Last Friday, the Magic: The Gathering world was introduced to The Soul Stone. As the first in a series that will almost certainly span all six Infinity Stones, this is an exciting card indeed. That’s before you consider the fact that it’s an on-rate mana rock with upside, too. As hyped as some players are for this card, there are just as many concerned that The Soul Stone is going to become yet another Commander auto-include.
For those who follow the format and each new set, it’s clear that we’ve been getting more and more cards in this category recently. While powerful cards are fun and exciting, they also make deckbuilding less interesting over time, as more and more slots fill themselves in. With more sets than ever hitting shelves each year, it could be time for Wizards to take action on the question of power creep.
A Commander Auto-Include?
- Mana Value: 1B
- Type: Legendary Artifact – Infinity Stone
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Card Text: Indestructible.
Tap: Add B.
6B, Tap, Exile a creature you control: Harness The Soul Stone. (Once harnessed, its ∞ ability is active.)
∞ — At the beginning of your upkeep, return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Ever since the card was revealed on Friday, the community has been talking about The Soul Stone. Across social media, players were quick to acknowledge its power and widespread applications. On X, NobodyWorthy said “Sooooooooooo, this basically goes in every black deck right?” Cyo The Adventurer echoed this point, describing the card as an “Insane chase autoinclude.”
It’s not hard to see why players are reacting this way. Mana ramp is one of the foundational elements of any good Commander deck, and mana rocks are some of the most resilient cards in that category. Pretty much every deck plays Sol Ring and Arcane Signet, and many play the Talismans and Guild Signets too.
The Soul Stone offers the same effect, but with the added protection of Indestructible and a huge potential late-game upside. Pretty much every deck playing black from now on will at least consider it, in other words. This possible ubiquity didn’t sit right with many players, so Pavloviancat took to Blogatog to question Mark Rosewater about it.
“Does the printing of The Soul Stone at 2 mana undermine the general design philosophy not to print “auto-includes” for Commander, specifically with mana rocks? Arcane Signet was widely considered a mistake in hindsight, but The Soul Stone feels like an instant staple for mono and 2C black decks. Isn’t that a bad thing?”
Pavloviancat, via Blogatog
Rosewater defended The Soul Stone by noting that it had black in its mana cost, which would possibly prevent it from becoming an auto-include outside of Mono-Black decks. While this is a valid point, a single black pip isn’t much of an obstacle for modern multicolor lists. Additionally, as Powroffriendship pointed out, “Isn’t it likely being an auto-include in all mono black decks a problem, without it needing to also be auto-include in multi colour decks?”
While some, like SaffronOlive, expect the card’s inevitably high price tag to push it out of reach for most players, that doesn’t exactly solve the problem.
Under Pressure
By itself, The Soul Stone being a new Commander auto-include isn’t great. For every card like this that exists, the deckbuilding process gets a little less interesting, as players have few real decisions to make. This bleeds through into gameplay, too, as decks get more similar over time. Unfortunately, The Soul Stone is far from the only recent example in this category.
From Edge of Eternities, Icetill Explorer is probably the clearest example. This card rolls Exploration and Crucible of Worlds into one, then throws in some self-mill for good measure. It’s absolutely insane in Landfall decks and graveyard decks, but there’s a good argument that it’s great in any given green deck. Even if you scratch that last part, there’s a lot to be said against archetype-specific auto-includes, anyway. Other recent bombs like Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER (Aristocrats) and Roaming Throne (Typal decks) fall into a similar category.
These are just the less egregious examples too. There are some cards that, like The Soul Stone probably will, show up in pretty much every deck that runs their colors. Orcish Bowmasters, Fierce Guardianship, Jeska’s Will: these are the kinds of super-staples you can find in the majority of Commander decks. The introduction of the Game Changers list has done a good job of siloing cards like these off, but their presence can still have a warping effect on deckbuilding.
From Wizards’ perspective, pushing the power level with cards like this is important. It’s the most direct way to get players excited about a set, after all. Unfortunately, the effect it’s having on Commander as a format is largely negative. Deck homogeneity has always been a hallmark of constructed formats like Standard, but Commander has long been a haven from that kind of optimization.
Take A Deep Breath
As things stand, this culture of auto-include cards like The Soul Stone seems fairly unsustainable. Players will get pushed out of their playgroups as they struggle to keep up, and Commander will lose its unique edge as decks grow more and more similar to one another. We need a solution, it seems, and there appear to be two options.
The first is to go full cEDH and embrace the power creep head-on. Ironically, cEDH decks require less maintenance than their casual counterparts, since far fewer new cards are good enough to see real play there. If you proxy a cEDH deck, you should be able to avoid the financial burden that the constant stream of Commander auto-includes imposes, even if you won’t get the gameplay variety of casual.
The other solution is to embrace a more laid-back approach to Commander. This really begins and ends at the playgroup level. If you agree on a lower power level in your pod, then the pressure to buy new staples will be lifted. The new Bracket system is perfect for facilitating discussions like this. Keep things down at a two, and you should be able to have great games without breaking the bank.
This isn’t a perfect solution, of course. The allure of powerful new cards is strong, and it only takes one player slipping to trigger an arms race all the way up to Bracket four. That said, Wizards is very unlikely to stop pushing the envelope power-wise at this point. It’s on us, as players, to deal with the issues that this creates.
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