatures. Several of which are discussed earlier in this article.

Again made for Feldon, especially as he creates artifacts. There's probably other uses for it too but Quicksmith Genius along with Incendiary Sabotage and Cathartic Reunion make me want to design a Feldon deck. Watch this space as I'm sure it'll happen in a couple of weeks.

Gotta love a dragon. There are bigger and badder ones out there but Skyship Stalker isn't to bad for 4cmc.

Damage at instant speed is always useful. Welding Sparks has the downside of only being able to target a creature, but it can be an incredibly efficient way to deal a lot of damage in the right deck - one that generates lots of artifacts.

Again I get the feeling this'll make it into my Ghave, Guru of Spore deck. But I confess I haven't actually sat down and worked out if I can make it go infinite or not. I think Durable Handicraft's Sacrifice ability is over-costed but that's not the reason I've chosen it.

Nature's Way is without doubt the best creature removal spell I've ever seen in Green. Not that unlike Hunt the weak, which has been reprinted in Kaladesh, this doesn't fight another creature it just deals damage equal to it's power. So that's one creature removed. Then you get Trample, so you can attack and push the excess damage through to your opponent. Finally you also get Vigilance so your creature is ready to block next turn.

All you need is a big fat creature to cast it on and Green excels at those.

Fortuitous Find gives you choices, do one or the other or just do both. I suspect in EDH it'll be both every time.

A token hoser that lets you rummage through your opponents graveyards for a creature to control. What's not to like? Demon of Dark Schemes will even generate energy counts for you - keep an eye on that trigger!

Oh this is oh so sweet for token player or anyone that's in black with lots of cheep creatures.  Trading a rat for an angle or hydra or dragon. Oh you get the idea I'm sure.

We play lots of artifacts in Commander, especially mana rocks and equipment cards. So what's not to like about your opponents loosing 1 life and you gaining 1 life when this happens. It's also nice to have a threat on board to stop your opponents attacking you.

There has to be a away to make Night Market Lookout go infinite and win the game. I'll work on it and report back to you when I find it.

You must by now know that I'm a huge fan of Eldrazi Displacer. Both Blue and White are great at flickering cards and Cloudblazer is a greater target for such effects.

Scrying is always useful. Whether it's useful in Black and Blue, the two colours with the best draw packages I'm not sure, but we shall see.

Giving all your creatures vigilance seemed like a nice touch to me. I'm not entirely convinced by Engineered Might but it seemed just interesting enough to include here.

Destroying a creature and dealing damage not much else to say about Unlicensed Disintegration really.

So those are my picks but as I mentioned earlier there are two more Planeswalkers in Kaladesh. These come in special introductory packs and cannot be pulled in boosters.

I can see Nissa, with her pumped up Overrun ultimate being played. Chandra I'm not so sure about but she does deal plenty of damage.

So that's it. That's my take on Kaladesh. I'm disappointed with Green truth be told, there's some interesting cards in the colour but none really stood out for me especially not the creatures.

Other than that there's plenty here to be excited about and keep my creative juices flowing.

Until next time.

Phil