One of the many amazing things about Magic: The Gathering is the near-limitless freedom that deckbuilding provides. No matter what format you’re playing, how you build your deck is an expression of you and your play style. This is especially true in Commander, where the format’s casual focus allows for all manner of pet decks.
Despite all the effort that goes into deckbuilding, sometimes it can be refreshing to do away with it all. Thankfully, there are a few cards that let you do exactly that. Doing away with pesky problems like creature selection, there are a handful of MTG cards that break the typical deck construction rules.
In Tarkir: Dragonstorm, we’re getting a new rule-breaking card called Tempest Hawk. With no limit on the number of copies that can be included in a deck, this card is guaranteed a cult classic. That said, this might be the worst card with this effect that we’ve seen to date
Tempest Hawk
The very nature of Tempest Hawk makes this a very exciting Tarkir: Dragonstorm spoiler. Unfortunately, however, this card is just bad. Sure, you can play any number of Tempest Hawks in your deck, but would you want to? Unless you’re really into underwhelming birds, the answer to this question is a resounding no.
On the surface, three mana for a 2/2 with Flying really isn’t great at the best of times. This card’s ability to search up other copies of itself isn’t much better either. Sure, this effect can help you to exponentially grow your bird army, but that doesn’t come cheap. Disappointingly, you have to pay to cast every Tempest Hawk you find.
As if having to pay for them wasn’t bad enough, Tempest Hawk doesn’t offer any scaling or extra tricks. Without support from other cards, these birds will always just be flying 2/2s for three mana. At least Hare Apparent made more and more tokens depending on the number of copies on the board.
Thankfully, while Tempest Hawk doesn’t look good in constructed formats, it should at least be useful in Tarkir: Dragonstorm Limited. While these birds still aren’t amazing on rate, guaranteeing yourself two, or even three fliers isn’t bad at all. That said, if there are enough low-cost Dragons with Flying running amok, then these birds may still fall flat.
The Worst of the Flock
Over the years, Wizards of the Coast has printed eight, soon to be nine, Relentless cards. Unofficially named after Relentless Rats, these cards were once hugely popular, but they’ve been falling flat recently. The original Relentless Rats still stands as one of the best thanks to being a novel yet consistent scaling threat.
Following up on Relentless Rats, each Relentless card has done things a little bit differently. Shadowborn Apostle and Dragon’s Approach let you tutor up a card, for instance. Meanwhile, Persistent Petitioners went down the mill route and the aforementioned Hare Apparent cares creates tokens.
Technically, Tempest Hawk is still doing something new, but it’s nowhere near as exciting. All of the other Relentless cards can become threats in themselves, or at least build up to a wincon. Tempest Hawk, on the other hand, just gets you a lot of birds that won’t do much on their own.
For this reason, some MTG players are already suspecting that this card will be the worst from the super cycle. That said, sentiment toward the card on social media isn’t entirely negative. A lot of people aren’t impressed, sure, but Tempest Hawk is hardly being written off entirely. For better or worse, there’s bound to be a few people trying to make this card work in Standard.
Making It Work
Thankfully, if you’re absolutely determined to make Tempest Hawk actually work, it should be somewhat playable in Commander. Alongside the right suite of support spells and creatures, you could have a semi-viable deck on your hands.
Within any Relentless deck, you’ll need a copy of Thrumming Stone within the 99. If you get slightly lucky, this card will allow you to play every single copy of Tempest Hawk in your deck for free. Since each Ripple can Ripple into other Ripples, it’s very easy to get everything into play at once.
Should you manage this impressive feat, you’ll need a very robust suite of protection spells. You’ll have just made yourself public enemy number one, after all. For this reason, most Relentless decks tend to run Teferi’s Protection, Dawn’s Truce, and Boros Charm.
If you don’t manage to pop off with Thrumming Stone, ideally you’ll want to fall back on cost reduction. Unfortunately, there aren’t many options here, but Pearl Medallion, Oketra’s Monument, and Grand Arbiter Augustin IV can all do work.
Last, but by no means least, you’ll want to buff up your birds so you’re attacking with more than just 2/2s. Thankfully, this is very doable as Empyrean Eagle, Murmuration, and Soulcatchers’ Aerie are all options. Of course, no Typal deck would also be complete without Door of Destinies, Urza’s Incubator, Banner of Kinship, and Vanquisher’s Banner.
Ultimately, while it’ll inevitably be possible to make a Tempest Hawk deck work in Commander, it’s hardly revolutionary. Nevertheless, this card is a fun addition to MTG that’s interesting at best and harmless at worst.
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