One of the most interesting aspects of new Magic: The Gathering sets is the way they recontextualize everything that came before them. New cards are exciting in their own right, to be sure, but they also often unlock new possibilities for older cards. In the case of Avatar: The Last Airbender, there’s a ton to explore in this area. The return of Allies, Shrines, and Lessons is significant in itself, especially for Commander. In a similar vein, one new spoiler from the set is putting long-forgotten MTG card Elminster back on the map.
Hailing from 2022’s Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate, Elminster remains relatively underplayed in Commander. Thanks to some powerful free spell and discount synergies with Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong, a spicy new mythic from Avatar, players are now considering the card with fresh eyes. Turns out this Wizard’s bag of tricks runs deeper than many thought.
Elminster In MTG Commander
Unlike most planeswalkers in MTG, you can actually run Elminster as your Commander. There’s been talk about Wizards doing more of this recently, but for now, it’s incredibly rare. There are only 20 ‘walkers like this in the game, or 34 if you count creatures that flip into planeswalkers.
Elminster also does something else that’s incredibly rare in Magic, and that’s care about Scrying. Tons of cards let you Scry, to be sure, but barely any reward you for doing so. Elminster does so via its passive ability, which provides a scaling instant/sorcery discount based on the amount you Scry. It also lets you Scry itself, via its +2 ability.
If you’re feeling less sorcery and more sword, you can tap into Elminster’s -3 ability instead. This exiles the top card of your library, creating a number of 1/1 Flying Faerie Dragon tokens equal to its cost in exchange. With the right build, you can abuse this ability and play Elminster like a go-wide token deck.
Despite all this potential, Elminster doesn’t see much play in Commander at all. Thanks to Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong, however, there are a lot of fresh eyes on the card today. While one card doesn’t make a deck, the potential here seems to be high enough that many are thinking of trying Elminster out in Commander.
The Ultimate Wizard Roleplay
If you’re thinking of jumping on the Elminster bandwagon yourself, there are a couple of interesting directions to take him in. The first of these is to lean hard into the Scry theme and build a full-on Azorius Spellslinger deck.
Thanks to all the cheap cantrips that Scry, like Serum Visions and Preordain, it’s fairly easy to power through your deck with Elminster out. His cost reduction effect lets you work in more expensive Scry-draw spells too, like Behold the Multiverse. Creating a draw chain like this can easily allow you to hunt down the pieces for a combo win. If you want to play things a little more fair, then you can rely on a card with spell triggers, like Talrand, Sky Summoner, to build you up to a traditional win instead.
The advantage of running Elminster at the head of a deck like this is that it lets you go bigger than usual. His passive discount stacks if you Scry multiple times in a turn before casting an instant and sorcery, which means you can access some really expensive spells at times. Cast Mystic Speculation, tap Sigiled Starfish, and +2 Elminster, for example, and you can bring the cost of Enter the Infinite down from 12 to six. This is just an extreme top-end example, too. There are plenty of other great options this opens up, including prohibitively expensive board wipes like Everything Comes to Dust.
Of course, pursuing a Scry-based strategy like this also lets you tap into the other Scry-matters cards in the game. There aren’t a lot of these, but the few that do exist, Matoya, Archon Elder and Elvish Mariner in particular, can put in a ton of work.
Airborne Assault
The above build focuses mainly on Elminster’s passive and +2 abilities, but the -3 offers a viable path of its own. The token generation here is pretty excellent if you can consistently hit cards in the three to five mana range, and the fact that it’s repeatable is even better. Building around this ability opens the door for a much more board-based, aggressive take on the deck.
The first thing you’ll need for a strategy like this is topdeck manipulation to ensure you make a good number of Fliers per use. Classics like Scroll Rack and Sensei’s Divining Top are ideal here. You also might as well run some Scry cards, since that passive ability is still in play. To ensure you have enough pricey cards to make big swarms each time without slowing yourself down too much, you can run cards with alternate costs, like Solitude or Force of Will.
Once you’ve got your Fliers out, it’s time to leverage them. Anthem effects like Favorable Winds and Empyrean Eagle let you apply a ton of evasive pressure fast. You can also take advantage of typal synergies for both Faeries and Dragons, since the tokens are both. Cards like Mox Jasper and Spellstutter Sprite gain a ton of stock in builds like this, for example.
Elminster is an MTG Commander with a ton of power and flexibility, and it’s great to see players rediscovering him thanks to Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong. Consider giving him a spin yourself if you crack Planetarium at your Avatar Prerelease.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage!