The Best Commander Cards From Wilds Of Eldraine

Genoslugcs August 20, 2023 8 min
The Best Commander Cards From Wilds Of Eldraine

One of the most exciting parts of a new MTG set dropping is getting exciting pieces for your commander decks. The next set on the horizon is "Wilds of Eldraine." It takes us away from the kingdoms and keeps of our first visit and into the wilds. And while we have only had a single batch of official WOE spoilers and around 20 cards leaked, some cards will do very well in Commander. So, today, I will cover all the best commander cards from Wilds of Eldraine.

I'll cover the eligible commanders from the set and review all relevant non-legendary creatures cards. We're talking new spot removal, board wipes, token producers, utility creatures, etc. If it's good in EDH and from Wilds of Eldraine, you'll find it here. So, without further ado, let's get into the best commander cards from Wilds of Eldraine.

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Best Commander Cards From Wilds Of Eldraine

As mentioned in the introduction, we've not seen many cards from Wilds of Eldraine yet. So, this will be a shortlist until we get more spoilers. However, I'll keep it updated as new cards come out, so keep your eye out. The list will be in no particular order. Ok, here goes!

Beseech the Mirror

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Beseech the Mirror is a tutor that shows off the new bargain mechanic: "You may sacrifice an artifact, enchantment, or token as you cast this spell." If you pay the bargain cost, you can cast the card for free if it has a mana value of four or less. It would go to your hand if you didn't pay the bargain cost or the spell exceeded four mana.

Casting anything for free is a huge deal in EDH. And there are many ways to turn paying the bargain cost into an upside instead of a downside. For example, ditching something like Solemn Simulacrumimage, Circuit Menderimage, or Myr Retrieverimage can all be great value on top of getting to tutor for a spell and cast it for free.

Kellan, the Fae-Blooded

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Boros is the color combination you likely want to be in if you're playing an equipment deck, and the archetype is getting a new general here—and a spicy, rather adventurous one. The adventure portion gives you access to a repeatable Open the Armoryimage type tutor effect right from the command zone, which is fantastic.

The creature portion, Kellan himself, is everything you'd want in a Voltron-style commander. And he supports himself perfectly. Everything you tutor for with the adventure can be slapped on him, and considering he has doublestrike, you could threaten lethal commander damage pretty quickly.

Oh, and I also love his ability to pump the rest of the team! With even a few pieces of equipment on him, any other attackers you have will be pretty formidable. And it also divides opposing resources some - In my experience, dealing with a "go-wide" and a "go-tall" strategy is a lot harder, and Kellan allows you to play both in one concise package.

A Tale for the Ages

a tale for the ages

A Tale for the Agesimage is a powerhouse card for enchantment decks. It's by far the best effect like this ever printed. For two mana, all of your enchanted creatures get +2/+2. This will see play until the end of time in Zur, Eternal Schemerimage and similar decks in Commander. Having such a cheap way to add power and toughness to your already augmented creatures will make them hit very hard.

Virtue of Knowledge

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Virtue of Knowledge is a powerful new adventure card that looks a whole lot like Panharmoniconimage and Elesh Norn, Mother of Machinesimage. Any deck looking for this type of effect will love a third (arguably even better) copy of these cards. I say "better" because that's only half of what this does.

The adventure portion, Ventress Visions, lets you copy a triggered or activated ability you control. If you're playing the effect that Virtue gives you here, you can bet your Mox that you'll have some good stuff to double up on. And having access to two powerful, cohesive effects for a single spot in your deck is phenomenal.

Agatha's Soul Cauldron

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It's almost hard to wrap your head around the possibilities with this card. It essentially allows you to steal the activated abilities of creatures in any graveyard and give them to all of your creatures, so long as they have +1/+1 counters on them. So, you will want to play this in a build where you can distribute +1/+1 counters on your board.

Once you do that, you can exile the creatures with the best activated abilities and use them for yourself. Even something as simple as a Llanowar Elvesimage means you almost have a Cryptolith Riteimage in play. And that's thinking small - There are cards like Avatar of Woeimage and Deathrite Shamanimage, and Experiment Krajimage, which can get out of hand quickly.

Imodane, the Pyrohammer

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First up, we have a brand-new mono-red commander. Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell (with only a single target) deals damage to a creature Imodame deals that much damage to each opponent. The "single-target" clause means this doesn't work with things that target multiple creatures, such as Blasphemous Actimage or Delayed Blast Fireballimage.

It works great with spells like Lightning Boltimage, Abradeimage, Lava Coilimage, Banefireimage, and many more. Any instant or sorcery that deals damage to a single creature will get you triggers here and send that much damage to your opponent's dome. This will be a perfect home for damage-buffing effects like Solphim, Mayhem Dominusimage, Torbran, Thane of Red Fellimage, Dictate of the Twin Godsimage, and Fiery Emancipationimage.

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Let's use Fiery Emancipationimage as an example. Say you have Imodane, the Pyrohammer, and Fiery Emancipation in play and cast a Lightning Boltimage, targeting a creature. You can stack things so that Fiery Emancipation would double the bolt's damage to nine. Then, your commander would trigger and triple, meaning each opponent would take 27 damage.

This isn't exactly a ground-breaking ability for a mono-red commander, but it's got enough of a twist to be interesting. And who doesn't like throwing around tons of damage?

Beluna, Grandsquall

 Beluna, Grandsquall

Beluna will be our first devoted Adventure Commander and the first legendary creature to have the ability. The adventure side, Seek Thrills, has you mill seven cards, then put all adventure cards from among them into your hand. The creature portion is a three-mana 4/4 with trample that reduces the cost of permanent spells with adventure that you cast.

It's worth noting that this can't reduce the cost of the Seek Thrillsimage half of the card, or any other adventure, for that matter, because, as of now, none are permanents. So, for example, you could cast a Bonecrusher Giantimage for two mana but not a Stompimage for one.

I'm unsure how good the Seek Thrill portion of the card is, considering you mill over the cards, and they go to your hand. You'll have difficulty running a devoted reanimation package without access to Black. And aside from a few spells like Eternal Witnessimage, Noxious Revivalimage, or Bela Ged Recovery, you'll pretty much be cut off from anything that hits the graveyard and anything that does make it to hand; you'll still have to cast.

The creature side is much more interesting, especially considering new adventure cards will come in Wilds of Eldraine. As of now, Beanstalk Giantimage, Bonecrusher Giantimage, Brazen Borrowerimage, Guardian Nagaimage, Merchant of the Valeimage, Realm-Cloaked Giantimage, Rosethorn Acolyteimage, and Sapphire Dragonimage are all very good in the 99 of this deck.

Stroke Of Midnight

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This will be an auto-include in many white EDH decks. It's very similar to Generous Giftimage, which is undoubtedly a staple in Commander. While they're similar, they're not exact. First, Stroke of Midnightimage can't remove lands. Overall, it's less versatile. However, it gives a smaller token as compensation for whatever you targeted. Generous Gift gives a 3/3, while this new version only grants a 1/1. So, there is some give and take here.

If you have a lot of problematic lands in your playgroup, you'd probably rather have the ability to hit lands than a smaller consolation prize. If you've been running Generous Gift for years and never once targeted a land with it, you can likely get away with running this without issue and have to give your opponents less.

Either way, there's no doubt that this will be played quite a lot. Even if it isn't one of the best commander cards from Wilds of Eldraine in terms of raw power, it has all the playability in the world.

Moonshaker Cavalry

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People are calling Moonshaker Cavalryimage "the white Craterhoof Behemothimage" and with good reason. When it enters the battlefield, creatures you control get flying and +x/+x until the end of the turn, where x is the number of creatures you have in play. So, if you have four creatures in play (counting Moonshaker itself), all those creatures will get +4/+4. Much like Craterhoof in Green, this will often be a game-ending card.

There are also many ways to blick/flicker this in white, and that could lead to some discussing plays. If you drop this onto an even meager board and then cast Ghostly Flickerimage, Ephemerateimage, or something similar on it, you could produce a massive aerial attack out of nowhere. Will this replace Craterhoof Behemothimage? No. Will it see play alongside it in G/W creature-based decks and be run in Mono-White, Boros, and Golgari token decks until the end of time? Oh yeah!

Expel the Interlopers

expel the interlopers

You've always got to look at new board wipes regarding commander. Most decks need at least a few in their arsenal. Most of the top board wipes are pretty cemented in their places at the top of the heap for mass removal. However, Commander has so many niches; you've always gotta look.

In the case of Expel the Interlopersimage, I do think it could find success in Arcades, the Strategistimage and Doran, the Siege Towe decks where most of the creatures have zero power. You could choose one and spare most of your creatures while surely removing most, if not all, of the creatures on opposing battlefields.

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One of the top-played wraths in those decks now is Wave of Reckoningimage, and I think this new card may be better because you have more control over what gets removed and what doesn't.

Gruff Triplets

Gruff Triplets

Gruff Triplets is my favorite card from the spoilers. It makes two token copies of itself when it enters the battlefield. So, you're getting nine power and toughness (spread across three bodies) with trample for six mana. Even without any shenanigans, this is a phenomenal rate. And when one of them dies, any Guff Triplets in play get +1/+1 counters equal to its power. This reminds me of Wurmcoil Engineimage and will be difficult to deal with effectively.

Let's say the original Gruff dies, and you still have the two token copies in play - Both would get three +1/+1 counters, becoming 6/6s with trample. This means you've now reached a total of 15 power/toughness for your six mana investment. And they've only dealt with one-third of your card. If one of the 6/6 dies, the surviving token will get +6/+6, becoming a 12/12.

In commander, I think this could be decent in any stompy/ramp deck looking to get a lot of power and toughness for a relatively small amount of mana. That said, I think it will be an all-star in decks that can abuse the token production. For example, Adrix and Nev, Twincastersimage and Esix, Fractal Bloomimage could power out an army of hard-to-deal-with tokens that will only get bigger.

Conclusion

Wilds of Eldraine is looking like a great set. Out of the 20 or so cards we've seen so far, several cards will be powerhouses in Commander and other formats as well. As we get more spoilers revealed, I'll update this list. Comment below and let me know your thoughts on what we've seen.

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