Thanks to Commander’s massive popularity, most of the format’s best cards have been discovered and are incredibly expensive. Fortunately, if you’re playing the game on a budget, there are still some hidden gems that can do a lot of work for their budget. Supplant Form, for example, can set up some powerful plays in the right decks.
MTG Supplant Form
For a rather hefty mana value, Supplant Form offers a simple effect that can become surprisingly flexible. Most of the time, you’ll be bouncing your opponent’s massive threats, like Blightsteel Colossus, back to their hand while getting a copy of your own. The card being instant speed is a huge boon here, allowing you to kill your opponent with their copied threat before they can redeploy their own.
That said, for its mana value, you’ll often want to pair these use cases with Commanders who can synergize with this card further. Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer, for example, can use Supplant Form to make a token copy of any creature, turning all other tokens into copies of it. Alternatively, Commanders like Prismari, the Inspiration, can use Storm to make Supplant Form far more impactful.
In a pinch, you can also use Supplant Form to bounce your own Commander while leaving a threat behind. This works best with Commanders that need to have temporary effects reset, like Omnath, Locus of Creation, or entry effect Commanders like Aang at the Crossroads.
While this gives Supplant Form many different places it could see play, the card is even capable of creating some infinite combos. Responding to this spell with a card like Dualcaster Mage, for example, can create infinite Magecraft triggers by repeatedly making copies of the Mage. Naru Meha, Master Wizard can also do this, creating an infinite draw combo with Archmage Emeritus.
While mana-intensive, Supplant Form also pulls off an infinite with Birgi, God of Storytelling and Sensei’s Divining Top by getting both of Birgi’s sides in play at the same time. Once established, Birgi will essentially let you cast Sensei’s Divining Top for free, while Harnfel, Horn of Bounty can exile your library from the cards that the top draws. From here, winning with Thassa’s Oracle becomes trivial.
An Underplayed Gem
Frankly, if it weren’t for the card’s mana value, Supplant Form would likely be wildly popular in Commander. Despite that, however, the card is still plenty powerful, capable of turning games on a dime. Considering this, Supplant Form’s modest play rate in just 6,410 decks according to EDHREC seems low.
On the plus side, this also means that Supplant Form is rather affordable in its cheapest form. Only being printed in Fate Reforged as a rare, a traditional variant of Supplant Form will only cost $1.36.
While Supplant Form shouldn’t go in every Commander deck, it is a forgotten budget gem that can make some very powerful plays for its price point.
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