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After a wobbly first three days of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering's Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate's preview season, it feels like we're settling back into a decent flow of cards. Though there still were only a few revealed, today very much had a theme of red and green, and the fun things it can do with mana dorks.
Today we had not one, but two powerful new mana dork commanders, a potential rival to Brass's Bounty, and a blink spell that adds an extra insult to injury for your opponents. Here are the highlights from day four of Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate's previews.
Raggadragga, Goreguts Boss
T🥃wo generic, one red, one green legendary creature – Human Board – 4/4:
Each creature you control wit✱h a mana ability gets +2/+2.
Whenever a creature you control with a mana ability attacks, un𝓰tap it.
Whenever you cast a spell, if at least seven mana was spent to cast it, untapꩲ target creature. ꦐIt gets +7/+7 and gains trample until end of turn.
Mana dork tribal is now a thing, and its implications are quite scary. Mana dorks are generally small, low-costed creatures that can produce mana. They're great for ramping in the early stages of the game, but are often offset by being easily removed and no good at blocking.
Raggadragga takes all your Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic, Leafkin Dru꧙ids, and Birds of Paradises and gives them +2/+2 – putting them out of range of ping (one damage) and shock (two damage) spells. Players with just a mana dork out can now more safely block without hurting their own resource base too, which is huge.
Scaling things up, it's shocking how quickly Raggadragga becomes scary thanks to his second ability. Your deck is incentivised to have lots of ramping dorks in it, so you're going to be hitting bigger spells quicker than many of your opponents. Triggering his +7/+7 and trample buff is going to be so easy, and with something like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Marwyn, the Nurturer under your control there's some combo potential here too.
And what about Ashaya? Ashaya, Soul of the Wild turns all your creatures into forests, giving them a mana ability and putting them under your commander's protection. An 8/8 Llanowar Elves is one thing, a 17/17 Gigantosaurus with trample is another thing entirely.
Jaheira, Friend of the Forest (translated name TBA)
Two generic, one green legend🔯ary creature – Human Elf Druid – 2/3:
Tokens you control have "tap: add one grཧe♈en mana".
Choose a Background.
The second mana dork commander on today's highlights, Jaheira turns every token you produce into a dork that can tap to produce green mana.
At first glance, it seems like the obvious answer is to make 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a load of creature tokens to have near-endless supplies of green mana, but Jaheira does a lot more than that. Note that it just says "tokens", not "creature Tokens" – all those Treasure tokens you make can tap for green instead of sacrifice under Jaheira. Clue, Food, Gold, and Blood also work, making Academy Manufactor a card you'll want to run in your Jaheira deck. It even works for more specific tokens, like Volo's Journal, Tamiyo's Notebook, or Toggo's Rocks.
Creatures will likely 💧be your main source of mana, though, making Jaheira such a good inclusion in your Raggadragga deck, or vice-versa if you partner Jaheira up with a red Background like Dragon Cultist or, preferably, Guild Artꦰisan.
Thrakkus the Butcher
Three ge🌄neric, one red, one green legendary creature – Dragon Peasant – 3/4:
Trample.
When෴ever Thrakkus the Butcher attacks, double the po꧑wer of each Dragon you control until end of turn.
While Thrakkus isn't going to be the greatest Dragon tribal commander ever made, it's almost wholesome to see such a simple, straight-forward ability available for the creature type. Why bother with cheating mana costs with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the Ur-Dragon wh🐭en you could just do big, smashy things with Thraಌkkus?
Thrakkus means dragons stay expensive, so you'll need the heavy-ramping ones like Goldspan Dragon and Old Gnawbone to keep yourself in the mana. The upside is he even buffs himself, turning from a 3/4 into a 6/4 whenever he attacks.
Though we're still pretty low on the common Dragons available, we have seen more of them in Battle for Baldur's Gate, thanks to the liberal use of Dragonborns to represent lower-rarity Dragons. With time we could see Thrakkus become a Pauper Commander version of Atarka, World Render.
Speaking of Atarka, imagine putting Thrakkus in♏to an Atarka de♛ck to quadruple the total damage of your Dragons.
Blood Money (translated name TBA)
Five generic, two black sorcery:
Destroy all creatures. For each nonto🌄ken creature destroyed this way, create a tapped Treasure token.
Blood Money is a card some have already described as "the new Brass's Bounty", thanks to the sheer number of Treasure tokens it could make. However, while it does make an astonishing amount of mana for you, it isn't quite as overpowered as it may at first seem.
Seven mana for a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:board wipe is expensive, and casting it as a sorcery likely means it's the only thing you'll be casting that turn. Having those Treasures enter the battlefield tapped also means you can't rebuild your board straight away, and you'll need to survive a whole turn cycle with minimal blockers and few ways to stop your opponents from blowing up all your mana if they can.
There are ways to work around it, though. This could be a good card in an Archelos, Lagoon Mystic deck if you can find a way to ensure Archelos survives the wipe. You've also got cards like Amulet of Vigor that serve the same role – ensuring those Treasures enter untapped to let you rebuild while your opponents are defenceless.
Lae'zel's Acrobatics
Three generic, one white instant:
Exile all nontoken creatures you contro🌟l, then rolﷺl a d20.
1-9: Return those cards to the battlefield under their owner's control at the beginning of the next end step.
10-20: Return those cards to the battlefield under their owner's control, then exile them again. Return those cards to the battlefield under their owner's control at the beginning of the next end step.
What's better than a way to protect your creatures from a board wipe like Blood Money? Having a way to protect your creatures from a board wipe like Blood Money, and then flexing by having your creatures 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:blink in and out of exile an extra time for good measure.
Lae'zel's Acrobatics is straight-up value. For four mana you get at least one set of new enters the battlefield triggers while protecting your board, which is incredibly powerful, but there's a 50 percent chance that you'll get another set of triggers on top of it. From simple effects like Solemn Simulacrum and Eternal Witness, to game-winners like Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Dockside Extortionist, Lae'zel's Acrobatics has so many ways to storm you way ahead of the rest of the table.