Five-color Commanders are always a special breed in Magic: The Gathering. Offering access to every legal card in Commander, these cards often put the good in ‘five-color good stuff.’ That said, not every Commander is made equal.
Avatar Aang, for instance, knocks it out of the park with fantastic art, flavor, and abilities. Offering card draw, cost reduction, and bending synergies, Aang looks like a near-guaranteed powerhouse. Sadly, we can’t say the same about Infinite Guideline Station.
Infinite Guideline Station
Recently leaked onto Reddit, Infinite Guideline Station appears to be the Commander for you if you like Spaceships. While technically unconfirmed, the existence of this card felt inevitable following Wizards’ recent Commander change. Now that Vehicles and Spacecraft can be Commanders, it makes sense that we’d be getting a build-around Commander for that niche.
Sadly, while Infinite Guideline Station does give you access to all five colors of mana in Commander, it’s decidedly meh. It plays off a unique Multicolor Matters theme that rewards you for having an expansive board. Doing this can net you a ton of 2/2 Robot tokens just for getting Guideline Station into play.
While Infinite Guideline Station does have another very exciting ability, they’re already a win-more Commander. The best-case scenario is that you’ve got a strong multicolored board already, and Guideline Station will just make that stronger. Obviously, that’s not a bad thing, but an army of 2/2s may be redundant at that point.
Sadly, if you don’t have a robust board, Infinite Guideline Station isn’t amazing either. Since it counts itself, you’ll get one Robot at minimum, but you’ll likely get a couple at least. While this can help in a pinch, it’s hardly going to turn the tide of battle. These Robots can’t even immediately Station Guideline Station either, so it’s all weirdly durdle-y.
The same is true of its attack ability, which you can use once it’s fully Stationed. Getting to draw a card for each multicolored permanent is an insane value swing, but getting these is tough. Like the need for many multicolored permanents, if you can Station Infinite Guideline Station easily, you’re already winning.
Making It Work
The real trouble with Station is that it’s not permanent. Since the mechanic uses Charge Counters, these will fall off Infinite Guideline Station when it’s bounced or killed. This means it’s incredibly susceptible to removal, as you can be sent right back to square one. Unfortunately, from the looks of things, you can’t even get around this drawback.
While the wording on The Seriema is unhelpfully unclear, the existence of the leaked Station Lands shows that abilities are unlocked only after the Station threshold is clear. Since Infinite Guideline Station’s draw ability is tied to its Station 12+ cost, you can’t get around it. Sadly, this means Ensoul Artifact won’t be any help here.
Thankfully, Guideline Station isn’t entirely useless as a Commander. Multicolor Matters is already a somewhat supported theme, and it can work well within this archetype. Specifically, you’ll want to be bouncing it to generate tons of Robot tokens. After they untap, you can then use these to Station and finally attack.
If you’re going down this route, there are plenty of cards that’ll be auto-includes in your deck. General Ferrous Rokiric, Faeburrow Elder, and Fallaji Wayfarer are all exceptional. In fact, if you’re interested in Infinite Guideline Station, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to look out for the Painbow Commander deck. Released alongside Dominaria United, this deck has a strong Multicolor Matters theme and provides a good base to upgrade.
Station Support Soon?
While you can make it work, right now, Infinite Guideline Station doesn’t really look too amazing. It may have fantastic synergy in a Multicolor Matters deck, but that Station cost is utterly brutal. That said, there’s a non-zero chance that Edge of Eternities will solve this problem itself.
Since we’ve only seen a few spoilers and leaks so far, much of the set still remains a mystery. Due to this, there may be a few cards that help Station cards or provide tons of Charge Counters. Sadly, we’ll just have to wait and see about that, as we can’t predict the future.
Thankfully, we won’t have to wait long for more information, at least. The official Debut for Edge of Eternities is on Tuesday, July 8th. As usual, this livestream will kick off the set’s spoiler season in earnest. After roughly two weeks of spoilers, we’ll finally know all that the set has to offer.
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