Earlier today, Wizards of the Coast made a major ban announcement that drastically alters a multitude of formats. In addition to traditional Constructed formats in paper, both Historic and Brawl were affected by the announcement, with Historic receiving multiple pre-bans. What caught a lot of Arena players’ eyes, though, were the pre-bans to Entomb and Mystical Tutor.
These two cards are specifically featured as MTG Avatar Commander Bundle promos, along with a handful of other incredible powerhouses. Following the ban announcement, Wizards has since confirmed via Discord that all 13 Commander Bundle promos except for Sol Ring are coming to Arena. This quiet reveal has massive implications for Historic, Brawl, and Timeless alike, potentially leading to some pretty big shakeups.
The Tutors
While Gamble was already introduced to the platform via a Special Guests printing, four brand new one-mana tutors are coming to the client. Many of the cards in this collection upgrade the efficiency of multiple established archetypes on a massive scale.
The most powerful options in the group are undoubtedly Mystical Tutor and Entomb, two cards that each slot nicely into well-established Timeless archetypes. Mystical is a natural fit in Show and Tell strategies that are hyper-focused on finding the potent sorcery in order to pull ahead. With Ancient Tomb in the mix, players are bound to set up turn two wins in a much more consistent fashion. On top of that, if you have Show and Tell already rolled up, grabbing Veil of Summer as a method of protecting your combo is a great option to have.
Meanwhile, for graveyard combo enthusiasts, Entomb should be exactly what Reanimator decks have needed to take that next step. Thanks to the power of Dark Ritual, setting up a turn one Entomb followed by Reanimate or Life//Death is super easy. It’s not out of the question that Reanimator shells will incorporate blue moving forward for Mystical Tutor, considering that it searches for Entomb, Reanimate, Ritual, or Thoughtseize to help push your combo through.
Even though Worldly Tutor isn’t quite in the same power level tier as these cards, it still have potential in Historic or Brawl. There are a number of creature combo decks in Historic, including Val Combo and Golgari Yawgmoth, where creature tutors thrive. Granted, there’s a lot of competition for creature tutors with Green Sun’s Zenith and Chord of Calling in the mix, but Worldly’s efficiency helps its cause. Of course, in a Singleton format like Brawl, playing all of these tutors to set up your combo is welcome.
The hardest of the four new tutors to maximize is definitely Enlightened Tutor, but even it has a chance to make a splash in Brawl decks that feature enough artifacts or enchantments to grab. Sythis, Harvest’s Hand Brawl decks, for example, have a wealth of options for you to search up. This Commander even helps offset the card disadvantage associated with casting Enlightened, which helps make it a worthy addition to the archetype. It’s also worth noting that this card can grab Underworld Breach in Historic, making it easier to combo off.
The Free Spells for Brawl
The other collection of cards coming to Arena are all part of a cycle of free spells that earn their discount if you control your Commander. Four of these five cards are absolutely incredible and should make for automatic inclusions in Brawl.
Deadly Rollick, for example, acts as the most efficient removal spell imaginable. Don’t let its mana value fool you; you’ll be casting it for zero mana nearly all of the time. The same can be said for Flawless Maneuver, which easily protects your Commander from opposing removal spells the turn you play it. This card works to negate the weakness of playing a strong but clunky Commander that isn’t easy to recast over and over.
The blue and red options take all of Flawless Maneuver’s upside against removal-heavy decks and add more on top of it. Fierce Guardianship is fully capable of stopping a kill spell, but it also gives you the luxury of countering sweepers, combo pieces, Planeswalkers, and beyond. While Guardianship’s versatility is unmatched, Deflecting Swat leads to the biggest blowouts. If you ever get to redirect your opponent’s removal spell to their own Commander, you’ll pull so far ahead.
Unfortunately, Obscuring Haze is the one card in the cycle with very narrow applications. As good as it is in board stalls, it does very little against decks that aren’t creature centric. Green decks definitely got the short end of the stick with this cycle.
Room for Change?
Ultimately, as powerful as these additions to Brawl are, it’s possible some of the more powerful cards in the cycle will end up earning a ban down the line. According to Wizards of the Coast in today’s ban announcement, part of the reason that each of the four cards that earned a ban was chosen was because they became overly homogenous. After all, Mana Drain saw play in nearly every blue Brawl deck out there, while the other three cards were colorless powerhouses that saw tons of play across the board.
Cards like Guardianship and Swat fall into a very similar space. Couple the ubiquitousness of these cards with the unfun play patterns they promote when you’re on the wrong side of a blowout, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. There are already concerns being raised within the player base, and if these qualms continue, don’t be surprised if any of these cards get the axe after more data is collected.
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