After the reveal of Edge of Eternities’ face Commanders yesterday, the World Shaper Commander precon is already here. Including ten new cards, including new lands for existing cycles, a lot of shockingly strong mechanically unique cards are appearing here. These cards genuinely seem a bit stronger than the ten mechanically unique Commander cards we usually see in a new precon.
If you’re interested in lands or sacrificing things, something in World Shaper will be calling your name.
Hearthhull, the Worldseed
The Face and secondary Commanders for World Shaper have been revealed already, but it makes sense to take a look at them to understand the context in which the other cards are being played.
Hearthhull, the Worldseed is the Face Commander for the deck, and is the clear choice between the two new Commanders for piloting the deck, but may falter in comparison to a shocking reprint that we’ll talk about later.
This card does exactly what the deck is concerned with. Sacrificing lands to draw cards while playing more lands for Landfall shenanigans, Hearthull is the perfect engine card as long as you can get it online. The option to turn this into a win condition in the late game makes it a one-size-fits-all sort of Commander.
Szarel, Genesis Shepherd
Szarel, Genesis Shepherd, on the other hand, supplements your land sacrifice by regrabbing them from the graveyard. The triggered effect from Szarel can start to stack up later in the game, but this card doesn’t provide card draw in any way, putting it clearly behind Hearthhull, The Worldseed as a Commander for this precon.
Baloth Prime
A four-mana 10/10 is, unsurprisingly, too good to be true. Even with its drawbacks, however, Baloth Prime is still a great MTG card. As long as you’re sacrificing lands, Baloth Prime is a worthwhile inclusion in your Commander deck. The card can even enable itself as a mana sink.
You don’t need to go as far out of the way to sacrifice lands as you might think. Evolving Wilds and Fetch Lands sacrifice themselves to fix your mana base. Other utility lands, like Inventors’ Fair, have sacrificial-related abilities in exchange for benefits, as well. This is all to say that any deck that cares about landfall will likely have a use for Baloth Prime. Even if this card just created 4/4 beasts, it would still be playable. Potentially untapping a gigantic 10/10 is the icing on the cake.
Eumidian Wastewalker
Eumidian Wastewalker certainly propels the land sacrifice theme, but can also go in a variety of other Commander decks that care about sacrifice and discard. Tergrid, God of Fright or Braids, Cabal Minion fits particularly well with Eumidian Wastewalker, but other sacrifice Commanders like Korvold, Fae-Cursed King may want this card as well.
As long as you benefit from the parity that Eumidian Wastewalker offers, it’s a worthy inclusion in your Commander deck. This makes the Wastewalker a rather easy addition to a wide variety of strategies. Just trigger off of some aspect of the card, and you’ll end up ahead. Encore ensures that Eumidian Wastewalker’s effectiveness scales as the game continues, giving very little reason not to try this. This isn’t broken by any means, but very easy to profit from.
Eumidian Hatchery
This is a very cool utility land that ultimately doesn’t cost a lot to run. Eumidian Hatchery is rather difficult to play around in a deck that can reliably sacrifice it. Exiling lands isn’t exactly a common thing in Magic, so more often than not, you’re going to be able to pull this off.
Still, to get any use out of Eumidian Hatchery, you do need to be able to actually sacrifice it. This seriously limits the playability of the card to a very specific niche within Commander. Regardless, this is a really cool upgrade for those decks that play in an interesting design space.
Evendo Brushrazer
Evendo Brushrazer is a new staple to any sacrifice-themed casual Commander deck. This card is capable of doing basically everything you want, as long as you can consistently trigger it. Creating card advantage and repurposing lands into cards and a burst of mana gives Evendo Brushrazer a ton of potential.
Perhaps the only downside to Evendo Brushrazer is that the card is an absolute magnet for removal. The Impulse draw effect associated with the Brushrazer turns off after it leaves play. This is offset a bit by not needing to play Impulse drawn cards quickly, but any sensible Commander player will kill this bug on sight. Still, this is a fantastic new card for the sacrifice archetype that any deck with even a sub-theme should consider.
This is the best new card in World Shaper, and it’s not particularly close. Expect this to be an expensive single in the coming days.
Exploration Broodship
For one mana, Exploration Broodship has the potential to create a lot of value over a longer game, as long as you can find the power to Station it. The difficulty associated with Stationing this card is what will ultimately decide just how viable it is.
Playing an additional land is quite powerful, so if you’re able to Station this ship efficiently, you should be able to get out of the gate quite quickly. Considering that cards like Oracle of Mul Daya and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove see lots of Commander play, even Stationing this as late as turn 3-4 is still probably enough to make it worthwhile. Having the ability to double as card advantage in the late game is nice, but Stationing 8 power is a big ask.
My issue with Exploration Broodship is that, in a lot of situations, this is a really bad card to topdeck. You need some sort of board presence to turn it on at all, and later in the game, the first effect of this card is irrelevant a lot of the time. Exploration can have the same issue, but it’s always online as early as turn one in exchange, something that Exploration Broodship simply cannot keep up with. I’m not particularly high on this card, but it can create some explosive plays.
Horizon Explorer
For certain archetypes, like Gates, that have a lot of lands enter tapped, Horizon Explorer is very interesting. The Lander token gives Explorer some recurrable value as it goes later into the game, notable because a lot of other cards with similar effects don’t do that. As a cute note, the lands found with the Lander tokens will enter untapped because of Horizon Explorer’s other ability.
A specific thing to take note of is Horizon Explorer can create a Lander token for each player you attack. Factor in that the lands come in untapped, and this can ramp a surprising amount of cards quickly. The lands that enter play untapped can reduce the costs of subsequent Lander tokens, making this guy more efficient than he looks.
It’s best to think of Horizon Explorer as a ramp tool that wants decks that attack often. There’s some additional synergy for sacrifice and artifact token decks, making this far more appealing than it may seem.
Planetary Annihilation
It appears that Wizards of the Coast is starting to push ethical land destruction in their board wipes. Planetary Annihilation is quite fitting in a deck that cares about sacrificing lands, but this card isn’t very good as a board wipe. Dealing six damage to a board for five mana is incredibly under rate when compared to cards like Sunfall. Even Blasphemous Act, reprinted in this deck, can easily deal 13 damage for just one mana. This can punish players trying to ramp, which is interesting, but that might not go over well at all tables.
Planetary Annihilation isn’t a good board wipe unless you have a very specific reason to play it. It’ll be interesting to see what long-term reactions are to this card since it dabbles in an action that most Commander tables have social bans for, but does it in a way that shouldn’t stop anyone from playing the game.
Scouring Swarm
Scouring Swarm, an obvious callback to Scute Swarm, wants to sacrifice lands, creating copies of itself in the process. This theme is a lot rarer in Commander than just plane ol’ Landfall, making Scouring Swarm a lot more difficult to apply. The restrictive color identity doesn’t help, either.
This is a fantastic payoff if you can trigger Scouring Swarm consistently. Any players who have faced down a Scute Swarm know how quickly that card can get out of hand, and Scouring Swarm has the same potential, as long as you have lands to sacrifice. Sadly, the lack of applications of this card seriously holds it back. Considering how ridiculous Scute Swarm can be, this might not be a bad thing.
Festering Thicket
This might look rather familiar to you, and we wouldn’t blame you for thinking that. Festering Thicket is the new addition to the Bicycle Lands that originated in Amonkhet. Notably, only the allied colors were released in this set, meaning that half the cycle hasn’t been completed. These lands aren’t particularly powerful, but can be good budget options in longer games since you can throw away the lands for another draw in a pinch. This isn’t a particularly exciting new card, but it could be a land that many Golgari players decide to pick up for their casual decks.
Vernal Fen
In a similar vein, Vernal Fen is a new addition to the Tango Land cycle, requiring two basic lands in play to enter untapped. This is not a very powerful land cycle and, similar to bicycle lands, commonly end up in Commander decks as budget options.
Notable Reprints
According to Command Zone, who revealed World Shaper, the reprint value of this deck was about $135 at recording. For an MSRP for $45, that’s a decent deal. That said, after doing our own research, a lot of the reprint values were higher at their time of recording, meaning that the overall reprint value has probably dropped off significantly.
Headlining the reprints is Korvold, Fae-Cursed King at $8. This fits perfectly within World Shaper’s theme of sacrificing lands, offering ludicrous amounts of card draw. This card might, sadly, be a better Commander for the deck than the actual Commanders just because of how powerful it is. From that perspective, this is a shocking inclusion. Notably, Korvold has been difficult to acquire in its nonfoil variant up to this point.
Moraug, Fury of Akoum is the next most expensive reprint, coming in at about the same price as Korvold. This creature helps you convert your board state into a win condition in landfall decks. Oracle of Mul Daya and Fabled Passage, worth about $7 each, are both common staples found in decks that care about landfall. Some other $5 reprints, as well as Commander staples, can be found in the deck.
Overall, World Shaper seems like a great deck for players wanting to foray into sacrifice synergies that includes some very powerful cards. One particularly shocking note, however, is that Lord Windgrace is not in this deck. That Planeswalker is perfectly tailored for a theme like this, which could cause an increase in demand on the secondary market.
Other cards from Lord Windgrace’s precon may also rise in price as a reaction to the World Shaper decklist reveal so if you want to grab some upgrades for the deck, be sure to do it quickly.