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MTG Commander: Predictions and Conjectures

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For those of you waiting for WotC to release an official support product for the very unofficial format of EDH (also called Commander), you can exhale at last.  MTG: Commander has been announced, let there be dancing in the streets!  Of course, like any Magic product, there are bound to be ups and downs - things we love and thing we could probably due without.  How do we know what to expect?  That’s where good old fashioned speculation comes in.  And here is a heaping helping:

Built to Separate - With the not-so-impressive history of WotC pre-cons, it would be hard to imagine that all 100 cards (probably around 70 real cards, and 30 basic land) will be playable.  Especially in EDH, a format that can really punish sub-par spells and creatures.  In a format with a pallet of every card, creatures like Gravedigger just won't cut it, even if these card help support the 'theme' of the deck.  That isn't to say there won't be plenty of bombs sprinkled throughout to make things interesting.  The only two revealed so far look like serious fun, emphasis on serious.  All this adds up to decks that aren't quite playable on their own, but are perfect for cannibalizing by existing EDH builds (which is what many players do with all other pre-cons anyway).

Only a Hint of Gold - There are at least three 'gold' creatures in every decks including the Planar Chaos dragons, and two new general possibilities.  However, you fans of Alara Reborn should calm down some, these cards will make up the majority of the multi-colored spells in Commander.  The designers want you to break these down, or add your own stuff, and enemy color 'wedges' make that very difficult to do.  Not to mention, there just aren't a lot of cards with Doran, the Siege Tower colors.  Expect mono-colors to dominate, and for the dual lands to be pretty pedestrian in an effort to make these decks much more accessible to the new players WotC refuses to ignore (even with products designed and marketed towards veteran duelists).

General-Based Themes - Sure, only one of the new EDH generals to be released with Commander have been revealed, but Karador, Ghost Chieftan has abilities that work pretty closely with the reanimating of Teneb, the Harvester.  Look for lots of graveyard manipulating cards abound in this deck, and creature buffers abound in the Vorosh, the Hunter deck.  Too bad there are only a limited number of really cool spells that do these, meaning the quality will be lagging behind quantity right out of the box.  In otherwords, expect the aforementioned Gravedigger to actually make the cut.  Take a look at any of the PC dragons, and you'll have the themes pretty much figured, and WotC doesn't do anything like this without a theme.

Huge Spells with Options - Okay, admittedly this is not a bold prediction or anything because the CMC's of the two revealed cards are 6 and 8 respectively.  But these won't be run of the mill fatties you'll be slinging across the table, but earth-shaking bombs!  Remember, these cards aren't Standard/Extended legal and are designed for multiplayer.  Expect Breath of Malfegor x10 with some of these cards, especially the rares.  The 'commander' slots in the decks are likely the only Mythics, but we will still be witness to plenty of fireworks.  Also, much like the Archenemy cards, and Death by Dragons, many of these cards will ask you (or your opponents) to make a choice.  Think along the lines of Temporal Extortion and Browbeat, but even larger.  Sounds like good times to me.

Worth the Price of Admission - Usually we're skeptical of pre-con decks (I am especially).  The idea that you can take these to a friends house, 'lace up' and compete is almost always laughable.  A 60-card decks with 38 spells, and only 10 of those uncommon, and two rares?  Not what most of us would call competitive.  However, there is hope still - WotC has shown a trend of throwing all sorts of amazing commons in some of these decks, and if ever there was a time to Open the Vaults, Commander decks would be it.  Expect super-commons like Reanimate and Rancor to be plentiful, making the $30 that much more of a deal.

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