Magic: The Gathering has five Commander decks releasing alongside the set March of the Machine: Tinker Time, Divine Convocation, Call for Backup, Cavalry Charge, and Growing Threat. The full deck lists for each one have now been revealed, so it’s time to have a look at them all.
Here we’ll show you the key cards from each EDH deck, including new inclusions and the top reprints. Planechase is back too, so each deck has a number of brand new plane cards. Don’t miss our MTG March of the Machine guide to keep up with the latest spoilers and news. Now, onto the decks!
The Temur (blue/red/green) deck Tinker Time is the artifact deck of the bunch (sorry to folks who saw Kaladesh and hoped for Energy).The deck is led by Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy, an MTG commander that’s specifically interested in different types of artifact creature tokens. Clues, Food, Blood, Treasure, and various token creatures, all will help your Gremlins grow bigger and bigger. There’s also the alternate commander Rashmi and Ragavan, which can steal spells from your opponents’ decks, and cast them for free if you’ve got enough artifacts.
New cards in the deck include Dance with Calamity, which asks you to play Blackjack with your deck – and push your luck to get free spells. Then there’s Pain Distributor, a hate card for opposing treasure decks. As for key reprints, Tireless Tracker will spit out clue tokens for repeatable card draw and Academy Manufactor is great in the deck – upping your token variety significantly.
Divine Convocation is a Jeskai (blue/red/white) deck built around the mechanic convoke – with lots of big spells that can be paid for by tapping your little creatures. The main commander for the deck is Kasla, The Broken Halo. Quite straightforwardly, this big MTG angel can be plonked down quickly with convoke, and draws you cards each time you cast a convoke spell. Saint Traft and Rem Karolus is her backup – this will reward you for convoking with loads of tokens, which can only further your convoking efforts.
Deluxe Dragster, a nigh-unblockable MTG Vehicle that can grab free spells out of other people’s graveyards. Mistmeadow Vanisher, a blink card that flickers things when you tap it. Wand of the Worldsoul looks like a powerful mana rock that can give anything convoke, providing plenty of free mana in token decks.
Key reprints include board wiping, token making MTG planeswalker Elspeth, Sun’s Champion, and Skull Clamp – arguably the best card draw spell for token decks.
The Naya (white/red/green) deck, Call for Backup cares about +1/+1 counters, and also shows off the new backup keyword from March of the Machine. The deck’s face commander, Bright-Palm, Soul Awakener lets you double counters and make blocks difficult, while alternate commander Shalai and Hallar makes your counters hurt people.
The 99 provides plenty of other funky cards including Conclave Sledge-Captain, which can hand its ability (and counters) out to multiple creatures with the new backup keyword. Meanwhile, Uncivil Unrest is a terrifying red card – a bit pricey on the mana, but the haste-enabling, damage doubling potential is off the charts.
As for returning cards, Managorger Hydra grows huge incredibly quickly in this deck, and Semester’s End can protect you from a board wipe, while also dishing out counters.
Cavalry Charge is a plain and simple knight tribal deck, though the Esper (white, blue, black) MTG color combination provides a new wrinkle for the tribe. Its main commander, Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir, shows off the return of Eminence, letting you loot with knights even when he’s not on the field, and also has some graveyard recursion.
The backup commander for this deck is Elenda and Azor, who draw cards and pop out vampire knights in copious quantities. Herald of Hoofbeats brings back Horsemanship – which right now is like flying but better and Chivalric Alliance is a neat white card draw spell (gosh this colour is getting better at that). Another card worth shouting out is Conjurer’s Mantle, a card draw spell that’s likely to fit in any white tribal deck.
Reprint value in this one looks decent – Vanquisher’s Banner is a must-have tribal card and Herald’s Horn is also a shoe-in in countless creature-type decks. Meanwhile Adeline, Resplendent Cathar is surprisingly expensive given how new the card is, and Hero of Bladehold is another pricey knight.
Finishing up with the Phyrexians deck, Growing Threat is an Orzhov (black/white) led by the kitty cat Brimoz, Blight of Oreskos. It cares about artifacts and Phyrexians…but mainly artifacts. The main commander incubates Phyrexian tokens for you, while Moira and Teshar returns permanents from beyond the grave.
Key new cards include Excise the Imperfect – providing excellent spot removal and Filigree Vector, which can pump the whole team, and keep pumping them with proliferate. In the reprints corner, Massacre Wurm can be a painful threat, while Phyrexian Scriptures shapes up as a one-sided board wipe.