Last night, on September 10, the Miracle Worker Commander deck was revealed on MTG Weekly, with lots of exciting and creepy new cards. But rather than Miracle, we’re more excited about the return of another powerful Magic: The Gathering mechanic, Escape.
That’s because it’s found on the alternate MTG commander for the Duskmourn deck Miracle Worker, which looks like a really interesting creature to build around. The Master of Keys is an enchantment creature that gives all your other enchantments Escape – letting you pull them out of the graveyard again and again, provided you have other cards in the yard you can exile.
Escape is one of those MTG keywords that’s fun and thematic but can easily get out of control. The most infamous example of that is Underworld Breach, a card that’s on the MTG banlist for both Pioneer and Legacy because it’s so easy for decks to Storm off with it and play a bunch of cards in one go.
The Master of Keys is just like Underworld Breach in that it grants Escape to a load of cards that wouldn’t normally have it. However, in this case the ability is limited to enchantments, which makes the potential for game-breaking combos way less extreme. There aren’t many enchantments that make their own mana, which is often how players use Underworld Breach to pull off an outrageous turn.
Still, it’s close enough to Underworld Breach that players are doubtless going to find loads of combos you can pull off with it. It probably even has cEDH potential.
The other thing we like about The Master of Keys is its self-mill effect. The card has an X-cost, and you can plug in as much mana as you like to mill yourself twice that many cards. It’s a great way to power up Escape right away, letting you bring back a powerful enchantment the moment you have the mana for it.
Plus, if you can generate infinite mana, it won’t be hard to win the game on the spot, milling your entire deck and then finding an enchantment that’ll resurrect Thassa’s Oracle for an easy victory.
For more Magic: The Gathering content, check out our guide to every MTG set, or read our cEDH tier list.