While we’ve enjoyed a relatively leak-free Magic: The Gathering experience for a while now, the problem seems to be rearing its ugly head again for Tarkir: Dragonstorm. Last Friday a new Narset was revealed early. Today, a pair of leaks from the Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander decks gives even more of the set away before its time.
As unfortunate as leaks are, they do give us spicy new cards to talk about. In today’s case, the Spirit Dragon representing the Mardu clan and a powerful new Jeskai legend. Both look like solid additions to their respective three-color wedges, whether in the command zone or the 99. On top of that, the contents of this leak, combined with information we already know about the Commander precons for the set, raises some interesting questions regarding Narset.
Neriv, Crackling Vanguard
- Mana Value: 2RWB
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Spirit Dragon
- Stats: 4/4
- Card Text: Flying, Deathtouch.
When Neriv enters, create two 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens.
Whenever Neriv attacks, exile a number of cards from the top of your library equal to the number of differently named tokens you control. During any turn you attacked with a Commander, you may play those cards.
Lore-wise, Neriv, Crackling Vanguard is an incredibly important character in the story of the set. This is the Spirit Dragon representing the Mardu clan, co-ruling it with Zurgo from the original Tarkir block. Mechanically this translates to Zurgo and Neriv being the face Commanders of the Mardu precon, Mardu Surge.
As for the card itself, Neriv is a very interesting build-around for Commander. On raw stats it’s fairly average, being a 4/4 flier for five that brings in two 1/1 Goblins to boot. Where things spice up is its second ability. When Neriv attacks, you get to Impulse-draw a card for each differently named token you control.
We’ve seen a couple of cards that care about this metric in the past, including Audience with Trostani and Sandsteppe War Riders. What sets Neriv apart is the fact that it cares about all tokens, not just creatures or artifacts exclusively. This means Goblins, Humans, and Zombies work just as well here as Food, Treasure, and Clues.
It’s no secret that artifact tokens are easy to generate in Magic: The Gathering these days. There are countless ways to flood the board with Food and Treasure, especially in Mardu colors. Once you do, every attack from Neriv can essentially draw you a new hand. Unlike most Impulse-draw effects, Neriv doesn’t demand that you play the exiled cards the same turn. You can always play them later provided your Commander gets an attack in, which is a major upside over other cards like this.
Neriv has a ton of potential in a token-focused deck, but I honestly think tokens are widespread enough now for it to just be a generically good Mardu card.
Elsha, Threefold Master
- Mana Value: URW
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Djinn Monk
- Stats: 1/1
- Card Text: Trample.
Prowess (Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.)
Whenever Elsha deals combat damage to a player, create that many 1/1 white Monk creature tokens with Prowess.
Elsha, Threefold Master is a character we’ve seen before, as Elsha of the Infinite in Commander 2019 and Double Masters. Like her original incarnation, this new take on Elsha is all about casting noncreature spells.
Prowess and Trample is a great combination right out of the gate, making it extremely risky for opponents to block Elsha if you have any open mana at all. She can easily explode in power with just a single Monstrous Rage or Brute Force. Even with her abysmal 1/1 stats for three mana, Elsha is still a serious threat with these keywords alone.
This solid foundation also plays very nicely with Elsha’s second ability, which makes Prowess Monks equal to the combat damage she deals to players. If you thought she was explosive before, this takes things to another level. One good swing can build you an entire board of attackers, which can easily overwhelm an opponent on the following turn. The only real downside here is that they didn’t call the ability ‘Monklink,’ but nobody’s perfect.
There are a couple of directions you can take an Elsha, Threefold Master deck in Commander. You can play her similarly to Feather, the Redeemed, playing a tempo game with combat tricks galore and aiming to round things out quickly with swarms of Monks. Side note: Feather is an absolute must-include in decks like these, and probably most Elsha decks in general.
Alternatively, you can go down the Voltron route, loading Elsha up with powerful Auras and Equipment and using her ability to present both a tall and a wide threat simultaneously. In either case, she seems like a fantastic addition to Jeskai’s Commander lineup.
A Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander Leaks Mystery
What’s doubly interesting about Elsha is that we didn’t really expect to see her here. In Friday’s Commander precon leaks, we got a look at the packaging for each deck and their Amazon product descriptions. The Jeskai precon, Jeskai Striker, features Narset and the Jeskai Spirit Dragon on the box. The product description hammers this home further.
“Join the Jeskai spirit dragon, Shiko, and former planeswalker Narset and the Jeskai clan to cast extra spells and flurry spell effects with this Blue-Red-White Commander deck.”
Jeskai Strikers product listing
This creates a bit of a mystery. If Shiko and Narset are the face Commanders of the Jeskai deck, then where exactly does Elsha fit in? There are a number of possibilities here, all of which the community has been debating since these leaks dropped.
First of all, it could be that Elsha isn’t one of the face Commanders for the deck at all, but rather just a card in the deck. It’s pretty much unheard of for Wizards to include new non-face Commanders that match all of a deck’s colors in a precon, but it is possible.
Alternatively, Narset and Shiko could end up sharing one card. As Weskermatalabos put it, “Narset will probably have a team-up card with the dragon, March of the Machine style.” This would be an interesting twist and would set the Jeskai deck apart from the rest of the lineup. It would also be fitting lore-wise since Narset played a key role in uniting the clans and Dragons.
Since the image of Elsha in the leak is borderless and appears to be foil, my money is on the second option here. It’s already been confirmed in the product listings that each deck will come with borderless foil versions of its face Commanders, so Elsha seems like a shoo-in in that regard. Of course, we won’t know for sure until the cards are officially announced.
