New Commander Rules Changes

Welcome back readers. I hope you are doing well. I have been away for a while, but there has been a new change to Commander that will impact how the game is played that warrants taking a look at. With the upcoming release of Edge of Eternities, all Legendary Vehicles as well as the new Legendary Spacecraft cards that are going to be in the next set are now eligible as commanders.

Here are some options that are now playable commanders. First, we have the Serima, which will release in the next set. This card has an ability called station, similar to crew where tapping creatures help turn the card into an artifact creature. However once you have tapped enough creatures the card is now permanently a creature. It has flying and gives your other tapped legendary creatures indestructible. If you find a way to make your commander indestructible you can run board wipes that becomes one sided. This can make for an annoying deck that is hard to play creatures against.

The next option is the Jackdaw. There are currently only two multicolour vehicles and both are in Red/Blue. This one is good because it can wheel many cards. I would suggest building this as a treasure token deck also with utility artifacts and mana rocks. You could use a card such as Hellkite Tyrant which allows you to steal opponent’s artifacts and also acts as a win condition if you have 20 artifacts.

Moving into mono colour vehicles we have Esika's Chariot. This is a good commander for a token deck. If you have ways to make large tokens, such as hydras for example, you can make a copy every attack. I would include a token doubler such as Parallel Lives to profit of the increasing number of tokens.

Finally we are going to consider the Last Ride. This vehicle from Aetherdrift is reminiscent of Death’s shadow and Phyrexian Arena. The card draw ability is steep, but we can take advantage of the pay life effect to draw more cards with Vilis, Broker of Blood. This card allows us to draw each time we pay one life. This way we can draw 3 cards for 2b and 2 life. As we lose enough life, we will be able to use our commander as a creature. However in the early game before this is possible we can still use the card draw ability.

The new rule update has added a number of new Commander options. This will expand with the release of Edge of Eternities. The Commander decks for that set will each include one Spacecraft Commander and one legendary creature commander. I look forward to seeing what options become available. I also hope to see more multicolour vehicles printed to widen the range of commanders that are vehicles. Currently there are only two Izzet legendary vehicles. Some other colour pairs and hopefully wedge and shard combinations would be interesting to see.

Let me know if there are any new vehicles or spacecraft you are willing to build or if you want me to cover deck ideas for any other vehicles. I hope you enjoyed this overview.

Thanks for reading,

David

This opens up new commander options. Of the current legendary vehicles, many are colorless, limiting options. Some of the best colored vehicles include Esika’s Chariot, the Jackdaw and the Last Ride.