New Wilds of Eldraine Cycle Looks Incredible in Commander!

Now that the Wilds of Eldraine spoiler season has been unleashed unto the internet officially, its all any MTG player is talking about. Thanks to the power level of returning mechanics like Adventures being relatively high, there’s a lot of exciting things to look at. Power sells, after all.

While there are some constructed cards that look to make an impact, we’ll be looking at a new cycle of cards and their applications to Commander here. Sadly we only have two of these cards available right now, but they are both quite powerful.

If you want to read about what some of the new cards can do in a competitive setting, including a turtle that can make Mono Green Devotion in Pioneer even better, we’re writing about that soon.

Here, we’ll be looking at some of the most interesting Wilds of Eldraine cards officially and unofficially released so far. All of these appear to be pretty real at this point, but we’ll be sure to specify whether the card has seen an official spoiling or not.

Virtue of Knowledge

Virtue of Knowledge appears to be part of an enchantment adventure cycle that includes all five colors, and both Vantress Visions and Virtue of Knowledge look fantastic for Commander. This card was revealed during the first look for Wilds of Eldraine.

As mentioned in a previous article, Virtue of Knowledge emulates Panharmonicon, one of the more popular effects to utilize in Commander. In many ways, Virtue of Knowledge is even better than Panharmonicon since it will double abilities on cards you control that trigger when any permanent enters the battlefield. Panharmonicon can only double the triggers that result from creatures or artifacts entering the battlefield. This, for example, makes Virtue of Knowledge much better in a landfall deck.

While Virtue of Knowledge is indeed an incredible payoff, its adventure spell is much better than it looks. Vantress Visions can actually be used as mono-blue ramp. You can copy the ability of a land like Evolving Wilds or Flooded Strand to double the amount of lands that you find. Combo this with something like Lucky Clover and your Vantress Visions can cause an Evolving Wilds to find three basic lands! This makes casting Virtue of Knowledge almost trivial.

Of course, your Vantress Visions don’t need to solely be used for ramping lands. This card can copy any activated or triggered ability you control. Whether its an enter the battlefield effect, another copying effect or something that triggers on your creature’s death, Vantress Visions can do it all.

Virtue of Loyalty

While the above picture is from a leak, Virtue of Loyalty has been confirmed as a spoiler. That spoiler is currently in a different language, so this is the card we’re looking at.

Virtue of Loyalty probably isn’t as good as Virtue of Knowledge, but the card is still quite capable in the right EDH deck. The main attraction is rather simple, granting your creatures all +1/+1 counters and untapping them. As long as you have a wide board, this card is going to be effective.

Of course, counter and untap synergies will serve this card best. Throw in some counter synergy like Hardened Scales and Ozolith, the Shattered Spire and this will be buffing your board a lot more every one of your end steps.

Fortunately, if you’re worried that you won’t have a board for Virtue of Loyalty, Ardenvale Fealty creates a 2/2 white Knight with Vigilance at instant speed. Notably, this token was made as part of an Adventure in Throne of Eldraine as well. Copying the spell will raise its influence, but Ardenvale Fealty isn’t too exciting, even if its instant speed casting makes it a big upgrade to many other Adventure spells.

So far, these are the only two cards in the enchantment Adventure cycle that we’ve seen, and both of them look pretty good for the Commander format. Virtue of Knowledge is leagues ahead of Virtue of Loyalty for Commander in my opinion, but that doesn’t take away from Virtue of Loyalty having an incredible set of abilities in the right shell.

Stroke of Midnight

We’ve gone into some depth of the importance of your removal hitting tons of different types of threats in Commander at the moment. With the new Commander Masters deck making artifacts, Planeswalkers, creatures and enchantment type threats all common at a local game store table, finding efficient removal that deals with all of these things is rather difficult.

Beast Within is one of the few cards that can deal with multiple different kinds of threats in an appropriate manner. The card does come with a downside in exchange for its insane flexibility: it grants the opponent a 3/3 Beast.

In this way, Stroke of Midnight is a strict upgrade to the Commander super staple. Instead of granting an opponent a 3/3 Beast, Stroke of Midnight grants a 1/1 Human, which is a lot less impactful on a Commander board state. Other than that, Stroke of Midnight is basically a white version of Beast Within. This should see a ton of play in Commander, and was officially revealed during Eldraine’s first look.

The Apprentice’s Folly

This is one of the cards in this article that, at the time of writing, has not been spoiled through official channels. That said, many of the cards that were originally leaked have since been confirmed to be real, so there’s a good chance that this one is too.

The Apprentice’s Folly is a four mana saga that offers a powerful opportunity. Its first and second chapters allow you to create a nonlegendary copy of a creature you control as long as you do not have a token copy of it. Tokens created this way are also Reflections, which is important since the third phase of this saga will blow them all up.

Obviously, the amount of value available with the first two stages of this Saga is interesting enough to try and use it despite the downside of the third phase. Tom Bombadil, for example, would love this card in Commander since it can create a copy of your Commander. Stack your triggers properly, and you can find two new Sagas after the final chapter of another saga resolves!

Its pretty easy to get around the final phase of this card. You can flicker The Apprentice’s Folly to reset the number of Lore Counters on the card. This will allow you to keep creating token copies of stuff – just note that you can’t keep creating tokens of the same creature since they will share names with another copied token.

Alternatively, you could simply destroy The Apprentice’s Folly before it hits the third chapter. Create your token copies and use the enchantment as a Bargain cost for something else. Alternatively, card effects that end the turn are becoming popular thanks to the Sliver Swarm Commander deck. Using a Sundial of the Infinite, while not the best solution since you’ll skip most of your turn, is a way to avoid the sacrifice ability.

There’s a lot More Coming Up!

Considering that we don’t even have three members of what seems like an incredibly powerful cycle of Adventure enchantments, Wilds of Eldraine is, honestly, the most excited I’ve been for a set in some time. I am biased towards Adventure spells in general, but Vantress Visions and Virtue of Loyalty are the first cards in months that I have felt the dire need to get ahold of for Commander purposes. Virtue of Knowledge in particular offers such a unique spell combined with a proven payoff that I am going to want multiple copies of it.