Mighty Party Legendary Draft

[Darios Uclaray]

FarTraveler helps support two larger themes (Azorius () flicker and Orzhov () leave), but requiring the creature to be tapped is a bit of a hurdle. Great cards to pair with this background are evasive value creatures like Aarakocra Sneak and Juvenile Mist Dragon, which are useful to blink and easier to attack with safely. Alora, Merry Thief and Imoen, Mystic Trickster are good commander pairings for this card.

Sword Coast Sailor is a niche background that only plays well with a handful of commanders. Skanos Dragonheart is probably the best one since it normally gets chump blocked all day but makes for potent cheese with this background.

Free Treasure for attacking the lead player with your commander makes for a generally underwhelming background. I still prefer Guild Artisan to something like Veteran Soldier because Safana, Calimport Cutthroat is at least a great fit for the Artisan.

Street Urchin is a powerful background for bigger Treasure or sacrifice themes. This is useful in the main deck for commanders like Mahadi, Emporium Master and pairs well with Safana, Calimport Cutthroat in the command zone. Topaz Dragon and Poison the Blade are awesome combos with this for cheap mass removal!

Cloakwood Hermit is a flexible background that can play well with both self-mill and sacrifice themes. The key word here is anywhere, which makes this rather versatile. Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker makes good use of the 1/1s and can set up the self-mill required to keep it going. This background might also be worth playing in the 59 for Kagha, Shadow Archdruid since easy access to self-mill makes this a rather efficient token generator.

Ellyn cares about any kind of token you can make, so Treasure or creatures work just fine. This means that Ellyn decks of any color are conceivable since every color has ways to make some form of tokens, and white can contribute with Recruitment Drive and You're Confronted by Robbers. Feywild Visitor and Cloakwood Hermit are also great fits for a background for extra tokens from the command zone.

You can trigger Lulu with myriad, Treasure tokens, flicker effects, or just plain old losses in combat. I like it best in Azorius or Orzhov, because Azorius Skies is a natural fit for Lulu and black is the best support color for conveniently triggering it each turn (Deadly Dispute is premium as always).

Alora, Merry Thief touches on three well-supported themes (adventure/flicker/dungeons) in a somewhat unusual way. Returning cards to your hand rebuys adventures and ETBs, and having such easy access to unblockable means no one will keep you out of the Undercity for long.

Renari, Merchant of Marvels is a passable blocker with a somewhat useful ability that wants you to build around dragons and artifacts. Letting you hold up mana while developing your board also makes cards like Dream Fracture, Gale's Redirection, and Jaheira's Respite much more useful.

Safana, Calimport Cutthroat has been one of my favorite uncommon commanders. Treasure tokens are powerful, and menace makes Safana decent at retaking the initiative itself. Having extra ways to use Treasure is helpful, so prioritize Deadly Dispute and big fat dragons. Rakdos () and Dimir are the easiest fits for Safana thanks to its focus on Treasure and dungeons.

Similar to something like Alora, Merry Thief, Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker touches on two major themes (Treasure/sac and self-mill) at the same time. Having fodder to sac is priority #1 for Sivriss since the card is just Hill Giant without it.

Amber Gristle O'Maul is a hard-working dwarf that rewards you for aggression, myriad, and dumping your hand onto the table. Myriad is particularly useful for being able to get three cards off Amber without needing to overcommit or split up attackers.

Adventures are helpful with Livaan for padding your noncreature and creature count at the same time. Two-Handed Axe would be a lovely inclusion if you can find one for its one-shot kill potential. Underappreciated backgrounds like Flaming Fist, Sword Coast Sailor, and Hardy Outlander can be ideal fits for a strategy built around cheesing with Livaan.

There are no backgrounds that care about rolling dice and Wyll itself grows overtime, so most combat-centric backgrounds are actually a good fit here. And try to draft Iron Mastiff and Vexing Puzzlebox if you can since both cards are ideal with Wyll.

I said that Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar may be the best for a reason! Karlach, Fury of Avernus is just gross, and revealing this at the start of the game should rightfully put a target on your head. You basically get a free cast of Relentless Assault every single turn as long as Karlach sits in play, plus first strike in both combats!

You can approach Skanos from either a dragon tribal angle where it plays a knockoff Thrakkus the Butcher/Korlessa, Scale Singer plus Izzet backgrounds, or as a cheese strategy built around it and Sword Coast Sailor that kills players with commander damage.

Wilson was mentioned a lot in the backgrounds section as a good choice for a lot of combat-focused backgrounds. This is probably the best way to approach it since its abilities provide little incentive to do anything else. Make sure your opponents are tracking commander damage since those bear attacks can add up!

You're Confronted by Robbers is great with Cadira as both a token creator and a way to push it through for damage. Greatsword of Tyr, Saddle of the Cavalier, and Cloak of the Bat are useful equipment that can help Cadira connect more consistently.

Cloak of the Bat is likely good here too, either on Kagha or any fatties you play, like Colossal Badger. Decking could be a concern in a very long game, but 60 cards makes this less of a problem than it would be in a normal 40-card format.

There are 24 dragons in Simic, none of which are completely unplayable, so take them highly if you want to build a Korlessa deck. Some of my favorite common ones are Scaled Nurturer, Young Blue Dragon, and Nimbleclaw Adept. Your curve should skew high with lots of ramp, dragons, and ideally some ways to protect them.

Rilsa Rael, Kingpin is a build-around commander that wants you to take the initiative as much as possible. This is rewarding in and of itself, but Rael goes a step further by giving you an insane +5/0 and first strike and menace boost every turn. Achieving this makes Rilsa a lethal threat (3-shots a player with commander damage) that has to be removed or double chumped by opponents.

A good Rael deck should prioritize finishing the Undercity quickly, so take cards like Aarakocra Sneak, Underdark Explorer, and Feywild Caretaker highly. Throwing in a few extra evasive creatures like Gray Harbor Merfolk could also be helpful.

Thrakkus the Butcher is a terrifying build-around that can get your opponents dead in a hurry with some dragons in play. Having ways to give haste to Thrakkus or other beaters is ideal, as is drafting as many other fat dragons as you can.

Include some ramp as well cards like Nature's Lore and Druid of the Emerald Grove to get to the dragon stage of the game faster. Thrakkus is also a great sport with Swashbuckler Extraordinaire and Two-Handed Axe for cheesy double strike combo-kills!

This commander is a tricky card to play with because cheap cards exiled with its ability get cast faster, but also save you less mana. But the game could very well be over before it even gets cast if you exile something too expensive, especially if your opponents bounce or kill your Alaundo a couple of times. My preference in theory is to lean towards exiling cheap proactive plays when possible and then using my mana for fatties and reactionary spells.

A good Astarion deck is one with fliers, evasion, and incremental damage sources to maximize its feedability. This is one of the least strict build-arounds in the set and should play well in most Orzhov decks.

Clockwork Fox, Pilgrim's Eye, and Treasure Keeper are great cards for Baba as double fodder and card advantage. Backgrounds like Cultist of the Absolute (one mana for a third card type) and Cloakwood Hermit (actually useful if it stays in play with Baba) are also good.

Duke Ulder Ravengard is a powerful commander that can both end games and generate serious value. It beats out Commander Liara Portyr for the spot of best myriad commander, though Liara has been impressive as well.

Jon Irenicus, Shattered One is an intriguing commander whose gameplay loop revolves around handing permanently goaded creatures to your opponents. Its creatures protect themselves from Deadly Dispute naturally (very appreciated) and also draw you extra cards if Jon sees them attack. There are sadly no creatures in Dimir with drawbacks (i.e., Demonic Taskmaster or Phyrexian Negator) to give away.

A solid Jon deck should play lots of big fliers and beaters and hand them out to the table like candy. One last comment on Jon is that being the last player standing seems hard since your creatures will eventually attack you for real when two of your opponents fall. Bounce creatures like Winter Eladrin and Sword Coast Serpent could be good inclusions here since they let you rebuy your creatures if needed.

My pick for one of the strongest Limited commanders in the set, Raphael, Fiendish Savior is a tribal lord for four (small) tribes and is also a potent win condition and source of lifegain. Its second ability provides a great incentive to draft as many Deadly Disputes as possible.

Topaz Dragon is also potent if you have ways to sacrifice Devil tokens for the classic deathtouch and ping combo! A good Raphael deck has a nice mix of tribal creatures, sacrifice outlets, and other cards.

Knowledgeable opponents should choose to let you play a card from your hand most of the time. You can build for this by including useful creatures with low toughness but a good sacrifice base (a.k.a., as many Deadly Disputes as possible) is arguably more important.

Gorion, Wise Mentor is definitely one of the better 3-color commanders since adventures is a broadly supported theme that appears at common and uncommon in each of its colors. The key to making Gorion work is drafting as many adventures as possible, plus enough mana fixing and card draw to tie the whole thing together.

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