No matter what’s going on in Magic, typal decks will always remain popular in Commander. For the most part, typal MTG decks in any format aren’t too offensive, but there are certainly exceptions. Slivers, for example, are notorious for being a disgustingly powerful snowbally strategy that is too efficient for some Commander tables.
With the amount of support typal decks consistently get, some players might be sick of playing against them. Lorwyn: Eclipsed is featuring a five-colored Elemental Commander precon and MTG Avatar featuring Allies in a big way, there are tons of Typal decks around. Fortunately, if you’re looking to stop these strategies in their tracks, a forgotten $2 MTG Reserved List gem does exactly that, and more.
An-Zerrin Ruins MTG
From the forgotten and often-criticized Homelands set released back in 1995, An-Zerrin Ruins is a rather simple enchantment that can end the game for Typal players. Since these decks are creature-based, they often need to tap to progress their game plan, whether they attack or activate abilities. An-Zerrin Ruins stops all of this from preventing creatures of a certain type from untapping.
At best, An-Zerrin Ruins can completely shut down an opponent of your choice, and, notably, they don’t need to be playing a typal deck for that to happen. An-Zerrin Ruins is also capable of shutting down Voltron decks, as well as any deck that relies a bit too much on attacking or tapping with their Commander. Just name a creature type on their Commander, and An-Zerrin Ruins can shut down the core engine of an opponent’s deck. This makes the opportunity cost of playing this enchantment a lot lower than expected, which makes it even more shocking that no one is using it.
This Card Sees No Play
Thanks mainly to being a relatively unknown card, despite shutting down what is arguably the most popular strategy in all of Commander, An-Zerrin Ruins sees almost no play at all. The card is only featured in a little over 1000 decks on EDHREC, and among those, only one Commander plays the card relatively consistently.
Thanks to its ability to turn opposing creatures into Cowards, An-Zerrin Ruins will always have a pronounced effect in Gornog, the Red Reaper decks. Hitting multiple Commanders is a very real possibility with this, stopping your opponents from progressing your game plan while offering your Warriors massive attack boosts.
Outside of Gornog, An-Zerrin Ruins can also have some additional usage in Flicker decks. If you can Blink An-Zerrin Ruins, you can reselect a new creature type as the enchantment enters play, shutting down the scariest thing on the board. This alleviates the need for An-Zerrin Ruins to shut down an opponent entirely, since you can recycle it as the game progresses.
Even newer Commanders have some powerful synergies with An-Zerrin Ruins. Shutting off your opponent’s creatures from attacking gives Kratos, God of War multiple chances to burn them out with effect damage. Wildsear, Scouring Maw from Bloomburrow also has some interesting synergy with An-Zerrin Ruins, Cascading off of it when cast.
Really, the only thing stopping players from using An-Zerrin Ruins, outside of people simply not knowing about it, is how unfun the play patterns this card causes are. Forcing a player to sit and watch the rest of the table develop isn’t the type of gameplay casual Commander encourages. That said, getting run over by Dragons from The Ur-Dragon or Vampires from Edgar Markov every game isn’t all that much fun, either. So, if you need some reprieve against your friend’s ridiculous Typal strategy, An-Zerrin Ruins is a crazy tech card that they’ll never see coming.
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