It’s day three of Tarkir: Dragonstorm spoiler season and the second of five new Commander precons has officially been revealed. Mardu Surge is here, and it looks incredibly impressive.
A ton of new cards in this deck look like they can see play across a variety of different archetypes. Not only that, but the payoffs that are a bit more specific are incredibly explosive. Creature token lovers are in for a real treat.
Zurgo Stormrender
If you ask us, Zurgo Stormrender is the most powerful Commander of all the five precon decks. Zurgo can easily helm a terrifying token-based deck, and can easily upgrade other existing precons like the Hail Caesar MTG Fallout deck.
At worst, Zurgo Stormrender is an aristocrat effect that threatens to win the game, which is an incredibly high floor. At best, Zurgo is a win condition that, with some careful deckbuilding, can turn into a card advantage engine. This Commander literally does everything a deck could ever want as long as you meet its conditions.
Expect Zurgo to show up in a lot of existing 99s of token synergy decks.
Neriv, Crackling Vanguard
Neriv, Crackling Vanguard is far less adaptable than Zurgo, but it’s not a bad card in token strategies that support it. Neriv will excel in creating a lot of Impulse draw-based card advantage. The cards don’t necessarily go away, but having your Commander removed repetitively will make it difficult to access your loot. The build conditions of this Commander are also a lot more strict than Zurgo. Zurgo doesn’t really care what tokens you use, but Neriv specifically needs tokens of different names to scale its payoff.
In our opinion, Zurgo, Stormrender is the superior Commander by a landslide. If anything, Neriv is a cool support option in creature tokens decks, but that’s likely where the card ends.
Ainok Strike Leader
Ainok Strike Leader is a fantastic one-man army in Commander. Having the option to attack with your Commander to trigger this creature means that it can somewhat shrug off summoning sickness. Even though the attack trigger resembles Myriad somewhat, your Goblin tokens are permanent, which allows Ainok Strike Leader to continually build a bigger board.
Eventually, your opponents will need to deal with your board state, but Ainok Strike Leader can fight against that by sacrificing itself. This is an incredibly valuable card for two mana. Any Commander deck that wants to go wide should consider running this card.
Notably, Ainok Strike Leader has some terrifying synergy with Tymna, the Weaver. This could even make this creature cEDH playable.
Ironwill Forger
Ironwill Forger is another powerful card for decks that want to turn sideways. Granting any nonlegendary creature Myriad has a scary amount of potential. Worst case scenario, you can always give the Forger itself Myriad.
Not every Commander deck is going to want this, but using Ironwill Forger will hardly be difficult. Any deck that wants to create copies of creatures with ETB effects will be interested in granting their creatures Myriad. In other cases, where your creatures scale with the size of your board, Ironwill Forger threatens a ton of damage. Construct tokens from Urza, Chief Artificer are an example of this. All in all, Ironwill Forger is a solid card that will likely find a home under a sizeable amount of Commanders.
Bone Devourer
Bone Devourer is probably less exciting than it appears. There are a lot of creatures that offer a scaling reward equal to how many creatures died upon entry. Devourer is capable of drawing a lot of cards, but it needs to die for that to happen. Considering how popular Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares are in Commander, this might be a surprisingly difficult task to accomplish.
Goldlust Triad
Goldlust Triad is a rather straightforward Dragon that should find itself in both Treasure and Dragon decks. Five mana is rarely the top end that Dragon Typal decks want to get to, and Goldlust Triad can help bridge the gap. Any cards that trigger upon a Dragon entering also have strong synergy with this card. It’s not a flashy creature, but there are certainly decks that will want this.
That said, Goldlust Triad will be at its best when its Myriad and combat damage triggers can be copied. This can lead to a ton of damage, a massive amount of Treasures, and a huge tempo swing. I would expect this to show up in Isshin, Two Heavens as One decks.
Redoubled Stormsinger
Redoubled Stormsinger is an interesting effect in any deck that’s creating lots of creature tokens, especially if you have tools to utilize them before they die. Whether you’re somehow skipping your end step, or sacrificing your extra tokens, Redoubled Stormsinger has the capability of creating a ton of value for just three mana, but the number of decks that want this card will be quite slim.
Will of the Mardu
Will of the Mardu seems like a fantastic effect in any Commander deck that can consistently get both effects. Getting a massive board and killing something for three mana is an absolutely obscene amount of value. Of course, this card will be more flexible in a deck that can utilize Will of the Mardu’s second ability to good effect without the first ability, but this card, frankly, seems quite powerful and flexible. I could even understand including Will of the Mardu in decks that don’t have a lot of creatures themselves.
Infantry Shield
Infantry Shield is really scary new equipment for Voltron strategies. This is a particularly unintuitive way to have your Commander deal its damage to multiple players at once. Of course, the card is also synergistic with Aristocrat decks that can sacrifice tokens at instant speed, but the cost of using Infantry Shield effectively is a tall ask. Not only do Equipment fail to generate value on their own, but you need to jump through extra hoops to make them do something. In my opinion, Infantry Shield is likely a card you’ll want to take out of Mardu Surge if you plan on doing upgrades.
Within Range
Within Range is a neat way of scaling the damage that small token decks can dish out. Notably, you’ll want to order the attack trigger of Within Range to resolve after all of your effects that are creating tokens during combat. The card creates two tokens on its own as well, which allows Within Range to have a bit of board presence on impact.
This card will have exactly one home: Commander decks that go wide. You need to be dealing tons of damage with Within Range to make it worthwhile. Otherwise, it is a very overcosted Raise the Alarm.
Best Reprints
A few decent reprints appear to be present in the Mardu Surge deck. Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor is an $8 mythic that can convert attacking creatures into card draw. The mana sink also ensures that, even if you run out of things to do, you can start doing your opponent’s things instead.
Adeline, Resplendant Cathar is a common frontrunner in white weenie decks in Pioneer. The Human can easily create a board while dishing out tons of damage herself. The card synergizes quite well in a deck that cares about attacking with Tokens. Adeline’s cheaper variants go for $3.50, but a majority of them float around the $5 mark.
Complete with new artwork, Hero of Bladehold is another $5 card that threatens to create an army on its own. In addition, they come with Battle Cry to buff your entire attacking board. Finally, Shattered Sanctum is a rather unexciting land, but it will enter untapped most of the time in the Commander format. This card goes for about $7.30 at the cheapest.
Some Absolute Gems in Here
Three of the new cards introduced in Mardu Surge are cards that any MTG player would want in their collection. Zurgo, Stormrender, Ainok Strike Leader, and Will of the Mardu are all fantastic cards that fit into a ton of different Commander decks. Ainok Strike Leader, in particular, has the potential to become an impressively expensive card.
Many of the other new cards, like Goldlust Triad, and Ironwill Forger have a decent amount of interesting homes among Commander archetypes, as well. Mardu Surge is certainly my frontrunner for Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander precon decks.