As more and more cards get printed into the MTG ecosystem, it’s natural for older tools to fade into the background over time. Considering power creep means newer designs tend to be stronger and more efficient in general than their predecessors, this is hardly surprising. That, however, doesn’t mean that cards from Magic’s past, like General’s Regalia, aren’t still useful and well worth using in the 99.
MTG General’s Regalia
As a whole, General’s Regalia is a rather simple design. All of its utility lies with its activated ability, enabling you to redirect damage that would be dealt to you to your creatures instead. While this artifact does a great job keeping you alive against Voltron strategies, it can be a bit inefficient versus go-wide Token decks.
Where General’s Regalia really starts to pull its weight, however, is when you pair it with creatures that reward you for dealing them damage. Creatures like Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer and Jared Carthalion, True Heir, for example, can convert the damage you send their way to +1/+1 counters. Similarly, any Enrage creatures from Strong, the Brutish Thespian to Polyraptor, let you generate extra value when using General Regalia.
Outside of more focused strategies, General Regalia is fantastic alongside any creature with Indestructible. Cards like Cho-Manno, Revolutionary, are fantastic for this, since they tank any damage redirected onto them. This, in turn, stops you from sacrificing any creatures and losing any extra resources on top of paying three mana.
Of all the Commander archetypes that General’s Regalia can call home, though, none of them deliver quite like Heartless Hidetsugu. General’s Regalia completely eliminates Heartless Hidetsugu’s symmetrical downside. Throw in Brash Taunter or Stuffy Doll, and you can soak up the Ogre’s damage and send it to an opponent to potentially finish them off.
Infinite Damage Combos
Beyond all of the general synergies you can execute with General’s Regalia, there are also some powerful infinite damage combos made possible by Volcano Hellion. Alongside Arcbond, these cards can easily end the game in one fell swoop.
Thanks to General Regalia’s ability to redirect any amount of damage, the forgotten enchantment can create infinite damage combos with Volcano Hellion. It requires a lot of mana, but combining these two cards with Arcbond will end the game.
Once you have General’s Regalia and any other creature in play, you’re free to cast Arcbond targeting the other creature. From there, you’ll want to cast Volcano Hellion and put its trigger on the stack. Holding priority, you’ll then want to activate General’s Regalia to ensure that Hellion’s enters ability doesn’t kill you.
When you’re protected, you can use Volcano Hellion’s ability to assign infinite damage to the other creature and yourself. This will trigger both Arcbond and General’s Regalia, but you can stack the triggers so only Arcbond matters. After this, you’ll need to use General’s Regalia again to protect yourself once more, since Arcbond deals its reflected damage to everyone.
After all this, Arcbond will deal infinite damage to everyone on the table, while you’re protected from the fallout. This, in turn, should give you an instant win, albeit a fairly expensive one. At minimum, this combo requires two cards and 13 mana in one turn, which is pretty pricy. Unfortunately, the redundancy isn’t a great deal better, either, as subbing out Brash Taunter for Arcbond will only kill one opponent.
Forgotten Budget Gem
Despite not having the widest number of Commander applications, General’s Regalia works wonders in the right decks. As such, this card provides more value than it’s given credit for. Right now, the card still only sees play in 1,570 Commander decks according to EDHREC, which seems low given its potential.
Considering that the card was printed back in Mercadian Masques 27 years ago, with no reprints to speak of, this isn’t too shocking. Fortunately, since it’s unknown, General’s Regalia is fairly cheap, and players can pick up copies for under $1, making it a solid Commander budget upgrade.
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