The first MTG cards from Mystery Booster: Commander Edition have been revealed by fans who got to play with them at MagicCon Amsterdam, and there’s some truly wild stuff in here. We’ve got crazy crabs and revamped characters from the olden days, but most earthshaking of all is a card that breaks all the rules and conventions of the Commander format, letting you put a new card type into the command zone.
In the past, we’ve had plenty of planeswalkers that can live in the command zone, and the rules were recently changed to allow legendary vehicles/spacecraft to be your commander too, but Ashaya’s Enduring Bond is the first legendary sorcery that can lead your entire deck. I mean, yes, I suppose there was Awaken the Blood Avatar in original Strixhaven, but that was a DFC with a dude on the front, so I say that it doesn’t truly count.
Ashaya’s Enduring Bond, meanwhile, is just a Gruul legendary sorcery that lets you Discover, pulling cards from the top of your library and allowing you to cast something for free. In these colors, that’s often going to be a big stompy creature to scare your opponents with.
I say free, but in this case the amount of mana you spend on Ashaya’s Enduring Bond determines the Discover value of the card, which means you’re never getting a spell for less than it actually costs. While your potential to search up something strong grows each time you cast the spell, you could easily whiff, spending seven mana and hitting an Arcane Signet.
This commander is really interesting, as I think you’d need to approach both building and playing your deck in a fundamentally different way. Whereas typically, a commander deck is built around a commander, often seeking to keep it safe on the board while it provides value for your other cards, a sorcery is always going to be one-and-done. You cast it, then it goes back to the Command zone. And with Ashaya’s Enduring Bond, you need to think carefully about how many low-CMC cards you include.
The last thing to consider is that a legendary sorcery can only be cast if you have a legendary creature or planeswalker already on the field. That means if you use this commander, you’re going to want to fill your deck with legends. Perhaps a Bard Class deck is the most sensible option here, or else a superfriends build packed with planeswalkers.
I’m not altogether sure that Ashaya’s Enduring Bond isn’t just a terrible card, but it’s definitely pushing the boat out in terms of what can be done in the format. I’m sure in the days and weeks to come we’ll see more Mystery Booster cards that make me sad that these products are usually so hard to get hold of – only obtainable at conventions or in Festival in a Box products.
Source: Wargamer
